Lame John

At the age of 12 my mother handed me down 2 Beatle's tapes. Having been bought in the 70's and survived almost 3 decades, I guess it's safe to say they're vintage.

(Bad image but it's mine!)

I still listen to them daily, and I still sing along with every single song. Honestly, you can't help not sing to those ballads. The songs are short and to the point, usually with the same verse being repeated over and over and over, so it isn't that difficult to know every song by heart.

I had a friend in the car one day as the cassette played and she made a comment that immediately rang truth: "those songs are made for simpler times and a simpler world".
Well... it isn't entirely true seeing as the Vietnam war was underway, Japan was still going through its post A-Bomb reconstruction and Egypt was still in a state of War with you-know-who and had just witnessed its greatest defeat at their hand. "A simpler world" isn't really the right description, but we get the gist of the comment: musical tastes were simpler and music itself was more to the point.

Take the song Michelle for instance: who on our planet today could ever get away with a song in which the chorus says "I love you, I love you, I love you" in the cheesiest way possible? Some might... but I doubt they'd win a Grammy for it and I guess it would hardly ever be the 42nd most played song in the world.

Rumor has it was John Lennon who suggested this "I love you" bridge to McCartney (who was the mastermind behind the song that was intended originally as a slight mockery of the French Rive Gauche culture that was taking England by storm).

Oh John... how lame!

(better image)

Never Mix Sheep and Mental Notes

Don't you just hate it when you're itching to write something and its just. not. coming. to. you.? I find it quite despicable. What's more sickening is how often it happens to me.

The bigger problem is, however, when all the inspired ideas and topics gracefully arrive in the middle of my nightly ritual of counting sheep. All day I rack my brains out trying to tame the words and compose the structure with no sucess, and then I actually get a decent idea with the right formulation of words in the middle of the night?! Outrageous!

All the same, I try to get around that problem through the masterful utilization of what is generally knows as "mental notes". See, I always had the strong belief that mental notes are better and more comfortable than real tangible ones; you do not have to go through the hassle of finding a piece of paper and a good pen that actually works in the middle of the night, nor keep looking for that piece of paper the next morning for at least an hour before you give up and eventually find it a month later in the middle of a stack of rubbish you were about to throw out. Mental notes are simply easier and better: you just tell your mind to remember it and there you go, the thought/idea is safe and sound.

I absolutely completely believe in them... I even test myself every once in a while to prove it.

I focus real hard on a specific moment so that next day when I try to remember what it was I was thinking about, I can easily trace it back from that sole moment I focused on. After many self-tests and trials, there appeared to be one hiccup in the "mental note" plan: 8 times out of 10 it doesn't work.

That does not mean however that I ever learnt the lesson.

So last night when I was hit  by a wave of inspiration as I watched the pretty sheep jump the fence, I decided to make a small mental note to remember whatever genius idea occured to me and to not to forget to put it down on my green book's slightly yellowed paper the next morning. But of course to no avail. I woke up with a vague recollection of an idea and of my constructing a mental note. What the note said however had completely vanished from my memory.

Allow me to illustrate:

1 sheep. 2 sheep. 3 sheep. I hate not having good ideas. 4 sheep. 5 sheep. 6 sheep. 7 sheep. They're pretty jumping that fence, thank God they don't lock sheep up in zoos. 8 sheep. 9 sheep. 10 sheep. 11 sheep. I can't find anything to write about. 12 sheep. 13 sheep. Ouh animal abuse is a good idea. 14 sheep. 15 sheep. Or maybe how some people like to use overcomplicated words with no real point or substance. 16 sheep. 17 sheep. That's a good idea I should remember that when morning comes. I won't forget. 18 sheep. 19 sheep. 20....

*Poof* the idea is lost for good.

Hmph. That darned sheep ran away with it.

And That Applies to Blank White Pages Too!

I've gone white. I think it's more healthy. And besides I've always made it a point to reflect my inner and outer states in everything I do. 

Right now I'm trying to be healthier: I always wear at least one white item rather than the mainly black clothes I'd been more fond of the past year, I work out, I keep in touch with people I want to stay in touch with, I'm making the kind of friends I'd like to make, I'm sticking to my roots, I sleep early, I wake up early and I'm not keeping myself too busy all the time.

I think that last one is the most important of them all; if I keep myself too busy most of the time...well... I'd never be able to do any of the previously mentioned things, the same way I haven't been able to for a really really long time.

So.. I've gone white.

A Nation-Wide Lack of Demand... for Economists?!

As I go round that last roundabout my mind is racing. Quite furiously too. I park quite randomly, violently pull the hand break, get out of the car, slam the door shut and stomp up the stairs. Apartment door effectively slammed, I barge in on the woman carrying her child putting him to bed and that’s when the disbelieving wrathful rant begins.

Really, even though she saw it coming, my sister could not have possibly done anything to prevent this. Neither could have my 3 month old nephew. Even with all his attempts at distracting cute smiles and gurgles. The rant had already started on the way home in my mind and it needed to get out into the world.

I had just come out of my 3rd job interview and even though that’s not a big number (…more like the tiniest number of interviews I’ve heard of recently) I was starting to become quite frustrated with the state of the labor market. No wrong ideas please; there are plenty of jobs available and plenty of firms and companies recruiting and hiring, unlike what most of my graduating class expected, but my frustration is a symptom of another quite unexpected disease. My frustration stems from the fact that there seems to be quite limited room for poor ickle aspiring economists such as myself in this supposedly booming economy.
Now thus far I have not been able to delve into studying the matter deeper and I may as well end up terribly mistaken, but I cannot help this ugly impression right this instant…

I think accidentally ending up interviewing for one more marketing and sales job when I at first had the distinct impression that the office I was interviewing at was actually involved with coordinating between private and public sectors for the sake of the greater good of Egyptian welfare and the Egyptian economy did that for me. Hmph. Let’s just say that’s just 5% of the rant my mother and sister and friends and family and anyone on the street who is showed the tiniest interest had to bear.

With all those marketing and sales jobs out running about looking for someone to get them done I began to wonder what in heaven and hell are all those people selling and more importantly: to whom?! Everybody seems to be selling something to someone, and I really cannot help the disbelieving resentful facial expression I’ve been wearing around. Because honest to God, I thought before looking for people to sell and market –sometimes- non-existent (and quite “developed country” like) products to quite delusional buyers*, this market would be looking for qualified and willing people to help develop the effing non-existent structure the economy is supposed to be operating with.
Has this attempting-to-be-“free market” been like this for a while? Or did I have higher expectations than supposed?


I guess part of the problem will always lie in the fact that public institutions and offices will always say that they’re looking to recruit fresh blood that would bring in new ideas and help get out of that ridiculous rut resulting from the stupid bureaucratic details, but in reality do nothing about it.
I don’t blame them a 100% (“them” being the highly qualified personnel working the public sector). I only blame them for the part where they don’t try to put themselves out there and start respectable organized recruitment campaigns. They don’t even check their HR emails for heaven’s sake. How else can a fresh graduate with high hopes and ambitions get her resume in to the director in charge? I bet we all know the answer to that one don’t we?

But let’s not be unfair, there are those public institutions that successfully surpassed all the unmistakable faults of the public sector and evolve into the perfect “private-structured public institution”; the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) being one. At least I’d secretly like to believe that, and please, even if I’m wrong this time do not correct me.

There are of course different things that economists can do that would not require them to completely stray off their intended course: may it be financial analysis, working the securities and investment field, research and academics (I willingly count marketing research as one of those fields, because it admittedly does require a certain amount of economic background) or conducting highly economic feasibility studies for private sector projects.

All the same, do those few sectors and the few opportunities they offer and provide suffice? Can they possibly absorb the almost 2,500 economists graduating economists per year? Can they help encourage high aspirations for fresh graduates and supply them with sufficiently challenging environments that are needed in order to ensure that the ranks of “crème de la crème” students remain as such and not be drowned with the routinic down slope of the working life? Have I been successful in concealing my overflowing disappointment?

I recognize that not all the graduates from my school and the other private schools offering majors in economics are looking specifically to work within the specified fields of economics; some of them don’t care what they do as long as they do something, anything. Others don’t mind drifting into the banking sector, or the advertising, marketing and sales sector I have come to despise… but that’s their conscious choice to wander off from the field they’ve supposedly been preparing themselves for for 4 years.

It’s not my choice… and may I be damned I shall not give up. And no nation-wide lack of demand for economists shall come in my way.

At least I hope so.





* I understand that marketing and sales could involve material physical products as well and I have no problem with that, but the fast growing market for abstract products and services is becoming quite the problematic issue. At time the fact that products could be abstract helps in completely wrecking the concept. That is in the likes of “convincing CEOs to sponsor attempts at creating conferences and events in different and multiple areas of economic interest with the façade of the economy’s greater good but in truth just hoping to inflate both our egos and our bank accounts”.

They Lied! Mosaic Is Much More Than Just Pretty Art.

We’ve all been told stories growing up, whether they were bed time stories, stories of princes and princesses relayed as cartoon, stories of suspenseful and quite lame vampire fiction as teenagers, or the more drama-filled stories we read as adults. The one thing in common between each tale we are told of is this: they all have just one story in its folds. One hero, one heroine, one happily ever after or one tragic ending. Those protagonists had a story told about their lives. One story.

That’s exactly where the story tellers lied. And that is one heck of a lie; it is so immaculately weaved to the extent that we get systemized to it since the youngest age possible and then we can hardly see the problem with it when we grow up… until it hits you straight in the face of course.
Taking the lead from those nice fairy tales we admired so much as kids, we all tend to think of our life as just one big, really long story that we might be able to tell our grandchildren when we’re 75 and slightly senile. Fiction is one thing but in reality this cannot be farther from the truth. We might be able to tell those little brats things, but we won’t tell them just one story; we’ll tell them stories.

So how did I come to realize this very obvious yet quite elusive grand charade that I and most of the people I know are living? Well… It did more than just hit me in the face; it tripped me over. But then its light and breezy consequences lift me up right away.
I’ve spent almost the entirety of the past 21 years searching for my story: looking for the perfect prince, the perfect kingdom and yearning for the perfect ending (and of course timidly fearing that fate holds an ugly one for me instead). At some point I was quite sure I found it and that this was IT!
….
Okay… I lie; at multiple points of my life I was quite sure that it was it! And every time it slipped away the sadness set in instead and so did the disappointment. I always felt entirely thwarted whenever something ended and I reprimanded myself for being so deluded as to think that “it was it”, because it so obviously wasn’t! Every time I promise myself I’ll be wiser next time and more careful, and that I’ll judge the situation with a more mature perspective, only because I cannot afford anymore bad aims. Time was running out and I needed my story. I needed it when I could still call myself young… those were always the nicest stories.

It was not until the few days before my birthday that it hit me. Seeing as I was turning 21 during the holy month, my thoughts were less fixated on the big party that would not exist and more on what the past 21 years meant. The more I thought about it the clearer it became: I’ve done everything, I’ve been everything, and I’ve been through every kind of story line known to Cairo. I failed miserably at finding something that I feel I had missed out on so far!

I have so many stories to tell about the things I’ve been through to the extent I am sure I could easily write an entire series of books and still won’t run out of tales. And through simple math, I recognized that I’ll still have more stories to tell as the years go by. That could only mean one thing: I should not be looking for “my story”; I have plenty already and there is more yet to come. It’s all about accepting the idea that this so called “one big story” –that is actually none other than “life”- is actually compromised of small miniature plots and subplots that may, or may not, have their own little consequences on the future ones. The trick is to treat past stories -whether comedies or tragedies- as compost to be used to feed and nourish future ones.

The implications of this realization -to me at least- are “Major. Huge!” as my mom said the night I turned legal. Now that I have finally caught that lie red-handed and now that I fully understand the “mosaic theory” of life, I quiver with anticipation at the prospect of the next story... or the one I’m already inadvertently in the middle of.

Robert Fisk: "Cockroaches" Is what the Israelis call the Palestinians

No matter how many times he had declared his escalating dislike for Egypt or for the Arab's midieval and ignorant perceptions, I still have to admit Robert Fisk is one of the few political literature geniuses of our time.

His most recent publication "The Age of the Warrior", which is a compilation of most of his recent coulmns in the Independant, is not only a satisfying read in terms of its rightfully biased political analysis, but it has also proven to be highly entertaining in terms of writing style and linguistic construction. Although only a handful of pages through the book, I have long decided that his approach to both analysis and language are ones to learn from and emulate. Ever since the preface really -where Fisk deliberately and systematically clarified the origins of the name of the book- I had decided that Fisk should be a role model. And I has also decided that my writing and perception should be upgraded with the assistance of those columns that make The Age of the Warrior. That decision ultimately lead to one of the most surprising and personal decisions I had taken in my career thus far; to continue writing seriously and eventually take that up as a profession.

Ever since I got over my ambition to become a spy when I was 9 (thanks to Harriet the Spy and the Woman who Disappeared), I wanted nothing else than to become an author and a writer. Writing since that very young age was one of the few cures to my wounded soul or my overly excited heart... it grew through time of course, rather than simply keeping a silly little diary, I had ventured upon more serious attempts at writing fictional stories with characters. Only when I failed to please my own taste did I decide to write only one page short stories. And after that failed to pass my editing and re-editing and re-editing, I began to write about the simpler things in my life; the ones I know I would like someday to remember and to be remembered by when my grandchildren come across them.

But I think the day for self-authored notes about oneself has passed, and I think the day has come to discover a new dimension to my capabilities as an editorialist or a columnist.

Still, as wonderful as all those conclusions and decisions may be, I remember that haste only leads to impatience. And impatience eventually leads to quitting. And quitting ultimately leads to self pity and wallowing. So, there is absolutely no reason to jump in with both feet just yet; one toe is quite enough.

I'll know when I can take myself and my new perception to writing and analysing seriously; it is when I can find the links between literature and current events and most definitely it is when I can come up with ingenious metaphors such as the ones Fisk uses in his book... you know... something that would match the greatness of Fisk when he says: "...Israelis leaders have variously beastialised their enemies as 'serpents' and 'cockroaches'. Pardon? What on earth does that mean?"

I need to send this man a thank you postcard for making this wonderfully outrageous point!

Harry Potter Lessons: What Was, What Is and What Will Be

I started reading Harry Potter again. Yes, from the very beginning.
Flipping that book open and seeing my mother’s note on the first page was in the true sense of the word overwhelming. I felt like I was being pulled back in time to that moment when I first saw it; when she first got it for me.
It’s something to walk down memory lane in your head. It’s something else to start really wandering about it.

I don’t really know what made me pick that book out from my bookshelf that’s literally filled with tens of books I have not yet read. Maybe it is the fact that I’ve been stumbling along relics that belong to the same day and age as that book; things and people that belong in the past… more specifically: that belong back in 1999.
10 years ago. That number is utterly stupefying. I never thought I’d actually live that long. I didn’t even know back then that 2009 was even possible! And yet here I am, 20 years old, alive and well. I remember how the future was unknown; how I didn’t even know where I’d be in the next 3 years and who would be my friends. I remember I took it one day at a time, because –let’s be realistic- I wasn’t going anywhere. I most probably would be in the same school, around the same people, with the same friends. Why would anything change? There was no reason and no seen catalyst for change, there were no complications. Honestly, I liked it better that way.

Now, 10 years later, I’m in the same position, however with a different outlook. I do not know where I will be in 3 months, let alone 2 years. And there is one thing I can take for granted: nothing is predictable; literally everything can change. Everything.
That’s why they call that age of 10 the age of innocence. So little worries, so little surprises. Most of the time it all goes as planned, because more or less, our parents plan it for us, and they always make sure it goes through. It’s sweet to watch that old film that is my past and smile at how at how small, innocent and simple I was and at how I knew nothing and -most of all- at how I now know all the things I wanted to know back then. It’s sweet… except it has a slight bitter taste to it; it hurts just a little bit to be so bluntly faced with how much I’ve grown up.
Yet no matter how bitter it may be, it gives me faith in the future and in destiny. See, at that time, 10 years ago, I had no knowledge of the Prisoner of Azkaban, the Goblet of Fire, the Order of the Phoenix, the half blood prince or the Deathly Hollows. I would’ve died to know; it was so exciting and so intense with every book that came out and every new note my mother wrote me. It consumed 8 years of my life thinking, contemplating and building theories about what is going to happen at the end. Now here I am, knowing it all and so confidently rereading it all.

So I guess the lesson learnt from rereading Harry Potter is that even though I may feel intimidated and ignorant of what is going to be, at some point in the future, I will be confident and knowledgeable of all that was. Doesn’t mean my curiosity is satisfied though… it never is. But I think I can afford to be a little patient, because I will be there for the ending after all and no matter what it is won’t I?