Alyastan

Glad to see F_W is sort of back in business. Complete with the odd deeply unfunny wank report.

And how are you guys? :)

No more arbitrary arrests, torture or police brutality.

No more teargas, tasers or bullets.

No more stones, horses or Molotov cocktails.

We're free.

We don't know what will happen tomorrow, whether the army will indeed oversee the democratic transition and hand power to the people, as it said it will, or if we still have to fight a military coup. We don't know, but we're free.

I've been overwhelmed with the support I've gotten from you guys, and everyone abroad! ♥ Thank you so much.

Right now, we're fine. Hundreds dead and thousands injured, but millions more are fighting the good fight. Sadly, some people actually believed the president's latest speech and want to "give him a chance" until the elections in September. I've been trying to explain that this is a ploy, he hasn't responded to any of the four demands of the protests, and if we give him 7 more months, he will use them to crack down on protesters and journalists in extremely violent ways. I hope those people are just a vocal minority, because things are dangerous enough as it is.

I need to post in detail about the protests I've been in so far, but I don't have the time or energy right now. I promise I'll update when I can, though.

Today has been dubbed "Departure Friday". Huge protests expected, and lots of journalists/photographers/reporters have been arrested yesterday, which may mean the government intends to use more violence than it has so far. As we've seen beatings, tear gas, tasers, rubber bullets and finally live bullets so far, I honestly have no idea what they're planning now.

Keep your fingers crossed for us. May the 500+ fallen RIP, and may we finally earn our freedom.

May Tunisia's martyrs rest in peace, and may we all earn our freedom.

So fucking what?

You're on f_lounge; over half of us have put up with bullying as children or young adults, and I'm guessing the majority for not conforming to gender/sexuality norms! Get the fuck over yourself.

Um, Happy New Year, everyone?

This guy died yesterday after he was released by the court.

Apparently, to my ex-friend, "I'll see you when you get back from France" means the same thing as "I don't want to see you or talk to you again."

France was great, though. Marseilles is really nice and friendly, and the youth hostel I was staying in was wonderful. I made friends with total strangers, spent whole days at the beach, ate great French bread, cheese and saucisson, and drank great wine and Belgian beer. Oh, and I met an old friend whom I'd lost contact with in the street by total chance!

I'd like all my vacations to be this amazing, but not all my summers to be this sucky.

Being back on speaking terms with my friend is the most wonderful thing ever.

Oh and, I'm leaving for France tomorrow, and I'm completely unprepared. ;-;

Yay, Uruguay won! And I'd predicted it! :D

Now I'm hoping for Ghana to beat the US tonight, but it doesn't actually matter because whoever the winner is will go up against Uruguay in the quarter-finals and lose.

Actually, I made a chart of my predictions for the rest of the World Cup:

Last-16
Uruguay vs. S. Korea > Uruguay
USA vs. Ghana > Ghana (I hope)
Germany vs. England > Germany (and I'm going to be SO SMUG at all my England-supporting friends!)
Argentina vs. Mexico > Argentina
Netherlands vs. Slovakia > Netherlands (although I will laugh so hard if Slovakia wins this one :D)
Brazil vs. Chile > Brazil
Paraguay vs. Japan > Paraguay
Spain vs. Portugal > Portugal

Quarter-finals
Netherlands vs. Brazil > Brazil (man, this match is gonna kick ass!)
Uruguay vs. Ghana > Uruguay (:( bye-bye, only African team to go past the group stage)
Germany vs. Argentina > Argentina
Paraguay vs. Portugal > Portugal

Semi-finals
Brazil vs. Uruguay > Brazil
Argentina vs. Portugal > Argentina

And I hope Argentina takes home the Cup. ♥

Human Rights Watch report on the Khaled Said case. I like how clear and consistent it is.

Here is good coverage of the murder in English.

A 28-year-old guy was just tortured to death by the police, for protesting the way they were treating people while searching them in an internet-cafe.

I have finals until the end of the month. Meh!

On the other hand, because I'm pretending to be studying all the time, I've been really productive about learning more about different grad schools I'm thinking of attending, watching plenty of films and baking. Oh, and reading JF.

I've been waiting for a week now for something about the latest Israeli stunt to crop up on UFB, but apparently Yahoo's privacy issues are more interesting. However, since I read Crooked Timber, I found this interesting blog post on the subject (comments are not infuriating, for the most part, but it's a very long discussion. I found it really informative, but it requires a good deal of patience). And this is linked in the comments, among other intelligent posts, and I find it even more interesting.

I may do a flocked personal post later today.

I used to like kitanumbers. :(

Right now, I'm learning to say the days of the week in Czech to facilitate communication between me and my current crush. See, my friend Salma has two Czech friends who're here studying Arabic, and being a good friend, she introduced me because she thought I'd like Tomáš. And I do; he's cute, funny, very sweet, and pretty smart and cultured. I just wish he wasn't leaving in early December. Anyway, I don't know if he's even interested in me, or if he's just being nice to me because I'm Salma's friend. Last night, I took my cousin and went to visit him and his friend in their flat. We spent a nice evening drinking and talking. Layla and I even sang to them all the comical patriotic songs we know. And tomorrow we're taking them on a felucca. I'm even skipping uni. >.>

Oh, speaking of uni, I'm enjoying this semester. It's more difficult and more satisfying than the last two years. Even though some subjects are whopping my ass (*cough*translation*cough*). And I'm beginning to have a clearer idea of what I want to do in grad school.

In conclusion: yay!

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Bold means read it (and finished it)
Italic means I didn't finish it
Underlined means I read it for school (if it's then bold I read it again later; italics and I didn't finish it)

( For the purposes of this meme, 'read it' means 'read it either in English or the original language, unabridged'. )

I still have two years to go in school. I'm incredibly bitter about that; if I hadn't switched educational systems between high school and uni, I'd have graduated already. However, the upside is, I have plenty of time to prepare grad school applications.

The truth is, I'm still not sure what I want to do after I graduate. There're so many things I want to do, like work in a variety of places, both abroad and in Egypt; I want to go to grad school, and I want to enrol in another undergrad program (in biochemistry! It'd be so much fun! I love biochem!). But hey, I'm gonna start with the most obvious, right? So I'm looking at grad school programs.

Holy shit. Too much choice.

No, really. So far, all I know is that I want to study something to do with the relationship between literature and other arts/society/culture. Or with arts/cultural management, but I'm hesitating on that, because while this is the career path I most likely want to get into, the MA programs are chock-full of law, business and economics courses and I've never taken those, and what's more, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna end up hating them. So I'm looking at Comparative Literature MA/PhD programs, French Lit MA/PhD programs and Cultural Management/Arts Management/Cultural Policy MA or MBA programs. TBH, so far the most attractive programs are in Comp Lit, and I think I could handle those, despite Comp Lit being a notoriously difficult field. They have language requirements; I love language requirements. And most of them have Latin among those requirements, and I've missed studying Latin so much omg. <3 And they allow me to choose Arabic as my 'cross-cultural language'.

So my current plan of action is:
1. Contact people at each of those programs, explain about my background/education/work experience, ask questions, get to know each program better - ASAP
2. Study for and take the TOEFL iBT - Next winter/spring
3. Really study for and take GREs (General and Literature Subject Test) - Next spring/summer
4. Study for and take the IELTS - Fall 2010
5. Maintain a GPA of over 15/20 at uni, and try to raise it to 17.5/20 (so it'd be 3.5 on an American scale)
6. Look for scholarships: contact Chevening, Fulbright, Ford Foundation, British Council, various Sawiris-owned organisms... - Fall 2010
7. Ask for recommendation letters and start preparing applications - Spring or Fall 2010
8. Get a job in an arts-related entreprise other than my current workplace (which makes up 90% of my CV!)
9. Any more suggestions? I'm really improvising, because I have no idea what to do.

Now I'm wondering if I should travel next summer, or save my money for the application/testing/mailing fees. Because, um, I'll basically be applying EVERYWHERE EVER, so we're talking 15+ applications. I'm... kind of really set on getting accepted somewhere. Basically, I know I've gotten really sucky undergrad education, and I want to make up for it.

I took sunset photos!

( Pretty colours! )

( 7 cat pics! )

Oh, for fuck's sake.

I mean, I'm a little annoyed that Bush is portrayed as some kind of champion of human rights, when his administration gave millions in military aid to the Egyptian government, which the latter used to violently repress political dissidents and demonstrators. But still not as annoyed as I am over the Obama administration cutting funding to human rights NGOs. And then you want to pretend we're all friends? Fuck you. It's because of stuff like this that Islamists are getting more popular every day.