Fifth of July

I was practically out the whole day. It was a cloudy morning so it was just okay to be outside. But as the day climbs to noon, heat started to rise and by the time I got to see the temp, it was already a 44C and it wasn't even 12 noon yet.

I had the opportunity to walk in a mini-park on an island on the place here called Al Muteena. I was kinda relieved to see date trees on the sides. But the thing is the only thing it could give you is a shade from the sun's rays, but not the cool breeze I used to feel back home when I am under the shelter of trees. So, as you may well have guessed, I again got nostalgic about home. Back home, a tree meant a shade from the heat and a cool breeze comes as you stay even for just a while. It offers rest and comfort for that short time you will stay. But here, I walked for over five hundred meters of date trees left and right, but it offered now breeze.

As I said, summer is officially here. This morning, my colleague told me that Ramadan will start on August 20th, as opposed to what I know which is August 21st. But who knows who among us is right? It will fall on either one of these days, depending on the appearance of the moon. So, we will only know once the moon comes out during one of those nights. That's how they do it here.

What You Want?

Another book came in today.

My friends know that I love reading so they let me know if they have a book that they can lend me. Last night, a friend brought me "Night Shift" which is actually an old book by Stephen King. Yeah, they know, too, that I am into SK's books. So, to give me a background of what the book's all about, I read the introduction, not by SK but by someone named John D. Macdonald.

And here I quote him ( his reaction when people say: they want to write):

If you want to write, you write.

The only way to learn to write is by writing. And that would not be a useful approach to brain surgery.

Stephen King always wanted to write and he writes.

So he wrote 'Carrie' and 'Salem's Lot' and "The Shining,' and the good short stories you can read in this book, and a stupendous number of other stories and books and fragments and poems and essays and other unclassifiable things, most of them too wrteched to ever publish.

Because that is the way it is done.

Because there is no other way to do it. Not one other way.

Compulsive diligence is almost enough. But not quite. You have to have a taste for words. Gluttony. You have to want to roll in them. You have to read millions of them written by other people.

You read everyting with grinding envy or a weary contempt.

You save he most contempt for the people who conceal ineptitude with long words, Germanic sentence structure, obstrusive symbols, and no sense of story, pace, pr character.

Then you have to start knowing yourself so well that you begin to know other people. A piece of us is in every person we can meet.

A damn good piece of advice for me!

Summer's Started

One of the benefits I enjoy in this room I have been staying in since March is the peace and quiet it offers. They deliberately did not have the t.v. for this reason, plus the fact that they say we do not have time for that anymore [we have internet access]. This means that I haven't seen one single TFC nor Orbit program since November last year. If I want noise - loud, that is - I grab my DJ-mode headphones and shove it on my big head and enjoy whatever playlist I feel like playing.

I have just finished the book "Blaze" by Richard Bachman. Insights are here and my summary is here. This wasn't in my line-up of books to read but I had to squeeze it in since it was just borrowed from someone else's accomodation's small library. Which means I'm only given a week. The book wasn't long enough, though so it wasn't that hard, since I am not really a fast reader.

Last night, I started with "First Family" by David Baldacci. Again, not in my line-up but my room mate found this book somewhere, read it, then gave it to me so I can read it, too. I am assuming that - even if it doesn't have a deadline - that someone else will be next in line, that's why I didn't put it off behind one of the books in my possession. I do not want to pass on it since I believe that every book has something good to offer, even if the author is not on your list.

Summer is - officially - here. In the middle of the week that just passed, I came out of our office building wearing my glasses when the lenses were rapidly covered with fog. I have read this, too, in one of the blogs I'm following. Day after that, I went out and it was scorching. I think it was the hottest so far, for this year and the others that I have been here. I felt the heat of the wind seeping through my clothes. That's the best I can do to describe it. I couldn't seem to find the right words to describe how hot it was that day. It's just not enough to say it's 45c on the temp. It was really a different heat, a different feeling.

MJ & CPDRC

I was looking for something that I thought I wrote on my blog and re-post it along with a different topic, but this is what I stumbled upon. The post was over a year old, turning two, soon. Now, I am travelling down on my own memory lane Click here for the once famous video and revived now that MJ is gone.

This video will live long... like MJ himself...