Month / June 2009

by Fadi Zaghmout

Haya’s 30 years bday resolution regarding men.. and women


I thought that 30 years old would be the number where people would stop/shy of asking me questions about when am I going to get married. I was wrong. I now know that people have no shame… no shame at all.

When I am talking about people here, I am mostly referring to other women, those who call themselves friends and seize every little chance to ask me: “Haya, nothing yet happened with you?” “dear, you are 30 now, you have to work harder?” “Haya, you need to change, you are too serious, men don’t like that!”

What the heck! Suddenly, every woman who have a ring in her hand, becomes a relationships expert! The ugliest one from school who married her own cousin, the self-centered one who was madly in love with her boyfriend for 10 years only to leave him for the first wealthy groom who knocked her door, the unconfident, self-pity, woman who drove me crazy because of her fear of never getting married and seized up the only chance she got, and the woman who is nearly my age who only got married 2 months ago and now behaves like she is the queen of the world. All experts now! heh!

But hey, I am Haya. Haya who knows exactly how to strike back; women can ever be good enough, right? I know where to hit. “Aren’t you pregnant yet?” I hit the one with no children yet. “when are you plannin on getting the boy” for the one with a girl child. “only one boy? you need to get him a brother” for those bitches with a son! I always manage to find a way to hit on their nerves.

Honetly, like every other woman, I dream of my wedding day, I dream of finding the right man who would love and cherish me for the rest of my life. That is hard to find these days due to different cultural and personal reasons that sometimes make no sense to me.

Anyway, recently I came up with some realizations that would help me increase my chances of finding the right man, I will do the following:

1. Drop my fear package: Throughout the years, I built this shield of not trusting men. Men have proved to me to be assholes over and over again, and thus, I have always let this barrier of mistrust to eat out from any potential relationship in the horizon and eventually killing it. If I am going to love someone, then I am going to love him fully – with no fears

2. Hit the gym: No matter how much we try to trick ourselves in believing that men do really appreciate our minds, it is always our bodies who they appreciate first! I will take a loan and subscribe at VY. There are many wealthy bachelors out there for me to target.

3. Read the book “why men marry bitches”: It has always amazed me how those women who treated their boyfriends like garbage managed to get them to the alter! Me, being the nice girl, never managed to keep a man for more than 3 months!

4. Social butterfly: The more poeple I meet, the better chance of me meeting the right guy. Whether it is a wedding ceremony, a birthday party, or a cultural event, I will make sure to always be there. That is offline.

For the online, I will make sure to use the power of social networking. I will keep on updating my facebook account with pictures that I take on various events, I will write more here on this blog – if the observer allows me -, and I will be more active on twitter.

5. Expand the pool of *acceptable* husbands: If there are few single men older than me now, then why not looking out for younger? People would talk, but so what? It is becoming a trend anyway.

What else? help me out

Your’s,
Haya

by Fadi Zaghmout

Social Hypocrisy


It baffles me how many female friends/acquaintances have disappeared from my facebook friends’ list. I don’t take that personal as I know that it is always related to a new kind of relationship in that friend life – usually an official one like in engagement or marriage -.

Disabled facebook accounts, male friends’ removal, or tightened privacy settings are not uncommon among Jordanian women when they engage in a serious relationship, actually it is becoming more of something that is expected! Why would a married woman keep male friends on her facebook list? We still can’t think of people’s relationships outside gender binaries, do we?

How many women are out there who have suspended their online social relations for the sake of their families? which is, in other words, to avoid problems that may arrise with their husbands. How many women are out there who do expect such behaviour from their men? and actually give them legitemacy by claiming that it is our culture. We can’t break off it, can we?

How many men are out there who carry on such behaviour not because it does really threaten them, but because it is what they believe people expect from them, including their own wives? Would she lose respect of him if he didn’t get mad over her facebook account? Maybe some would, and it may better to act the way they expect me to act, no?

Isn’t it easier to just break off – even slightly – from social expectation? When will Jordanian women stop excusing men abusive behaviour under the name of our culture?

by Fadi Zaghmout

Jordan with no death sentence?


There seems to be some efforts towards abolishing death sentence in Jordan. A small news was published today in al ra’ee newspaper about a session held about the matter between human rights activites, some officials and law people. In addition to that, there has been a reportage on Al Arabieh news channel tonight about the state of prisons in Jordan and death sentence.

In the reportage they mentioned that among the 8000 prisoner in Jordan, there is only around 250 woman. They then focused on women prisoners and interviewed some who are sentenced to death along with a femal offical from the prison who highlighted that most women who are charged of murder, have murdered their own husbands. One of the prisoners said that she stabbed her husband out of rage because he used to torture her. I felt that this is somehow a way to draw people’s compassion towards such cases, and as the news host said: this matter is left in the hands of the government and the parliament.

I am personally against death sentence, no matter how horrible of an act one have done. It is a violation of the rights of human to live. Let’s hope that these efforts are going in the right direction.

by Fadi Zaghmout

Jordanian bloggers and Twitter


I have been using Twitter for sometime now and it is growing on me, especially that I barely have time to write full posts recently. I haven noticed some Jordanian bloggers with accounts on twitter but only few are partially active. Twitter has been a great tool for me to connect with many other arabian bloggers and social activites. They are also many Jordanians who even enjoy microblogging and are active on twitter without having a blog for their own.

Twitter is a great tool for us to share information and communicate with each other. I list the Jordanian bloggers whom I found their twitter accounts below:

@tarawnah @tololy, @RobaAssi @ramiar @mab3oos @jadmadi @humeid @razano @maliksoft @moeys @journalistoula @Qwaider @alidahmash @styloholic @7akifadi @lina18 @shagfeh @Farah654 @za3tar @sabbah

and I hope to see them more active, and to see some others joining in. In specific, I hope to see: Kinzi, Hareega, Devil’s mind, Batir and Bam Bam

Please let me know if I have missed anyone, or point me to other Jordanian bloggers on Twitter to follow.

by Fadi Zaghmout

My 31, I mean 21 birthday


I really miss this space. I miss this blog and miss the Jordanian blogsphere. I feel guilty for not being able to post here as much as I used before. I feel guilty partially because I can see that there are poeple who still come and check it out eventhough I haven’t posted anything in the past 2 weeks, I feel guilty because even before that, and for around 3 months, I have barely blogged once a week. At some point, I was enjoying seeing my blog stats growing, but then again I failed to keep the momentom. I have been so busy lately, not just with my full time job, but also with Licky Licky (I will update you in a minute) and with another blog that I have been contributing to for a while. The other blog is about social media. I find it very interesting and challenging at the same time. I love that I have to research, learn and practice areas that develops my skills in something that is becoming the core of how people communicate these days. Check it out here: http://blog.thoughtpick.com

Anyway, it was my birthday today. I have been telling people since the morning that it is my 21th birthday but I can’t fool you here. It is my 31th lovely birthday. I had one of my best birthdays. I had my close friends and family for a gathering at my house. We spent a great time, and guess what I got as a gift? mmmm, well, I asked for it a year and a half ago, and today I got it as a my birthday present: A nintendo Wii 🙂 :). Although I love the feeling of maturity and more confidence that come with age, I also love the child inside me that keeps on growing. I like to play, laugh and enjoy life. With such people around me, I know that I am blessed.

As for Licky Licious update, I have learnt the hard way that it is hard to start a business without having time to follow it up. It has been a tough time for me and my business partner (my best friend) for the past year. We both carry a full time job, and we both cherish our social life. We had barely only few time to run the shop. It only took few months for our enthusiams to drawn. Although we had a good start and did a good job in building the look and feel and the service of the shop, we ended up not being able to keep up a good quality service. As a result we looked out for someone else to take over and hopefully to run it in a better way. They are now re-decorating the shop and will open back on wednesday. They will be offering some new products inluding crepe and better coffe options. They have also changed the ice cream supplier. Check it out in your next visit to the Rainbow street and let me know what you think.

The more age I put, the more I learn to enjoy life better. My 30 has been better than my 29 and I know that my 31 will be even better. I just hope to be able to have more time for this blog because it does really make me happy.

I want to thank everyone who sent me birthday wishes today, whether on facebook, twitter, sms, phone, or in person. I love you all.

And thanks mother for taking care of everything. Alla ya3teeke el 3afieh.

by Fadi Zaghmout

I am a happy man


Sometimes, in special moments, when I am in euphoric state of mind, I feel that I am so happy and that happiness can be a constant state of mind that can be carried along one’s entire life. Sometime, I wonder if being happy is a learning process where one, and with life experience, realizes what makes him happy and what eats from his happines, and as a result work on minimizing the effects of thing that makes him unhappy, and exposes himself more to things that make him happy.

Is it as simple as this? To know what to choose? Sometimes I believe that it is, but at other times, I let myself slip into the daily hectic activities of life, and end up losing focus and forgetting about the necessity of smart choices to keep up my level of happiness intact. I let stress in, I let my busy schedule tire me, and I let myself scatter my attention in different matters that are irrelevant.

I am the kind of person whose goal in life is to be happy and feel it spread among people around me. And yes, it is most imporant to me that many other things. Things that I keep on letting them messing up my priorities and focus.

Throughout my life, I have always managed to define myself as a happy man. I always knew that the question of: Are you have in your life? has a Yes answer to me. In the other hand, I have always wondered why some people around couldn’t give the same answer. Is it a gift? a biological inherited advantage? or a wisdom that I have acquired since childhood? or maybe it is just a choice, or maybe a projection of internal fears force me to believe that I am happy?

Is happiness a wise choice? a learning process? a genetic inherited attribute? a destined faith? or a piece of all of it?