i'm a damascene being, dissect me into halves

the butterfly effect

Holey moley.

Week of HELL YES moments for this little lady:

Last Saturday, I made it to World finals with my Odyssey of the Mind team. Monday I found out that I made graduation speaker. I also learned that I got the Governor's Scholarship and can go to the U of A or Hendrix for free. I got 1st place in an on-site poetry contest at ASPA and 1st place for my poem "Scrolls" in last year's magazine. I got my licence. At the tournament of champions on Saturday, I won 2nd for my oratory on Horeeya in Soreeya.

After Mrs. Dade judged my oratory, she explained to me that on a cosmic level, we were there with the protesters in Syria.  She said, "We have clean air, clean water, more than enough food. And yet so many of us are agitated and unhappy. I'm telling you. For every action there's a reaction--it's that 'butterfly effect'. Their struggles are affecting us everyday, stirring us up." I love that woman.

Saturday was Ladiez night and I stomped my feet, had girl power springtime adventures and cuddliod with some o my fave gals. 

I awoke this morning to warmness and the essays of Zadi Smith at Saba's house, where her mom brought us breakfast in bed and by that I mean on the floor (my favorite in the world!) Sunday was spent with my beautiful friends, hours upon hours of meaningful B-boy-free conversation and cinna-stack pancakes. I came to terms with going to the U of A. But then, lo and behold! The mouth of a river at length came into view-- I opened my email to discover that I have a full-ride scholarship to a liberal art's women's college in Atlanta, Georgia.

A few weeks ago, I was bursting into tears every few days, not knowing why. And now I'm excited, impressed, on the verge of emancipation. To quote the be-good tanyas: It's the human thing.

 M-m-m-empathy.

hooreeya

means freedom in Arabic.

People in Sooreeya are starting to feel the Hooreeya nudge them on, and their whispers are joining together to form bursts of sound in Homs, Damascus, and Aleppo. It began March 15, where for the first time in about twenty years (the last ones being the Hama massacre and the Kurdish protests in 2004), people took to the streets and bravely recognized a need for hooreeya. Because behind the "empty reformist rhetoric" lies forty years of oppression, forty years of martial law and forty years of political prisoners tortured and killed. My mother's friend called upon Syrians--Christians, Kurds, Jews, and Alawites, to come and protest at the Ummayyad mosque in Damascus. And, what's remarkable is these are protests that didn't fall through.

Not only in Syria, though--folks protested in solidarity across the world:

Paris, London (via Syrian Revolution Facebook group)

"Free the political prisoners"

My uncles in L.A.:

& my dad  inWashington D.C. He just came home tonight and told me about how they alternated between Libyan and Syrian chanting. Al Sha'ab al-Sooree ma bynthul! Al Sha'ab al-Libyee ma bynthul!

Back at the ranch--at least hundreds are dead, and tens of thousands have died in Libya in the past couple of days of protests. 

Something about it really just hit me today. I was folding the mountains of clothing on my floor and began to think about how it would feel to die for an ideal. It was one of those moments where tears sort of unglue from my face and don't stop. I just sat on my floor and cried--for those people who have given themselves so they could vote, raise a family freely, not live in political asylum, show their granddaughters what Syrian jasmine smells like, criticize a leader without fear of torture.  And I got so frustrated thinking about how their are human beings dying for justice and that the rest of us are doing nothing about it. There are so many things to care about right now: jet planes shooting down civilians, tsunamis wiping out populations. And after a point, these stories turn into statistics and the majority of people are inclined to stop caring. So I want to let it be known, that I stand with every man, woman, Kurd, Alawite, Druze, Libyan, Bahrani, Yemeni, human who has  marched, typed, spoken, or cried to say:

 Hooray for hooreya.

concentration 52, no repeat

or hesitation, category is: blogz.

clap snap snap snap

i've been hesitant to start a blog because of the inevitability that i will spend hours messing with the layout like it's my own sim family kitchen. but, i figured, since i'm grounded on a friday night (catastrophe of the centuryYyyy) i guess i'd decided that tonight was perfect for introducing my sass n' wit to the realms of the internet..

 but really what i mean is that innate new jersey turnpike sass or that kind you get from having a name that means angry.


things i've wanted to blog about before but didn't:
 - an oral history of the syrian regime as in translating what family members have to say about how it screwed us over, hence the blog title sooreeya (which i sort of stole from berea)
- a blog of uncomfortable moments/ tiny bits alienation but luckily that already exists http://microaggressions.tumblr.com, which is awesome.
- tribute to stephanie tanner
- photo blog of women that i really dig

so why not combine all of the above into one package for the whole family!