Checking In (And Out)

I’m baaaaaaaack!

From Vienna, that is. I’ve been vacationing for over a week, relaxing… you know, all that good stuff. I’m only back in the UAE for one day. Tomorrow, it’s straight to Saudi Arabia for a, you guessed it, family reunion!

The only annoying thing is that i have to pack all my stuff in one day. And help clean the house. And buy last minute presents. And recharge cameras and iPods and all other forms of electrical equipment people take on vacations with them. And finish reading my book to start the next one. And reorganize my closet. And send out the poems i’ve been working on for the last month to the Atlantic Monthly. (Yes, you did read that last sentence correctly.)

So that’s that. I dunno how often i’ll be able to update my blog from now till I get back from Saudi. That is, if i’m able to update it at all. So let’s just say i’m on leave until the 18th of August. I’ll try to post some things up though. But if i don’t, don’t kill me!

Oh, before i forget! Some people were giving me shit for traveling at a time like this. You know, with the whole “war” going on between Lebanon and Israel. Well, if you build your whole life around a cause, and spend all year working for it, regardless of the amount of media attention it gets, you deserve a break once in a while. That way, you can recharge your energy and come back to work even harder.

Even during this “break”, you keep expanding your horizons by learning about other people and cultures so you can form better relations with them and get a blueprint for improving your own society. And on top of all that, you take this as an opportunity to be a sort of “ambassador” for your society, showing the rest of the world that no, not all Muslims or people of Middle Eastern descent are women abusers and suicide bombers.

You see, it’s all about how you approach the idea of a “vacation”. Just because someone thinks long term doesn’t mean they’re ignoring what’s going on this second. We’re working on getting this thing at its root, not randomly hacking off evergrowing branches at the whim of media attention.

So till next time, whenever and wherever that happens to be.