My Theory about Friendship

I'm dreamy, and I love to make my dreams come true. Depending on that, allow me to introduce you to the theory of what a friend is?

- A friend is someone feels your pain, and considers it his ‘or hers’.

- A friend is someone helps you when you are there, and when you are NOT there!

- A friend is someone covers your back, even without your knowledge.

- A friend is someone who doesn’t have a bad timing when it comes to you.

- A friend is someone understands you, better than most people do.

- A friend is someone saves your friendship from everything, even from yourself.

- A friend is someone if you slapped him ‘or her’ on the face, before he ‘or she’ reacts, he ‘or she’ will ask ‘why’?

- A friend doesn’t act ‘friendship’, he ‘or she’ just feels it!- A friend is a whole family to you: he ‘or she’ is the mother, the father, the brother, the wife, the son and the bodyguard!

- A friend is not a ‘bodyguard’, he ‘or she’ is a soul guard!

- A friend is the only place to go, when you don’t have any place to go.

- A friend is a partner in joy, sorrows and love.

- A friend is the only one that you feel him ‘or her’ safe to say anything about everything.

- A friend is the one that knows you’re not made out of diamond, but feels you so.

- A friend is the one, if you take from him ‘or her’ everything, he ‘or she’ will feel sorry for not having more to offer!

- A friend is the lap to cry if you’re sad, the party if you’re lonely and the beauty maker if everything is ugly.

- In short, a friend is another eternal free spot you can get from this life!

What do you think?

Entertainment Satellite Channels in the Arab World

Have you ever watched 'Strike' Satellite Channel?
Actually, I have. For those who don't follow up these channels. Strike has mainly one show around 24 hours! A female presenter is waiting for an answer to a very stupid question. One question, that really drove me crazy, was (where is Hadramout?). Now, not knowing the location of Hadramout is ok, but, it's totally a big fat lie when a Saudi citizen doesn't know where Hadramout is. The guy even said: I think Hadramout is in Tunisia!! Anyway, for those who don't know, Hadramout is the largest part of Yemen, and there are tens of thousands of Hadramis in Saudi Arabia. It's not possible for a Saudi not to know Hadramout.

The funny part is that, you can't call to participate. You can only to send an SMS, and according to the very loose girl, 'they will call'. I think some of you sent zillions of SMS, and no one called you. I really urge you to comment on this post if you ever got to participate with these guys.

So, what do they want?
Simply, I think they want to allocate their share from mobile companies and screw all of us. Since this show is taking place for more than 2 years now, it doesn't need an extra mind to understand the fact that they are making lots of money. All people have dreams of a better life. The dangerous part of an entertainment satellite channel is that, they are selling illusion. They are not sincere or true. They are so fake.

Something must be done. Mahmoud Sa'ad – a famous Arabic talk show host – has been very brave in pointing out the problematic nature of this. He named the channel, and he made fun of one of the presenters. I think this is a good step in the right direction. Either these channels respect the minds of their audience and come up with serious questions and a transparent way of communication, or, they should stop broadcasting at all, period!

Try to picture it like this, someone is stealing from all the Arab World – on air – and you are sitting in your chair knowing it is a rubbery and not doing anything!
For once, let's not make fools of ourselves and take some action. Freedom of journalism should be tainted with responsibility and self-respect. It shouldn't be treated as a cover to all dirty staff in the name of 'Freedom'. It's a principle and a moral obligation.

Let's show them that we are not stupid, and we are not naïve. Let's oblige them to respect our intelligence and respect our culture.. Arabs were the ruler of this world once upon time. We are aware that we are not anymore, but, for the sake of our history we are not stupid!!

Take sometime, and try to watch it for 5 minutes, and tell me if I'm wrong…

SOFTWARE PROFESSIONALS

True software engineer

Evolution of Bill Gates

Evolution of Agassi

No breaks allowed

Imagine your boss did so to you, and imagine there are no toilet papers!

Back from UNDP Yemen Retreat*!

Part of the Group Photo

Aden's sea waves welcomed UNDP retreat this year. It's been a quite good year to my colleagues. UNDP Yemen delivered USD 17.6 Millions! I wasn't part of it – I only joined UNDP five months ago –, but I felt like I was there. Retreat journey was about to start.

It's strange how people look differently in different environments. People I thought they can never laugh were actually the funniest in this retreat! People I thought I'll never talk to them in my whole life were my best friends there. I'll try to skip boring narration. I'll just try to share with you the best moments. People were happy and excited in the airport.

Uncle Younis, an old man with a big heart, was making tons of jokes and teasing everyone. We were hold for more than half an hour waiting for our luggages to be checked before we go to the terminal. During that time, I was standing with couple of colleagues discussing different subjects and objects. Retreat committee dudes were not in a very good mood, there were a lot to catch to them. By the way, I was one of them.

We got there! Aden is so hot; I was burning in every part of my body. One thing could break that feeling, the sea. The sun was drowning into the sea. Watching how smooth that was, I realized this is a 'smooth' and great experience I'm going to have. I realized the meaning of life, as I always do when I see how great my Creator is. Allah gives us those momentums to observe rather than seeing. Do we observe all the time? This is another question.

This year's theme is 'communications and team work'. First day started, I had a presentation about 'communications in UNDP'. The main outlines from my presentations were: communications is more than words, my image is concretely connected to where I work, I discussed types and tools of communications, etc…. In my presentation, I tried to apply some exercises to brainstorm my colleagues' ideas about the concept of communications. It was an introduction more than a presentation anyway.

In the next session, I had the chance to revive my acting history, when I played a role in a skit. How wonderful to go back to my university's days. Everyone liked and praised the idea of having skits. Although some of our colleagues were performing for their first time ever, they were amazingly talented. My colleague Walid was exactly like Adel Imam. In one moment, he had to do a tragic moment. Funnily enough; he turned it into the funniest moment ever! Shirin, a middle aged woman with an attractive young spirit, played the role of the mother wonderfully. She didn't even need to stick to the script. She just used her commonsense, and she made it.
In the next day, Sammy, a young Pakistani, was leading us to the beach to play a game. Everyone has to have a partner. One of them should be blinded with a piece of clothes, and the other one has to lead his/her partner among many obstacles. The funnies thing ever happened, Taha, of my colleagues, was leading me among the obstacles. He did a wonderful job till the last moment! When all the obstacles became behind me, he urged me to run as fast as I can, so I did! He was caught into the momentum to the extent he forgot that I'm blinded. I found myself running into a tree! It was hilarious anyway. On a different subject, for the first time ever, we had contract service holders joining the retreat. That experience was wonderful to them and to the team. They were actively participating in all sessions. They had clever inputs and recommendations, which did enrich our discussions.

The Game

End of the second day, Sammy declares "Retreat is ended"! 'Retreat committee meeting', shouted Dena, our Deputy Resident Representative for Programme', and the highest chief commander of the retreat committee. She is a woman with huge ability to work. She is very experienced, with tons of wonderful ideas. Whenever we thought she was pushing it too much, it turned out she is 100% right!
Anyway, everyone of RCM was very proud, including me. 'It was the best retreat ever'; Tarik, the facilitator of the former retreat, said to me. We made it, although we've never been in a retreat.
Aden waves were withdrawing as if they knew we are about to leave. I had finally to enjoy my Shisha during the sun set, sharing this great moment on the phone with my eternal love; my wife.
Two days later, we moved back to Sana'a exhausted, happy, fresh and experienced.
Now I'm writing to you about it, trying to squeeze my mind to remember a certain moment to end this post. I can't think of a better moment rather than the image of my son, Mimo, who started crawling in Sana'a at that time. Am I sad that I missed it? 100 % yes. When I went back to Sana'a, I started watching him crawling in all directions. How wonderful is my life. Thank you Allah for everything..
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* UNDP Retreat is an annual thing of two days long, where everyone in the office gathers somewhere outside Sana'a, and have something looks like a workshop, but with lots of fun.

I'm back with a New Look!

Well yea, I found myself stuck in my former blog 'yazanms', without achieving anything. So, I decided I should have a fresh start from now on.

This blog shall be updated regularly on a bi-weekly basis. I'll try now to share the simplest ideas I have, so you can follow up with them in the next posts.

I'll try to talk about everything: life, death, life after death, religions, attitudes, science, journalism, politics, sports, bla, bla, bla.

I have promised myself not to review any post I write. I'll write as I speak, because I want to make it as real as possible. I want to give my ideas freedom! No fear of misunderstanding, no fear of cultural differences, and differently no fear of being stupid!

There are no limitations to my thoughts, and there shall be no limitations to your comments. Feel free to say anything about anything. I wanna raise the debate level to the maximum, so we can end up with the best conclusion. Every piece of crap is an added value. Come to think about it, every part of second we share is an added value. Let's spread the joy and enjoy! Tomorrow is my first article, so, wish me luck and read it!