Hot chocolate cup for inspiration

The utmost happiness is my real sadness

The real sadness is my utmost happiness

the pain is my only numbness

the stillness is my only energy

my creativity source is dumbness

the craziness is my real sanity

how could all these things be

if it really isn't???

- Mai what is this ?!!!!

-This is a poem.

-you must be out of your mind!

- Noooooo ! i just had a great cup of hot chocolate!!!

The Rose

The Rose (lyrics)

Some say love it is a river

That drowns the tender reed.

Some say love it is a razor

That leaves your soul to bleed.

Some say love it is a hunger

An endless, aching need

I say love it is a flower,

And you it's only seed.

It's the heart afraid of breaking

That never learns to dance

It's the dream afraid of waking

That never takes the chance

It's the one who won't be taken,

Who cannot seem to give

And the soul afraid of dying

That never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely

And the road has been too long.

And you think that love is only

For the lucky and the strong.

Just remember in the winter

Far beneath the bitter snow

Lies the seed that with the sun's love,

In the spring, becomes the rose.

Frankfurt book fair 2009 ( a dream came true )

At last my dream came true! finally i attended the Frankfurt book fair 2009 which was opened for the public on the 17th and 18th of October., and China was the guest of Honour for this year.


It was huuuuuuuuuge and amazing in the same time.
What was so wonderful that i met personaly the international publishers´s sales guys which i was dealing with when i used to work in Cairo as a sales coordinator in a publishing agency.
And i met my old colleagues in addition my Boss called me right after sending him an sms wishing to see him in the fair, he was so nice and he had the intention to meet me and my husband.


When i saw the partitions of all the publishers that i used to deal with i got crazy! my husband kept laughing about me!

Random House
Scholastic
Harper collins
McGraw-Hill
Nelson Thornes
Cambridge University press
Penguin Group
Faber & Faber

I met authors who signed their books for me, each time i visited a publisher they gave me books for free! the most important book was a book for the writer who won the Literature Nobel Prize 2009 Herta Müller, she´s a german but from Romanian origion, so i was so excited cause i was born in Romania and i live in Germany now and i really wished to see her and have her signature but she attended the fair in the first couple of days before i travel to Frankfurt.

I left the fair with lots of books like:

Nadirs ( Herta Müller )
The Children of Dust ( Ali Eteraz )
Writing Down the Bones ( Natalie Goldberg)
Think Before it´s too late (Edward De Bono)
The Wilding(Maria McCann)
Parrot & Oliver in America (Peter Carey)
The Woman who shot Mussolini ( Frances Stonor Saunders)
The Golden Apple ( EdgarJ.Ridley)
Egypt after Mubarak ( Bruce K. Rutherford )

I also bought the first baby book for my baby and i got the other as a present from my friend in the publisher Scholastic, Thank you Michelle :)))))

ahhhh all this happened in Frankfurt!!!! but to say the truth i didn´t like Frankfurt the city at all, i found Munich much much much more beautiful, thank god that i live in Munich.
But the hotel was so nice and the people working there were even nicer, they all played with my baby specialy at breakfast time!

Well, still there are a lot to tell about the Frankfurt book fair but i´m sure that all those who attended the fair have more different stories which i would like to know.



i will download more pictures soon...

NaNoWriMo

Oh my god!!! i will do it !!!

InshaAllah i will be a Nanowrimo participant.

and it stands for National Novel Writing Month.

In November for 30 days i should write everyday and finish at least a 50,000 words novel.

will i beat all these ideas and characters fighting in my head and finally put them on paper?!!!!

Ahhhhh i wish i will!!!!!!!!!!

My husband will help me i know, but i should let my baby sleep one hour earlier.

Please come November, i wanna be busy writing !

( phewwwwwwwww)

Today´s learned wisdom

If people were to listen to others´ advices, no one would have done a single mistake and no one would have ever learned by himself.... so nobody would have ever found someone to advise him !

- Mai Daader -

( 19-8-09 )

My Life Between Cairo & Munich

Cairo Map:Munich Map:

What to say and from where to start? it´s a tale of two cities; Cairo and Munich.
Cairo, the city where i spent my childhood, my teenagehood and my youthhood, with all what these stages hold of memories.

Munich, the place where i started a completely new stage of life, marriage and motherhood and although it started since 2 years, ifeel that it´s a whole lifetime.

Cairo and Munich, the most lovable cities to my heart.

To be continued......

يا على الدين

كانت تقول لى امى منذ طفولتى ومازالت تقول : يا على الدين كن كالشمعه التى تضئ فى وسط الظلام ولا تخشى ان تحرق بنارها كل شر و جهل و هوى نفس مضل

Islamic Mosaic

I created This beautiful Mosaic picture by myself, please click on the picture to see it in a bigger size, you will find me also in three pictures, down you will find labels of each picture if you clicked on it you will see the original artist who captured the pictures on flickr.

I want to explain more about this Mosaic but i will do this as soon as possible.

So till then this post is:

To Be Continued .....

The Labels of Pictures:

1. 20,000 views -- thanks!,

2. Islamic Calligraphy, Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, Esfahan, Iran,

3. Islamic - Pharaonic (Combinatorial artistic point of view),

4. ISLAMIC-BIBARS,

5. ISLAMIC-BIBARS,

6. Islamic speaker,

7. Islamic tile at Woking Palace,

8. 10,000 Views -- Thanks,

9. Islamic books,

10. The prophet muhammad peace be upon him,

11. islamic geometric patterns,

12. Islamic patterns: Ghauri's tomb, Pakistan,

13. Islamic patterns: Rawalpindi, Pakistan,

14. Islamic patterns: Granada, Spain,

15. Islamic Art,

16. Pakistan Blues: Wazir Khan Mosque, Lahore,

17. Meral,

18. DSC06144,

19. Islamic Art: The Alhambra, Spain,

20. Islamic patterns: London,

21. Islamic art: Golra, Pakistan,

22. Islamic art: Wah, Pakistan,

23. me in sa3ey al safa wal marwa (Hajj 2007-2008),

24. allahu-calligraphy,

25. Isfahan/ Imam(Shah) Mosque,

26. Kopie von DSC06057,

27. Imam Hamza Yusuf,

28. {فصبر جميل والله المستعان}, 29. Islamic art: Alhambra, Granada,

30. القـــرآن الـــكريم, 31. Mosaic,

32. Islamic art: Golra, Pakistan,

33. quraan,

34. prayers,

35. allahu akbar

Abd Al Malik - L'alchimiste

And here again another post from my previous deleted blog posted on the 26th of March 2008:



This is not a love song as many people would assume or think, L'alchimiste is a song from his latest CD. It's about his Sufi spiritual guide. Abd Al Malik presents a tolerant and mystical vision of Islam.
What really took my attention, is how touching the song is, the way he sings it and the music, also i dooooooooooooooo envy him that he had the chance to communicate directly with people in the street to express himself and it seems that also he took the hearts of the people.
The main aim from posting this article is that i want to refer to the importance of art and how these simple words of Malik could touch the hearts of million people whether they agree with him or not or whether they clearly understand him or not.

Below is the song lyrics in french and English:

Je n'étais rien, ou bien quelqu echose qui s'en rapproche,
J'étais vain et c'est bien c'que contenait mes poches.
J'avais la haine , un mélange de peur, d'ignorance et de gêne.
Je pleuvais de peine, de l'inconsistance de ne pas être moi-même.
J'étais mort et tu m'as rammené à la vie:
Je disais "j'ai, ou je n'ai pas";
tu m'a appris à dire "je suis".
Tu m'as dit: "le noir, l' arabe, le blanc ou le juif sont à l' homme ce que lesfleurs sont à l'eau"


Oh, toi que j' aime et toi, que j'aime.
J'ai traversé tant d'avenues, tellement attendu ta venue
Qu'à ta vue, je ne savais plus si c'était toi, si c'était moi
Si c'était toi, Eh, toi que j'aime je crée ton nom
Dans le désert des villes que j'traversais car
Sûr de ton existence, je savais que tu m'entendrais
Et, toi, que j'aime, Oh, toi... que j'aime


Je n'étais rien, ou bien quelquechose qui s'en rapproche,
J'étais vain et c'est bien c'que contenait mes poches.
J'avais la haine, un mélange de peur, d'ignorance et de gêne.
Je pleuvais de peine, de l'inconsistance de ne pas être moi-même.
J'étais mort et tu m'as rammené à la vie:
Je disais "j'ai, ou je n'ai pas"; tu m'a appris à dire "je suis".
Tu m'as dit: "le noir, l'arabe, le blanc ou le juif sont à l'homme ce que les
fleurs sont à l'eau"

Oh, toi que j'aime et toi, que j'aime.
Ni la rue, ni les drames, ne m'ont voilé à ta vue
Même au plus bas , même quand j'disais que tout était foutu!
Je t'aimais comme si je te voyait,Car si je ne te voyait
pas, je savais que j'étais vu par toi.
Et, toi que j'aime. Tu es un lion et ton coeur est un soleil
L'ultime secours de ceux perdus dans leur sommeil.
Et, toi, que j'aime, Oh, toi... que j'aime

Je n'étais rien, ou bien quelque chose qui s'en rapproche,
J'étais vain et c'est bien c'que contenait mes poches.
J'avais la haine, un mélange de peur, d'ignorance et de gêne.
Je pleuvais de peine, de l'inconsistance de ne pas être moi-même.
Tu es, tu es l'alchimiste de mon coeur
Et, toi, que j'aime, Oh, toi... que j'aime,
Eh.... oh, toi que j'aime...

English Translation ( thanks to Cortom from Belguim ):

...I was nothing, or - well - something quite close to that
...I was empty, and - well - that is what was inside my pockets
...('vain' in French means 'empty' as well as 'vain', this wordplay is hard to translate)
...I felt (had) hatred, a mixture of fear, ignorance and shame
...I cried from pain, from [the inconsistancy of] not being myself
...(I think 'pleuvais' (='rained') is an error and should be replaced by 'pleurais' (='cried')
...I was dead, and you brought me back to life
...I said "I have, or I don't have"; you thought me to say "I am"
...You said to me: "black, arab, white or jew are to man what flowers are to water"
...Oh, you, whom I love and you, whom I love
...I walked so many streets, awaited your coming so much
...that, on seeing you, I didn't know anymore if it was you, if it was me
...Yes, it was you, heh, you whom I love, I create your name(??)
...In the desert of the cities that I passed through because
...Certain of your existence, I knew that you waited for me
...And you, whom I love, oh, you ... whom I love
....Oh, you whom I love and you, whom I love
...Neither the street, nor the dramas, have veiled me when I saw you (lit.: at your sight)
...Even at the darkest hour (lit.: at the lowest point),
even when I said that everything was lost
...I loved you as if I saw you
...For if I didn't see you, I knew that I was seen by you...And you, whom I love.
You are a lion and your hear is a sun
...The ultimate rescue of those lost in their sleep...And you, whom I love.
Oh you... whom I love

Why do i write?

I posted this poem on 2 November 2006 on my previous deleted blog, ever since i wrote it i knew very well that it needed rewriting and polishing but even though i posted it as it is, still don´t know if i will polish it or not, anway this is me every single word i write is so dear to my heart even if it is not perfect.





Am i a writer or i am
someone who answers the life exam
I need to think and answer right
So first i'll say why do i write

I write to record every thought
that sails inside me like a boat
Looking for a shore to rest and hide
so i do help her when i write

I write because i want to know
if i am real or i don't exist
to know if i am like the light
that penetrates the darkest mist

I also write to quell my pain
and kick the hatred out of my soul
writing for me is like the rain
which touches my heart and cleans it all

I write sometimes when i discover
that all realities are under cover
I hold my pen and write a line
to let it glow and let it shine

Spanish mood !

I had always been facinated with the spanish people and culture, the spanish music, the flamenco dance and clothes, the tune of their language, how the spanish people look like, specially because they have got arabic and islamic roots which made their features so attractive in my point view.

I always dreamt of visiting spain and the very old mosques and the islamic architecture.

As a muslim i am intrested too to know how the spanish muslims look like, how do they practice islam, the way muslim girls there wear their hijab.

Granada... the most intresting city to me, for two reasons, Alhambra ofcourse and then the big granada mosque which opened in 2003, and being the firdt mosque to be build there since 500 years.

Ohhhhhhhhh, take me there and then let me die !!!!

Granada Mosque

The Mosque garden


The day of the openning


Spanish Girls in Hijab





Another beautiful face in hijab

What is Poetry ?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/che_moleman/965651051/

What is poetry?



A short piece of imaginative writing, of a personal nature and laid out in lines is the usual answer. Will that do?



Poetry definitions are difficult, as is aesthetics generally. What is distinctive and important tends to evade the qualified language in which we attempt to cover all considerations. Perhaps we could say that poetry was a responsible attempt to understand the world in human terms through literary composition.



What distinguishes poetry from other literary compositions?



Nothing, says a vociferous body of opinion: they are all texts, to be understood by the same techniques as a philosophic treatise or tabloid newspaper. But that makes sense only to readers of advanced magazines, for poetry does indeed seem different. Even if we accept that poetry can be verse or prose — verse simply having a strong metrical element — poetry is surely distinguished by moving us deeply. In fact, for all but Postmodernists, it is an art form, and must therefore do what all art does — represent something of the world, express or evoke emotion, please us by its form, and stand on its own as something autonomous and self-defining.

- The beginning poet should read widely, join many groups, take any criticism seriously, but perhaps remember these points:

1. Poetry may well be the art of the unsayable. A good poem lies somewhere beyond mere words: it is the intangible, an exultation in things vaguely apprehended, something which emerges out of its own form, and which cannot exist without that form. Any poem that can be completely understood or paraphrased is not a poem, therefore, but simply versified or emotive prose (though not the worse for that).

2. Poems are an act of discovery, and require immense effort — to write and to be understood. The argument against popular amateur poetry is not that it uses out-of-date forms (there is no authority here, and art is always an mixture of elements coming in and going out of fashion) but that popular poetry finds its conceptions too readily. Contrary to contemporary dogma, poetry doesn't have to be challenging, but it does have to explore the nature and geography of the human condition.

3. A poem is something unique to its author, but is also created in the common currency of its period: style, preoccupations, shared beliefs. You may therefore grow out of the habit of writing Elizabethan sonnets, if indeed you ever write them, not by colleagues telling you that the style is passé but by understanding the limits of that Elizabethan world. You will probably write yourself through many enthusiasms and styles. And because your experience of the world will be shaped by your literary efforts, your conceptions of poetry will change as you develop a voice commensurate with your vision.

4. Poems are not created by recipe, or by pouring content into a currently acceptable mould. Shape and content interact, in the final product and throughout the creation process, so that the poems will be continually asking what you are writing and why. The answers you give yourself will be illustrating your conceptions of poetry. Once again, those conception will develop, eventually to include experiences more viscerally part of you, since poems are not a painless juggling with words.

5. Many poets have theorized on the nature of their craft. Their aphorisms are very quotable, and often provide entry into new realms of thought, but they should be used with caution. Artists are notoriously partisan, and rarely paint the whole picture. To understand their pronouncements, you need first to love their work, be steeped in its vision, and then to measure their pronouncements against the larger conception of art that other work provides.

Source: http://www.poetrymagic.co.uk/whatispoetry.html

Reading my poems in the American House in Munich

° This item was posted on my deleted blog on the 8th of March 2008:

The above Video was On the 6th of march 2008 in which (Munich Writers Group) organised an evening of Poetry and prose, and as i am a member of Munich Writers group, i had the chance to read my work.

Wow!!! I was so excited! the evening was in the American house in Munich, the audience was from different nationalities, and ofcourse my husband and I were the only arabs.

Alhamdulillah, when i finished reading the audience clapped , and i was very glad that after finishing my reading and during the break german and american people were keen to tell me that they liked my poems and that they were really touched by them specially the second poem ( My Advice ), they told me that they could understand my poem and this is something very important, i think maybe because i don´t use complicated words and expresions.
I am so glad also that i became a member in the Munich writers group and i had the chance to participate in this evening , many thanks to Munich Writers! They are all very nice people and good writers.

My deleted blog :(

I first started blogging on January 2006, Thanks to my friend sherine who informed me about Blogger as i knew about blogging but i didn´t know that i could find a free blogging site before sherine told me so thanks again to her.

Ever since i started my blog i never stopped blogging except when i faced this depressing thing called the "Writer´s block".

Anyway, my lovely blog was accidently deleted according to some fazlaka menny, i mean i was trying to change its look but it seemd that i screwed it up instead, but thank God i always used to save a coppy of it in a word file.

Last February was the last month i posted something on my deleted blog, every single thing i posted has got a special memory, this is why i decided to pick up some but not all of these posted items to repost it again in my new created blog which i chose the same name and link to it.

Hmmm... but which item shall i post first ? i think i will pick randomly.

Very soon inshaAllah.

Let the purity of our heart
lead us to the right road
Keep it clean and white
without sins and crimes

friendship and the broken glass

He warned his friend:

" Take care ! i´m like the glass, clear, pure, transparent, hard but fragile, but if anyone treated me wrongly or badly i could be broken, and my broken pieces could be sharper than the knife, it might hurt who did this to me without mercy "

His friend replied:

" Don´t worry! if i´m this someone, or even not ! i will collect your broken pieces no matter how sharp they are and i will stick them to each others with a special glue which is called " real love & friendship"

and the most important thing which i will do .... i will never treat you as a broken thing... my real friend"

who are you ?

Can you be a candle that shines in the middle of the dark?

Can you be a lamp that lights the darkest tunnels ?

No...

I can be a sun...

That lights the whole world.

My rays can penetrate the most grizzled clouds, the darkest fogs and the deepest seas.

And above all... my rays can penetrate the most dying, misserable and depressed souls ...

Who are you?

I am who i am, i will never change myself to be equal to someone else.

With ease or without..... take a breath and fly, or close your eyes and jump....

Simply float or swim in the deepst depth....

your memories and your past are your present and your future, NOW is yesterday and tomorrow is your past......

Feel the wind on your skin, open your mouth and touch the air with your tongue... it isn´t too late! Now you can open your eyes....

What you see now is what you saw when you were closing your eyes, only the colors became brighter and you can see the reflections of the sun rays on everything....

It´s your choice... and everybody´s else...

Now touch the ground with your feet... you will know that you were very high but the ground wasn´t too far.... you will know that the impossible is possible and the possible is impossible, it is you who should choose, it´s your own decision and everybody´s else....

Open your arms, Raise your head, look to the sky... And Now....

you will see your face on the sun !!!!