how will I know how to teach Lea how to know right from wrong when choosing her friends (especially the male ones) ?
saw a young girl parked under our building and obviously waiting for somebody to come down. it got me thinking of what role I can play to help Lea better choose her friends. folks who would look out for her and wish her well ? worse, in terms of guys, how can I play a role in making sure she can have clear judgement and be able to call a spade a spade when it comes to guys ?
lea is 14 months now and I have time to worry about this BUT it isn’t like I am going to take a class in a couple of years that provides pointers and best-practices will most likely be clueless then like I am now.
here is hoping…that Lea is surrounded by loving friends and family…helping her steer through the days ahead…
(the last time I did yoga was ages ago and i was probably 8).
below are my misconceptions and lessons learned:
my misconceptions:
misconception 1: it is as straight-forward as visiting a spa. it is easy to do. doesn’t hurt a bit. isn’t actually classified as exercise.
misconception 2: even an out-of-shape digital-centric guy like me can jump in and do ok from the first session
misconception 3: you do one or two sessions and you feel right as rain and super-relaxed
lessons learned:
i seemed to have misplaced my center of gravity, leading to easily losing balance with every move (didn’t know my center of gravity was something i could misplace)
i am definitely definitely definitely out-of-shape. we all know at some level that we are out-of-shape and we are quite good at denial; but it really strikes you when you are exerting an effort, especially publicly
i know it is not the yoga-way to swear, but I found myself involuntarily swearing underneath my breath when i did a wrong (i.e. painful) stretch or lost my balance. definitely intend to work on that.
physical fitness has never been my strongest point ever since the gym days back in school. adding years and years of inactivity on top of that makes it worse.
i will be sore for quite a while and can actually hurt myself if I don’t pay close attention. still sounds funny to me injuring myself doing yoga (see misconception 1)
summary:
i have yet to find an activity that is a breeze to do, gets your mind off things, and makes you healthy along the way.
survived my first yoga session and not sure that i’ll continue down this path for an extensive time; however, i do intend to try it out a couple of more times.
yoga space info:
instructor is a good friend, ghia osseiran who is very patient and has extensive years of experience in yoga.
traffic situation in lebanon is becoming more and more challenging year after year with many reasons including but not limited to the growth in population, lack of advanced public transportation options, slow growth rate and maintenance of streets, social issues, financial issues, enforcing laws selectively,…
“public transportation, public concern” was a conference that took place attempting to raise awareness about the situation and propose tangible solutions.
conference organizers (fastforward & Rotaract of Beirut) were realistic in terms of providing success stories and potential solutions from developing countries in the middle east and africa (versus more advanced European or Asian transport implementations)
overall recommendations from the conference haven’t been posted anywhere online yet. organizers from the event intend to send me a few of the presentations that were there as soon as they secure permission to do so, and will put them up here accordingly (if i don’t put them up here, most probably i didn’t ending up getting them).
we will have to wait and see if any of the recommendations are considered by the powers that be. in the meantime, a few stats of interest along with some pictures:
- recent studies have shown that traffic peak hours in Beirut are continuous from 8 am to 8 pm (leading to myth of early morning and early evening quick getaways)
- north entrance to Beirut experiences 288,000 cars per day. the south entrance is 77,000 cars per day
- 30% of trips are currently made by public transport
pics related to the conference,
pics from “Darreja“, a cycling awareness event that fastforward organized a few months ago,
“a hug doesn’t give you AIDS” is the slogan by the red cross for world AIDS day. bumped into them in Hamra tonight and they were giving “free hugs” (btw, I have yet to meet a red cross volunteer that doesn’t have great attitudes and a positive outlook)
the version of free hugs I know of is different (freehugscampaign.org), but this campaign has it’s own approach.
was great to see Mashrou3 Leila while visiting Doha. i was there moderating a panel on Going Viral: Guerilla Marketing in a Digital World and on opening night Mashrou3 Leila were there playing their sweet tunes. below is a video (shim el yasmeen) that i took and uploaded when i was there. enjoy…
she was commissioned to document picture-by-picture the landscape of the arab film industry including but not limited to: directors, actors,…(there is an exception here or there of Robert de Niro or Salma Hayek)
she flew from city-to-city to take the pictures. they are all in black and white, and look really great especially when they are blown up to big sizes.
her sister accompanied her to record the process in a documentary style. we saw a few clips of it here at the festival and they are very energetic.
they gave us a copy of her book and the series is called: I AM FILM
(everything was shot in digital btw)
every morning when i take a look at the pics on my way to a festival event, i used to recognize now familiar faces that I met from the day before. like a morning brain exercise.
interesting to see l’orient Le Jour actually have an iPad app and have made the arrangements with a local bank (eblf.com) to sell you an iPad (via installments) with the l’orient Le jour app bundled in it.
the subscription model for the iPad app without the ipad is unclear. plus l’orient Le jour homepage doesn’t visibly have a mention of this offer or the ipad app to begin with. the bank does though (eblf.com/en/OLJ).
any other Lebanese (or regional) newspapers you know of that are gradually starting to embrace digital age ?
my newborn is 14 days old, and has so far taught me 14 things:
power cuts are possible even in the delivery room of a highly reputed hospital in beirut. we were lucky not to lose power in the “live” delivery room, but we did lose power in the “temp” delivery room hours earlier where they placed us when we first came in. had to use my iPhone as a flashlight for the minute or what not before the generator kicked in.
a newborn is a great photography subject that helps improve your photography skills. she is an awesome subject to take pictures of: she barely moves + doesn’t complain as i experiment and tweak settings. I got to be faster though. that is why I continued with a photography workshop although things are busy at home. taking pictures of lea is definitely a part i am enjoying, partly photography passion, partly documentation of the moment.
an online community around you continues to be something great to experience and i am definitely grateful. it was the first personal non-work non-social non-event related tweet I posted. got an overwhelming response. tried to give a personalized response and thanks to each. i hope i succeeded. the birth tweet was: tonight at 11pm my newborn lea added parenting & fatherhood-in-Beirut categories to my blog. no idea what content is in store for me though
newborns are too young to react to my crazy dance moves. apparently when you are that age, there are only a few things you can make out such as some colors, some shapes,…guess she will be spared the obnoxious dance moves for the first couple of months
newborns are too young for facepaint. gearing up for her to experience her first halloween (she will be 5 weeks old by then) and was looking into how far (and scary) i can make her. facepaint as it turns out is not an option.
no one wants to see a scary newborn on halloween. i thought i would go back to the essence of halloween and have a scary costume for her. everyone opted for a cute newborn costume not the scary one i had in mind for her. i actually got her a bat costume with cute little wings (and was envisioning facepaint with extended canines and stuff). seeing the reaction from people when i share this concept with them made me glad that i got the backup costume: cute little furry lamb . other halloween stuff i got were ghost socks and a halloween bib.
her middle name is actually my name. first form i ever filled out on her behalf (her birth certificate), i put my father’s name as a middle name (as i have done for years and years when filling out any form requesting a middle name)
someone else is now ALWAYS in the house, and is most probably sleeping. i played a youtube video in the evening and apparently it was a bit loud and it scared her.
got a ton of “tirba bi 3izzak” comments from friends and family. had to look into what it means technically, the origins of this saying, and what i need to do to make sure that she will “tirba bi 3izzeh”. it turned out to be more complicated than i thought.
it is difficult to identify the key ingredients to a healthy environment to grow up in. for example, anyone who spends enough time with her says that she is calm and quiet. the thought that always comes to my mind: she hasn’t spent enough waking hours with us. i’m sure she will no longer be calm then hoping the chaotic environment around her will actually be fun for her and us.
be mindful of what you wear and what you do in your own home. the house turns into a revolving door with family going in and out in different intervals. this is very different from the version of the house when it was just the two of us.
everyone has an “expert” interpretation of what the baby wants & needs. it reminded me of the time my car brokedown and bored bystanders were giving me their “expert” opinion on what is wrong with the car (without actually examining it) and what i should have done to avoid this situation.
hospitals and society have immense faith in the capabilities (and instincts) of new parents to take care of kids. did you know that you can walk out of a hospital a couple of days after giving birth & there is no follow up system to make sure that you are doing the right thing for the baby ? you need exams to get into college, job interviews for joining a firm,…i just assumed for giving life and then sustaining it, there would be an entity at some point that makes sure we know baby CPR or that facepaint is not suitable for a newborn (lesson 5 above).
lullabies are more enjoyable for me more than her. got her the lullaby renditions of U2, Queen, ACDC,…. i find myself reciting lyrics with her endlessly.
ps: she cried out as i was writing this post. i usually try soothing her by talking to her, so i told her i was writing a blog post about her and then found myself plunging into explaining what a blog is. when i realized what i was doing (explaining a blog to an eating pooping 14-day newborn ), i paused and dialed it down. but it got me thinking how do i know when you cross the line as a parent by bombarding them with too much information ? that would be a topic for another blogpost – how not to drive your kids crazy with information…
below are some moments that i enjoyed capturing and wanted to share with you.
during the holy month of ramadan there are a lot of traditional deserts that are served mostly during this month. ”sahlab”, a milk extract (i guess), is one of those exquisite desserts. ”furn elchamil” (or the chami bakery) specializes in serving “sahlab” and has an outdoor stand that serves it. this video briefly depicts the serving process. yummy…
the talented artist maya zankoul of mayazankoul.com released her second book of her amalgam series.
barely 15 days out and it made it to the top 5 at virgin megastores (http://ht.ly/2rHj8 /via @sdarine)
the book can be found in virgin megastores and librairie antoine.
her book signing took place on august 4th, 2010 in art lounge.
overall it was a fun event, lotsa people, and a nice location.
this is a one-minute video summary of the event:
this is a more detailed video from the event with interviews, quick view of art space, and bits from here and there (total duration: 11 minutes)
members of the online community that were sighted in the video:
will most likely be clueless then like I am now.
