Sunday, November 2, 2014

moving

I am starting a new blog that Is less personal in a way, I realized this one has a lot of personal/emotional entries that I am not really comfortable sharinv

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Digital drugs





http://news.yahoo.com/video/digital-drugs-see-kids-may-072010278.html


a video has gone viral on whatsapp about digital drugs AKA Binaural beats.




from Wikipedia:
Binaural beats, or binaural tones, are auditory processing artifacts, or apparent sounds, caused by specific physical stimuli. This effect was discovered in 1839 by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove and earned greater public awareness in the late 20th century based on claims coming from the alternative medicine community that binaural beats could help induce relaxation, meditation, creativity and other desirable mental states. The effect on the brainwaves depends on the difference in frequencies of each tone: for example, if 300 Hz was played in one ear and 310 in the other, then the binaural beat would have a frequency of 10 Hz.[1][2]
The brain produces a phenomenon resulting in low-frequency pulsations in the amplitude and sound localization of a perceived sound when two tones at slightly different frequencies are presented separately, one to each of a subject's ears, using stereo headphones. A beating tone will be perceived, as if the two tones mixed naturally, out of the brain. The frequencies of the tones must be below 1,000hertz for the beating to be noticeable.[3] The difference between the two frequencies must be small (less than or equal to 30 Hz) for the effect to occur; otherwise, the two tones will be heard separately, and no beat will be perceived.


Honestly, I've never heard of this before but it got me curious. I've been reading about music therapy for a while and no one can deny the effect of a good beat on the mood and energy right? I am also familiar with Zen music and its calming effect but to hear about beats that induce hallucination, that's new to me and too bizarre to be honest ! but i gotta be honest with you, although I am skeptical about it but I wouldn't dare to try it lol. that video did freak me out and I live alone and I wouldn't want to expose myself to something like that when no one is around to help in case i got psychotic lol.


so I've actually taken the time to look up Binaural beats in google scholar and guess what? there were a couple of papers written on Binaural beats as a treatment for anxiety.. hmm that's interesting .. there was nothing about it being abused or the fact that it may make you psychotic. hmm now I am even more curious to give it a try!!


* an hour later *


IVE DONE IT !! lol, I called a friend and asked her to call me back every 15 min to make sure that I am okay lol
so I googled some videos on youtube. the first one i listened to was a relaxation one but it had a relaxation music along with the beat so I didn't think it would be that helpful to judge or know which one had the calming effect, the beat or the music so I listened to another one that was titled '' powerful something for opening the third eye '', I listened to about 8 min and I felt nothing so I was a bit skeptical again so I decided to venture a bit and try the DRUGS one,
I listened to the marijuana one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcXAvUtR8P4
oh boy, that was wired . I was really anxious about trying it so I started with a very high level of anxiety, i could feel my heart racing and listening to the previous soundtracks didn't make a difference but that one, that one made me very calm and made my body feels heavy in 4 minutes!! honestly, i didn't want to listen to it to the end lol. that soundtrack made me even more curious about other soundtracks so i listened to the ACID and MAGIC MUSHROOM ones lol. magic mushroom made me agitated, i think the sound was too annoying for me and acid had no effect until I turned it off and then i could still hear it in my head even when i closed my ears lol..



you know, listening to these different soundtracks reminded me of something .. ive always loved sleeping in a room with an old AC ! remember the old AC that had a knob and was sticking outside the window? the one that used to drip water all the time and you'd always see a bucket under it because of that? ive always found its noise to be very soothing and now that i am thinking about it, it does sound like white noise and maybe that's why it was that relaxing for me


oh well, no more experimenting for me lol.. actually, that's not true, i think ill give the marijuana track another chance if i ever felt really anxious just to test it again.











Bacck and determined to stay





Been trying to get back to blogging for so long now but my life has been hectic with work and stuff.
anyway, things are slowly changing for me .
well, I cant really say '' things '',  its more like '' me''. I am slowly changing and I cant say that ive completely changed, I am still a work in progress but I am definitely determined to make this new change happen . I am done being tossed around by life and I am trying to find a better way to take back control.
good things are happening already. I am finally motivated to study, finally found a way to read more and I feel calmer and '' wiser '' lol. I know, wiser and me don't get along but other people noticed that as well lol.
ive always loved writing and ive always found it to be helpful and I knew that writing would help a lot in keeping me going forward and keeping that progress so ..
as a way to make sure that I get to write and blog as much as I needed, ive actually bought me a NEW LAPTOP lol .
its not a big deal, although my MacBook is dying on me and probably, I should've bought me a new one, but I decided to buy me a small light laptop that I can carry with me wherever I go and blog as I go if that makes any sense .. I am away from home from 9 am to 9 pm and I cant carry my laptop with me because its too heavy so by the time I am home, I am usually too tired and uninspired to write my thoughts down so hopefully, now that I have an access to a laptop all day long, ill be aable to write more.


plus, I used to have some one to bounce my thoughts on but now that they are gone, i could use something to bounce my thoughts on.

Friday, April 11, 2014

goodbyes


The last night in my bed,
my last lunch with my family,
how i get to decide the family's dinner on the last night,
my last goodbyes to family and friends.
ive probably done that about 5 times in the past 2 years and its still painful like hell. it has not got any easier .. im starting to doubt that it will ever get easier ..
home sickness while away n home sickness while here .. and the worst during my travel back.

once again, Goodbye
and until we meet again, be well


Wednesday, April 9, 2014

so much in so little time


I left to Canada on April 2012.
During my first year abroad, I lost an aunt to pancreatic cancer. She passed away 6 months after being diagnosed with cancer. She didnt have alot of time and I was not home early enough to say Goodbye..

During my second year abroad, a friend of mine was found dead.. she was found outside an old building, all alone .. she was 2 months away from graduation and finally returning back home after 4 years of studying abroad.. She waited too long to come back home .. Her family didnt get to attend her graduation and finally brag about her being a doctor and she never made it to her welcome home party .. She died too soon..
a special person of mine made a dramatic decision and she chose a different life path and now i am teaching my self how to live without them. they basically dont exist anymore.
also, my grandmother had 2 strokes in a row and now she is withering slowly ..

Today, I found out that my mum's best friend who;s like a mother to us has been diagnosed with cancer. I don't know the details yet but I can't deny that this has hit me hard ..

its so sad that you never appreciate what you have until you lose it .. suddenly i feel like i want to spend every single day with her .. its so sad that i found out 48 hrs before my flight back to Canada. 

it has been 2 years since i left yet so many things have happened already .. too many losses in too little time.

it makes you wonder ..
is there anything you can do to stop death from happening ? or make it less painful ?
ive been living with expectations of death everyday hoping it would make it less painful when it finally happens .. but i was wrong .. its still shocking .. and its still too damn painful.. and it doesnt make it any easier ..

We should cherish those little things.. our random interaction .. the chance to say hello to our loved ones . because we can suddenly lose that and we will be left with nothing but regrets for taking it for granted ..

when these things happen, then you realize what truly matters and what doesnt .. and then you'll see how you wasted your life away chasing meaningless in life while keeping those who meant the most to us on hold only to find out that they were gone long time ago while we were chasing what turned out to be trivial at the end.

This could be our last conversation .. My last post and My Final Goodbye.

Monday, March 31, 2014

My own cultural shock



Its amazing how two years away from kuwait can do so much like making me have a cultural shock around my own people
I didnt have to land in kuwait to feel that shock, i felt it while waiting for the plane in Istanbul!!

I noticed myself looking at Kuwaitis like an outsider! Everything about them stood out and suddenly it was not the norm anymore.. 
Dont get me wrong, i dont mean it in a bad way at all. Im just starting to see things differently i guess.

I never realized how much make up people put on until today. Omg omg! Its the usual , you know foundation, blusher, shadow, lipsticks!! But u know it seemed too much now.. definitely not natural anymore lol!! I noticed how shocked i was looking at the girls. They do look as if they were going to a party indeed :/
Full make up and fully dresses up for the flight! Made me wonder if looking good mattered more than being comfortable ? Definitely ive taken the latest approach in canada! 

Ive always been told that arabs were loud! OMG WE ARE!!! We are just TOO loud!! If you are in a cafe in north america, ull notice how quiet people are even when they talk and if theres a khaliji in the house, trust me, you will know!! And you will also know the whole conversation!!!! 
Ha ha its funny because ive always been told that im loud and it scares me to know that i could be THAT loud!! 

I dont know if its the sense of entitlement or if its disrespect but there is no respect to ques or lines! They dont even do it slowly as in slowly squeezing themselves in the que, they just walk infront of you!!! ASHKARA!!! Which is really annoying coz in north america even elderly  or people with disability wait for their turn! Maybe i should actually stop and ask some one who cuts in, im curious to know what their response will be!!
They called for boarding per groups but everyone just rushed in regardless of their group! Wow..

It didnt end there. There were CHOAS on board! The plane was delayed almost 45min because of the choas that was made by some families where they took over other people seats and actually REFUSED to move!!! They were asked to go to their seats but refused! Plus ppl got alot of gifts but and filled the overhead bins to the fact that ppl had no place for their bags and were pissed off!! And they had to put em under the seats of other passengers!!! Other ppl decided that it wont be a full flight thus sat in other ppls places and then had to be asked to move when the designated passenger arrived such in my case where a guy was in my place n then asked to move. Its crazy i swear!
You know whats sad? Its not the first time that i see such CHOAS! In almost every flight back home, ive witnessed something similar and even when i went on vacations! Flights leaving KUwait where most passengers were kuwaiti had similar stuff happening on them!

The stares, the gossips, the whole kuwaiti package!! Omg
Im surprised that im actually shocked!! Its amazing how much you can change in 2yrs.. 



Muslims and Mosques



i dont know if ive written about this before, if i did, ill do it again to show you how much this thing bugs me !!!
why wont people respect mosques ?
Maybe i am becoming a bit sensitive after living in canada. Being away from mosques and athan makes you really appreciate it !! you have no idea how badly i miss hearing the athan.. omg that little thing that we had 5 days a week that we take from granted. I swear to god, it hits you hard when you are not in an islamic country !! and then everytime i step into a real mosque ( not a meditation/prayer room), you get this peaceful feeling upon you ..

anyway, i am in Istanbul airport waiting for my flight to go back home and i went to the mosque to pray and then i saw the usual mosque scene .. people using it as a sleeping room or people sitting there talking outloud, kids playing around and mobiles ringing everywhere .. it makes it so hard for you to pray eb 5sho3 or even concentrate while you pray and what hit me is realizing that ive only seen this in muslims prayers rooms !! ive been to churches, synagogues and temples .. ive never seen such a shameful behaviour ! People are praying quietly, respectful to their religion and to others! Ive never seen people sleeping there or kids running around ! Ive never heard a mobile rings there so why do these things happen in mosques only ?

Whats surprising is that people pray 5 times a day and you'd assume muslims are a bit religious and do take their religion seriously.. i bet they fear or love god and thats why they pray 5 times .. well .. if thats the case then why are you disrespecting the mosque ? Why do you turn this holy place where you get to talk and connect with god to a dowania or a sleeping place? If you know that 5osho3 is part of the prayer, why dont you respect others when they pray ?

I was so angry today !! SO SO angry !! but again, its not only in turkey, ive seen this in every mosque .. even in Mecca !! its sad .. its very sad ..