The HOBBIT!

So it's been confirmed that the Hobbit will be turned into three movies. I know, I was surprised when I heard the news, having read the book myself all those years ago I honestly didn’t see why they wanted to turn it into two books in the first place. But I have faith in peter Jackson, and honestly I thought that the Hobbit lacked something compared to the Lord of The Rings. It was a great book, don’t get me wrong, but at the same time it could've been better. I mean lord of the rings was amazing, and it's one of the main reasons I write, so anything compared to it won’t quite match it. But Peter Jackson announced that he's going to add other material, which I think is a brilliant idea, and even though the execs are thinking $$$ I really think he'll make three awesome movies, at least I hope so. 

20!

I haven’t posted anything in a while, it's not that I had nothing to say or talk about, but I guess I wasn’t up to sharing anything yet. But a lot has happened over the past few weeks: I became an uncle, and I finish the first draft of my novel, surprisingly both on the same day, July 11th. Okay I’ll admit I pushed myself that last day so they can be both on the 11th. 

I managed to cut almost 70k words out of my earlier draft. I don’t know how I did it but somehow it worked out in the end. And now I’ll I need is to finalize this draft before going through the final edit. But I’ve been a bit lazy ever since I finished it. I don’t really like editing, heck I don’t think anyone does, but I have to finish it eventually. I’m planning to get through this edit before the 5th, which is when I get to go back to the US.

20! I know that sounds pretty old, and a bit strange, but I just turned 20. I don’t really know what to expect from my 20's but hopefully this decade will be a lot better than the last. 

Politicians and Shoes

So what do Politicians have to do with Shoes? Well watch the video and see for yourself.

This by the way, is a perfect example of the government in Arab countries. i'm not saying the people are like this, and most people are disgraced by being represented by people like these two, but unfortunately more often than not they don't have a say.

Enjoy!

LOVE

I don’t understand love. I know that's because I’ve never been in love. But I can't understand something that'd keep a person in an abusive relationship, or if your simply being hurt by the other person. I’m bringing this up because the friends that recently broke up are on the verge of getting back together. My male friend hurt my female friend far too much, to the point that I’m no longer friends with him. He was abusive in so many ways, yet it took her a year and a half to break up with him. And now she's on the verge of going back to him, because she loves him, and he might commit suicide if she doesn't. I know he won’t kill himself; he's too into himself to even consider it. Besides as a person that was suicidal for two years, I know a suicidal person when I see one, and he's not.

But even if he is, should she give up her happiness for him? Whoever said that being in love meant being happy is totally wrong. I know this is true from countless friends that have experienced it. They all would literally give up everything for another person that more often than not doesn't feel the same way about them. I don't understand this, I’d give up my happiness for my family, but not if they're abusive, because in the end of the day they have to deserve my love. If they treat me like all those people were treated I’d say the hell with them.

I know I said I don’t understand love, and I probably never will, but is love worth it if it’s harming us? I know from some of my own characters that the answer is yes at times, but they always end up either regretting it or work it out. So I guess the moral of that is to change. You can't stay the same and expect to wake up happier, you can't expect the other person to change, and if you want to stay with them you have to change. 

So here's my bit of advice for people not sure whether or not to break up with the person they're with:

1) If they're abusing you then they don’t love you, and tomorrow won’t be a better day. This person might think they love you, but they're delusional, no one abuses someone they truly love. Pack your bags and leave.

2) If you've been together for more than five years and you’re still not sure if you want to spend the rest of your life with them then something is wrong. You don’t have to leave; you just have to live with the fact that it's never going to happen. You’re not going to wake up with all the answers the next morning. Stay or leave it's your choice, but you know it's pointless.

3) If the other person doesn’t love you after a year or two than they never will, and they'll leave you the moment they find something they do love. You can't expect people to change, there might not be anything wrong with either of you, but it's unfair to ask someone to love you when they can't. 

The point of this is to say a simple fact: we all know deep inside whether it's working out or not. Follow your instincts, because they'll lead you in the right direction. 

Red Sea

So I just came back from vacation. I went to the red sea for a few days, and I really needed those few days. I was about to become suicidal all over again, but now I’m all refreshed and getting ready to get some much needed writing out of the way. I received some great advice from an amazing author last week and I’m going to try to do everything she said. She actually helped me see that there is hope for my writing, that I can possibly make it out there. Of course I need to wait till I finish this re-write to actually see how everything turns out. 

I’m also hoping to start a couple of new project soon. I have a couple of amazing ideas in my mind at the moment. I don't want to get carried away though. I need to finish Paradox first, everything else can wait. I also have the other novel I started, but I’m thinking of leaving that one as a short story, about 30k words or something; which is a short story for me. 

I don’t know if you've been following the news, but things in Syria haven’t quieted down, and things in Jordan are starting to flare. I don’t know where that leaves me. I can't imagine going to war for a country like Jordan. For a country I practically despise!

Hopefully things get better, but for now I’m going to concentrate on my writing!

Syria

So I’m going to talk about something meaningful today, something more important than me or you, or even my hate for Arabs, this is much larger than that. I’d like a moment to talk about the situation in Syria. It’s been going on for over a year now, and things get worse by the day, and if things keep going the way they have, then Syria doesn’t have much to look forward to. 

For those of you that don’t know I was in Jordan when the Arab protests started. I think they started with Tunisia, and then Egypt, and then Libya, and Yemen got in there at some point too, and then last we had Syria. All the other crises ended a few months after they'd begun, but as I mentioned the situation in Syria has been going on for over a year. 

I was there when the refugees began to flee; I was living less than an hour away from the border back then. They came with stories of kids being snatched up from their homes, never to be heard from again. And that was only the first few months. 

After I left Jordan things escalated for the worse. I remember my Syrian friend calling me to tell me that one of our friends in Syria was killed. I used to visit Syria frequently before the protests started. He told me how they had raped his sister and then killed them both, she was only 9. Unfortunately this scene wasn’t unpopular and slowly it became almost natural there. 

Then the massacres started, where they'd kill hundreds of children in a single week; take people out of their homes, torture and sexually assault them and even use children as human shields. 


Here's a video that everyone should see: http://youtu.be/F415nYV_PNg

I know the US and France and a bunch of other countries are trying to interfere, and so is the UN, but it's been going on for over a year. But my question isn’t for the people trying to help, but for the people preventing others from helping the people of Syria, and the men and woman in Syria causing all of this. When did we lose our humanity? When did we become so selfish that we let hundreds of children and woman die right in front of us, and worse kill them? 

I’m trying to understand how these people think. Do they not see the repercussions of their actions? What kind of person would kill a helpless child and go on to kill more? 

Most people just blame the government, but I blame the people. If no one followed Hitler we wouldn't have had a Holocaust. When did we let our humanity go for so called duty? 

The unfortunate thing is that we're all to blame, because we sit in our homes as countries wage war against each other, and children die, and we don't do anything about it.

On the Streets of Jordan

So I’m back to the job I was born to do, to be a personal chauffer for my sister. I had to take her to some martial arts lesson; hope that goes well. So I’m stuck wandering the streets until she's done. I brought my laptop so I can write somewhere. Of course it's taken me more than 45 minutes to find a decent place I can almost work in. Yet even in this place, in one of the nicest cafe's in the country there's so much noise, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to get lung cancer from all the people smoking here. But it's adequate, so I’m going to try to get some writing done; besides this place is giving me a lot of inspiration for my new book.