Ramadan.

Today is the first day of Ramadan. I've desided to fast for Ramadan with my family. In case anyone dosn't know Ramadan is the month in which Allah dictated the Koran to the prophet Mohamed. During this month we don't eat or drink from sun up to sun down. So i wrote a big long post about what my hows was like but the for some reason it didn't work and got lost in the digital cosmos and i don't feel like writing it again so mabye next time.

Alexandria.

So we're in alexandria. Abdul Rakman and I. Along with some of his friends from tanta and from alex. It's nice here at night but during the day it's hot as hell. We went to see the 3rd largest library in the world which was kindof un spectacular in turms of it was just a lot of book but the german designed building was really cool. Then we went to the fort that is but on the foundations of the lighthouse of alexandria and that was really fun. My friends here are really cool and it's nice because i genuenly feel that they are my friends too not Abdul Rakman's friends who let me tag along. non the less i still miss everybody and wish you were all here with me. To answer Rake's question durning the day if we're not sightseeing or sleeping we're playing cards and watching tv. they watch a lot of movies here they know more american movie than i do which isn't saying much but still. They also love soccer/football in egypt and they play it eather for real or on playstation all the time. i'm not really very good at writing long bits in detail about whats going on so please ask questions about stuff and i'll answer them.

news update

So the way egypt works is you stay up late and sleep until 2:oo. that way you avoid the sun. I've been sleeping alot, it just takes a lot of energy to be here. cold showers in the morning help. and naps. my dreams are differant than they are at home. i often dream about home which makes it easier to not miss home if i get to see everyone when i go to bed at night. i can feel that i'm not getting enough hugs though. and i suppose i could hug the men in my family but it wouldn't be very comforting. guys here are really skinny and hard.

Day 3

It's hot. Not really any hotter than urbana but urbana's to hot too. Anyway, i normally feel crummy in the mornings. I'm "weaker" i guess if i'm out doing something i normally feel fine if i'm tired i get really depressed, but i'm finding out what works best for me. I got up ad took a shower today it felt good. they don't have a shower curtain so after you take a shower you have to get all the water on the floor into this drain with a giant sqeegee. my dreams have been really weird i've been dreaming about people alot. it's hard being awayfrom home but i'll take one day at a time and once things around here get more familiar it will get easier and easier.

I'm Here!!!!

So i got to egypt safely and really the only bad thing so far is no spel chek. it was a long plane ride over but lufthansa has delicious food and i snaped some cool shots of the alps as we flew over. my family is very friendly and welcomeing. i'm really tired so the writing on this blog is not going to be amazing. i didn't sleep so well last night so i'm kind dipressed today but i'll take some melitonin tonight and mabye i'll feel better tomorrow. one of my brothers (Abdul Rakman) speeks pretty good english and has been showing me the ropes. the father Ahmed is very enthusiastic but speaks very little english so most of our conversations "Hallo! Ranner!" "esalamuaalecome Ahmed!" and pointing at thing and saying what they are in aribic. I was asked about global warming yesterday and i think i did a pretty good job of explaining it. anywho maselama.

A few thoughts.

I saw an Anti- War protest the other day and it got me thinking. What does an Anti-War protest achieve? Perhaps a protest of a specific war may prove to be of some affect but a protest of war in general I find relatively pointless. Nobody is really for war in general. Most people don’t wake up each morning thinking, “Man, I wish our country had somebody to kill.” If someone drives by a young woman holding a sign that says, “Say no to war!” they will not be motivated to do anything, in fact they will probably soon forget about it. On the other hand if someone drives by a young woman holding a sign that says, “KILL, KILL, KILL,” or “Bomb the world to pieces!” they won’t forget that, they may even be outraged, and outrage is a good motivator. During the potato famine in Ireland a progressive thinker named Jonathan Swift wrote down a radical solution called, "A Modest Proposal." His idea was that the people of Ireland could solve their problems of surplus population and lack of food by eating their babies. This idea drew huge amounts of attention and upset a lot of people, exactly what it was designed to do. The people of the world suddenly paid a lot more attention to the troubles of Ireland and real ideas began to be concocted.

We are not the only species on earth that commit acts of war and genocide. In actuality all communal species have wars. Whether over territory or food or water, lions, monkeys, wolves, ants, and termites all wage war on each other sometimes even eradicating or enslaving the other colony or species. War is natural, and it hasn’t always been considered bad either. In ancient Sparta to die in battle was the greatest honor one could have. A fallen solder would not be mourned over but celebrated.

With medical advances and new technologies the human quest to prolong life continues. Homo sapiens have no natural predators. War, Disease, Famine, these are our predators. As much as we must fight them we must realize that without them the human race would have died of over population long ago. How can we work so hard to prolong our lives when the quality of so many lives is so little? Is a long life so great if it meant so little?

Fear of death is a human instinct, and if anything makes us civilized it is the ability to overcome primal instincts. Traits that humans value most are all the overcoming of instinct: Courage (overcoming fear), Logic (overcoming impulse), and Selflessness (overcoming greed).

I’m still against war and I still think we should fight AIDS, but I also think we should keep these ideas in the back of our minds because sometime the evil you seek to destroy is the very thing that is keeping you alive.

Leaving the Nest.

There comes a time in every little birds life when it must hurl itself headlong into the blue, spread it's wings, and hope it can fly. Now this very time has come for me and though I think I am ready for it, it does have a way of being a little intimidating.
It's now two weeks until I leave for Egypt and I'm doing all the thing to get ready to leave. I just flew to Minnesota to visit the relatives. I stayed with my aunt and we stayed up late at night talking about ideas for writing we had. She's a poet, I love writing fantasy though I never get around to actually doing it.
Anywho I'm all excited....