I feel boring today. We are studying 'al-khilaaf al-zawjiyya' in class - marital disagreements - which would be educational if I was married, and even more so if I didn't already know all about them. Yay.

So now I am in Level 8, there are only three people in my class. I wish I could stay in Egypt for a few more months. Trouble with wanting something too much is that the disappointment is almost exponentially worse when it doesn't work out. The other trouble is, it won't work out just by dint of you wanting it so much. XD

---
I think this came to me at the exact right moment:

A warrior of light carefully studies the position that he intends to conquer.

However difficult the objective, there is always a way of overcoming obstacles. He seeks out alternative paths, he sharpens his sword, he tries to fill his heart with the necessary determination to face the challenge. But as he advances, the warrior realises there are difficulties he had not reckoned with.

If he waits for the ideal moment he will never set off; he requires a touch of madness to take the next step.

The warrior uses that touch of madness.

For - in both love and war - It is impossible to foresee everything.

---

Abdullah keeps on saying, 'don't beat around the bush' and he won't shut up. Somebody's cranky today. Okay, back to Pita Ten.

(edit: now he keeps saying, 'it's be-yoooo-ti-fullll')

I am eating cornflakes with mango juice and typing with two fingers.

Why Women Cry

A little boy asked his mother, "Why are you crying?"
"Because I need to" she said.
"I don't understand," he said.

His mother just hugged him and said, "And you never will."

Later the little boy asked his father, "Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?"

"All women cry for no reason," his dad answered carelessly.

The little boy, still wondering why women cry, finally asked the wise old shaikh. "He surely knows the answer," he thought.

"Shaikh! Why do women cry so easily?"

He answered, "When Allah made the woman she had to be made so special. He made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, yet gentle enough to give comfort. He gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that comes from her children. He gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining. He gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances, even when her child hurts her very badly. He gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart. He gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly. And lastly, He gave her a tear. This is hers and only hers exclusively to use whenever she needs it. She needs no reason, no explanation; it's hers."

"You see my son, the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the beauty of her face, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart - the place where love resides."

Now Mezzy-mez has left, too, and there are only three of us in this big, huge, airy house. If we wanted, each of us could sleep in a different room. But really, we are all sleeping in the same room. It's a big dark empty howly house!

I just finished reading a book by Gene Stratton-Porter, 'Her Father's Daughter.' Normally, I'm a really big fan of hers (particularly for Kate Bates), but this book was a bit...disturbing. I haven't looked up when it was written, but it is a lot about the Japanese threat to the US, so I'm guessing around WW2, and full of all sorts of things that made me flinch - lots about 'Japs' and the 'yellow peril,' and a great deal more about good white American boys and girls, and the 'white right to supremacy', and that white man creates and innovates while other colours only steal and imitate, and will eventually bring about the downfall of good Americans by bleeding them dry. I'm quite aware that books must be taken contextually, but still. Wince wince, flinch flinch.