Students Rights

Here is a list of the student’s rights as the students wrote them:
• Students have the right to eat for free, because they pay a lot of money to get food from the cafeteria and they end up having food poisoning.
• The right to start our classes at 12:00 pm in order if the doctor was late, we would be waking up on our normal time, and the shops will be opened so we can go to make shopping.
• The right to have a psychologist in each university to talk with the students when they get nerves break down (this usually happens).
• The right to go to the toilet at anytime.
• The right to wear whatever they like.
• The right to eat in class.
• The right to have no attendance.
• The right to leave the class after 10 minutes if the doctor was late and be counted as attendance.
• The right to have an open book exam.
• The right to get practice work and training.
• The rights to choose the electives otherwise don’t call it elective.
• The right to choose the project subject no one should interfere.
• The right of not having written exams in practical courses. Come on its called practical.
• If they were mass communication students they have the right to ask the doctor to give them the contacts of the celebrity if he is assigning them an interview.
• The right of having communication with the doctors, Dean and member of the staff.
• The right to have time to enjoy their lives (we have lives to life).
• The right to be more respected by the doctors.
• The right to choose what to learn.
• The right to vote for the Dean position.
• The right to demonstrate and have political activities.
• The right to know the year plan from the first day in university (when is midterms, finals, quizzes, etc.).
• The right of freedom of speech.
• The right to choose the doctor, and evaluate him and my evaluation would be taken seriously.
• The right to ask the doctor for explanation and they repeat until I understand.
• The right to have a real student union with real elections.
• A week before the midterms, finals to be able to study.
• To have extracurricular activities offered by the university.
• Periods of lectures and major related stuff to be reasonable to do these extracurricular activities.
• The university must have connections inside the corporations to offer trainings and internships for the students
• Offer support on the personal basis for issues such as religious, sexual, health, political and social.
•Useful student exchange programs
•Respecting student's study-life balance
• Developing research and communication skills through establishment a research center equipped with the required and latest technologies and tools
• The university's certificates must be satisfying to the minimum requirements of the market.

That’s all what we are asking for it’s not too much, and it’s just thoughts that come out from people who are suffering from horrible education system across the country.

Students rights

We are approaching the end of the first semester of our final year in university. Actually for me its one week and I will start my vacation. There is a lot of load on us, everyone is stressed out, we have to finish all of our projects and submit it and at the same time we have to study for the exams. Oh that’s unfair it’s too much effort in such a short semester.
So I decided to write this article to set some students rights that we were suffering to get. We are humans and we should have rights am I right?
I started to ask this question to many people and I asked them what they think can be considered as students rights. Many people responded to my question, they are from different universities. The answers I got was a mix between serious, funny and weird answer.
Will tell you about it in the next post.

Just imagine

Last Thursday I went to the movies with some of my friends, we all wanted to watch the new Arabic movie “Awlad El A’m”. We were very excited because our friends who went to that movie said that is an amazing one. All we knew about this movie is: it is a political movie that is talking about the Arab-Israeli conflict, so the pictures in our heads was the normal traditional ways that the Egyptians handle this sorts of movies, so why everyone is saying that it is a good one. I can’t neglect that the trailer of the movie attracted my attention but still they should make the trailer a good one to get peoples attention. Anyway when we entered the movie I have to admit that we saw a different movie, it wasn’t like anything we have imagined. The story is simply amazing, it’s all about a women that figures out that her husband is not an Egyptian and that he is an Isreali and that he works in the MOSAD, then he kidnap them and take them to Telaviv.
We went outside the movie and we were all thinking about the idea of the movie, and my friend Nurah asked me what you will do if you were in her position. I didn’t have any answer to the question, what if this happened to me, I would get a serious depression that will lead to my death. I don’t know the thought itself make me feel bad.
Anyway the movie is amazing it is a have to see movie, I recommend it. Maybe you can answer the question that Nurah asked and no one had an idea about the answer.

God is watching over you

In our lives we face many problems, we have to be strong enough to face it, wise enough to deal with it and eventually get over it. But when people face a problem they tend to be pessimistic and think to themselves “why is this happening to me”.
Stop, take a deep breath and look around you, do a little meditation. What can you see?
You just see the bad things and you totally forgot about the good things that you have in life. The things that maybe someone else is looking at it and saying “oh how lucky is that person for having this”. You should be grateful for what you have.

“I had the blues because I had no shoes, until upon the street; I met a man that had no feet”

Remember that God is the one, who makes you face these problems, and he helps you to get over it, it’s all in his hands. So you should have a lot of faith in God, remember the good things that he gave you, and be sure whenever you are and wherever you are he is watching over you. God is the one who guides you through the dark to see the light. So we should never be pessimistic, we should always be optimistic and have faith that god will lead us to the right path.
When you are sitting alone thinking how things are not going your way and that the world got you down. Always remember one thing God's taking care of you and watching over you, so there is no use in worrying.

Projects, Projects, Projects....

It was time for us to know every single project we have to do for our courses in university. Oh my god it’s only three weeks left and then we will have our finals. Anyway we started to know our projects and as usual we don't wake up until the last moment but we luckily achieved some of the projects. This was the only project left as the other projects was a group work so every group was trying to finish before the others as if we are playing in the Olympics and we have to win the gold. But it's fine because at least I was done with most of my projects except one and when did I figured that out, before one week of the actual submitting date. Was it too late? Not really I just had one tiny problem I have to interview a famous person and write a 5000 word essay… ohh piece of cake isn't it. I called like one thousand famous figure and they either don't answer the phone or they are busy doing stuff, to be honest they were really helpful. Did I care! actually no, I didn't give up and I kept on trying and all my friends and family members helped as well, whoever can get me a phone number of a celebrity he get it to me and as usual no answer or the famous “I am busy” phrase.
Until that day I was asleep when I heard the phone ringing it was one of my family members calling me, giving me a phone number of one of the most famous celebrities in Egypt and he told me to try, maybe it can happen this time. Fine, why not, I already tried millions of numbers before. I encouraged myself, grabbed my mobile and dialed the number, it was ringing and then I heard the voice of Mohamed Sobhy. I was so happy and so excited, I was saying to myself “even if he said no I will be satisfied”. I told him that I want to come to do an interview with him because I have a university project, I was crossing my fingers while hearing the respond, and to be honest unexpectedly I heard “yes sure, when do you want to come, pick a day”. Oh, is it really that simple!! We scheduled a day and I was really happy I am going to see Mohamed Sobhy. I woke up the day of the interview very early to see what I am going to wear. It took me so long to decide what I am going to wear and then I figured out that it’s time to leave for the interview. I went to Sonbol City on the Alexandria desert highway to meet him, when I entered his office he was a little bit stressed in the beginning so I felt a little disappointed, but after we started the interview I found a wonderful, knowledgeable, humble and decent person. I forgot I was in an interview and instead I felt I am talking with my father or someone really close to me, it was more like a heart-to-heart conversation. I was really impressed by this wonderful person that I was sitting in front. After I was done with my interview I went back home feeling so happy, and guess what!!! while writing my essay I didn’t listen to the tape… because I could memorize every single word that he said. I found myself releasing all the potential I have while doing this project because I really loved the interview and it was more than a project to me.
From this situation I have learned when you love something you will be able to release all your potentials you thought you never had. Another thing I have learned, and that’s when you think that nothing is working out, you’re running out of time and you are simply screwed, things turns out to be in your own favor.
Always remember love what you do, do it with all the passion you have, and be patient.
Oh I forgot to tell you I got an A in this project.

Is love really blind?

“Love is blind” a word we hear and read about a lot in movies, novels, nowadays between friends, everyone is talking about the phrase “love is blind”. But let’s start first by trying to define this phrase. Blind love is when you love someone, it doesn't matter what they look like, or how they really act because love does not see flaws, and love makes one unable to see things as they really are.

But is love really blind or we are the one’s who choose to make it blind!!!

I do think that we are the ones who choose to make it blind. If you want to see the truth you will see it clearly but if we don’t want (and that’s what usually happens), we choose to see its perfect side and we neglect the flaws.

As long as we are in love with someone we choose to see him/her as perfect as possible with no single flaw. But when problems happen we see him/her “PERFECTLY”. You see their flaws and you start to think who this person is, I don’t know him/her. Actually this is the same person whom we loved, he didn’t change a little bit, but we are the ones who choose to view him as the “perfect” person from the beginning. He is acting normally but we are shocked or hurt because we choose not to see this part of him from the beginning, and then we go running and blame it on Love and say that it is blind. No we are the ones who choose to make it blind.

Love was never blind so my advice to you is seeing the flaws before the merit, because if you can accept the flaws which are the disadvantage in this love, you will be happy with the merits of it.

Always remember see the “Imperfect person perfectly” and you will be happy.

Halloween In Egypt

On the 31st of October, I woke up in the morning it was a normal day, or that’s what I thought it was. I had a phone call from one of my friends telling me that she will pick me up from home to go and search for a gift to one of our friends because her birthday was after three days. I went off my bed took a shower, had breakfast and was prepared to go out to search for the perfect gift. We bought a lovely gift and went to one of the famous toy stores to wrap it and get a card, before we entered the store we looked at its front window and we found that the store was having a theme, weird customs of vampires, werewolves, and spooky pumpkins. What is this, oh my god it’s Halloween! It was the first time that I recognized that we celebrate Halloween here in Egypt, to be honest it sounds weird; Halloween has nothing to do with us so why do we celebrate it! I thought about it for a minute and I recognized something more funny and weird, we celebrate Valentines, Christmas, and Thanksgiving. When I asked my friend the same question, she told me “okay I do agree with you but for the celebration of Valentine’s its normal, I think it’s a worldwide celebration but if you’re asking about the weird thing regarding Valentines you will find out that we celebrate it twice a year for some unknown reason”. I went back home still thinking about it, but unfortunately I didn’t go lucky I didn’t find a single answer to my thoughts. So I decided to forget about it and open my Facebook account that I haven’t checked for a week now and see what’s new with my friends. I had a shock, an invitation to WHAT… a Halloween house party, weird status of people saying Happy Halloween; others are attending events held in houses, clubs, restaurants, etc. OKAY this is serious; this is not Aprils fool… No we are in October, so what’s wrong, what’s going on in Egypt, I am twenty years old and as long as I lived we have never knew that Halloween existed except 5 years ago or something, right now we are celebrating it!
The happy part of this weird story that I wasn’t alone wandering, I found some people also wondering with me about the whole issue and the best one was for my cousin when he asked a question on his Facebook account “Since when did Halloween become national celebration in Egypt” and we found a lot of similar responds from people finding the issue getting on their nerves, and some shared stories about asking about customs out of curiosity and they found it worth 2000 pounds I know it sounds ridiculous but it’s true”.
Any way since people is starting to celebrate weird events we will start to celebrate the 4th of July but in the Egyptian style.

Mistakes

Mistakes!! What is a mistake I don’t do mistakes, I am a good person and I avoid doing anything wrong. Well ok relax, take a deep breath and start to think again, but this time in a different way maybe from another perspective. Everyone in this life do a mistake at least one when you are a saint, it’s normal. We shouldn’t be sad, mad, or even ashamed. Because if we just took two seconds to think about the issue, we will find it shall we say it again, yes it’s normal.

Every one of us should do a mistake to learn something from it, if you never did any mistake then certainly you didn’t learn anything out of life, your life is worthless, “it’s always helpful to learn form your mistakes because then your mistakes seems worthwhile” Garry Marshall.

Some people say that they learn from other people mistakes and experiences, but in their own life’s they don’t have any mistake because they are not foolish. In a matter of fact, this is totally wrong because we should always remember that every one of us is unique and have his own unique experience and mistakes. Yes, of course we can learn form other people experiences but we can’t be them we won’t live there life’s, so we should have our own mistakes to look back at it, analyze it and learn from it. When you experience a mistake of your own is totally different from just hearing about other’s mistakes. It’s your own, you’re the only one who knew what happened, how it happened, how to avoid it the next time, and how it feels, nobody else know all of this because no body else is you.

“Mistakes are a part of being human, appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from” Al Franken.

Mistakes always lead you to your success in life. While creating the light bulb, Edison discovered 1,800 ways not to build one. He failed in the beginning, but he invented the light bulb at last, because, when you fail, you learn what’s not working and you get the opportunity to try new approaches.

Always remember that mistakes should be made, even God who created us told us in all the religions that mistakes are humans traits. That’s why god created the word “Forgiveness”, so that if you made a mistake, and you should forgive god for it he will forgive you.

Robert Fisk: Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask

This is the title of Fisk's latest article. In this article Fisk is trying to make the western countries open their eyes on the truth, to look around them and see why do the Arab hate them, why are they against Israel. He talked about the "war crimes" done by Israel and how they come out with lies such as "Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties" and in fact they kill thousands of citizens. But if the Arab killed one Israeli they are terrorists. He made fun of the western by saying "Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel – is on a quite different scale." And we still wonder why they hate us. In many other articles he is against anybody even Arab leaders or Western leaders who are standing still and watching this genocide of the Palestinians.

Somalia Piracy

The African high seas are becoming dominated by foreign navies because of the piracy. The oceans and the seas that are attacked by the pirates have war ships from the United States, other NATO members, Russia, and India. The countries prone to piracy are Somalia, Kenya, Egypt, Nigeria, as well as Yemen on the other side of the Gulf of Aden. Also the landlocked African countries are affected, because the supplies take a long time to arrive. The consumers are harmed because of the high insurance premiums.In my opinion Egypt should take more firm decisions about this case, and must be the first country to defend this route from piracy, because the Egyptian economy depends on the Suez Canal as one of it's main financial sources. As By 1955 approximately two-thirds of Europe's oil passed through the canal. About 7.5% of world sea trade is carried via the canal today. Receipts from the canal July 2005 to May 2006 totaled $3.246 billion. In 2007, 18,193 vessels passed through the canal. Average per-ship cost is roughly $150,000.00, and on 30 December 2007 it was announced that Egypt will increase Suez Canal transit fees by an average of 7.1% in 2008.

CNSnews, Friday,November21,2008
by Stephen Mbogo

Nuclear Proliferation

One of the most important issues through the last decades is the nuclear power, especially at the end of the World War 2 when the United States ended the war by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki with an atomic bomb, and after that attack the empire of Japan announced surrender to the allied powers. That was the only time ever that the atomic bomb was used in a war or any other nuclear weapons. As after that a treaty of non proliferation was signed by all the states with nuclear weapons. The treaty is supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency known as IAEA. One of the most important news about this agency is that it is now head by Dr. Mohamed Mustafa El-Baradei. These days the nuclear power issue is still very important but not for destructive and war purposes but for peaceful means, as the nuclear power is now used in agricultural, industrial and water sweetening purposes. Egypt has ended the year 2008 by purposing an important project which is establishing a nuclear station for peaceful means. And by that Egypt will enter a new era of it's life after the industrial era which is the nuclear era.

Al-Siyassa Al-Dawliya
Issue no. 174, October,2008
Ambassador, Ahmad Haggag
Iman Ahmad Ragab
Wikipedia, Nuclear Proliferation

Our Hearts Are Bleeding for Gaza

It has been 10 days since Israel started attacks on Gaza, resulting casualties in lives and infrastructures. The latest news has showed that since the beginning of the attacks 531 Palestinians has died, and 2500 have been injured. These loses have varied between women, children, old and young men. As a result to these attacks many questions arises, the regional question is whether the Arab and Muslim countries will stand still or they are going to take a serious action this time especially in their meetings. The second question arises in the international arena whether the Euporean council is going to refuse these attacks done by Israel or not, and whether the United States is going to use the right of Vito in the Security Council in the UN as usual!!

Left With A Shoe Threw

Iraqi journalist Muntazer Al-Zaidi threw his shoes on President Bush during his Farwell conference in Iraq. The shoe missed the President and he wasn't injured. People made jokes about the incident and they said "Bush should be happy it was not a gun" others said "he left the white house with a shoe thrown at him" what a great end.

Changes Has Come To America

On November the 4th, 2008, Barack Hussein Obama the democratic candidate has defeated John McCain the republican's candidate in the general election after the greatest political battle in the history of America's presidency elections. Obama has become the first African American president of the United States. In his victory speech, in Chicago's Grand Park, Obama proclaimed that "changes has come to America"