About me
Name::Ahmed Arshi
From::Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
A new filmmaker rising from the edge of the horizon.
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Sensibility
Wake up!
Denys Johnson-Davies
There Will Be Blood
No Country For Old Men
When the time is Right..
Chill Out!
The Kite Runner
The Pharaohs are kings again!
Cloverfield
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Friday, March 31, 2006
Non Alcoholic!
Since Alcoholic beverages are illegal in UAE markets they have this..Budweiser NA (Non Alcoholic)!!
Step 1:
Dig a hole
Step 2:
Place a big barrel in the hole
Step 3:
Stuff the barrel with wood and burn the hell out of it for an hour or so
Step 4:
Place the lamb in the barrel after the flames are dead and only the remains of the burnt wood are there
Step 5:
Bury the entire thing, of course after closing the barrel and making sure it is sealed
Step 6:
Wait!!
Step 7:
after waiting for two hours it is time to dig the meal out of the hole
Dinner is ready!
Ten minutes later!!!!
Finally settling your stuffed stomach with a fine sheesha in the middle of the desert!!
The best dessert in the desert!!
Monday, March 27, 2006
Eleven Minutes
This is a provocative book to say the least. Readers may dispute that there is any spiritual theme to it; however, I’d say to them that life is life, no matter what shape or form it may take. We all have the same battles in different guises. We all suffer the same griefs and share the same joys, albeit contained in varying packages.
Eleven Minutes deals with the subject of prostitution. Innocence lost, and the sale of what can never be bought back. Throughout her relatively short career, the Brazilian young woman named Maria finds herself in Geneva, Switzerland. She is in search of some adventure and relief from a destiny of boredom in a life forever lived in a small town in the interior of Brazil, unwilling to succumb to the fate of her peers. She handles life as it comes, and becomes wise beyond her years in the process.
There are interesting reflections in this book and harsh truths. And while the ending was a disappointment, with its racy, romance-novel style quick-how-do-I-end-this wrap up, the book is well worth reading. It flows nicely. It makes you question your own life and what similarities and differences are there, in reality, between reader and main character. I must admit, the Afterword did not relieve this disappointed, rushed closure of the book. I could not make sense of how the author chose to justify the book, its beginning and its end. However, most of the pages in between contain a thoughtful look at life and the meanings we do and don’t give it.
Fans of Paulo Coelho may be surprised by this book, and those new to his writing may be confused about his purpose and motivation in writing such a book. Still, I say, it is a book deserving of a chance, just as the characters deserve to be heard.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
More AIESEC???I'm finally own my feet, ready for discharge on the 30th!!! Still catching up with friends and the world. Matt emails me from Germany and asks me if I can Chair a regional AIESEC Confrence in Stuttgart, Germany the last week of this May.....
I asked him if this was a joke, and he even calls me to get my answer on the spot!!!
I was speechless, but I accepted the offer :)
The confrence is called FAME 2006....I still don't know what it stands for!!!! But I guess I'm chairing it!!!
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
My 6th Novel ?
As I was sitting down as usual doing nothing, watching TV, browsing the net, you know, still trying to catch up with the world...I was watching this program about boxing, it threw me back 10 years when I was in highschool and practicing boxing and all the challenges I had to go through to persuade my parents that I love this sport but they were totally against this sport, so my end was that I had to stop practicing it......
That thought actually inspired me to write a book about boxing!!! Of course I started right away outlining the chapters and giving the characters thier names and how important they are in the story, I just finished writing the first chapter and ideas are still coming!!
Of course I couldn't keep writing, I had to imagine the cover for this one, usually authors write their books and then worry about the cover, I'm the other way around, I love working on the cover and then start writing the story to give me more motivation that this thing has to be accomplished....something like that!!! :)
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1965. He is the oldest of five children. and his mother was a teacher of Farsi and History at a large girls high school in Kabul. In 1976, Khaled’s family was relocated to Paris, France, where his father was assigned a diplomatic post in the Afghan embassy. The assignment would return the Hosseini family in 1980, but by then Afghanistan had already witnessed a bloody communist coup and the Soviet invasion.
Khaled’s family, instead, asked for and was granted political asylum in the U.S. He moved to San Jose, CA, with his family in 1980. He attended Santa Clara University and graduated from UC San Diego School of Medicine. He has been in practice as an internist since 1996. He is married, has two children (a boy and a girl, Haris and Farah). The Kite Runner is his first novel.
After September 11th, as it became apparent that the United States would bomb Afghanistan, an open letter written by an Afghan appeared on the Internet. It pleaded with Americans to realize that Afghanistan was already a devastated country. It needed food, not vengeance; sympathy, not hate.
The Kite Runner, a novel by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini, takes this clarification one step further. The first novel to be written in English by an Afghan, it spans the period from before the 1979 Soviet invasion until the reconstruction following the fall of the odious Taliban. The novel portrays the Afghans as an independent and proud people who for decades have defended their country against one invader after another. But the narrator wonders if his people will ever transcend the tribalism that continues to threaten Afghanistan's integrity. "Maybe," he thinks, "it was a hopeless place."
As a boy, Amir cravenly betrays his servant and best friend, the Hazara boy Hassan. When the Russians come, Amir and his father move to California, where Amir becomes a successful writer. He embraces America because it "had no ghosts, no memories, and no sins." But when Amir learns that a childhood mentor is ailing back home, he returns to discover that his relationship to Hassan had been deeper than he realized. This leads him on a hazardous journey to rescue and adopt Hassan's son, whose father the Taliban had executed.
The novel derives its name from the Afghan custom of doing battle with kites. Although the book can sometimes be melodramatic and garrulous, it provides an extraordinary perspective on the struggles of a country that, until that doleful September day, had been for too long ignored or misunderstood. And despite its grimmer episodes, the novel ends with a note of optimism about Afghanistan's future, an optimism that the whole world would prefer to see unspoiled. Inshallah, as Afghans say: God willing.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
ApologyHello everyone,
I hope this letter does not freak you out. I would like to confirm to you that the rumor of me passing away has no foundations. Therefore I would like to apologize for anything that this rumor might have caused you. What really happened is as follows:
I went to UAE on the end of September 2005 to work out some visa issues before my travel to Europe to promote project Kenya and "Why Should I Care?" Project. Over there in Abu Dhabi, UAE I got food poisoned, I ate blowfish which was apparently not cooked appropriately. I fainted and my heart stopped, the doctors didn’t know what exactly happened to me and they told my friends and family that my heart stopped, therefore, my friends assumed I have died and started spreading the word here and there of my death and apparently it reached you guys. When my friends and family went to the hospital to "Recover" my body and bury it, the doctors told them that I have gone into a coma, hence that I have not died, and they have no idea when I would wake up. At this point, what my friends should have done is talk to people that they have spoken to that I have not died but instead they just let it be and spread the word only by mouth not by email. That’s how the correction did not pass my small circle of friends here in UAE and the Middle East!
I woke up from my coma just few weeks ago, and I'm undergoing a recovery program where I am able now to move my upper part of my body. I'm still learning how to walk again!! I would like to tell you that I am doing very well and the doctors are keeping a very close eye on me. I would like to really apologize to each one of you for what this rumor has caused you, emotionally and what not. My recovery here would take another month or so before I could be ready for discharge. I can't wait to get back on my feet and finish what I have started, but I know that this project is in good hands and that all of you are worth the trust.
Again, please accept my apology and hopefully I will be back fighting the good fight for the youth all around the world, side by side with my DAMU and AIESEC friends!
With love and respect,
Ahmed Arshi