بتتزكروا دعاية تافت للأجواء الثلاثة؟

imagine the days of laffafaat & pompadours comes back =D big waves with some fluffy volume & lots of spray.

this is fun. brush art time. enough with razors & scissors!

TOMORROW: EMERGENCY PROTEST AGAINST MASSACRES IN GAZA!

EMERGENCY PROTEST AGAINST MASSACRES IN GAZA!

TIME: MONDAY 29th, 4PM

LET US SHOW OUR OUTRAGE TOGETHER!

PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY

LOCATION: SHARE3 AL-THAQAFA, SHMESANI

(This protest has been approved by the Governor of Amman and is organized by concerned Jordanian citizens).

Contact:

Mary (079 55 22 702) (English/French)
Ruba (079 55 07 479) (Arabic)
Mohammad (079 9207 056 (Arabic/Spanish)

Note: We will be gathering at the Radisson SAS hotel at 11am tomorrow (Monday) to prepare posters and banners. We need help. Please join us. Please call numbers above for information.


اعتصام إحتجاجاً على المجازر في غزة

الوقت: غداً الإثنين 29/12 الساعة الرابعة مساءاً

المكان: شارع الثقافة - الشميساني

لنظهر غضبنا معا!

من فضلكم أخبروا أصدقائكم وأقاربكم

(يلاقي هذا الإحتجاج موافقة من محافظة عمان وينظم من قبل مواطنين أردنيين مهتمين)


للاتصال

ماري 0795522702 انجليزي/فرنسي
ربا 0795507479 عربي
محمد 0799207056 عربي/إسباني

ملاحظة: سنتجمع في فندق الراديسون ساس غداً (الإثنين) الساعة 11 صباحاً لتجهيز اليافطات. نحتاج للمساعدة. نرجوا أن تنضموا إلينا. للمزيد من المعلومات يرجى الاتصال في الأرقام أعلاه.


People. there is no shame in protesting and its not useless, when we join together for Peace. Voices will be heard. Step Up. Speak Up. No one will chop your head for voicing your mind. those people got their permits and there you have the numbers to call and verify.

LET THE WORLD HEAR OUR VOICE, LET THE WORLD HEAR US REASON.

PEACE

PS: get creative.

Mamma Mia its Eiiid

I hope you are enjoying your vacation, you are joyful, hopeful, thankful

and for all music fans out there
yallah sing along


Thank you for the music, the songs Im singing
Thanks for all the joy theyre bringing
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music
For giving it to me

Things I can do

1- turn fact sheets to videos and post them on Youtube and Ikbis in a dedicated channel
2- link those videos to Queen Rania Youtube Channel
3- Network with people around the world who worked on Middle Eastern Studies and include their views and support and findings
4- Draw thoughts
5- Inspire local singers to make music that is enjoyable and hearing friendly, art work and sculptures
6- Find strength in suffering and capture photos of success and hope
7- make wikis and develop answers in appropriate and documented content and propose it to places it can get adopted
8- Celebrate every success no matter how small

will be back

Fitr Mubarak for youu

عيد فطر سعيد

so you are feasting after all the tough fasting, this is happy time people

if you wanna feel something fuzzy about Eid, check this blog post entry, southern muslimah shows how people are celebrating Eid around the world

mish kulna min3ayyed zai ba3aad =P , there are different Eid cultural celebrations, and we know nothing about the Muslim nations in Asia, culture wise while there are so much in common, jameeeel

this is nice song for Eid thru the blog too




Enjoy your time

adventures of the Atlantis

Last week, lots of people from Amman were in Dubai, fortunate enough to have friends working here from Amman too, and since all of us are relatively new we were off for some discoveryyy in the city of sand-berg

Palm Jumeirah is a man made palm shaped island and looks like this;

This is an old picture before all the construction took place, so imagine it with roads and stuff, [dubai is more of like playing real monopoly,, turn your money to hotels and more and more buildings and towers, il muhim, nerja3 la solafeh ] while driving in the car, you can access the central roads of the palm, the wider downward area has buildings with apartments on both sides for those who like to rent or buy, while the palm branches require access cards and include villas with private beaches for each villa, the crescent surrounding the palm will have 28 hotels and whats amazing in these places is that you can access the sea from both sides, the crescent is not quite wide by the way.

now exactly in the middle of the crescent area opposing the palm comes the fascinating part, this is where Atlantis The Palm Hotel is, it looks awesome, I was so excited the moment I saw it from far away,really, like my eyes widening and sticking my head towards the window in disbelief, it reminded me of the Castle in Aladdin, The Castle in the Little Mermaid, it is really coool, the nearest we could get to it is the tip of the palm which has a U turn covered with high wooden walls so you can't get a full front view of the Atlantis..

the thing is we couldn't see more of it, it was in the morning time, so last week when we were getting out of the festival city (something new too) , it was around 1:00 AM we decided to go see the Atlantis at night...

ok, we drove there and we got to the U-turn and one of the wooden blocks was left open, so I asked my friend to park.. and I went down, I got a quick shot of it but the security was behind our car so I had to make it quick fa ma zabtat it sooora (down there) ,, you know the scene when Aladdin shows Jasmine the Castle from his rooftop, the exact breath-taking scene, yeah that was like it,, it looks beeautiful, its so huge, far, and the sea is infront of you..

we didn't quit, so we decided to take our chances and take the tunnel, the hotel was not open yet but we saw trucks taking under sea tunnel linking from the palm to the crescent (check upper picture and picture the tunnel), the speed limit is 50km/hour and its quite long, and the thought that water is over you is scary,, it was 1:30 AM and we didn't really know whats on the otherside,, so as we got out of the tunnel the view we saw was the profile of the Atlantis, and a road leads to the back of the Atlantis and that was the closest we could make it,

when we parked we looked towards the sea from the real wide wild sea side infront of us, it was dark, seeing the big rocks that were used for making the palm and then a big fish jumped and you hear the waves, and then you realize that its not a shore... its the sea... and probably those people ruined many things with tooo much money, its like people here have too much money they don't know where to spend it, only thinking of making more money, the opening price for villas would be around 4 millions Dhs and now its valued at 20 millions.. its crazy!

we thought today they will do the fireworks ,, since its promised to be a Beijing olympics style but it turned out that today is a soft opening and the grand opening will be on Nov 20th, the Aqua park is open but we got there past 7 when it closes, so a friend of a friend of a friend has a villa in the second branch from top, left side ( see up ) and at the last villa at the tip of this branch is Michael Shumacher villa worth 50 millions, I was standing infront of it, the Villa next door is vacant if anyone has this kind of money ;) so we accessed the shore and had a nice bare foot walk with workers fixing villas here and there,,, but its so empty and I agreed with my friend, that if we had this kind of money, we won't live on this place because is so so artificial and lifeless and its made for business and summer vacations of the richy rich, Michael Owen and David Beckham too have places in this branch

money in Dubai has no value, a JD in Jordan is worth 1 Thousand here. I am serious.

The Classrooms

So far we have said that we have big student numbers in the classes, students mostly don't know what they signed up for after Tawjihi, There is a significant number of bad teachers in this University and now I want to address the Classrooms

مدرج 2 - اعمال / مقابله حمام يستحق الزيارة

In university requirement classes like General Safety Principles, Ecology, and other courses where a class has at least 150+ students from different faculties, teachers use big old projectors and transparency paper slides of the actual book pages or exact passages, -yup they still use those, fine if you wanna use it for a graph but text, I don't think so- the teacher goes over the content in a one man show, reading off , alone! there is no use of attending these classes, the exam is a multiple choice that you know you would pass if you read the book, a total waste of energy and most of these classes are too boring, a bigger class requires a variety of methods to keep students focused, believe me I tried to stay focused on what he is saying in military science, in horticulture, but I couldn't. I lose the lecturer at least twice during the class and I am quite a good listener, the Arabic 101 , 102 books and instructors are terrible. Check the books for yourself. we don't take "أدب عربي و تعبير فكري عربي" we take " بصم عربي و كيفية النفاق بالعربي "

In other classes towards the humanitarian faculties some Drs do some underlining in the class while reading to students, students attend these classes because attendance is mandatory and most of the time you have to stick to the seat number, the only question a student would ask is " is this chapter included in the exam? "

Speaking of questions, shouldn't a class provoke questions? 80% of the classes rarely raise questions from students, most of the time, Drs don't like to be interrupted and some of those Drs give you an impression that you are stupid to ask such a question or " inta mish mtabbe3 3ashan heik ma fhimet aw shiklak mish fa6er ". bil 3arabi bisharshe7u bi karamtak il ard iza 7akait mish fahem.. few and really really few Drs welcome a student saying I didn't understand what you just said in class.

لقد تعلمنا ان لا نسأل

We didn't learn the philosophy of science, we didn't dedicate classes for the scientific method, how to reason, what is critical thinking, all this got embedded in the definition of a major and the procedures they teach but truly students don't know what it means. we didn't learn how concepts are formulated, we don't learn PHILOSOPHY. contemplate this action's consequences. its a personal request.


There are Drs who teach wrong information, students correct their math on board and teachers give non convincing answers or bullshit their way out of it making it mission impossible to understand, literally, leaving behind holes in the students' brain, Drs won't think outside their notes that they want to fill up the board with, students end up signing with such a Dr because he has easy grades or mi7taker il maddeh.

Good students are the ones who learned to study alone.Through self-study and reading beyond course requirements in the text book

Drs who do power point presentations / use computer applications have to stick to the rooms that have "a data show" so its either the computer lab, the room with a key, or they would ask the secretary to give them the department data show and guess what,, these doctors use the whole fifty minutes reading off the presentation while the lights are off which is a nap atmosphere, in this kind of classes where the lecture is the presentation, students don't even read the book, we were not given any background reading to do, NEVER, I don't remember being asked for assigned reading, I was not asked about looking up a subject for discussion, very few did discussions and was in 5th year classes, they gave us weekly quizes and homework problem sets, some were very demanding but for the sake of it, few Drs did care that we understand, they spent the time showing us how problems are solved numerically, and asking us to do the same, a series of direct instructions, stick to the notes and the power point presentation, the past papers and you will pass, whatever report we did, there was a perfect answer that needs to be written.

The least attention is given to the Laboratories and conducting experiments, sometimes we were able to finish the lab in 30 minutes out of three hours, there was always past reports to look at and fill the tables, students don't pay attention since its a credit hour, but it is where we really apply what we are learning and I can't really put it in words, its bad. go see for yourself. the labs are old and very badly equipped, especially mechanical engineering labs, automation, control, thermal fluids.

Teachers in JU don't know how to be class facilitators, they don't bother reading the room, knowing the students on a personal level, don't know that a human brain disconnects after 50 minutes in 1 hour 30 minutes class, they don't know that they should give breaks, that they should include activities in class, that he needs to set expectations for the class and agree with the students on some ground rules, he should use variety of tools, flow charts, colors, videos, ppts, reading assignments, problem sets, and web pages and discussions. he should watch his tone of voice that it won't remain monotonous through the lecture, he should know that that who scribbles in class is not totally absent minded and most of all...

لا تستعملوا اسلوب التخويف

There is a truth, we are very much behind when it comes to teachers and technology. I can think of 3 Drs in the electrical engineering department who have a webpage, the rest don't. I swear a Dr in the Mechanical Engineering Department asked us to write him an e-mail so he would send us the presentations back instead of uploading it to a website, he replied back to fifty something student, I SWEAR.. The Computer Engineering Dept staff Webpages are still of Web 1.0 form. its still a one way communication, log on and check the announcements and download files, that's it, there are no online discussions, there are Drs who don't reply e-mails, and there are Drs who can't be found in their offices quite often, so you can say communication is not impossible but it does very sincerely SUCK!! not to mention if you are a girl, some Drs exhibit a sense of discomfort dealing with a female student, and this is so evident, they won't look you in the eye, and you have to be super polite when talking to them. the female voice is so silent, so non existent, girls sitting next to each other, in one row, questioning too little, having the group distribution automatically labeled as " the girls group " they always said girls commit to studying better, master the homeworks, but the guys are the better engineers! you wanna know why, because they go easy on girls when its a practical assignment! girls get a preferential treatment in classes. It makes others politer but reserves incompetency attitude towards females. guys always joke about female incompetency in my faculty, it was never not there.

As for the competency test, you can find the result file for Fall 07/08 here, it includes the Gender, Nationality, University, ID number, Tawjihi Grade, GPA, Exam Score and Rank. I omitted the names column.

how did the results turn this way,, its another story =)

Support Worthy Student Activities - IEEE Jordan University Student Branch

Students / Professors Must Check - Wesch Classroom





why don't the branch students make a training session for the Drs on web 2.0 applications that can be used in the classroom ?? courses would give a drive for the classmates to work collectively and learn and lets say make wikis of knowledge by the end of the term that is a product of what you have done with the Dr .. WHAT YOU THINK?

I Feel Prettyyyy, Oh, So Pretty

My sister was humming this song yesterday and today after a cup of coffee, I started humming too =) it will put you in a good mood and i bet you will start humming in days =D it makes good things happen.






You know what I feel like, a theater musical play that is performed in various national Arabic Dialects, too musical and creatively unfamiliar, that i can relate to, inspiring, I want to be impressed. really, really, really I have been looking for this feeling.

when was the last time you were impressed/impressive people [ me included ]

ZAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN

Horton Hears a Who

This is not an animation for kids, its the best animation movie i've seen in ages. its definitely one of my all time favourites. i loved it. great script and stunning scenes.

"There is an elephent in the sky, his name is horton and our world is a speck on clover in his world"

Horton the Elephant on the fifteenth of May in the jungle of Nool hears a small speck of dust talking to him. It turns out the speck of dust is actually a tiny planet, home to a city called "Whoville", inhabited by microscopic-sized inhabitants known as Whos

conclusion: we have to find a way to talk to another species at least on our planet.