On This Blog & The Goverment Will Tell Us What To Wear

I know it has been a while since I last posted here. And that last post was about my new Blog - www.MuscatxDubai.com - and I also explained that I won't be posting much and that the type of posts will change.

Since I won't be in the country, I will have to rely on second hand news to write about the country. My source of news will vary, from other Omani Blogs to TV to news websites. I won't be covering events like I used to because it's physically impossible.
I will try to add more information about the country more often when I have time. That's something that I used to do when I first started this Blog but stopped. And that's pretty much it for now.

So, I will be putting all of this into practice right now and start with my first post since that announcement.

As I was surfing my list of Omani Blogs' RSS feeds, I came across a piece of news from Blue Chi's Blog that really seemed very ludicrous. Apparently, "The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has warned tailor shops not to tamper with specified design of the Omani traditional dishdasha" in Today's newspapers. No, I am not kidding. That's exactly what it says.
Ya, and "the ministry asked the tailor shops to abide by the specific designs of the Omani dishdasha, which is a part of the history and culture of the Sultanate.".

Just when you think that things can not get any worse and the government can not control the much more than they already do, something like this comes along.

Now, I don't understand this law exactly. Are they asking the tailor shops not advertise these "novel designed" dishdashas (not my words) or, are they asking them not to tailor to the costumers wishes? What if I have a design in mind and asked the tailor to create it for me, should s/he decline? Seriously?
And so the tailor breaks the law and, god forbids, creates this devilish dishdasha, what's going to happen? Can you imagine this poor Indian dude or whoever else who is trying so hard to make a living and even tries to be a little creative only to get fined my the authorities?

I don't care what the logic behind this law is. Whether it is to preserve "the history and culture of the Sultanate" like they say or whatever reasons they may think is for the interested of "Oman". They have no right telling us what to wear as long as we are not violating any public decency policies or whatever.

"Warning tailor shops not to tamper with specified design of the dishdahsa"... HA! What, you find someone wearing a dishdahsa that's a little different and ask them to get undressed or else they will be arrested? Please!

Attention!!

I have an important announcement to make. This announcement will affect the frequency of posts made on this Blog and maybe even the type of posts that will be posted from now onwards.

I am moving to the UAE very soon (if not already when you read this post) and since I won't be in Oman anymore, it doesn't exactly make sense to be posting on a Blog for Oman. And because of this, I have both great news and bad news.

Bad news is, I will not be able to post as much as I used to post on this Blog anymore. Since I am not in Oman, it would be difficult to make posts related to Oman. I might be posting on the Blog from time to time whenever I come over to Oman but it will be rare and maybe even different in style.

Great news, I've created a new Blog! The Blog is titled Muscat X Dubai which is read 'Muscat meets Dubai' or you may also call it MXD and you may visit it at www.muscatxdubai.com.
The idea for this Blog is to record my whole transition from Muscat to the big city - Dubai. I will be talking about the whole process of moving there and provide value to people who are thinking of moving there by providing facts from my own experience. Along with the record of the whole transition process, I will also Blog on general things about Dubai and I think I will be comparing many things in Dubai with what they are like in Muscat. I might even start talking about news related to Dubai or Muscat.

The beauty of this Blog is that it doesn't only focus on one country but two. Since I am an Omani, I will be talking about many Omani related things and since I am living in Dubai, I will also talk about Dubai a lot, obviously.

This is all great but it has a downside also. Since my new Blog allows me to talk about Oman, I won't need this Blog to talk about it anymore. I have a couple of ideas for this Blog by now but they will be shared later.
So don't forget, I am now at www.muscatxdubai.com. Visit the website and if you subscribed to this Blog's RSS feeds, make sure you subscribe to MXD's RSS feeds too in order to stay updated with what I am up to the big city.

See you there, people...

A Deadly Time to Drive

I have no problem driving in whatever time. You know how some people won't drive after it is dark outside, I am not one of those people. But, there is a time that I usually get tense and get extra careful when driving. When the sun starts to set.

That is the worse time for a couple of reasons. When it starts to get dark outside, many will turn their headlights on which is a natural thing to do but the problem is, not everyone turns on their headlights at the same time. So keeping in mind that it is slightly dark outside and there are some headlights that are on, you sometimes miss the cars that don't.

I don't know if you ever face this same problem but I always do when driving at that time. And to make matters worse, we often face the problem of having the street lights turned on when it is already too dark. I don't know whether this is an attempt to save up power or simply a miscalculation but it gets pretty dark on the main roads before they turn on the lights.
(The picture that you see at your right is a picture that I took with my cellphone during my drive home yesterday).

At least at that time, I have my guards on and pay much attention to this detail and try to spot every car that passes by but what is worse is when you have 98% of the cars with their lights on and a couple of drivers who were driving since before sunset that have forgotten about the lights.

And now you combine the fact that not all cars turn their lights on at the same time and the street lights' delay and you are left with a lethal combination.

This Weekend: Ironic

This coming weekend is kinda ironic and I am a fan of irony. But this irony... I am not too sure about.

This weekend is going to hold two of the hottest parties in one night. Sawadi is going to have its very famous 'Rain Dance' this Thursday. Some of you might be familiar with it but if not, the idea is simple. The event will be held outside where there will be a live band and water will be falling from above like rain ("Rain" dance) and the amount of water that falls changes like real rain. Let me tell you, in our current weather conditions, Rain Dance can get very refreshing. I attended once last year and it was.
And Later that evening, Rock Bottom, which is a night club at the Ramee Guestline Hotel, is going to bring you "the original House Night". If you like House music, then that would be a night for you. K-Klass DJ Andy Williams will perform, if you care to know.
And if you are a guy like me who likes to party then you will go to both.

But wait, there is a twist! Conveniently, Thursday and Friday is a holiday for both government and private sectors. Great, right? Well, not really. Because the holiday is actually a "holly" day. The holidays (Wednesday to Saturday for the government sectors and Thursday to Saturday for the private) are because of a religious event, Isra and Mi'raj, which is a big day in the Muslim calender.

Hottest parties, big religious event. Ironic, right?

KnowledgeOman.com's Behind The Scenes

"KnowledgeOman.com's behind the scenes" is a weekly series that will be published every Saturday on this Blog.
Since I am an active member of the KnowledgeOman.com (KO) executive team and a contributor of KO's Home Page Articles and since KO updates its Home Page every Saturday, I will be giving you the latest scoops on the work that goes into creating KO's content and some other related materials on this Blog every Saturday so you can look into how KO really works.


I only made this post this week to let you know that I was not active on the Home Page. If you have read my previous posts on this Blog you might know why. I had to go for a trip to Dubai for some college related stuff.

But I am going to give you a quick summary of what went on the Home Page based on my observation. It is not as exciting as being part of it but at least you will be getting it from a person who is "usually" part of it.

In the top of the page this week, you will find the 'Knowledge Lebre' segment instead of the usual "Hot News" segment which is managed by Timami which was also absent for the last two weeks. Last week, my segment, 'CityTalks', was on the top. Qusai (in charge of 'Knowledge Lebre') has continued with his series on copyleft. This time, it's on visual arts.

Second article that comes under 'Knowledge Lebre' is a little different than usual because it is written by someone who doesn't usually write for the Home Page. Sahara, who is also very active in the forum, has written about Robots. She shows the pros and cons of having robots and what things would be like with or without them. I found it very interesting because there are two sides of what robots can do for humanity and so, I predict a good discussion will be going on that topic.
I hope Sahara will write more for the Home Page because she has just proven that she is very capable.

Last but not least, the very famous 'Product Review' by our very own Tommy Bosco.
He writes in this week about a gadget that every youth would dream to have put in their car, a CD player with a full 7" LCD touch screen that comes out once you press the open button.
I don't want to give out much because, naturally, I want you to go over there and read it yourself. It is worth reading through because the information presented there is not only the specs and pros & cons of the gadget which you can even find anywhere else on the internet but also the local pricing of it and where it could be found. All up-to-date information for every local who is looking to get his/her car a little pimpin'.

That's it for this week's series. I hope to make it on the Home Page next week and write more about it but I can't promise anything yet since things are still a little hectic at the moment.
But no worries, I will still be talking about it again next week so, keep on coming back.

Back from Dubai, New Banner

Weird title? Well, not really. The idea is to talk about two different topics in one post. Makes sense now?

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I am back from Dubai after going there to complete my college registration (like mentioned in the previous post). I would like to say that everything is complete and I am officially a student of the University of Wollongong in Dubai. I am scheduled to start on September.

Yesterday was also my Birthday but I spent it on the road. Nothing special has been done but I couldn't complain because I got really amazing gifts the days before and was invited to a dinner the day before we left. All in all, it was good and at least I got to drive to Dubai for the first time. I always enjoy new experiences, no matter how tiring they are.

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If you haven't noticed yet, BeInOman.com has a new banner. If you can't see it then, press on (ctrl+F5) to insure that you are looking at the latest update on the page.
This banner has been sent to me by email from a member of KnowledgeOman.com (Arabic Section), named Talal Al-Farsi, as a gift. I don't know why exactly but I am very thankful to that. I really liked the banner, it really fits with the whole BeInOman.com theme, doesn't it? What do you guys say?

Thank you Talal for the thoughtful gift.

Renaissance Day

Renaissance day has always held a special meaning to me. And not only because it's the day when his majesty ruled the Sultanate of Oman, although that is a major reason, but also because it happens to be my birthday!

I was born at about 12:10am on this day, which means, 10 minutes earlier and I would not have been a part of this tremendous day which I am very proud of indeed. And on that note, I would like to congratulate all of Oman and his majesty the Sultan Qaboos who has done an amazing job in bringing Oman to where it is today from where it was before.

I am sorry but, I won't be talking about the whole history behind this because I am not qualified although, I attempted to do that last year. If you need more information on it, do what everybody else does, Google it.

So, for the people who know me or even care about what I will be doing today, well... I have just got my letter of acceptance from the University that I applied for in Dubai last night and so, I am headed to Dubai in about an hour to complete everything. It is pretty exciting and I really don't mind not having to spend time with my friends and family today. I do that a lot anyway but I never got accepted to college before.
It sounds bad doesn't it? The fact that it is Renaissance day and my birthday and what do I do about it...? I go to a different country. O well...

So I would like to say it one more time. Congratulations everyone on this glorious and huge day, the 23rd of July, my birthday! Oops, I mean Renaissance day... ahhum..

KnowledgeOman.com's Behind The Scenes

"KnowledgeOman.com's behind the scenes" is a weekly series that will be published every Saturday on this Blog.
Since I am an active member of the KnowledgeOman.com (KO) executive team and a contributor of KO's Home Page Articles and since KO updates its Home Page every Saturday, I will be giving you the latest scoops on the work that goes into creating KO's content and some other related materials on this Blog every Saturday so you can look into how KO really works.


Before I start with each segment, I wanted to talk about something that a couple of people asked about last week's 'behind the scenes' series. I had people ask me whether it is a good idea or not to raise the problems that we are facing at KO. And my answer to that is, yes!
KO is a community of people from every field helping out each other and solving problems. We want our administration to be a transparent one, one that everybody could be a part in shaping and building to the better. If all our problems were internal and within our selves, nothing would ever be done differently and creatively and no real improvements will ever be made. And so, I say it again, yes! I do think it is a good idea to share some of the problem that we are facing at KO.
And for your information, the post timing problem which I talked about last week... it has been solved. Now, instead of having everyone post in one place (one forum) and having them post in a certain order to keep the Home Page articles in the order that we want, we have each person's segment posted in a different place (different forums) and the modules in the Home Page are organized according to our preference. So, we don't really have to worry about who posts first and who comes next since the modules are organized in our preferred order.
This is just an example of how problems could be mended by sharing them.

I will start from the bottom of the Home Page this week. Tomy, also known as Kubu, has published his product review a little after midnight today. After talking to him before midnight, I found out that he was still at work and that he got some information related to his review a little late in the week.
A person asked me about the discipline of people who don't deliver before deadline in the comment section last week. And like I told him, the people who work for KO are doing it out of good will and are not being payed. And besides, we only choose the best to work for our Home Page and Kubu is, without doubt, one of the best.
Him being a little off deadline doesn't really harm us much as long as he delivers soon after that, which he always does.

Next we have 'Knowledge Lebre' by Qusai, also known as Aquafox. This is his third series in the topic of 'copyleft' and in this week's series, he tackles copyleft in the video and animation industry.
I also spoke to Qusai prior to deadline and he didn't have any trouble writing the article. He was very much comfortable about getting it done and therefor, making me very comfortable.
I urge you all to go read his articles, it is very interesting. You would be surprised on the difference between copyright and copylef.

Now with 'CityTalks', the segment I am in charge in. In the beginning of the week, my article was supposed to be about Edutex which was a Higher Education related exhibition. I had it all figured out and wanted to make a huge coverage. But after I attended and saw how small it was, I was not impressed and thought it didn't deserve much attention.
Earlier last week, I also attended the first 'Show Your Potential' workshop (visit KO to learn more about it) and I took a few recordings of the people who attended.
And I also got my high school scores last week which I am sure you already know about.
So what I did in my segment is, instead of writing one full article on a certain topic, I made several mini articles of different topics and put them as one. And so, I wrote about the three things above.
I talked about the workshop and presented the audio file which didn't take much time to edit, upload and publish. I then talked about how the high school scores were released and the difference in the way it used to be released in the past. And finally, I talked about Edutex but tried not to put much emphasis in it because it wasn't worth it.

This is pretty much it for this week. It wasn't much of a hard week (comparing to others). Come back for more next Saturday and don't forget to visit knowledgeoman.com.

You Care: Creative Learning Center

This is a re-post of what has already been posted by me on KnowledgeOman's Home Page for good reason. I want to spread the word as much as I can because this is very important. So, if you read the post already then please bear with me.

This was a story that was published earlier last month in a very popular newspaper but the response that it got as described by Kawthar Al Hathrami; Managing Director of Creative Learning Center (CLC), "We only got two donations and some other people have called and asked us for our bank account number but we didn't receive anything".

It is a very sad situation. It is sad how we stopped caring for the needy and stopped thinking about their dreams and their future. It is sad how people with mental diseases are no longer considered human beings and worthy of our time and money. It is sad how people with special needs are not active members of our society. But why?

Some might even argue that people with mental illnesses and retardation are better off, not knowing what is going on around them and nothing to worry about. But are they really? Don't they have dreams, aspirations and goals?
What about the parents? Parents who have to bare all the hardships of seeing their kids grow against their imagination and behaving in ways that they don't understand and can not deal with. Don't the parents deserve the the joy of seeing their kids' achievements in life? Don't the parents deserve some time for themselves? It is true that they love their kids but we all deserve a break.
These are question that could all be answered by watching the video and by us holding hands and making this happen one way or another.

I paid a visit to CLC and had a long hard talk with Mrs. Kawthar about this topic and how her center is dieing is debts and hopelessness. We spoke about the issue and the ways that we could all fix them. And it is only with your help that this could ever be done.



Be part of the solution. It really doesn't take much.
Here is all that you need to start helping out:

To Sponsor a child:

Download and fill this PDF form then send the form in person or to this address:
PO Box 1364
Al-Athabia, Post Code 130
Sultanate of Oman


To send your donations:

Number:
(968)24475055 - (968)95307344

Address:
PO Box 1364
Al-Athabia, Post Code 130
Sultanate of Oman

Bank Information:
Bank: Bank Muscat
Account name: Creative Learning Center
Account number: 142-402680081012
Branch: Al-Khuwair 33
Swift Code: BMVSOMRX.

For more information, visit CLC's website at www.clc-om.com.

KnowledgeOman.com's behind the scenes

"KnowledgeOman.com's behind the scenes" is a weekly series that will be published every Saturday on this Blog.
Since I am an active member of the KnowledgeOman.com (KO) executive team and a contributor of KO's Home Page Articles and since KO updates its Home Page every Saturday, I will be giving you the latest scoops on the work that goes into creating KO's content and some other related materials on this Blog every Saturday so you can look into how KO really works.

In this week's behind the scenes we are going to start with the first column that you see when you first enter the Home Page which is about the 'Show Your Potential' initiative by Microsoft (MS). For you who don't know, KO and MS have joined hand to come up with a program to help people pass Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) and Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) exams all for free. Read the article in KO to know more about it.
Anyway, we finally are starting the workshops and if have already joined the program, you should have already received an email by today.
A lot of work went into organizing this workshop and a lot have things had to be agreed on in order to get the newsletter out. Unfortunately, I can not reveal anything more than that. Just make sure you attend the workshop on the date specified.

My segment on KO, which is 'CityTalks', is for a good cause this week. I talk about a learning center for children with mental diseases and retardation. I interviewed the Directing Manager, Mr. Kawthar Al Hathrami, of the center and it is all caught on video.
I personally really felt for the woman who is doing this all for a good cause and she is getting no support from the government just because she is a "private" institution and the public is not much helpful even.
I paid her a visit at the center last Tuesday at Al Khuwair (Creative Learning Center) and she kindly gave me a tour of the place after the end of the interview. I was not able, however, to get an interview with any of the parents or the children partly because the center is during its holidays at the moment and also because the parents tend to get a little Private about things like this which is understandable.
All went well until I was able to get a hold of a woman who was willing to have an interview with me and we agreed on meeting up on Friday. Keep in mind that the video has to be ready on Friday in order for us to publish at midnight. It didn't matter because the woman canceled at the last moment and I quickly started editing the video.
It usually takes me a couple of days to edit a video but yesterday, I had less than half a day to do it, not to mention how hard it is to upload a video with our Internet speeds.
Luckily, I was able to finish the video, upload it and write a short article on the topic all before the deadline.

The 'Knowledge Lebre' which is managed by Qusai Al Shidi was done on time and was created perfectly. Actually, the article was ready since Wednesday which was great. We should all follow this guy's lead because this is how things should be done.

The 'Product Review' segment which is managed by Tommy Bosco, AKA KUBU, was pretty much the opposite if the 'Knowledge Lebre' segment. It was already 11pm and nobody was bale to get in touch with him. He was no where to be found. Until about 12am and that's when we were finally able to find him. He started writing his article at the time and took him about 20 minutes to do so.
I had a look at his article and it looks great. I don't believe it only took this guy 20 minutes to create it all. I am sure he had his reasons for not being on time but things like these always happen. I am just glad that the article turned out to be great.

You see, how we publish our content is first, we post it in a test forum which nobody other than us have access to then, when we are all ready, the moderator just pushes the publish bottom and adds them all to the front page.
Now, there is a problem with this system. I like the whole idea but, we want whoever to publish an article, to publish it under their own names which means, I couldn't publish an article for KUBU because it is going to be published under my name. So, everyone publishes their article under their own name. Another thing is, we want the Home Page segment to be in a certain order.
So where is the problem? Well, with VBullitine (the software that we are using for KO) when you publish an article in a forum, the latest article will be on top and the earlier ones will be under and there is no way to manipulate that. We can organize things on our own and we can only work the way the system wants us. So we have to make KUBU publish first, Qusai second then me and finally Mohammed. And so, if KUBU is not around, we all can't publish.
We are still trying to figure out a better way to fix this problem. If you have any suggestions, please go ahead.

That's it for this week. Please come back for more in next week's issue.

Blog Review: Driver's License In Oman

I don't do much of these reviews but I only do so when the Blog is related to Oman and different. What I mean by different is, that it is a blog on a specific aspect of the country that is not discussed much on other Blog. The correct terminology to that is "niche".

One of my past review was on the Omani Cuisine Blog which you may read by clicking here. And as the name suggests, it is a Blog that is specifically made to cover the restaurant atmosphere in Oman with visits and reviews.

In today's review of mine, I am going to talk about a Blog that covers a topic very dear to my heart. A topic that, I think, deserves more attention from the government and something that needs to be worked on. This Blog covers the topic of the driver's license in Oman.
One thing before I continue, the Blog is in Arabic so, if you can read Arabic then you are at luck but if not, then try using a good translation program because the Blog is worth reading and following.

Now back to the review, this topic has been making a lot of noise in the media lately and I've spoken about it in a number of occasions. The rules regarding them are very vague and unclear and so, it is being handled very unfairly.

So this Blog comes in the picture and talks about the unfairness and the latest updates happening in that department. And since the pose between each test and the other is always changing, this Blog will help you stay up to date on that.

The Blog's name is (رخصة القيادة في عمان) which means: Driver's license in Oman and the author of the Blog is Abdullah Bader who currently works in real estate.
Abdullah was inspired to start his Blog by the unfairness that he have seen his family and friends go through.
The situation is very bad and thinking of it, i said more exposure will lead to awareness that eventually will change it to the better. I hope; said Abdullah.

Abdullah also explains that the source of his information is through friends and relatives who have been in the situation, the website of R.O.P, Blogs, some forums and the local media. And he plans to maintain his Blog by being in contact with some trainers and trainees that he knows.

In my opinion, this is great. I like to see more specified Blogs that are related to Oman. It really helps fix current problems and raise the name of our country.
All in all, his Blog is great and I hope he continues doing what he does. I will definitely be supporting him in any way possible until this license situation is, one day, fixed.

KnowledgeOman.com's Behind The Scenes

Last weekend was very hectic, I was working, alongside the other columnists and executives of KnowledgeOman.com (KO), on the Homepage Update and also working on the Articles that I am supposed to publish. Thursday and Friday was spent on nothing but that and that's why I didn't post anything here in the last couple of days (not that I am using it as an excuse).

In the past, I used to write about the posts that I was personally involved in publishing on KO's Home Page but I thought I would start a new thing here in BeInOman.com. Every Saturday, I am going to share with you some of KO's Home Page articles and the effort that went behind it, behind the scenes, if you will.

This week was a bit different than others because this week, Tariq left for vacation and he is no longer responsible of making sure that all of the Home Page updates are ready to be published and all. Instead, this week, Mohammed Al Tamami who is the content strategist for KnowledgeOman.com was fully in charge. Tamami had the content team, which includes me, to come over his place in order to brainstorm and sort things out. We did that on Thursday at about 3pm and I went back home at about 12:30am. During that time, we've discussed the content for the coming weeks and we also came up with this new concept on the Home Page.

If you haven't noticed yet, the Home Page now has more columnists and is divided by segments. Each segment has it's own banner with a picture of the person in charge of that segment. These segments are 'Hot News' which will cover some of the latest IT news covered by the media and Tamami himself will be in charge of it, 'City Talks' which will be covering all of the latest events in town and will have interviews with people who are making a difference in the Sultanate and I will be in charge of that, 'Knowledge Lebre' which will talk about some of the IT related concepts that many of us is not too familiar about and Qusai Al Shidi will be in charge of that and last but not least, 'Product Review' which by the name of it suggests that we will be talking about some of the hottest gadgets and reviewing it and Tommy Bosco is in charge of that.

Luckily, most of the content was ready by that time but we didn't have the banners ready yet and so we spent lots of time on it still didn't get the results that we wanted. This might mean that the banners will be changing next week.
Another problem was that we had a KO gathering the day before and I was supposed to be the one who creates the video and guess what, it wasn't created. I thought I would come back home and start working on it but it was too late and I was too tired so I went to sleep. I woke up the next morning at about 10am and started working on it until about 7pm, that's when I finished it, but after trying to upload it, I started facing some trouble. I spent the next 4 hours trying to upload it until about 11:30 and that's when I was officially ready to publish.
All of the publishing took place at 12am, Saturday. And we are set to go.

I must admit, the Home Page looks much better than it did before. It is much more colorful, filled with content and has some really interesting topics. I can only say that, we all put in some serious effort and we should all be proud.

For your pleasure, here is the video created from the gathering:

Oman Blogosphere: June, 2008

Since it is the beginning of a new month, here is a quick sum up of last month's Oman Blogsphere activities. From the hottest to the newest, I cover it all.

What seemed to have dominated the most discussion in the Oman Blogosphere from last month was the story about Oman still being Tier 3. The Discussion started out from Undercover Dragon's Blog, muscatconfidential.blogspot.com but it really started heating up when it continued to Blue-Chi's Blog blue-chi.blogspot.com and when he started expressing how much he disagrees with Undercover Dragon. Many comments were made and more posts were created by the authors expressing them selves and after reading almost all of it, it seems like the argument was divided into expats versus Omanis with the expats agreeing on the Tier 3 and the Omanis not. But to be fair, there were a couple of Omanis who were with the expats in this.

The Blog that has produced the most posts is Andy's Blog, andyinoman.blogspot.com with a number of 47 posts. Andy is or used to be an English professor at Ibri College. Andy shared his experience working and living in Oman in his Blog and he currently is on vacation and will come back to Oman at the mid of August based on his last post. I think the reason why Andy has the most posts is not because he had the most content it's because he divided one topic into many posts rather than putting them in at once which I personally found very annoying. I like reading his posts but only wish that he could have put more effort in making them more comfortable to read.

Surprisingly, the Blog with the least posts last month was the Oman Community Blog. This Blog used to be the hottest Blog in the Blogosphere but suddenly, all of the authors stopped posting in it and rather, started posting more in their own Blog. Is it because the Blogs have the same topic that it wouldn't make sense to be posting in both places? When I was first asked to join the community last year, that was exactly why I didn't want to join because it didn't make sense. Anyway, it is a shame to see only see 2 posts since last month and I hope to see more this month.

A few new Blogs have come to the scene that I think are worth mentioning.
First is Leo Americanus with his Blog, leoamericanus.blogspot.com. Leo is an American Traveler who currently lives in Oman. His Blog mostly discusses news. Not all of his discussions are on Oman, they vary but most are from the GCC.
Second is Bobby Bollozou's Blog, bobbybollo.blogspot.com which is also titled Muscat Insomniacs. Bobby is an expatriate who lives in Muscat at Wadi Kabir. His Blog is mostly about sharing his thoughts on random topics and he even writes some poetry from time to time.
And last but not least, we have Omanymous with his Blog anonoman.wordpress.com. Omanymous' Blog is very recent and he started his Blog because he was inspired by some of the topics covered by other Blogs. My guess, he was mostly inspired by the Tier 3 Blogs (correct me if I am wrong). So far, his Blog covers general topics related to Oman. It still seems like he is not yet comfortable with the whole Blogging scene but based on his posts, he is keen to get there.

Mom Blogs are also making an impact in the Blogosphere. First mom Blog is Suburban's Blog, otheroman.blogspot.com. I really enjoy reading Suburbans posts. They are very humorous, witty and I always laugh out laud after reading anything (if it's meant to be funny of course).
Another Mom Blog is L_Oman's blog, shockedculturally.blogspot.com. I only started following this Blog recently and so far, I think it is pretty interesting. The situations that this woman goes through just cranks you up.
What I hope from the two Blogs above is more posts. Since I've been following Suburban's Blog for a while, I know how much content she often produces and last moth was very little. Keep up the good job ladies, I hope more moms are inspired to start their own Blogs soon.

Something to look forward to. A Blogger who I absolutely love, Amjad who is the author of his Blog amjad248.blogspot.com, is coming back from the USA for a couple of months very soon which means, his Blog is going to start to be about Oman again. He should be on the plane back right now as I write. I hope you arrive safely, man.

One of the Blogosphere's biggest loses is the death of an amazing Blogger who was known as Sleepless in Muscat. You can read more about it by clicking here.

This is it for this month, I hope I've presented valuable information about last month's Oman Blogosphere. If there is anything that you would like to add, please do so in the comment section.

The Omani Who Hits The Indian

Here is another odd story that has happened to me. One night while chatting with my cousin over IM, he sent this video of an Omani guy hitting this Indian shop keeper. Watch the video below then I will continue with the rest of the story.

I was shocked when I watched this video and even though I knew that the shop keeper might have been scamming them and might have been wrong, the Omani guy had no right hitting him.

Anyway, my cousin sent this video at about 9pm and after that, a friend of mine called and we went out clubbing. After coming out of the club at about 2am, there was a guy standing there in a distance with some other guy. My friend told me, "we are gonna go shake hands with these two guys and I want you to have a good look at the big guy's face". I didn't know why but I did.
After we left those two guys, I asked my friend about it, so he pulled out his phone from his pocket and played a video on it. And guess what, it was the very same video that my cousin showed me earlier. And he pointed at the Omani guy who hit the shop keeper and said, "that was him".

I stood there and thought about the odds of that happening. Then I went on to explain to friend what had just happened.
Things like these keep on happening to me always or is it just that Oman is way too small?

The Woman Who Picked Me Up: Part Two

This is a continuation of the first part which you could find by clicking here. Trust me, you don't want to read this until you read part one or it will ruin everything for you.

In the last post I stopped at when the woman shuts the door behind me so here is how it continues: The woman shuts the door behind me and I was a bit intimidated to be honest but before I know it, this woman brings me some papers and asks me if I could help her. I looked at the papers and it turned out to be a question sheet, the same exam which I've just came out from.
I asked her to clarify and she asked if I knew how to answer these questions, I said "yes, I do". So she started going question by question asking me for the correct answers to them and for every question that I've answered she goes to that man and give him the answers when he was also giving those answers to someone on the phone.
I asked that woman, "Is that your daughter on the phone that he is helping?". I knew that if they were helping someone, it would be have most probably been a girl since they could easily cover up while guys can't because of our clothing. The woman seemed embarrassed and said, "yes, it is. Don't embarrass me" with shame all over her face.
I later found out the the woman and the man were both the mother and father of the daughter who they were helping cheat the exam and in my part, I was giving them all the answers even those long article answers. I don't know if I was in some kind of a shock but I felt very obligated to give all of the correct answers and felt like it was a challenge. After giving them all of it, they thanked me and the woman drove me back to school.

It isn't over yet. In our way back to school, the woman asks me, "are you good at the other subject?" and I told her that I am OK. Then she took my number and told me that she might be calling me for the other tests and again, I said, "OK" like an idiot.
The test was the day after and at the very same day at about 12am, the woman calls me again and asks me if I am ready for the exam. I told her that I kinda am but not totally ready though. She said, "no problem, if I get the answers, I will send them to you via SMS but after you come out of the hall, call me so that I can come pick you up again so that you could help me".
That's when I thought to myself, what the hell did I get myself into?! Luckily, the exam was way too easy that the woman got the answers from somebody else so she didn't bother me on that day.

And as the days passed by when we had no exams for some time, I thought that the woman forgot about me but I was wrong. One day before an exam, she calls again and asks me if I am ready for it. And guess what! I said I am.
After the exam was done, she started calling me but I ignored her calls but she still kept on calling so I thought I would just send her some of the answers via SMS and luckily, that stopped her from calling.
I talked to her the day after and told her that I am not very good in all of the other upcoming exams and told her not to count on me. I thought that it was the best way to get her off my back.

It worked, she didn't call me to ask for any help but something even worse happened. At one night, about 11pm, the woman called me and just asked me how are my exams going. I said it was OK and all. I thought she was going to ask me for a favor or something but she didn't! that freaked me out. All she did was talk to me. And we talked and talked for about 45 minutes. Well, she did all the talking and I did all the agreeing just waiting for her to hang up. She started talking to me about her children, about how she was when she was younger and some other stuff I can't remember.
After she hanged up, I kinda felt bad for her. Maybe her husband and children don't listen to her because based on what I saw the other day, her husband was shutting her up pretty often and he tended to yell. So, I did feel bad for her but don't get me wrong, I didn't wanna talk to her again. I mean, first of all, it is so wrong in many levels and second of all, she was so boring.

But guess what, she calls again the very next day just to chitchat again. It went on and on until I told her that I need to go to bed. Then I added, "I will be traveling tomorrow with my family to Dubai so you won't be able to get me. Bubye!" and hanged up.
She didn't call since and I am happy that she didn't. I mean come on, the only decent thing that she could have done was at least introduce me to her daughter whom I helped, right?

Anyway, that was my weird story. There are a couple of thing that I learned from it myself:
1) Cheating is a very common thing here in high school exams especially with female students since they are all covered up and could easily wear an ear piece without getting caught.
2) Many parents here don't bother about the values that they teach their kids as long as they graduate and pass their tests. I am saying this not only based on this incident, I heard about things like this happening a lot before but never had it happen to me until now.
3) This is a bad indicator of what's to come in the near future. We need people who are qualified academically and with good values. If cheating is the way to success then can you imagine how things would get in a work place?
4) Never get in a car with woman who looks 40-ish!!

Combating the Summer Heat

Here is something cool to show you how hot it is getting here. This is an image of a candle that was in a room that no one is currently using and this is what happened to it.

It has melted in a very violent looking way and I just thought to myself, "I have to to take a picture of this!".

This candle was at the same hight as that pot but look at the difference now. This is heat in its finest, people. This is Oman the way we always knew it in the past.

After Googling a little, I found out that the melting point of an average candle wax is 55 degrees C at the minimum depending on the type. 55 was the smallest number in the list and all the others ranged between 60 to 65 degrees C.
Could you imagine that? 60 degrees C in that room? Oh god, what could have we done without today's air conditioners?

I would like to offer tips and tricks on how to combat the summer heat but the truth of the matter is, I really don't know much about. But I will share the little that I know and I hope that you could share whatever knowledge you've got. You gotta drink a lot of water, nothing less than 8 glasses a day to avoid dehydration and possible faint. The best way to do so is to make sure that you always have a bottle of water available when you go out or just hanging around the house. Become more aware of how much water you have drank so far and drink as much as you can even when you are not exactly feeling thirsty.
Another thing is to put on some sun screen when leaving the house. I don't do that myself but don't do as I do, do as I say (what my father always tells me). Make sure that your sun screen protects you against UV rays which may damage your skin and cause skin cancer in some cases.

I would like to hear about your experience with the heat and I am also depending on you guys to share more of your tips and tricks on how to combat the summer heat. What do you do and what do you advice? Please share.

The Woman who Picked Me Up

I've faced this weird situation once and I've been meaning to tell this story for some time now. I am glad that I could finally do so. And hopefully this story might teach you a lessons or two or maybe even give you some perspective on where Oman's future generation is headed.

So it went like this: I had just came out from the exam hall a bit earlier than usual because the exam was easy and so did a few of my friends. We stood in the end of the school wall outside to wait for our other friends to come out. After about 10 minutes of waiting, a car pulled over next to us and a woman pulled down her window. The woman greets us and then asks "which one of you guys is the smartest?" (in Arabic of course). We all stood there not saying a word and looking at each other. She asks again but then she stopped because she had an incoming call on her cell. She answers her phone then stops for a second and says to us "who ever is the smartest, get in the car" and proceeds talking on her cell.
Me, being the closest to the car... and being as nice as I am... I looked at the guys, walked to the back door of the car and said "See ya guys!" and winked at them.
So now, I am in the car and this woman is still talking on her cell and I wasn't sure exactly what she wanted. She started driving the car, she went around the school to the other side, continued driving for a distance and before I know it, we get into a house.
This woman is still talking on her phone so I still didn't know what was going on. And as we arrived at the house, she also finished talking on her cell and I asked her "what do you need exactly?" and she was like "come in, come in, I will tell you".
So I go into this two floor house and as I enter, I see this amazing stair case coming down from the second floor with place all lit up like I was in some ball room or something. The woman asks me to wait for a moment then proceeds to go upstairs. So there I was waiting for what might have been 5 minutes which felt like ages thinking of all the possibilities and what this woman wanted exactly. Then I hear people talking and coming closer to the staircase and now I hear people coming down the staircase but I wasn't able to see who yet. And in those few seconds, time was passing in slow motion.
Suddenly, I see this man who comes running down the stairs towards me. He was fairly dark, over weight and with a weird looking mustache. The guy was on his cell looking as if he is in hurry. He quickly says Hi to me and walks in a room that was beside me.
I waited there for a second and then the woman also comes down the stairs, walks in the room and asks me to come in. And as I entered, what seemed to be a living room, the woman shuts the door behind me!


The story is not over yet, obviously, but I have a couple of things that I need to do at the moment so, I will continue with the rest of the story tomorrow.
Make sure you don't miss it, it might surprise you.

Update: (Part Two)

No More High School

I will give you a brief on how the exams generally went but as to how I feel about it, I think the video says it all.

We had 8 exams in a course of about 3 weeks. The exams were divided into two different groups.
(Group 1) had Islamic Studies, Social Studies, History and Geography all out in one week. Since Islamic Studies and Social Studies are mandatory, those are the only subject which I had to deal with in that group.
The two exams were very easy, even easier than last semester so I am hoping to get over a 90 in Social Studies and top 80s in Islam Studies because my teacher controls 40 % of the score and he doesn't like me very much (don't ask).
(Group 2) had English, Elective English, Biology, Mathematics, Arabic, Chemistry and Physics at the same order. English and Arabic are mandatory and I chose all the other subjects other than Biology which I absolutely hate.
The two English were, as usual, easy. A bit too easy. Too easy that I found that I had very silly mistakes that I over looked. Then came the serious stuff... The first Blow came from Maths which really destroyed my happiness about the previous exams and it continued with Chemistry and Arabic. I am not a hundred percent sure if I passed those exams but I am hoping for the best. The last exam, which was today, was Physics which came surprisingly easier than first semester but not easy enough for me to say that I did great. At least I know that I will have no trouble passing it.

There it is, a brief on my exams. Now, here is the video. I know I will regret publishing this video in a couple of days and think to myself "what an idiot" but it feels right now so enjoy!

I Am Back!

And finally! Oh, I miss Blogging so much. It's true what they say: "You don't know what you have until you loose it" or something like that... OK, so maybe that doesn't fit the situation here exactly but I felt like saying something wise.

Anyway, I am back and I am back strong. My exams are finally over so, I have all the time in the world for you guys. Well... maybe not all the time in the world, I mean, my exams ARE over so I will be celebrating for some time now until it's out of my system but I guess you can also consider my Blog posts a celebration. At least I would like to think so. OK, so you see, this is what happens when you feed on nothing but caffeine during the three weeks of your exams; you start talking shit.

Fwuu.. Now that I kinda got the urge of writing like a maniac a little out of my system (I wrote the previous paragraph in less than 20 seconds), I will start getting a little bit more serious.
Since it is the 25th and I haven't made any posts this month, I will try to make up for it by writing at least two articles per day for the coming five days which will make a total of ten posts before the end of the month. And I am not only making all of these posts just for the sake of making my archive look good and not have a month that looks dead (although that's partly the reason) but because I have a lot that happened that I want to share with you guys. From my exams to a story involving a woman picking me up to Omanis hitting people to a story about a woman offering to give me a massage! I have a lot that I want to share and I will start right away.

Please keep your comments coming, I would love to hear from you guys again. I really miss you'll and I am happy to be back on the scene.

Driver's License 2008 (Part Two)

In Part One I talked about me finally passing the test and how difficult it is to get your license these days. I talked about the difference in the system today from what it was a few months back and the disadvantages of it. I also talked about the sponsors that were put on the ticket which I later found out that they were not actually sponsors but only Bank Muscat's logo because the Royal Oman Police (ROP) deals with them financially.

I promised to talk more about this in terms of the media coverage and the difference between the Arabic and English coverage.
I don't have much documentations and images to prove what I am saying but many who live here in Oman will confirm that what I am saying is true. So, you'll have to take my word for it.

In the past few months we've noticed that this issue has become more and more out to the open. More people are aware about it and talking about it. The media has played a major role in this and to be fair, the Arabic media played a bigger role.
One media source which really caught my attention and really brought this issue out to the open were the Arabic radio stations. One station in particular which gives people the chance to call and report a problem that they are facing with the country's official sectors is Shabab FM.
Every Morning (on week days I think) people call with problems that they are facing and give their complaints. Their complaints are recorded and kept for an official from that sector to call back on a later time live on the radio to answer these problems and take action.
I've encountered people calling many times to complain about the license situation but the officials almost always deny the problem and say that they give the license to who deserves it which is pretty much what they told me when I called last year.

At least the Arabic media is talking about this problem. The English media, on the other hand, never talks about it. You can never call the English radio stations with serious problems like these and their newspapers always tries to avoid the problem.
Last year in September 2007, there was an article written in TheWeek weekly newspaper about this problem. It was a front-page story and I was really excited to read what they had to say about it.
After reading it, I was really disappointed. I thought they were finally raising awareness on this hornets' nest but no, instead they put all the blame on the instructor. Now, I won't sit here and say that the instructor has nothing to do with this and that all blame goes to the ROP but they haven't mentioned the ROP not even once.
Here is a direct download link to the PDF file of the article.

I don't know why this is the case with the English media. If