Safi: Couch...

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Sandmonkey: Four

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byGanz: the Zombie atop Egypt's cabinet

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The day "Shalit" turned into "Shaltot"

By Shaimaa Al Nazer

Like many others who found themselves unintentionally attached to working fields they have absolutely no passion for, I found myself considering a career shift after spending more than one year in my current field. And given that my thoughts are still wandering in a chaotic state, I couldn’t shape a clear idea about which field to shift to until now. Yes I know I am a little bit behind!

So, I took a chance through my friends to apply for a very well known bank that is currently expanding and is absorbing a huge amount of fresh graduates to fill in its new branches, although I hated the idea of giving up being special and having a unique role by joining the banking field that has a routine nature whether you like it or not, I applied. Everything was going well with the first interview, and then a date was set for the famous IQ test, I got the call "you have a test next Saturday at 1 PM". To be honest, I was not that excited; I didn’t really want to work in a bank as much as I wanted to change my career. But so what, okidoki.

That was until the day of the test!

On that day, I was very comfortable, I didn’t care much about how well I would do, how I would handle the finance and accounting questions that would definitely expose my disinterest in the field, or even what I would do if I passed the test. I just went to try something new. When I arrived, there were about 30 people waiting to take the test. I thought the number was reasonable, until I found out that there was another room full of applicants waiting for the test as well, summing up to nearly 80 applicants in total! What annoyed me at that point is that I knew a lot of these people and many of them haven’t majored in anything that has to do with banking; so it wasn’t just me, there was a bunch of us out there! However, I took a seat and started playing with my BBM waiting for the test to arrive, meanwhile I couldn’t help but observe what was going on around and what was being said by the rest of the applicants, I will put it in the form of a conversation that – I swear by everything dear – will tell every word EXACTLY as it was said, including grammatical mistakes.

(People enter the test room, take a look around and then have a seat, they try to engage with the rest who are already discussing how the test will go, characters will be named A, B, C…etc, except for a guy who I will call Einstein for his excessive knowledge with Banking IQ tests, and a girl I will call Dumber for how stupid she was for me, but still may be not the dumbest… So here we go)

Girl A: I heard the test is not that tough, I know people who did bad and then got a second interview.

Guy A: rabenayostor, I heard they would call us in two weeks if we passed the test

Girl B: OMG we will wait for two whole weeks?!!!!!

Einstein: it’s ok, as long as you do fine with the test, many of my friends passed it and got hired.

Girl A: so what do you think will be in the general knowledge section?

Einstein: they would ask about where the last football world cup was held, what is the largest country in the world, who is the current minister of finance…

Guy A (interrupting him): what is his name?!!!!!

Einstein: his name is Hazem El Beblawy, and also the head of the stock market…

Guy A (again interrupting him): Maged Shawky, right?!!

Einstein (starting to feel unique): no, that’s the former head; the current one is Mohamed Omran. Also, I think there will be a question about how many governorates are there in Egypt.

Girl B: are they 24? Or 26?

Einstein: no, they are currently 27 governorates.

At this point when numbers got in the supplied information by Einstein, this group conversation won the attention of the whole room, and my ears. At the exact moment, Dumber walked in and started listening.

Einstein (continuing): … there will also be a question about the Israeli spy.

Dumber(stepping in the conversation): who is that spy?

Einstein: the one called something Shalit, and there’s this other spy as well, the one in Egypt, but I can’t remember his name.

Dumber (ignoring the last part of this sentence): so there’s the governorates, the spy guy, and???

Einstein (taking the role of a tutor): and world’s largest country and last world cup’s place…

Dumber (interrupting him): No nono,you said some other stuff too… look, what I want you to do is say the questions that are expected along with the answers, don’t wait for me to ask you about the answers ya3ny!! Just say it all…

So Einstein laughs like a CEO with a Cuban Cigar in his mouth passing his experience to his fresh employees and starts listing all the information in a Q&A form and everybody else is listening and writing down what he says. Then he turns to a side conversation with Guy B whileDumber starts revising with her friend Girl C.

Dumber: so there’s Maged Shawky the current head of stock market and Shaltotthe spy… what’s going on with him anyways?

Girl C: the Egyptian government will exchange Shaltot with another spy; I think his name is Gabriel.

Dumber: so Shaltot in exchange of Gabriel, and then….

At this certain point I couldn’t help myself from opening my mouth wide up being shocked from what I was hearing, until Einstein was almost addressing me as a sort of consultation for a question asked by Guy B that he couldn’t answer. I guess he felt that me being quite for so long implies that I know stuff too.

Einstein: yes, they will ask who acquired Bank of Alexandria and turned it to Alex Bank; I just can’t remember the name!!! (Looks at me)

Me (with a very uninterested look): Intesa Sanpaolo

Einstein (happy to find someone else answering questions instead of asking): YES that’s it

Guy B: it’s Spanish, right?

Einstein: honestly I don’t know, but why do you think so?

Guy B (with a huge shallow smile): don’t know, but feels like a word in a Spanish song, I can picture a Spanish dance on it.

And that was it… The amount of ignorance was too much for the capacity of one room for God's sake!! I could not believe that these are the young ambitious passionate members of a generation that is loaded with the responsibility of lifting this doomed country up high, a generation in which people have hopes and dreams, in which people have faith, in which people invested efforts, funds and aspirations. A generation that turned out not even interested in knowing what's going on with the country to the extent that Shalit turned into Shaltot, the same country that they almost got themselves killed in pursuit of its freedom and many of them got killed indeed! Not to mention that most of the applicants are graduates from very respected universities, and that they were coming in that day for a test, meaning they didn't even bother to get ready for it, to deserve the or even to feel as insightful and knowledgeable as Einstein did feel in such a context.

The whole thing made me pause and wonder if we are really doing our part in the whole process, was it really about seeking a better future, a better living, a set of deserved rights, recognizing that duties and responsibilities come along in the package, or was it just an attempt to prove that we are powerful and undefeatable even by a 30 years old decaying yet solid system? And then when the game is over and we win everything could come back to "normal"…

The test went ok, I finished in half the time, drove back home, went to my room and stared in the mirror for a while… and I knew that I wasn't anywhere near ok.

El Abajora Di 7ARAAAM!!

Banna – Egypt’s Sarcasm Society

By Dina Alaa

Weird title, no? It’s just that whenever I hear some of the Islamists talking, I hear that phrase echoing inside my head. I did say SOME though.

It’s just that secularism, liberalism, atheism and other words have been so overused that they lost their meaning. No offense to anybody, but I’m one of those few who get really freaked out by some of the statements given out by Islamic parties. And I hate that whenever I express this sentiment, I get the epic “why do you hate God’s law?”. Well, it’s not my religion that I’m afraid of, it’s the people who took it on themselves to talk on behalf of my religion that freak me out.

For example, I am veiled, but I have a problem with somebody forcing me to a wear a certain outfit. And I have tons of problems with whoever calls my country’s ancient civilization “rotten” and thinks that such valuable monuments should be demolished.

I have no problems with liberalism, and NO it doesn’t mean that “ommy ht2l3 l 7egab!”. Whereas Secularism doesn’t convince me, but I don’t think that it’s okay for me or anybody else to refer to secularists as atheists.

I’m a Muslim Egyptian who refuses to support an Islamic party and that doesn’t make any less of a Muslim. On the other hand, giving my vote to a non-religious party doesn’t mean that I gave up on my identity. So please stop treating me like some non-believer that deserves “gohanam wa be2s al maseir”.

Movie Review - Midnight in Paris

By Seif Elmashad

Starring: Owen Wilson, Rachel  McAdams and Marion Cotillard

Directed by: Woody Allen

When going to watch a Woody Allen movie, what do you expect? A romantic comedy with a neurotic leading character, arguably representing Allen's own neuroticism, with a normal life like that of an average person, however with a peculiar yet comic way of facing it.

But this isn't the case in this movie. With the Parisian setting concept of time travel, Allen still manages to create the same neurotic leading character but with a twist in the day to day events he faces.

When the soon to be wed couple, Gil (Wilson) and Inez (McAdams) decides to join Inez's parents during their business trip in Paris. They come to realize that their relationship might end due to the intellectual gap between them, especially when it comes to their takes on life and their different sentiments towards Paris. Besides Gil's affection towards this city to the point of thinking of moving there, Gil is faced by a surprise. At midnight, he shifts back into the surreal world of Paris in the 1920's where he's joined by great writers and artists like Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Earnest Hemmingway and last but not least, Pablo Picasso.

The movie was brilliantly executed by Allen who's known for his unique and peculiar style of directing. The leading characters were well chosen and they had an unexplainable natural chemistry between them. Owen Wilson excels as the author who has a mildly socialist perspective on life and is looking for inspiration to write his debut novel. On the other hand, McAdams also stands out as Wilson's fiancée who has a capitalistic pretentious background. The rest of the excelled in their interaction with Wilson's character, Gil, to the point that you would think that they are people you could actually run into on a daily basis. 

The script was well written and did a great job in depicting the notion of nostalgia and how we long to return to simpler times. Even though the dialogue is scripted, one could feel that it was improvised due to the actors' ability to perform their roles effortlessly and in a spontaneous way.

So if you are looking for a not-so-cliché romantic comedy with a Parisian twist, I highly recommend this movie for all the nostalgic romantics out there.

Bassem Youssef: A Country Like Campus

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November 19th Posters!

Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.

Napoleon Hill

   !إحنا كمسؤولين... مش مسؤولين

محمد صبحي

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

A disagreement may be the shortest cut between two minds.

Jubran Khalil Jubran

A little perspective, like a little humor, goes a long way.
Allen Klein

The Censored Files - Egypt's Gay Day!

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Types of Women Drivers!

I’m sexist against my own sex

Well, to be more specific, I am very sexist when it comes to women drivers. Yes, I too used to find the generalized stereotypes like “el neswan mabey3rafoosh yesoo2o” very annoying (and the exclamation of: “ah, ma tab3an… wa7da bent!” whenever someone cuts in front of you or does something vaguely stupid). 

But then the truth was just too much for my feminine loyalties to overcome. Yes, men can be extremely reckless and dangerous drivers, but truth be told, almost every time I was nearly killed on our chaotic streets was at the hands of some oblivious female. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no better than the rest (I totaled my car not once but TWICE), but it goes so much further than just me. 

Here are the types of women drivers you should look out for:

1. Soccer moms. They’re usually found driving Matrixes, but sometimes they’re disguised in other cars. You can still spot them by the way they sit extremely close to the steering wheel with extremely straight chair backs. They will have at least one child in the car, usually sitting in the backseat. They look extremely nervous and stressed out at all times (probably because they just learned how to drive recently in order to shuffle their kids back and forth between home and the nadi). The problem with them is that they do the STUPIDEST things while driving, but then men kotr they got scared by the near-accident, they’ll start screaming at YOU like a banshee. E7na asfeen ya tante. 
   
2. The college princesses. They’re the ones who are driving the fancy car their fathers bought for them, but unfortunately driving lessons didn’t come along with the car. They don’t look before reversing the car, they don’t know how to park, they can’t judge the dimensions of their car, and if anything happens they’ll start crying hysterically 3ashan Pappy hayza32. 
3. The technological mohagabas. They’re the ones who stick their phone between their face and their hegab and chat away happily (completely ignoring the seven cars they just cut off). When they’ve finished their phone call, they can be seen blasting their favorite songs and singing their hearts out (which easily drowns out the cacophony of car horns blasting from all directions). 
4. The hopeless cases. There are some women who don’t fall into any of the above categories, but are honestly just hazards to themselves and others (eg., most of my friends). They start daydreaming, they ride other cars’ asses, they think they’re ‘good drivers’ (and always yell when I admit I think most women are bad drivers), they crash into random things, they accidentally drive onto sidewalks, they smack pedestrians with their mirrors several times daily, they run out of gas, they block roads… they’re just menaces to society!

So yes, although men can be douchebags behind the wheel (racing, speeding, ghoraz, harassing girls), one must chalk up that to plain male stupidity and not actual lack of skill. While women, bless their hearts, don’t mean harm but undoubtedly will be the reason why you’re slamming your head against the wheel in frustration on a daily basis. 

Leila.