Book Briefing: Beautiful Bodies: A memoir

By: Reham Essam

Beautiful Bodies by Kimberly Rae Miller

I’d been on a diet for over twenty years; two-thirds of my life had been spent thinking about food and how to avoid it, and I was tired of analyzing every sandwich I met. But I didn’t know how to eat without a diet. I didn’t know what my body was supposed to look like or how to see it as anything more than a “before” photo.

If I was grappling with something I didn’t understand—hormones, homework, boys, or bullies— I would find a book by someone who did understand, and the world seemed a lot more manageable. I didn’t know how much I should eat, but I knew less was better, and each day I had a competition with myself to eat less than the day before. In the Irony of all ironies, my lifelong struggle between dieting constantly and finding peace with my body had led to a career I loved.

Patience And Fortitude

Being a writer was a complete accident, but it was always in the making: I’m addicted to dieting. I’ve never met a diet I didn’t want to try. I have eaten nothing but meat, nothing but raw vegetables, nothing but fruit, nothing but juice. I have counted points, calories, and scarfed down all my meals in a six-hour feeding window. All of it in the name of weight loss. Dieting is my real hobby.

I have come to rely on the structure and hope diets provide as a way of anchoring myself in the world. When there are no rules or promises to life, a diet provides them. When things are at their most stressful, calorie counting is a refuge of control. I am aware that this is very much in line with disordered eating behavior. If we stopped being ashamed of our bodies, the whole diet industry would collapse. I like being employed as a writer, so I have mixed feelings about that, but I could probably find another job, and I would be curious to see a society that doesn’t revolve round people constantly trying to hate themselves into perfection.

The Inuit Diet

Inuit culture a chance to study the effect s of a high–fat, high–protein, low–carbohydrate diet on health and dental hygiene. In this thirty-year-old memory, I watch as the Sesame street crew follows an Inuit girl living Arctic Alaska as she goes about her daily life. She spends a little time with her grandfather in a hut he’d made from snow that he’d use while fishing and helps her mother prepare food in their perfectly status quo. From what I could tell, life evolved mostly around not freezing to death. Her key to survival: eating fat. Following her theory, I had a taste for fat, its creamy, savory essence that evolved into a chewy, salty gum of sorts; I knew that the Inuit were onto something. Fat is delicious. And it would keep me warm. Food had a purpose. I realized that what I ate could have an effect on my life, on my overall happiness. I’d never given much thought to my body—but now it was something I could control with food.

You Should Be Ashamed Of Yourself

We can trace our body-shaming ways back to the Bible. Right there, in the beginning, Adam and Eve just hung out in the Garden of Eden, being naked and loving it: “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” Their shameless naked unemployment lasts for only a few paragraphs. Once they eat something that they aren’t supposed to, everything changes: their bodies become totems of ignominy, and they are left scrambling to sew a few fig leaves together to cover themselves, to hide their bodies. The Bible was inspiration for America’s first diet-reform movement, led by none other than cracker was invented in 1829, not as a vehicle for chocolate and marshmallows but as away to ward off unholy sexual urges through good old-fashion wheat germ. 

Graham, a Presbyterian minister, become America’s first diet guru in the early 1830s when he toured the country, preaching his nutritive gospel. He warned that diet, health, and morality were inseparable, and in order to maintain balance between the three, spices, tea, coffee, refined grains, milk, meat, alcohol, and tobacco should be avoided entirely. In fact, the only way to ensure foods did not excite the spirit and lead to depravity was to follow a simple diet of vegetables, unrefined flour, and clean water. In other words, boringness is next to godliness. The teachings mirrored those of Graham’s when it came to the relationship between food and morality. 

I remember the exact moment I started to see myself as nothing but a failed body. I was in second grade and I weighed 125 pounds. I didn’t actually. I just thought I did. My mother weighted 125 pounds. She had mentioned her weight in passing and I, not being great with pronouns or active listening, decided she was talking about me. I didn’t know how much I was supposed to weigh at seven, but I knew that 125 pounds was too much. My body was no longer an extension of my thoughts or feelings, but something else entirely: a betrayer. I allowed these new feelings of sadness and failure to consume me, for hours, maybe a day, before I finally broke under the weight of my despair and started to cry in the middle of quiet study at school.

The King And I (Go To Fat Camp)

King William’s alcohol-only diet didn’t seem to have changed his girth that much, as evidenced by fact that king did not fit in his coffin. As the church attendant tasked with preparing his body for burial smashed and smooshed his unembalmed, bacteria-riddled belly into his coffin, it become evident that William was too rotund to close the casket, and so he had an unplanned open-casket funeral.

 I was obsessed with fat camp. I could spend hours inspecting the various flavors the camps came in some promised the college experiences: spending the summer in a university’s dorms, using the fitness center, and eating in the cafeteria. Others promised a woodsy affair, offering a traditional sleep away camp with nature-based activities. Some boasted hotel accommodations and daily maid service. All of them promised I would make friendships that would last a lifetime and, more importantly. Return to my real life a more beautiful and confident me than I’d ever been before. My parents refused to drive me to camp— I’d gone against their wishes and was relegated to taking the bus to some town.

By the time my two-week fat-camp adventure was over, I was actually psyched to hit the scale. I’d spent a cumulative fifty-six hours exercising and had survived on ice pops and salad, the only mess-hall items I could stomach. I was sure that I was at least ten pounds lighter, and so on my last day of camp I met with nutrition staff to review my “life plan” and find out what my effort had earned me, but the counselor told me “It’s all muscle.”

Butts and Bellies

The good news is that I’m good in bed. I’ve always wondered about that. The bad news is that I fell in love with someone who wasn’t sure whether my problem areas were his deal breakers. I don’t know why I started reading Roy’s e-mail talking to his friend about my big butt and belly. Actually, I do know why I started reading his e-mail. I didn’t trust him, since it was by e-mail that I had found out that Paul had cheated on me. Paul and I had been together for almost four years. He was the first man I slept with, my first boyfriend, the first man I loved.

 At twenty-one I just wanted to lose my virginity before it become an embarrassing accessory; love I was a little more reticent about. The girl with Paul sent me an e-mail discussing their sex life. My first reaction is always rational, practical. A Calm before my emotional storm, I thought of reasons he’d depressed about in life, about us, but in the four years we’d been together we’d never even had a fight. Our life, our relationship, was so completely status quo. We read the NewYork Times together in bed on Sunday mornings, talked politics at local bars, sang karaoke in Koreatown, and went in vacation with couple friends. We spent holidays with his family and talked about our future, about hypothetical kids and hypothetical apartments we’d live in—together—one day. You don’t cheat on people you don’t cheat on people you’re planning a future with.

In the three years after Paul and I broke up, I’d dated a lot of really great guys and a few not-so-great guys. Each time I reminded myself that they weren’t him. They had never knowingly hurt me, but that didn’t seem to matter to the part of my brain that allowed me to feel comfortable letting my guard down around men who might want to see me naked one day. So in Roy’s Computer there was an access to his social media and email accounts, I started searching for anything he had confessed to friends about me. It didn’t take long for the e-mail to come up. He Had written to a friend about me, and his friend response was that he needed to get out immediately, because if I was chunky now, and he’d end up miserable with a fatty and ultimately screw up for life. 

The Birth and Death of Body Acceptance

The therapist I saw after our house had burned down had recommended the journal as a therapeutic tool so that I could reflect on my family’s loss privately, but I never wrote about the fire or mourning my pets, about leaving my friends, or less-than-stellar adjustment I was making at my new school. I didn’t write about how our new house had started to fill up with the same clutter we’d escaped in our old house or my parents fighting. Writing things down made them permanent, and I didn’t want history to reflect any of it. Therefore, I tried to skip this part from my life.

There isn’t a single chapter of my life where I wasn’t following some type of diet—expect for two outlying periods when I allowed myself to exist in the world without a diet to organize my days around. The first time was when I was eighteen and studying abroad in the Netherlands, I lost weight although I ate everything. When I went to meet my parents at the airport on the way home, my mother walked right past me. After Paul left I ate all the things, my second period of untracked consumption, rebellion against all the years of carefully planned meal and deprivation that was supposed to shield me from failure and disappointment. Quickly. Uncomfortably. I hated myself, but that was nothing new. I hid myself from the world, avoid social events and backing out of auditions. I didn’t want anyone to see me the way I really was. However, I wanted to be a star, I spent my weekends going on tours of law schools. I wasn’t completely sure I wanted to be a lawyer, but I wanted to go to school, to do something normal, grounded people did. I wanted to get away from the city and industry I shared with Paul. I liked the idea of spending my days behind a desk in an air-conditioned office. I didn’t have to be an actor, someone who was constantly struggling to be funny enough, flirty enough, pretty enough, someone whose weight was a commodity to be hired and fired by; I could just be a normal person who was allowed to be imperfect.

When my acceptance letter started to roll in, I wasn’t excited, but I was resolved to trying out a completely different life.  I didn’t want to be a lawyer. I wanted to be the poster girl for a movement I’d never heard of; therefore I have worked in modeling for a while. Then one day, I found Self magazine ran an annual diet series, and it was the perfect opportunity to brown nose the mothership. I followed the twelve-week magazine diet as best I could and blogged about it in what was supposed to be a short-lived blog called The Kim Challenge—I just wanted the producers might notice me as a writer, and they asked me to write for their blog network.

I kept writing my personal blog in addition to my daily column on Elastic Waist. And I bought it, hook, line, and sinker. I was a believer; we’re all in this together. Every time I sat down at my computer to work on my post for the day, I opened a new vein of insecurity, and the strangers on the other side of my words wrote back that they understood. Being on a diet meant that I was trying, but I’d never actually admitted how much my weight consumed me, how it had dictated every decision I made. People I didn’t know wrote to me regularly to tell me they felt the exact same way. I wouldn’t ever be thin enough to be thin enough and I didn’t weigh enough to have an acceptable place in the size-acceptance movement. So, I decided right then and there that I had found the secret; the key to being thin was being busy and happy. That was it, I thought. I just had to be busy and happy all the time and I would stay thin.

Canadian Pill Pushers

It wasn’t your fault; life handed you an unfair hand; now take these pills and everything will be better. Every story was mine at some point or another. There was always a reason to be fat, blame to be placed genetics, boyfriends, jobs, and traumas. None of us had gained weight because we wanted to. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and every one of us feels alone in it. I started popping pills from the giant unmarked jug as soon as I got home from my info session. But first I’d Googled all the ingredients. For the most part they were made up of caffeine and herbs with laxative qualities. They wouldn’t kill me. They probably wouldn’t make me thinner either, but they would at least keep me awake and help me poop.

Fight or Flight

I’d been dieting since I was a child, and even when I was thin for me I never seemed to be thin enough for anyone else—not my boyfriends, not my agents, not the trolls on the internet, not for diet-pill companies. My weight was the one thing in my life I couldn’t overcome; my butt was going to undermine my relationship with Roy as his friend told him on the e-mail.

I didn’t confess to being a big-butt-and-bellied snoop when Roy came home. I pretended it was just any other night of new-couple bliss, but I was in fight-or-flight mode. I could break things off with him now and leave him to the models and dancers he preferred, or I could diet harder. I didn’t want to break up with Roy. I liked him, more than I liked anyone in a long time. But I wanted him to like me as I was—that’s how romance is supposed to work, right? His email encapsulated everything I’d ever believed about myself: I was almost good enough, if it weren’t for my body. And my body was my fault. I couldn’t lose weight because I loved me now, but maybe I could lose weight because I wanted to love Roy. I caught a glance at my body one day while Roy and I were having sex, and for the first time ever, I thought that I looked sexy. It was the only moment in my life, other than the moment in the hotel room before my first and only pageant that I looked at my body with approval, the outline of my ribs evident through my skin. That was also the night Roy told me he loved me for the first time.

Fifty Pounds To Galilee

I didn’t believe him. I knew he was lying. If I was too fat for him when we met, I must have been monstrous to him now. I did believe that he loved me: it was just that he did so despite my body. Two years passed between when we met and when I submitted my book, and in that time he hadn’t missed a day of sending me a text to tell me he was thinking of me; he called regularly before we moved in together; and he never let two days pass without planning a night for us. He kept being wonderful, and I was just getting fatter and sadder and fatter. After Roy’s proposal, I was in starry-eyed bliss for about five minutes before I started tallying the calories, I needed to go on a wedding diet.

Broken Bodies

I had dieted successfully on a slightly screwed-up thyroid most of my life. Now nothing was working. I was supposed to be my most beautiful self on my wedding day, but I had reached a point where I refused to even look in a mirror or go out in public. I declined the engagement party my parents wanted to throw us, not wanting there to be any photographic evidence of my existence, and I started to feign feeling tried or sick whenever Roy planned a date night that involved other people.

My social awkwardness was the price he paid for falling in love with in introvert, but he was mad at me. I’d crossed a line when I’d started encouraging him to go out to events alone—a compromise, I thought— so he could still be social and I could still be invisible. He kept saying “Your body is tricky. That’s all. Maybe you should see nutritionist.”

I’d picked the latest possible appointment because my work schedule was always a little unpredictable. The nutritionist’s office was already dimmed; the secretaries had already gone home for the day and turned the decorative lamps placed around the waiting room off, leaving only the faint fluorescent ones in their place. Three of the four offices were empty and dark, but I could hear voices behind the one closed door.

Alison, the doctor, was twenty-six-year-old, she had an eagerness that made me nervous but was also sort of endearing—I remembered being fresh from school and wanting so desperately for people to take me seriously, and for the most part people had given me the benefit of the doubt. She was wearing a dress, while I wore cardigan. Cardigans are like the security blankets of clothes, hiding muffin tops and covering strain fabric seams. Or at least that’s what I told myself. She listened attentively and took notes, nodding when appropriate. After the BMR test, she said that I have a broken metabolism.

Eat less, move more was a mantra I had lived by, but I’d taken it to extremes for more than half my life, and I had broken my body, as my body had no idea what to do with food anymore after eating less amount of food. So Alison said we need to build my metabolism back up, through eating up to 1,800 calories besides eating slowly to allow my body to eventually adjust. I was shocked; it was double what I was currently burning efficiently.

Roy, the sexy Dr.Phil told me that metabolism isn’t an organ; I can’t break it. It’s the rate between building and destroying tissue, and an intricate combination of systems: hormonal, thermoregulatory, and biomechanical. There are no instances of people leaving periods of extreme caloric deprivation heavier.

After hesitation, I decided to confess to Roy about  the e-mail that I had read 3 years ago that he sent to his friend about my body, and apologize for invading his privacy and ask for clarification why he is about to marry me although he doesn’t like my body. I expected he will be mad at me, but instead he said really quickly that my weight became a non-issue for him, he looked ashamed. Not the reaction I was expecting and he added “My priorities were screwed up.” 

I kept up my reverse diet even after the wedding, but I stopped paying to see Alison. Roy and I wanted to buy an apartment and have kids, and I needed that money to go toward the things that really mattered. Maintaining my over weight status didn’t feel all that important. I had spent a lifetime dieting, and it had made me heavier. I didn’t have a specific weight or calorie goal to hit, but my whole life had been about achieving the unachievable.

Evolving Venuses

The truth is that for most of human history, our ancestors simply had less food available and had to work much harder for it. Whether they go fat or not and when they did have access to food had more to do with where they lived than instinct and self-control. Genetics was a perfect excuse for all my many imperfections and a valid reasoning point for why my friends could eat cookies without feeling bad about themselves and I couldn’t. 

Two people of similar weight, height, body shape, and lifestyle can eat the same foods but with vastly different results. Some people require fewer calories than others. Their bodies are models of metabolic efficiency: they seem to hardly need any food at all the function in the world, and if they were to eat the recommended amount of food suggested by governing guidelines, they would actually gain weight. Their body is a great betrayer, who can bump up the needle on the scale in one moderately indulgent weekend.

Whose Line is It Anyway?

Food.Sex.And. According to my wise best friend, Anna, all men are made up of a simple trifecta of priorities.  The “and” is what changes from man to man. For her boyfriend it’s cars. For my husband it’s superheroes— mostly in the form of comics, but superhero movies are still a matter of utmost importance in our home.

Once I agreed with Roy that we want a baby, I proceeded to dunk several more tests in my fresh cup of morning pee. All with the same result, a faint pink line, the pink line got darker over the next few days, and as it did our priorities changed. But first, I wanted to tell my parents. Roy thought we should wait until we were further along, but I assured him that was just for friends. Parents should be told right away. Plus I said” if something goes wrong, I’m going to need my mom.”

My mom had described to me, in detail, repeatedly, all the foods I could and could not have now that I was pregnant. I had changed my diet completely, happily, as soon as that line turned pink. I had no problem nixing anything with artificial colors or sweeteners, which we didn’t eat much of anyway. I added four hundred calories to my daily allowance, not because I was afraid my regular, diet-conscious eating habits were too minimal to make a new human. I’d deal with being fat later; the next nine months were about the baby, and I loved it.

I didn’t want history to repeat itself. I was pregnant now, and that made me feel like the clock was ticking; I needed to find peace with my body. It was going to change, it was going to get fatter, and the amount of fat I have could not be my priority any longer. I was making a new person. There was a part of me that secretly wished that my baby wasn’t a she, because the world is so much harder on girls. The pressure to be everything, to be smart but also to be beautiful, ambitious but also supportive of everyone else, carefree but thoughtful, full of personality and gravitas but also in great shape— it’s a tightrope that I’ve fallen  from on many occasions. The feminist in me wants to say,”Fuck the tightrope,” but the truth is I don’t know who I would be without it; my whole life has been centered around my performance. I suppose there are different battles men fight, but I honestly don’t think they’re as hard to balance. The dilemma is how could I teach my baby to respect women’s bodies when I didn’t respect mine?

I started bleeding three days later…

What To Expect When You‘re Losing Your Baby

The ultrasound wand entered my body and my baby appeared bigger than the last time, but the flicker of his heart was gone. The doctor moved the wand around looking, but I knew she wouldn’t find it. He was only measuring six weeks and two days.  This baby was wanted. No one had acknowledged that yet, not me, not Roy. We had gotten pregnant easily, surprisingly easily, and it was sort of a high-five moment.  The doctor kept saying I’m sorry. It wasn’t his fault. It was mine. My body wasn’t good enough. My metabolism killed my baby. Then, the doctor added that we can re-try to have a new baby but after two months. I wondered what it would be like to have sex with the sole purpose of making a baby. I didn’t want that, but I could see myself becoming obsessed with tracking ovulation dates and cervical mucus. It seemed like a crappy way to make a baby. Not out of love but out of sense of failure.

I talked to my body while I waited for the ills to work their way through my system. We were going to have to go through my system. We were going to have to go through this together.

I’m sorry. This is going to be hard and it’s going to hurt. I’m sorry we have to go through this. But I will take care of you.

I hadn’t had any connection to my body since I was seven years old. I’d made it the villain of my life story—I blamed everything on it. If I didn’t get the part, I blamed my body. If I didn’t get the guy, I blamed my body. If I didn’t like who I was, I blamed my body. But I didn’t want to blame it anymore. I wanted a truce. I wasn’t ready to love it, but I didn’t want to hate it anymore.

Ending An Era

I’d never put much stock in the five-stages-of-grief idea. People in my life had died, and I’d been sad and missed them, but I always understood and accepted it. Miscarrying was something else. I couldn’t justify it. I knew that miscarriages were common. I knew that it didn’t mean I’d never have another baby. I knew it hadn’t had any thoughts or feelings— it wasn’t a person who had died tragically; I wasn’t mourning a baby that I’d held in my arms and cared for and loved. I didn’t miss him; I didn’t know him/her. I understood that I was mourning the idea that I was going to be a mother, the experience of being pregnant. I just needed to get over it and do it again. It wasn’t a happy ending; it wasn’t even a silver lining. I wished desperately that I’d never been pregnant at all. Even if I never lost another pound, I needed to reach peace with myself. The only pictures I had with my mother were from my wedding. I didn’t want to be the kind of mom who never took pictures with her family. Didn’t leave memories for her children to hold on to, I didn’t want to pass on my deep-seated insecurities to my kids. I needed to actually take some time to live in it the way it was instead of hiding from it. I will always love diets and the hope they give me, but I will love them for what they are, a fantasy, and I will not let them hurt me again. Chasing the ideal body is like chasing the horizon— it’s all a matter of perspective. I’ll never really get there, but I’ll appreciate the view as I try.

Epilogue

In the past twenty-two weeks I’ve gained seven pounds, but it looks like more. My face has thinned, but my breasts are huge, and the roundness of my belly has moved up and up. I have officially had to transition out of pants that button, and my maternity jeans have just started to reach the point where I don’t have to pull them up constantly. I look pregnant. There are some habits that die hard, and each month on my way to the doctor, I make sure whatever it is I’m wearing is on the light side. I ate whatever I wanted, it was the first time to drink milk, and eat burger. I know it won’t always be like this, but I hope it will. Not the hungry part, the being okay with being hungry part.

Celebration of Humanity with the greatest showman on earth

The creator for the first circus in the world

By: Reham Essam

The Greatest Showman is a 2017 American musical drama film directed by Michael Gracey in his directorial debut, written by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon and starring Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, and Zendaya. The film is inspired by the story of P. T. Barnum's creation of the Barnum & Bailey Circus and the lives of its star attractions.

The Greatest Showman received mixed reviews, with praise for the cast (particularly Jackman), music and production value but criticism for the artistic license taken, with some reviewers calling it "faux-inspiring and shallow". At the 75th Golden Globe Awards, the film received three nominations: Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Actor – Musical or Comedy (Jackman), and Best Original Song 

("This Is Me"), winning the latter.

Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American showman, politician and businessman remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus (1871-2017).Although Barnum was also an author, publisher, philanthropist, and for some time a politician, he said of himself, "I am a showman by profession...and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me, and his personal aim was to put money in his own coffers. Barnum is widely, but erroneously, credited with 

coining the phrase "There's a sucker born every minute".  

   

Born in Bethel, Connecticut, Barnum became a small-business owner in his early twenties, and founded a weekly newspaper, before moving to New York City in 1834. He embarked on an entertainment career, first with a variety troupe called "Barnum's Grand Scientific and Musical Theater", and soon after by purchasing Scudder's American Museum, which he renamed after himself. Barnum used the museum as a platform to promote hoaxes and human curiosities such as the Feejee mermaid and General Tom Thumb. In 1850 he promoted the American tour of singer Jenny Lind, paying her an unprecedented $1,000 a night for 150 nights.

After economic reversals due to bad investments in the 1850s, and years of litigation and public humiliation, he used a lecture tour, mostly as a temperance speaker, to emerge from debt. His museum added America's first aquarium and expanded the wax-figure department. While in New York, he converted to Universalism and was a member of the Church of the Divine Paternity, now the Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York.

Barnum did not enter the circus business until he was 60 years old. In Delavan, Wisconsin in 1870 with William Cameron Coup, he established "P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome, a traveling circus, menagerie and museum of "freaks." It went through various names: "P.T. Barnum's Travelling World's Fair, Great Roman Hippodrome and Greatest Show On Earth," and after an 1881 merger with James Bailey and James L. Hutchinson, "P.T. Barnum's Greatest Show On Earth, And The Great London Circus, Sanger's Royal British Menagerie and The Grand International Allied Shows United," soon shortened to "Barnum & Bailey's." This entertainment phenomenon was the first circus to display three rings, which made it the largest circus 

the world had ever seen.

Barnum with the real dwarf man

No matter what was the real reason behind this great idea, but this man will always be a legend  for creating fantasy dreamy world from extraordinary people who thought that they had to hide for the rest of their lives, he gave them a magical life to hug their techni - color world. 

Annie Jones was born in 1865. Her chin was covered in hair, which caused her parents some concern
the most famous of all the bearded ladies from the Victorian era,Not only did she sport a heavy, full beard, but she also had exceptionally long hair, more than 1.8 meters (6 ft) in length. She was a good singer with exceptional etiquette. Jones continued to tour as a bearded lady for 36 years in Barnum circus.

Love Dilemma in relationships and forever theory

By:  Reham Essam

Love is one word of a million flavors, so it's not just the happiness we will feel. Love also contains pain, even painful if betrayed. If sadness caused by love is overwhelming, we need positive activity as a distraction to forget our little sadness. One alternative is to make a sad love poem. The poems we make can be heartbreaking and memories of what we feel right now, and if you are not talented enough to write poetry, don't worry. There are many other ways to let off some steam like sharing sad posts on Facebook or even read poems for other authors this if you are left in the past and lost on your beloved eyes and never want to heal.

The mystery of love is much greater than the mystery of death because there is no reasonable cause that can explain it, and at the middle of your chaos, you find a warm heart that collects your pieces all over again and you share your life with another someone as if you were born yesterday night. For sure it's exchanged responsibility to make your partner happy, so the keyword here is Sacrifices I think this is how it goes if you want to make the end of your story "and they lived happily ever after".

The greatest thing I have ever learned is just to love and be loved in return even in friendships or normal daily life relationships, also to always forgive others because at the end  they are human beings who commit mistakes and so do I. However, I am doing this not for their sake, I want to keep my inner peace. Imagine your life and the time, power, and energy lost while fighting with other just to prove your point of view or to be stubborn for silly shallow stuff that you can just get over them and stop acting like a naive kid who is out of control. When the problem is over or even left hanged without solution form both sides, you discover after many years that it would be better if you just scarified with this little thing, or if you said sorry and proved it by actions before it was too late.

If you have friends, I mean real friends who know that friendship is a vow to stand by your side in tough times not just to hang out to eat in an expensive restaurant or go to the club together. It's rare in our time to find people who appreciate your presence and accept your flaws just because they love you and both of you exert effort to show love and make this relation last as long as forever; getting out of someone's life after you were too close under any type of relationships is really hard to be stranger after you know each detail about the other's life. Unfortunately, this is life and your friend may turn to an enemy or even worst as he/she knew too much about the real you, so it's a good revenge to use your secrets and beat you on your point of weakness.

Nothing lasts forever if we don't exert much effort to keep it, and human nature is really complicated you follow your heart and some signs and this is a risk. The dilemma of "What if?" when you are talking to yourself  after midnight to review your daily story-line and the decisions that you had taken put you on this endless cycle because you will run to escape from your thoughts or end up by writing your last letter and then suicide. Just think always about consequences and if you have emotions for these people don't let them go because they commit a silly mistake that can be solved by honest communication from all sides.

Relationships aren't easy just be up to your word and give your partner something concrete to prove that you really care no matter your age and know that when you choose to live with someone you should accept every detail about him/her, and be aware that you lost that luxury to choose again. Instead of searching for alternative partner or friend, be mature enough to tackle the problem that you already face.

Is it better to take the wrong train or miss it?

I accidentally bought the wrong ticket!

By: Reham Essam

First of all, there is no need to stress. It happens to the best of us.

Depending on your ticket conditions, you will have a variety of options. If your ticket is Semi-Flexible or Flexible ticket you can see this information if you look at your ticket on the website or app or on your ticket confirmation email then you can cancel your ticket and receive a refund easily. In order to cancel your ticket, "click here" to find out exactly what to do.  Once you have cancelled your ticket, you can book a new one for the right day or/ time.

I heared these words when I booked a ticket for Alexandia, and then I found that I hold a ticket for Aswan. I asked myself is it better to catch up the wrong train or miss it?

Sometimes we find ourselves faced with difficult choices. We can be staring at two options and almost literally feel torn between which one to choose.We might know what the right choice is, but we might still have the desire to make the wrong one. Life is filled with moments in which you feel as if you are standing in a fork in the road, looking down two potential paths, and wondering which way you should go. Sometimes we find ourselves lost, uncertain of which path will lead us home.

Other times we know which path will lead us further away and, yet, we might be so curious that we want to take that path. The wonderful thing about life is that we often have the option to travel down many different paths. However, that ability to make choices can also be one of the most terrifying things about life.

Bad decisions were useful at some point, as it helped you to master the art of self forgiveness and your ability to make a decision is an opportunity to exercise the freedom that is your birthright. By feeling the pain from a decision “gone wrong,” you enable yourself to bask in the magnificence of a decision “gone right” because of the occasional misstep, you enable yourself to live a Technicolor life.You are here to live in color!  Mistakes are OK as long as they’re new ones. Bad decisions are only bad if you repeat them. For me, the only bad decisions are the ones I did not make. There is a lot to learn each time you make a decision; You may see the flaws in your logic or learn new facts about the environment in which the decision was made. Maybe you were too emotional or not emotional enough. You just have to keep trying to get to the right place the next time.

Finally, I have hope that I can cancel the wrong booking for the train and wait for the next train so that I stop regretting and blaming myself  for missing the right train which came when the time was wrong although I wanted to catch it by any mean, but unfortunately I couldn't repeat the past.

When The Past Is Another Country:Discussion with my depressed friend who just passed his thirties

By: Reham Essam

Time passed in a blink of an eye, make the most of every moment of it before the years fleeted. You have so much time in your hand, time seems to speed up, and it just goes so fast. There is a moment in your life where you stop hoping to be older and start hoping to be younger. In your twenties, you wish to grow up and people think you are older than you may seem and then comes a moment and you discover that you wish completely the opposite, some people reach this level at the age of thirty or a little older.

On my thirty birthday party,  I profoundly looked at my life before to discover the things below and just in case you feel the same know that you are not alone :-

When you find that the number of friends you can speak with at any time to see them at the moment is less.

You discover that these excess fats no longer disappear as easily as before.

Midnight becomes late when it used to be the time for your calls to prepare for an outing.

You have a good culture for vaccines, their effects and side effects, and you have a preferred medicine for every pain that visits you regularly.

Realize that a friend is not fighting against your enemies, but who forgives you and does not quarrel with you and easily becomes your enemy.

Doctors are closer to you than some friends, and they may more than know "How are you now?"

You start most of your stories with "from 15 years ago" and you seem recalling every details about them all.

The routine of your social life is stuck between going to weddings and then a consolation and you became aware that the importance of going to solace is much greater than going for joys.

You hear stories that you think are just happening to others, unfortunately they happen to your close friends and guess what! You are included.

Your feelings in surprises dramatically started to decline and your voice during crisis started to fade away. You are no longer expecting justice from the world, but when an error occurs in the universe and the oppressed takes his right or the oppressor is punished you smile, but you do not expect the continuity of this random error.

Driving has become a curse, your love to take a ride with your car day and night to discover the city's secrets come to its end, while the terrifying nightmare is a work meeting forcing you to take the ring or Axis or October Bridge at peak hours.

You believe less and doubt more, you blow in your yogurt after you had been burned by hot soup many times before.

The worst part is the dreams, when they turned from dreams of flying into escapism. The desire to gain something turned to be that feeling of fear to lose what you already have, also your dreams to meet your beloved burned to ashes and you started to think to meet those under the dust.

These thoughts came usually before the New Year began, and the memory of your birth raises a new question after it was the key to more choices.

You are talking to yourself that you are not here to resist or fight with years, but something like eternal battle deep inside you, still fighting.

Dalai Lama: India-China issue On Tibet

By: Reham Essam

China Issues Warning to Botswana Over Dalai Lama Visit

The 14th Dalai Lama is known as the supreme religious leader of the Tibetan Buddhists and the leader of the spiritual and mundane leadership in the region that suffers from internal disturbances. His followers regarded him as the "King of Tibet" and "Buddha's successor" and described him as one of the advocates of peace.

The Dalai Lama's Advice to Buddhists in the West – Tibetan Buddhism – Struggling With Different Cultural Issues

Tenzin Gyatso The 14th Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his contributions to the promotion of the principles of freedom in Tibet occupied by China. He was born on July 6, 1935, to farmers' parents in a small village northeast of Tibet. He was declared the new incarnation of the Dalai Lama when he was two years old. He began his education at a Buddhist monastery and completed his studies with a doctorate in Buddhist philosophy.

Holiness the Dalai Lama's commitment to promote basic human values

In 1950, he was 15 years old and China invaded Tibet, and the government of China released an agreement not to amend any religious, or civilian, or cultural organization. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Chinese invasion of Tibet, the Dalai Lama said that goal was to achieve autonomy for his territory and not to break away from the People's Republic of China.

The Dalai Lama's reincarnation in Arunachal Prades

China considers the 14th Dalai Lama, a separatist and he continues to live in exile after leaving for India during the Tibetan uprising of 1959. The Dalai Lama, who denies seeking Tibetan independence, is in favor of meaningful autonomy for Tibet in the context of the People's Republic of China and proposes a 'middle-way' between autonomy and independence to peacefully resolve the issue.
The real issue, of course, is not the Indo-Tibetan border demarcation.  It is China's illegal occupation of Tibet, which has given it direct access to the Indian sub-continent.  The Chinese authorities have attempted to confuse the issue by claiming that Tibet has always been a part of China.  This is untrue.  Tibet was a fully independent state when the People's Liberation Army invaded the country in 1949/50.

US fromer president with Dalai Lama

 What then does China achieve when its foreign ministry demands that “India stop using the Dalai Lama to do anything that undermines China’s interests” and that the “Indian side not hype up sensitive issues between India and China,” or by calling the Indian ambassador to China, Vijay Gokhale to lodge a protest? China’s hype over the Dalai Lama's movements has done one thing: it has given wide publicity to his visit. The Dalai Lama does not make front-page news in India till the Chinese make a noise about him. The Indian media makes very little space for him.

Two Muslim Leaders are Happily taking bless from Dalai Lama

I think Dalai Lama is not a Nobel man as it may seem. At the end he is ascetic man, and the source of his religion is not heaven, it's created by a human called "Buza" who wasn't a prophet at all. The united states of America supported his movements and gave him this power , authority, and Nobel prize to achieve its proposes and all what he is doing right now is just talking about imaginary peace without real steps on reality, even the Arabic leaders from all over the world come to him to bless them by putting his hands in any part of their bodies, I am just wondering how they believe in this superstition although they have faith in God's power and he is the only one who controls this whole universe?

The Dalai Lama is greeted by well wishers on February 17 after arriving in Washington

 From my point of view, Dalai Lama is not a spiritual leader this is just a cover for a bigger political plan in the region.

Highlights for the main issues in 2016

By: Reham Essam

Jan 2016
-15 Bodies are recovered after ferry sinks in Nile river-
Muslim Brotherhood supporters clash with security forces outside Cairo hotel-
Attack at hotel in Egypt injures European tourists-
-Egypt's parliament prepares for session with some familiar names
Cartoonist is arrested as Egypt cracks down on critics-
-An Italian's brutal death in Egypt was called Giulio Regeni (A doctoral Candidate) and outrage grows as Italy investigates student's death in Egypt
-Egypt's Parliament (Tawfek Okasha) expels law maker who dined with Israel's ambassador

March 2016
-Egyptian hijacking suspect says he acted out of depression (Love story of the one who hijack the plan)

April 2016
-Egypt gives Saudi Arabia 2 Islands in a show of Gratitude and Egyptians protest deal with Saudis

May 2016
-US Navy joins search for Egypt air jet in searching the Mediterranean Sea for the missing Egyptian flight 804

June 2016
-Egyptian court nullifies transfer of 2 Red Sea islands to KSA

July 2016
-Egyptian Minister visits Israel in push for peace with Palestinians

August 2016
-Egyptian Judo athlete refuses handshake after losing to Israeli-

September 2016
ISIS and the new route of Hashish-
-Egypt freezes assets of several human rights advocates
Death toll rises to 52 after migrant boat capsizes off Egypt-

November 2016
-We don't owe anyone:  AlSisi declared that when Saudi Arabia interfered in the Egyptian opinion in the Security Council regarding the situation in Syria as Egypt voted Bashar to stay
-Egypt floats currency appeasing IMF at risk of Enraging poor
-Gold prices go high
-Shortage in Sugar, Rice and many other basic food commodities
-Donald Trump won the US Presidential Elections

December 2016
-Nubians to suspend protest for 1 month, giving state chance to respond to their demands
-Journalists protest against imprisoning press syndicate leaders
-The TV host Islam Al Behary is out of jail after spending a year over blasphemy
-After a month of floating of the Egyptian pound, the dollar reached 17L.E

Era of Vampires: The horrible truth about the Egyptian elites

By: Reham Essam

After taking a wide look in our Egyptian society, I started to have many doubts about my IQ percentage. The main reason behind this feeling is what I see right now, the unqualified persons occupy very high positions in the government. I have tried to find out an answer, but I think I'm a 

.little blind

An Egyptian MP has been hit by a shoe thrown by a colleague inside parliament

Two scientists had conducted a study about the stupid people. They found that those people, who

 couldn't do anything and not talented, don't even know this fact. Hence, they didn't admit the skills or talents found on other people, they couldn't see them. The only way to let them understand is to train them well to make them semi- sure that they are not qualified.

When you ask a young boy who insists to drive a submarine how you can do that he will answer in an innocent way "By saying Teeeeeees", and this is an accepted answer from a young boy, but the problem comes when this feeling grows up with him.

Stupid people or those who have limited intelligence rate always have this sense of superiority and 

arrogance. On other hands, the smart people feel unsatisfied with whatever they have achieved, and never show off their talents even if they were praised, they think what they do is very simple and anybody can do it better than them. Therefore, they take the praises as compliments.

The dilemma in our era is that ignorant people feel perfect while smart people started to have doubts. The reality is the more knowledge you gain, the more humble you become. Meanwhile, the ignorant people don't miss the smart ones as if smart people are like anonymous type of fruit so nothing really matters to know anything about it. People who are satisfied with their achievements are now found everywhere on earth.

In my opinion, those people are punished by God, he gave them a huge amount of ignorance that let those rich enough and have no space in their mind to receive any kind of knowledge or even realize that they are in a big trouble. Not only that, Media nowadays support the stupid people and give them the chance to say their opinion until they became a phenomenon and deceive the illiterate people who are real victims of poverty, lack of education, and know nothing about the concept of the role model.  In the end, It astonish me the over confidence of those who with no expertise and remain stubborn in their views regardless of the overwhelming evidence. As long as nobody dares to tell them how stupid they are or shout at them at least not to shed the lights on them. People have the right to be stupid, but some people abuse that privilege. 

Oscars shines on Spotlight

By: Reham Essam

After years of nominations and no wins Leonardo Di Caprio finally walked away from the stage with a statuette in hand. Di Caprio won the Oscar for Best Actor in a leading role for his performance in the Revenant.DiCaprio's portrayal of Hugh Glass in The Revenant (2015) also won his second Golder Globe Award for Best Actor-Motion Picture Drama. In addition, he won his first BAFTA this year. Prior to tonight's win, Dicaprio was nominated for Best Actor in The Aviator, Blood Diamond, and The Wolf of Wall Street, and Best Supporting Actor in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Di Caprio in Oscars 2016

When he accepted the award, Leo did the usual rundown of thanks-parents, costars, and his director. He then focused his attention to the issue of Global warning, urging those in positions of power (and not) to take the cause seriously.

Spotlight Won the coveted Oscar for best picture when the 88th Academy Awards were handed out Sunday night in Hollywood, upsetting The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road, which entered the night with 12 and 10 nominations respectively.

Mad Max: Fury Road just about swept the early categories, winning six Oscars, but The Revenant also took two of the top awards. Alejandro Gonzalez won the prize for best director, giving him his second consecutive Oscar, and Leonardo DiCaprio won the Oscar for best actor in a leading role, his first.

Brie Larson won her first Oscar, taking the award for best leading actress for her role in Room. Best supporting actress went to Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl, and best supporting actor was won by Mark Rylance for his role in Bridge of Spies.

This year's event is not without some controversy. When the nominations were announced on Jan. 14 several media outlets reported a lack of diversity among the nominees. Some celebrities even called for viewers to boycott Sunday's airing of the Academy Awards, and the overall outrage over the exclusion of people's color got hashtag #OscarSoWhiteTrending on Twitter.

These reactions ultimately led the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to make modifications to its voting process and declare, "The Board goal is to commit to doubling the number of women and diverse members of academy by 2020."

Host Chris Rock didn't shy away from commenting on the issue in his opening monologue. He joked that the Oscars are otherwise known as "the white people's choice awards" and said that if hosts were nominated, he wouldn't have gotten the job that it would have instead gone to Neil Patrick Harris.

Oscars ceremony 2016

In the list below, I've marked the winners in each category in bold.

Picture

The Big Short

Bridge of Spies

Brooklyn

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Martian

The Revenant

Room

Spotlight

Actor in a Leading Role

Bryan Cranston, Trumbo

Matt Damon, The Martian

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant

Micheal Fassbender, Steve Jobs

Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

Director

Adam McKay, The Big Short
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road

Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Revenant

Lenny Abrahamson, Room

Tom McCarthy, Spotlight

Visual Effects

Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road

The Martian

The Revenant

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

The Big Short
Brooklyn

Carol

The Martian

Room

The Ashes of the Arab spring

By: Reham Essam

 Five years ago, Six Arab countries protested in massive peaceful demonstrations to get rid of the

 controlling rulers in 2011. In fact, the situation in all the Arab countries is getting worse every year.  Egypt and Tunisia are trying to build their countries although they find out many difficulties even from some corrupted people who wanted to put their hands in everything and exploit the 

unstable situation for their own benefit instead of building their countries.

Egyptian at Al Tahrir Square

On the other hand, some countries have totally collapsed like Libya and Yemen, as their central states were powered by foreign policies and some parts raised the flag of Al Qaeda or any other flag under the umbrella of Islam.

Egypt is now yet struggling in many ways even before the protest began, and Syria half of its cities becomes ruins. The fertile lands have been frozen causing the death of hundreds of thousands in 

Syria. Moreover, almost all Syrian immigrate to foreign countries in empty circle of blood every day.

Arab spring was a revolutionary wave of demonstrations which started in Tunisia in 2010 spreading 

throughout the rest countries.

Egyptian protest against Injustice

2012

Rulers had been forced to leave their positions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen civil uprisings reached to Bahrain and Syria.

In Tunisia, protests began to spark after Muhammad Bouazizi committed suicide and President Ben Ali fled temporary government to take over. Hence, first election was held and Islamist Nahda Party won most seats in parliament. 

Muhammed Bouazizi

In Libya, uprising against Mummar Qaddafi began in Benghazi and NATO imposed no-fly zone, after destroying Qaddafi's air force. Beside, Rebels captured Tripoli, the capital and Qaddafi was 

killed.

In Egypt, people protested in Cairo against the rule of Hosni Mubarak. After brutal crackdown in Tahrir Square, Mubarak handed power to military council, and referendum showed strong support for parliamentary and presidential elections. Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood's Candidate was elected president and the parliamentary election ended by winning of the Muslim Brotherhood's 

freedom and Justice Party.

Before Mubarak's resignation

In Syria, the protest began and 72 were killed by security forces in Deraa, also rebels launched 

offensive to take Aleppo, Syria's second city. Aleppo is divided; government forces shell rebel quarters and population exodus. Regime began to shell Homs, the third city and Jabhat Al-Nusra 

affiliate of Al Qaeda was founded in Syria.

In Yemen, after the protests began, the president Ali Abdullah Saleh promised not to seek re-election. Troops killed 45 protesters in Sana'a, the capital. Then, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) captured most of Abyan province and Saleh left Yemen, ceding power to his deputy Abd Rabbo Mansour Handi. Election held, with Hadi the only candidate and AQAP attacked presidential palace to kill more than 26 persons.

2013

The government repression began in all the mentioned countries .For Tunisia; the political crisis resolved the constitution approved by parliament and Nahda government resigned. While in Libya, it was the first democratic election, independents took most seats in New General National Congress and Islamist militiamen killed US ambassador in Benghazi attack. Moreover, Jihadists declared 

Derna under Islamist rule and rebels seized oil terminals in east.

In Egypt, Supreme Court ruled lower house of parliament unconstitutional dissolved legislature. After Morsi took over, many terrorist attacks had happened and he issued some new laws and canceled them as people raged on.

Rabaa sit-in

Many terrifying attacks had been occurred especially in Sinai. In other words, Egypt lost its control over this part this year. While the situation inside became worst, police dispersed anti-coup protest in Rabaa after a long sit-in and more than 800 persons were killed. Meanwhile, Muslim Brotherhood banned and new constitution had been agreed on by referendum also Morsi over thrown by military cop and Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the former army Chief won the 

presidential election.

2014

I had a panic attack as a bad omen appeared in front of me. When the father of Vatican flied away two pigeons and two weird wild rooks attacked the peaceful pigeons in thanks giving celebrations. I 

think my feelings were right!

Rook attacking one of the peaceful pigeons

2015

Terrorism spread all over the world not only in the Arab countries. But, it extended to foreign lands as well which claim to have peace, freedom of expression, and democratic governments. They planted violence in Arab youth and fund this .Consequently, they actually succeeded, but now is the time when the magic turn on toward the magician. In other words, we can call 2015 the year of Global conspiracies.