aghiadghazal

[aghiadghazal]

Cosmic Rays

It was 1:39 am, I woke up for no apparent reason, usually, the night is exclusive to my daughter waking us up, however not this time. I look to my left, Sheila was sleeping soundly, I get up and sit on the edge of the bed looking outside our bedroom window. I suddenly realise how clear the skies are, not a single cloud in sight, which is not common in Denmark. The further away from the summer we are, the rarer these cloudless days/nights are, until you hit November (the darkest month of the year) where it’s not uncommon to have only few hours of sun during the entire month. (yes, you read correctly, few hours for the entire month).

It got me thinking that maybe Northern Europeans never excelled in astronomy back in the days simply because they had very little access to the night-sky. With clouds obstructing their view most of the year, it would be difficult to establish a field of science based on peering into the night sky and analysing the movement of the stars. Surely there were some famous astronomers such as Tycho Brahe from Denmark during the renaissance period but even Tycho Braha travelled abroad frequently and founded observatories in different places across Europe (probably less cloudy places than Denmark). However, it never amounted to an advanced field of science as was the case for the ancient Egyptians or the Greeks or the Arabs.

Anyways, back to my personal cloudless night, I notice a bright object in the sky. What is that object? The first thing I do, I align the bright object with my window frame, hold my breath like a sniper who is about to shoot a deer, and try to see how fast is the object moving away from the edge of the window. Somehow, we all have this tendency to want to know what is that bright object in the nightsky? There are three possibilities, it is either a plane, in which case it moves fast, or a satellite which moves slower, or a star which wouldn’t move at all. Unless you can hold your breath for few hours to see the star move. The fourth possibility is an alien spaceship, but let’s not go there. It turned out it was a star.

But then that reminded me of a podcast I heard only few days before. The podcast was called ‘bit flip’ on Radiolab, a podcast hosted by super cool guys called Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich from NYC. Very nice podcast recommended by a dear friend. Bit Flip revolves around the fact that cosmic rays, caused by a supernova (explosion of a star) from deep space, can cause ‘bit flips’ in our electronics turning some 0’s to 1’s and vice versa.

This may seem like a mundane thing, but it can have dire implications such as changing the outcome of digital elections (such as the case of a national election in Belgium in 2003), numerous car accidents in the States, and an airplane nosediving in the sky. When a star explodes in space, it emits huge amounts of energy in the form of gamma rays which is emitted in every direction. We are constantly bombarded by those gamma rays from deep space which passes through us with no prior warning or permission.

Due to the constant miniaturisation of our electronics, transistors (which is the smallest building block of any piece of electronics and is responsible for switching the electrical signals) have become so small (down to 10 nm) that a cosmic ray has enough energy to change its state (0 to 1 or 1 to 0). This was not seen as a big problem back in the days when most of our machines were purely mechanical like cars and planes, and our transistors were massive.

My first encounter with cosmic rays was during an internship I was doing few years back. It was in 2011, I was fresh out of my masters degree, not knowing what to do with my life and whether to pursue a PhD or search for a job, whether to stay in Denmark or move to another country. Then I was offered a 4 month internship at the Ultrafast Laser Spectroscopy Lab at EPFL in Switzerland under the supervision of Prof. Majed Chergui. Ultrafast Spectroscopy is a technique that uses ultrashort pulse lasers for the study of dynamics on extremely short time scales, down to attoseconds, which is a billionth of a billionth of a second (10ˆ-18 of a second).

To detect such pulses, a CCD (charge-coupled device) is used, which is basically a pulse detector, connected to a screen. I was assigned to assist a bright young postdoc at the time and in the process learn about the experimental work of ultrafast spectroscopy. I remember him showing me the signals on the screen as the experiment went on, and all of a sudden, I see a speck on the screen, not connected to the main signal, and few bright spots followed in the screen few seconds later, just random bright pixels, so I ask the postdoc what are these bright pixels? He moves his hand dismissively and says “ahh it’s nothing, it’s just cosmic rays” … I remember saying “excuse me? did you just say cosmic rays?“ .. he said, yes, we constantly receive cosmic rays from deep space and we always get them on our detectors, however, we remove them once we process our data afterwards. I was completely dumbfounded … cosmic rays??!! a stream of rays constantly travelling from deep space passing through us and everything around us? How come we are not taught that in school? Can we harness these rays? I went on and on about these rays, until I discovered other cool things in that amazing green/ red/ ultraviolet laser-induced lab.

But the idea of cosmic rays was always somewhere in the back of my mind, just the idea that something happening literally astronomically far away affects our daily lives, makes me realise how we are one with the universe, how we are so far yet so connected to other galaxies and stars. There are 118 known elements on earth, and when I was a child, I used to think that different planets would have more (or less) elements, but some are surely completely different, and I would sit and come up and draft what these elements would be like, and what characteristics they would have. I would dream about further space explorations just to discover these new elements. It turned out, or at least as far as our knowledge goes, there are no other elements than the ones we know out there, simply because they all came from the same source, from the big bang, so whatever nickel, gold, silver, aluminium or whatever we have, is nothing but the result of an astronomical cosmic sneeze.

After hearing the podcast, it brought back all these memories of cosmic rays, and somehow reminded me to be more tolerant of our electronics, and accept that there are things that are much larger than us at play, so next time your Facebook app abruptly crashes on your smartphone, consider that you may have just been blessed with a message from a galaxy far far away.

End.

Oct. 7th 2019

[aghiadghazal]

Genghis Khan

Around this time, two years ago I started a project in collaboration with the university of Luxembourg where I had to stay down there for about a month. I remember renting a small room at the university’s dorm since it was right next to the university which was almost 20 km outside Luxembourg city. I was picked up at the airport by my project responsible and driven to my new temporary home. The room was empty except for a bed, pan and a pot which reminded me a lot of the first time I moved into a dormitory room for my bachelor’s degree almost 10 years prior. The room had a nice view, with a train station and rails in the distance, separating Luxembourg from France.

You see, one month is a tricky period of time to stay in another country, it is not so short that you can just stay at a hotel and eat at restaurants and stuff your laundry in your suitcase until you get back home, and it’s not long enough to settle down and buy cutlery and a coffee machine therefore I had to find a balance and make do with the basics. Besides being excited about the project which I was about to start, I was also excited about being only 230 km away from Frankfurt where a very close friend of mine lives. Not knowing anyone in Luxembourg meant that I was probably going to spend every weekend either hosting my friend or visiting him in Frankfurt which was exactly what transpired. Apparently there was no major highway from Frankfurt to Luxembourg and the 230 km took my friend over 4 hours to drive (which costed me many swear words by my friend). As the first weekend of my stay approached, I called my friend and convinced him to drive to Luxembourg and the conversation went something like this:

Aghiad: Hey man, have you ever been in Luxembourg? friend: No Aghiad: Yeah well maybe you should come by friend: you know what? My boss said he had a business lunch in Luxembourg once and he said it was nice, so .. yeah, ok, I will come (that summed up my friend’s knowledge of Luxembourg) Aghiad: alright cool, buy some nice whiskey on your way friend: alright, I also have a nice a bottle of champagne which I will bring .. I get off work at 7 pm, I will drive straight from work .. see you at 11 pm.

As planned, he was downstairs from my building a little past 11 pm, complaining a bit about the windy road and the lack of a proper ‘autobahn’ connecting Frankfurt to Luxembourg. Excited about seeing him, we climb upstairs to the 5th floor where I was staying, he looks around and says “Aghiad where the hell will I sleep?” I said we will figure something out (we didn’t, we tried to get a room at a nearby hotel at 5 am and we couldn’t so he ended up sleeping on the floor)

As usual, being diehard George Wassouf fans, we started listening to a mixture of George’s music and some Um Kalthoum sung by George, watch some of the concerts on Youtube, rewatch the ‘amazing’ parts, repeat the ‘solo’ parts, repeat the parts where the band couldn’t keep up with George, etc.., having the door to the balcony open with autumn night breezes blowing gently in the room. I look at my friend and say, when the hell are we going to attend a George Wassouf concert together? He loses the usual smirk on his face, and says “are you serious? there is one in two weeks in Paris .. for the love of God let’s just buy tickets now, if you don’t go this year, you may never get the chance to see him live since his health is deteriorating fast, etc..“ and sat by the laptop looking up tickets! We called another diehard fan friend of ours (who lives in Dubai by the way):

Aghiad: Hi Sultan, there is a Wassouf concert in Paris in two weeks, would you be up for it?

Sultan: Sure, count me inI Was amazed how quickly he said yes without hesitation or even checking his calendar or ‘thinking about it’ like I’d always do (him=cool .. me= not so much). My friend volunteered to take care of buying the tickets, and he bought us amazing seats (second row) and it still baffles me how he managed to buy second row tickets on such short notice for a Wassouf concert in Paris.For you who don’t know who George Wassouf is, simply put, he is the Michael Jackson of the Arab world. He started singing at the age of 9, loved by millions with a very loyal fanbase, sever cocaine addiction, few strokes, your perfect rock star (except it’s Arabic Tarab music he sings). 

Tarab music is a form of Arabic music, traditional, old school, lengthy songs, it is basically what Arabs listened to since Ziryab’s time in Andalusia in year 800 AD and remained popular up until the 70’s of last century before the rise of ‘short pop songs’. You see, Tarab music is among the few things I could never explain to my non-Arab friends. Sheila puts it this way: (I guess unless you grew up with it, it’s impossible to fully embrace the beauty of it .. I can understand how amazing Um Kalthoum’s voice is, but I can’t fully grasp the magic of it)The concert was hosted by the prestigious Folies Bergères. A music hall from the 1869 in the heart of Paris. Beautiful fancy hall with rich history and heritage.

Baffled by how many people flew from all over the world to attend the concert, everyone excited about seeing the Sultan (George’s nickname is the Sultan of Tarab, not to be confused with my friend, Sultan) We sit in the second row, amazed by how close we are to the stage, not believing that we were about to see the Sultan in person since I have never had the chance to attend any of his concerts before. The warm-up singer was horrible though, we couldn’t wait until the first half an hour of the show was over.Then the curtains came down, and the lights dimmed, waiting for the Sultan to come on stage, but all of a sudden, one of his many bodyguards approached us in the second row, motioned with his index finger and said to me softly ‘the Sultan would like to talk to you’. The blood froze in my veins, and I stood there not knowing what to do, the Sultan wants to talk to me??! Why me??! This is the moment every person dreams of, meeting their favourite artist in person.Then in a split second I started wondering, what would I say to the Sultan that would leave a mark and make him remember me? or find me interesting? Imagine meeting your favourite artist tomorrow, and having 10 minutes with him/her. What would you talk about? Surely you will express how much you love his/her music and how they were the centrepiece of your childhood and how you grew up to their music bla bla bla … it’s nothing they haven’t heard from millions of fans before you. 

Of course we always want to make an impression and leave a memorable moment on our favourite artist, hell , you’d love to become ‘best friends forever’ with your favourite artist so the question is, what would you say to them in those 5-10 minutes that would make that a reality? Are you interesting enough to catch their attention? This also reminds me of being asked, if I were to meet anyone in the world, including historical figures, who would I want to meet? Einstein, Newton, Niels Bohr, Muhammad, Jesus, Elvis, Hitler, Genghis Khan, etc… (assuming no language barrier) but imagine actually meeting these people, what would you say to them and what kind of conversation would you have with them? Would you be even interesting enough for them to have a conversation with you? which also led me to think about the dating world. 

I remember having guy friends telling me “Ahhh Aghiad, other than being beautiful, I would like to meet an interesting, intellectual girl, full of knowledge and things to talk about” but somehow we never ask ourselves, are we interesting enough to catch the attention of an interesting, intellectual girl? I remember reading a book on dating during my single days few years back. It was called ‘The Game’ I am sure many of you are familiar with the book. The book became a huge success and caused lots of controversy because it reduced women to simple equations, once mastered, the book promised that men would be scoring ladies by the dozen. The goal of the book was to help guys understand what makes women tick and how to catch their attention. But the core idea of the book was basically how to fake being interesting! ‘proven’ lines and strategies to basically look smarter and more interesting than you actually were, since the goal of the book was to get men laid (short-term affection) rather than build real long relationships (where women would actually discover what a bore you are). It amazed me that the book didn’t encourage men to genuinely and sincerely be more curious, knowledgable and interesting (ok, in all fairness it did promote working out and looking trimmed).To come back to the concert, everything I said was true, until the part where the bodyguard approached me, of course I wasn’t asked by the bodyguard to come talk to the Sultan, it was simply my vivid imagination thinking ‘what if’. We just waited until the Sultan came on stage, barely able to walk, sang for an hour then disappeared behind the curtains, only leaving me with the paralysing question … am I an interesting person? End.

Sept. 8th 2019

[aghiadghazal]

Harbour Seals

It was 6:20, Freja’s wake up time, and it’s impressive how punctual she is .. 6:20 , every single morning, never deviates from those twenty minutes past six, like a retired military general who wakes up at exactly the same time every morning for 40 years, shaves his beard, polishes his shoes and gets dressed only to realise nothing awaits him, except a lot awaits my little daughter! Breakfast! Her breakfast time, naturally, corresponds to my wake up time. She starts singing and 'meowing' before she starts shooting her feet up in the air and throwing them down on the mattress. I half-wakeup, drag myself out of bed to the fridge to fetch her one of those glass jars I have prepared her over the past weekend. It’s a fruit mousse (or cereal if you wish) made of apples, pears, bananas, oatmeal and milk. A while ago, I decided to stop buying her those readymade cereal or smoothie jars and start making my own since I truly believe I can make her tastier organic food at reduced cost so I bought 25 small glass jars with rubber orange gaskets and metal pins and started experimenting with all sort of vegetables and fruits and see what she liked best. I take her out of her bed, place her on her high Trip-Trap throne with it’s own board and placed a flexible rubbery bib around her neck. I started feeding her using her flexible purple spoon, very rapidly at the beginning since she would be starving in the morning, but then the pace slows down as we pass half the cereal jar. On her bib, there are some nice drawings of different animals with the name of each animal written underneath it in an artistic (difficult to read) cursive font so I tried to make sense of some of them as I mechanically fed my hungry little monster. White Beluga , red fox and few other names until I came across ‘harbour seal’. I never heard of harbour seals before. Surely there are different types of seals with complicated latin names once you dig deeper in their scientific classifications (apparently all seals are members of the family Phocidae) but what somehow offended me was the name of the animal painted on my daughter’s bib. Harbour seal. It made me think, how arrogant man is? Naming them harbour seals because apparently they linger along the coastlines of the Northern Hemisphere. So for millions of years, those animals lived and populated in certain areas along coastlines until man came few thousands years ago and decided to build himself a harbour for easy access to the sea but realised that these areas are heavily populated with seals so he decided to name them after his new creation? He must have thought, Ah these annoying animals surrounding my harbour and possibly eating some of the fish I bring in from the sea.

Man addressing the seals: I, the mightiest and wisest of creatures, shall name you after my harbour. Harbour seals. Seals: what is a harbour? Man ‘getting red in the face’: THIS! this massive grand cement structure that I have just constructed Seals: Oh .. we prefer to be called just seals, thank you very much. Besides, we predate your ‘grand structure’ .. If anything, your structure should be called ‘sealtown’ or ‘sealborg’ and we would be happy to lend you the name.

a similar example is how the British Empire colonised most of Africa then arrived at the biggest lake in the continent, then Mr. John Hanning Speke (I just looked that up) looked at the lake, took a deep breath and thought, this lake shall be renamed Lake Victoria after her majesty the queen!

The locals: who is that? Is that your wife? Speke: Good God, how dare you! She is the queen of the British empire, queen of the empire on which the sun never sets, queen of the andals and the first man (lol) the locals: Oh ok, is she here with you? Speke: No, she lives thousands of miles away, and she will never bother to come see this lake The locals: But this lake has always had a name, given to it by the natives for thousands of years, by people who lived and died by it’s shores, they call it Nam Lolwe in Luo and Nalubaale in Ugandan and Nyanza in Kinyarwanda! Speke: Not anymore it is not!

May 1st. 2019

[aghiadghazal]

The Holy Stones

It was a cold and windy morning when Pingochi the 3rd woke up, I’ll just refer to him by his first name from here on. Pingochi was the first among his waddle (or group) of penguins to wake up. He was famous for being a ‘morning penguin’ and he always woke up the first, but he was also mocked for sleeping rather early in the night. It was cold, but Pingochi and his group have seen worse days.

It was October, and the worst has passed. It was a particularly tough winter and many penguins, including Pingochi’s best friend Tip, died in some of the harshest snow storms. But now they are looking forward to warmer weather until January when temperatures start dropping down again.

Our story takes place in Antartica, the biggest and driest snow desert in the world, with its horrific freezing winters yet mesmerizingly beautiful scenery. Absolute silence only interrupted by the occasional horrendously loud sound of glaciers crackling and breaking. Snow started melting in some areas, and it was time to get things done! Pingochi had a mission today, which he has been planning for quite a while now. He wanted to build his own nest, but this is no easy task. His nest needs to look pretty and well decorated, for he was told by his mom that only then he can catch the attention of the ladies.

Pingochi was an ambitious good-looking young penguin, full of energy and hope of finding a beautiful companion. He went out searching for nice round pebbles. He was a bit of a perfectionist, shuffling between pebbles looking only for the perfectly round and smooth pebbles, while he noticed some of his friends would pick whatever pebbles they could find.

Across the channel, on a big hill, lived a huge tribe of emperor penguins who are much larger than the regular penguins. A majestic species respected by all other penguin species. They are the tallest and heaviest of all living penguins, and known for their physical strength, yet they rarely resort to violence for they were very wise and reflective and could resolve their conflicts through dialogue. 
The hill on which they live is rather unique, it overlooks the ocean and has beaches full of colourful and transparent and perfectly smooth stones. Legend has it that ages ago, the Gods landed on their beaches and left those colourful stones as a token of appreciation for the emperor penguin’s wisdom therefore these stones are not only gorgeous but also blessed by the Gods. They also blessed their hill and granted it to them until eternity, so no other penguin species dares to step a foot on it. In reality, it was ships using the beaches as dumping grounds for their empty booze and beer bottles few decades ago, and with time, the waves have washed the broken bottles into millions of colourful round and smooth stones until environmentalists managed to put an end to their practice and now they dump their waste elsewhere.

All other penguin tribes respected and envied the emperor penguins for they sit on this invaluable fortune given to them by the Gods and they fear them because they believe they are the chosen ones and the Gods favoured them over all others.

However, since I mentioned that the emperor penguins are wise, they realised that they should share some of their wealth with the other penguin tribes to avoid any uprising for they are greatly outnumbered and can be easily toppled and driven away from their hill and valuable stones. They allow the chiefs of the different penguin tribes to collect some colourful stones at the beginning of every season where they can distribute them as they see fit.

Pingochi has inherited some blessed stones from his grandfather, and he has been acquiring some on his own over the past few years, so he could include them in his future nest. Over the past week, Pingochi was finalising his nest when he was asked by some of his friends to give them a beak and help them with his architectural skills to make their nests also look pretty. As he was busy helping out, he stayed away from his own nest for few days, however, when he returned to his place, he could see that most of his beautiful round and smooth pebbles, and specially the blessed ones, were gone! Clearly someone stole them and completely ruined his home! How will he attract any of the ladies now? Pingochi was outraged, screaming and flapping his flippers (wings) ferociously! How could this happen? He thought to himself.

He asked around and was quickly told that it was, as he suspected, Pingatto who committed that heinous crime. Pingatto was pingochi’s arch nemesis, their rivalry was known to the entire community, some say Pingatto was always jealous of Pingochi for his looks, some say because of his royal heritage for Pingochi came from a long line of rich aristocrats and his family was known across all the penguin tribes in Antarctica, however it was unprecedented for Pingatto to commit a crime of this magnitude! Therefore, Pingochi decided to take legal action. He headed to the local authorities and explained his situation, however they quickly informed him that this kind of crimes is ‘above their pay grade’ therefore he headed to the chief of the tribe.

“Do you have anything that proves your ownership of these stones Pingochi?” asked chief Fatping, it is not clear whether this was his actual name or simply a nickname given to him due to his big fat belly. He never liked the name because it reminded him of all the fish bribery he has been receiving over the years. “No” answered Pingochi in a tone ruder than he intended.

Fatping: Have you maybe laser engraved your name on them? Any witnesses? Or anything to prove your ownership? Maybe tax receipts, have you been paying taxes on the stones by the way? Pingochi: what? 
Fatping: never mind, in any case, I am afraid there is not much I can do for you, we could take it to the security council though and see if they can look into your case and maybe rule in your favour?

The security council was, of course, hosted by the emperor penguins on the top of their holy hill, with supreme judge Albert as the head of the council with permanent members representing 6 of the biggest tribes and temporary members representing the other tribes.

Amidst the negotiations and the back and forth between the members of the council, the bailiff who is guarding the gate to the council slams the doors open and hurries inside panting, and as he was trying to catch his breath he said “supreme judge, there is an alien who just landed on our shores, he calls himself human and would like to speak to you, he said he was sent by his race to learn more about us and our ways of living”

All the members of the council gasped, some out of fear, some out of excitement and others out of curiosity and all started talking among themselves indiscernibly, until the supreme judge slammed his hammer and said “quiet everyone, in light of the current events, the case of Pingochi versus Pingatto will have to be postponed until next month, and now I shall discuss the arrival of this human alien with my advisors”

My name is John and I am a scientist sent by SCAR “Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research” to learn more about your ways of living and understand your species better.

Though penguins generally don’t have land predators, Albert was skeptical and cautious of this human alien but tried to conceal his fear for he is the supreme judge and cannot appear scared. You interrupted a very important trial we have been discussing in the security council when you landed on our shores, said Albert with a tone of authority.

May I ask what was the trial about? Asked John as he pulled out a notebook and a pen.

And as soon as Albert told John the story of Pingochi and Pingatto, John bursted in laughter and said “you do realise that there is nothing holy or godly about these colourful stones, right”

Yes, I know, but only I and a small circle of my most trusted advisors know the origin of those stones.

Why don’t you tell the others then?

And lose the influence we have over them? Lose all the riches and tributes we receive every season for giving a way few of these stones?

But you have tons and tons of it, why not share more with the rest of the penguin tribes?

Then the stones lose their value, said Albert, the scarcer they are, the more precious. Then Albert put his left flipper (wing) on John’s right shoulder and said, come with me let me show you the view of our colourful beaches from the top of the hill.

But they are nothing more than stupid colourful stones! Said John, and besides, couldn’t you just grant Pingochi another nest somewhere else, it’s a huge land with endless amount of stones? Do you really need to argue over something so trivial as to who owns that meter squared area and ignore all the real challenges your people are facing such as preparing for the coming winter? Albert then got irritated with John’s condescending tone and interrupted him and said, please tell me of your ways then, human.

John chuckled and said, no no we are an advanced species, the most advanced on this planet and possibly the entire universe, and every other species is inferior to our intelligence.

Don’t you have any precious stones that are worth something? Or holy stone bestowed on you by the Gods? or holy land promised by the Gods like the big hill you are standing on right now? Don’t your people argue over pieces of land and draw lines in the sand?

And all of a sudden, the smirk on John’s face faded away and said “As a matter of fact, when you put it this way, we do actually have precious shiny stones that are of very little use yet of great value, we also believe in holy stones that were sent by the Gods, and some people still believe certain land was promised to them by God as well”.

I guess we are not so different after all, said Albert in a confident yet sarcastic tone before he pushed John off the top of the hill. As John swayed and lost his balance and was about to fall off the cliff, he hung to the edge of the cliff and with eyes wide open and full of fear, he looked up at Albert and asked WHY!!?

I cannot risk you telling the penguins about the secret of the colourful stones, and jeopardise everything my ancestors worked hard for .. he then pecked on John’s fingers with his sharp beak until John surrendered, let go and fell to his death.

The End

Note: This story is loosely based on true events .. maybe very loosely haha Dec. 24th 2018

[aghiadghazal]

Freja and Fire

The past month has been really tough at work with many tasks to wrap up before the end of the year therefore last weekend, my girlfriend, my 6 months old child (Freja) and I decided to escape the city and rent a cottage somewhere north of Copenhagen. There are many nice retreats up north on the island of Sjaelland where Copenhagen also sits, and it’s a relatively small island therefore the drive up north takes less than an hour and you are at the edge of the island where you can find nice tiny villages overlooking the North Sea.

My girlfriend took the liberty of finding us a place for those days. She tried searching on different Facebook pages for available houses, trying to avoid using Airbnb for their outrageous ‘service fees’ and ‘cleaning fees’ and I don’t know what fees, which we think are completely unjustified especially when we are booking a place in the same country. However unfortunately Airbnb remains the gold standard for booking such places and everything else is rather unreliable. We packed our stuff, taking into consideration that every small activity involving taking our daughter out of the apartment would take forever. Initially when she was first born, and we wanted to go anywhere, we were always late by at least half an hour. Now we include this half an hour (sometimes an hour) in our calculations and I call it “Freja’s beauty time”.

Anyway, we stuffed our little Skoda with all our stuff, and if one sees how much we have packed, one would think we are going to be camping in the middle of nowhere for 3 weeks! All sort of stuff, mostly Freja’s though, from her duvet to small bed to foldable pram to changing set, etc...

It was a wonderful place we found! So hyggeligt ‘or cozy’ with a beautiful fireplace which was one of the main criteria we had in mind when searching for a place. Cute garden with both evergreen and seasonal trees (trees that shed their leaves in the winter) in a beautiful contrast that completes the, rather melancholic, Danish winter scenery like a painting by Peder Mørk Mønsted.

Wooden floor all over the cottage except around the fireplace which was surrounded by bricks for the obvious reasons. One thing about having a newborn is, you always, and I mean always, forget to bring something, no matter how many reminder-lists you write or alarms you set. So, I would like to tell you my dear friend, if you are about to become a parent, it’s ok and normal to forget things as long as it’s not your child, on the stoves, you are forgetting then you are fine. Luckily this time it was only the wood logs we forgot to purchase, therefore we borrowed some from the shed of our host’s place until the morning after where I had to go and buy some ourselves.

I placed three small logs against each other in a pyramid-like shape and placed two pieces of tinder underneath and hoped that the logs our host has are dry and won’t be too difficult to light up. Luckily, they were dry as I had hoped and in a matter of minutes the logs were up in flames, so I closed the door to the fireplace to enjoy my accomplishment. How can something so simple and basic yet dangerous be so fascinating and mesmerizing? The red-orange flames flickering behind the foggy charcoaled window, the sound of wood snapping and crackling, truly magical!

Then it was experiment time! Ok, first, let’s rewind a bit. Over the years, I have always liked to run simple benign experiments on little children. It is just interesting to see their reactions to certain things, and before I had my own child, I used to run experiments on my eldest niece Zeina during my many summer visits to Syria back in the days until my sister would shout at me and ask me to leave her alone. For example, I remember once when Zeina was no older than 2 years, and one of my young cousins, Omar, was also around the same age as Zeina.

I remember taking them aside and making them stand right across from each other, at half a meter distance then I sat on the couch to watch them and the most beautiful thing happened. They just stood there, staring at each other, completely relaxed and free of any social pressure to ‘keep the conversation going’ like we adults always worry about, to avoid any social awkwardness. They were just themselves, completely taking the time to appreciate one another, also not worried about which eye to focus on then suddenly realising they have focused on the left eye for too long and now it’s time to look at the right eye instead. Then thinking ‘wow this guy has very bright blue eyes’ .. or ‘why doesn’t he blink as often?’ Is my head tilted too much to the right? Maybe I should straighten my head not to look bored ..’wait, why does he say ‘technolooogy (stretching the second O) instead of tek-no-logy?’ then completely lose track of what the person is saying and ending up nodding like an idiot. Also, worried whether you said ‘right.. right’ too many times that you might come off as you are not actually listening, so you change to ‘hmm .. hmm’ or ‘of course .. of course’. Don’t yawn, you tell yourself, DON’T FUCKEN YAWN! then you let out the biggest yawn ever.

None of that! they couldn’t care less, and at some point, she looked away for few seconds, and so did he. But all that ended when he stuck his left index finger in her right nostril and she started crying then his mom shouted at him and my experiment was over.

Now forward 12 years. I have my own child, with no one stopping me from performing my small benign experiments every single day, which leads us back to our small retreat in the north of Sjaelland.

My daughter, Freja, was on her temporary ‘playing mat’ which we brought with us, making noises and shuffling her toys around and kicking with her feet while her mother unpacked, and I took care of the fireplace. As soon as the fireplace was ready, I carried her in my left arm and brought her closer to the fireplace while standing at a safe distance. She stared at the fire, and all of a sudden, she went completely quiet! stopped moving and rocking forth and back in my arm like she always does, she just stared at the fire in awe with unprecedented appreciation to this new flickering ‘thing!’. It was truly amazing to watch! Why would she go quiet? This is the first time she is confronted with fire, why would she have the exact same reaction any adult would have around fire? The answer is, of course, evolution. For millions of years, or at least few hundred thousand years, our ancestors were drawn to fire for protection, warmth and cooking. Therefore, it is in our DNA as a species to be drawn to fire. Same with shiny things, have you ever asked yourself why are we drawn to shiny things? The answer is also evolutional. It is because shiny things resemble water, for example, looking at a lake from a distance, the surface of the lake would reflect light, thus be shiny!

For a second it hit me that my daughter is simply the extension of millions of years of evolution. Of course, this is no new news, since this is the exact definition and foundation of evolution, but to see it ‘in action’ with your own offspring is truly mesmerizing. Just when you think your role as a parent is crucial as you are the ‘creator’ of this helpless creature, you realize that you, as a parent, is nothing more than a vessel for that ancient message, or code if you will, to be passed on for many generations to come. End.

Dec.21st 2018

[aghiadghazal]

Mysterious Ways

I saw you in my dreams yesterday Michael, said the priest with a straight face, absent of his usual warm and comforting smile.

I was in the middle of a vast barren wheat field in what seems to be the end of a snow storm, so light snow was still softly falling. I could see the falling snow on the rooftops of houses and churches in our village in the distance, silence filled the air, I could only hear the creaking sound of snow under my partially wet leather shoes as I walk slowly in the field. My feet sliding to the sides in my one or two sizes too big shoes, twisting my ageing knees ever so slightly.

That’s when I saw her, descending from the gloomy clouds, with an aura of light that filled the skies, with an entourage of angels, carrying a child in her arms wrapped in white sheets, sleeping warmly as he sucked on his thumb. I stood there frozen, trembling, I am in the presence of the Virgin Marry! with her angelic smile and warm look she hovered few feet above the ground, bent slightly and handed me the child and said “priest, this is Michael, the son of Thomas the blacksmith, he is the chosen one, he will be the man to lead your people to freedom and everlasting salvation” then I woke up, breathing heavily and drenched in my bed.

Father John was an old man, who has seen it all. He has been appointed to this village for over 30 years now and he is all too acquainted with all the ins and outs of the village. He was tall with a slender figure, and slightly hunched back, but nothing too severe for someone his age. He was a powerful man, well connected to the archbishop in the capital, therefore no one could understand why he was content with just leading a church in a fairly small village.

Michael, I have shared my vision with my friend, the archbishop in the capital and he nominated your name to the king who is preparing for a massive military campaign in the coming spring. It has been three years and a half since the enemy invaded more than half the country, raping and pillaging every village, leaving only havoc in their wake. The biggest blow to the king was when the enemy captured the strategic and infamous fortress of Pillars of the Sky which was named for its location on a rock outcrop atop one of the country’s highest mountains. Recapturing it would boost the soldiers’ morale and weaken the enemy’s spirit and hopefully turn the tide of war.

Michael was a 19 year old man, handsome, with broad shoulders and arms of steel. Beautiful smile revealing perfect pearly teeth, light beard disconnected from his moustache which bothered him greatly but he was told that that gap does not close up until he is in his late twenties. He was joyful and flirtatious, Loved by the ladies, envied by the men.

His father Thomas, was a blacksmith known for his impeccable metal work. An honest and earnest man who believes serving God and the king is the highest honour anyone could ever achieve.

Michael rose to fame in his village and the neighbouring villages over the past two years due to his talent as a fierce fighter. He came in number one in the last three fighting tournaments held by the biggest city in his region. He proved exceptionally swift and strong at using the longsword defeating his opponents in a matter of seconds. However, Michael never had his metal truly tested in battle.

With the blessing of the church, the king is gathering the bravest and strongest men in the realm, and I believe you would make a great asset to his army. A man serving God and the king is a man who will never suffer the torment of hell, instead, will enjoy an everlasting life in heaven, said the priest in a calm and confident tone. You were chosen for this Michael, God wills it.

The news of the priest’s vision spread in the village, and as Michael walked in the streets of his village, people greeted him with all sort of nicknames such as ‘the liberator’ and others would call him ‘the rising Wyvern’ for wyvern was the symbol of the kingdom. Legend has it that king Bardol, the founder of the kingdom rode a wyvern in the final battle of the Great War against his enemies 420 years ago after which he crushed all his enemies, and wyvern became the symbol for king Bardol’s kingdom.

Michael focused more and more on his fighting skills, and let go of all the drinking and partying, and drifted more and more from mingling with the ladies to become more ‘pure’ and undistracted by such earthly pleasures. He has a bigger mission now, much bigger mission.

The day has come, the day Michael has been dreaming about is finally here after waiting for more than 7 months since the priest told him about his vision. The king’s army besieged the Pillars of the Sky for 3 weeks, knowing full well that the enemy’s supplies are barely sufficient to last them more than a month. Therefore the plan is for the enemy’s soldiers to leave the fortress and face his troops in the open field. Everything went according to the king’s plan. Though the enemy’s troops were outnumbered, they had the higher ground and the fortress to back them up with archers equipped with long range arrows, which the king and his troops were completely oblivious to, therefore the outcome of the battle was not easy to predict.

Michael and 9 other fierce soldiers agreed to lead the attack. Armed to the teeth, carrying their shields which carried the king’s sigil, black wyvern against a red background, in their left arms, unsheathed swords in their rights. They had their war clothes, mail covering their chests, helmets, gauntlets and pauldrons to protect their arms and shoulders, except Michael, who believed such protective clothing would only slow him down.

Jakob, Michael’s closest companion standing by his right, shivering at the sight of the enemy troops in the distance, however, trying to conceal his fear for it is ‘unmanly’ to be terrified, soldiers like them should be fearless and death should be the least of their worries. Don’t be terrified brother, said Michael as he tried to calm his companion by putting his palm on Jakob’s shoulder, there is no need to be terrified when you have God on your side. Angels will divert the enemy’s arrows in the air and fight along side us on the battle field said Michael.

The king and his advisors were on their horses behind the king’s troops, overlooking the field. While the king and his army generals were drawing up strategies, the priests, including father John, were busy praying and blessing the soldiers with holy water.

It was a beautiful spring day, narcissus flowers filled the fields while patches of the remaining winter snow lied stubbornly on top of the surrounding rocky cliffs. If it weren’t for the slaughter that was about to take place, the field would have been splended for a nice sunny picnic.

The battle horns sounded and the drums started beating, Michael and his group of warriors charged forward, trotting, screaming war chants while the rest of the army followed 50 - 100 yards behind. All of a sudden, as Michael trotted forward, an arrow flies past his left ear, missing him by an inch, he looks to his left to see two of his companions, one shot in the neck and the other in the thigh, thrown to the ground screaming in excruciating pain, baffled by what he just saw, and before he had the time to turn his head forward to face the enemy, like a lightning bolt, an arrow pierces Michael’s neck from the front, and makes its way out of the back of his neck. Not realising what had just happened, he falls down on his knees, all of a sudden everything was quiet, he could hear his heartbeats clearly, slowing down by the second, blood gushing out of his mouth, fully awake in terribly agonising pain. Three soldiers dragged him back to the tents where physicians and priests tended the wounded soldiers.
 In complete disarray, trying to catch his breaths as they became shorter and shorter, father John comes to his bed and sits down beside him. Michael, realising that death is eminent, he stared in father John’s blue eyes not able to speak as blood filled his mouth, with his eyes subliminally asking “how could this happen? Didn’t you say God chose me for this? Didn’t you say the angels will protect me?” father John holds Michael’s hand in one palm, and says “well .. what can I say .. God works in mysterious ways” in a repetitive and monotonous tone. He was no stranger to the sentence ‘God works in mysterious ways’ and has clearly used it thousand times before. Father John makes the sign of the cross, mutters few prayers, stands up and moves to the next dying soldier while Michael closes his eyes and surrenders to his miserable fate. End. Dec. 13th 2018

[aghiadghazal]

The Scanner Slinger

All of a sudden, just before the big white doors close, the angel of death walks in. Dressed fully in black with a baseball cap with a big red M written on it, standing in the middle of the metro wagon, he whips out his scanning device from his holster. Proud of himself.. I would have made a great gunslinger 100 years ago, he thinks to himself. He looks at his scanner with the corner of his eye to make sure the green light is on, while looking around the metro wagon for any ’suspects’.

Sitting on the foldable side chairs, I see him approaching me slowly, preparing his less-than-adequate card scanner to scan my ‘Rejsekort’. With his sly smile, and coffee breath, he utters the words ‘good morning’

Scared, with sweaty palms, I pullout my card from my wallet, extending my arm halfway while his arm covering the rest of the distance. Waiting for the moment of truth! the moment he checks my card to see whether I remembered to ‘check in’ or not. (indicating that I have paid for the metro ride)

He places his scanner against my card, the scanner shows the loading sign, contemplating, whether to let me go or bestow the ultimate punishment on me, the non-negotiable 750 kr fine.

My heart is racing, the man in black smiles with the corner of his lips, this could be it! he thinks to himself, this could be the one! this could be the guy I have been waiting for all morning .. all of a sudden, the scanner flashes red and beeps in disapproval, I raise my eyes to meet his, in horror, I muttered few words inaudibly, then after what seemed to be an eternity, I gathered myself together and said “this can’t be! this must be a mistake! I am sure I checked in! please try again!”

I could see a gleam in his eyes, his dream is about to become true, the day he has been waiting for is about to become a reality, the moment where he writes that fine while I stand in front of him, helplessly begging and explaining myself to no avail. The moment where he can exercise his ‘powers’ against random individuals. He can’t celebrate just yet though, he needs to be certain first, when suddenly the scanner flashes green, beeping in approval and judging in my favour, proving my innocence! .. I sigh in relief, I am innocent and the shitty scanner confirmed it! then I could see his dreams crumbling behind his fake smile as he forcibly says ‘tak’ with a look that says ‘until we meet again’ and moves along to his next prey.

PS: the entire encounter lasted less than 3 seconds.

[aghiadghazal]

State of Hypnagogia

Last night, I woke up involuntarily at 3:00 in the morning to the sound of my 6 months old daughter crying. She wakes up two to three times as part of her nocturnal routine to eat. It is common for me to wake up with her, spend an hour or so reading (or check out memes on 9gag) while her mom breastfeeds her, then fall asleep again. However, sometimes I fall in this state of hypnagogia which is the in-between state where one is neither fully awake nor fully asleep. and that is mostly where all weird thoughts and analogies come up.

Since before my daughter was born, I have been trying to write memoirs for her in a ledger-like notebook which my girlfriend bought me specifically for the purpose. Nice quality paper with thick leather as the notebook cover. I guess I picked up the idea from my father who always kept a similar notebook for me as I grew up and now I truly appreciate what he has written for me all these years. It was also interesting to see his writing style evolve over the years as he grew older.

However, since the birth of my child, I have only written few entries, so it got me thinking, how can I make it more enjoyable to write in my notorious ledger? Because let’s face it, it takes efforts and dedication to write something for your child, knowing full well that your child wouldn’t be able to read it and appreciate it before 20 years from now (if at all!)

I figured changing from the traditional Bic ballpoint pen to an ink fountain pen would definitely make writing more fun and smoother. There is something romantic about ink pens that I can’t really explain, as opposed to ballpoint pens, let alone typing on the laptop. It is a direct reflection of your imagination, manifested by the motion of your hand. You are more in touch with your feelings and emotions once you write with a pen on a paper. You press the ink pen’s tip harder against the paper and the tip splits slightly allowing for thicker lines to be drawn on the paper, you try to be artistic and write in cursive sometimes (though I am horrible at it).

Maybe it is due to the importance that our school systems bestowed on it as we grew up, it was always a sign of maturity to use ink pens in my primary school. I still remember crystal clear the first time I used ink pens, I was 8 or 9 years old, in my second grade in primary school, and I remember our teacher telling the class “starting from after the midterm break (I was in an Islamic school and they never referred to the break between the two school terms as the Christmas holiday season, rather the ‘midterm break’) you are all allowed to start using an ink pen”. I remember starting the new term, mostly excited about using an ink pen like grownups do, and I remember my father letting me in his bedroom to his ‘valuables drawer’ and giving me a nice fancy, fat Sheaffer ink pen (Sheaffer and Waterman were the gold standard for fancy ink pens in Syria at the time) with a golden cap and tip with writings engraved on it. Long story short, I thought maybe I should buy myself an ink fountain pen and an ink bottle, however, where can I buy that from?

All of a sudden, and in my state of ‘hypnagogia’ I think to myself where does ink come from? Of course, the obvious way of figuring that out is to google ‘where does ink come from?’ or simply google ‘ink’ and the first Wikipedia page will tell all you need to know in 30 seconds, and I can go back to my sleep soundly until my daughter’s next meal in 3-4 hours.

But of course, that’s not what I do, I lie in bed pondering where does ink come from?

I know that octopuses (is that the plural of octopus? Octopi? octopees? or is it one of those animals where the singular is the same as the plural like sheep and fish? that’s another thing to google once I am up in the morning, I thought to myself) I know they release ink when they are in danger to limit the vision of their predators and provide an escape route.

Did our ancestors collect the ink released from octopuses and decided this is better than writing with charcoal? So, they collected a scoop of sea water then dipped a stick (later developed into the tip of a quill) and wrote on a parchment? Did they domesticate octopuses in big water tanks for the purpose? Ah it’s disgusting how abusing animals is the first thing that crossed my mind, but wait a second, don’t they already breed octopuses for food in some Asian countries? Forget about that for now, let’s focus on ink.

How could they up-concentrate ink? I figured maybe they boil it a bit, and some water would evaporate leaving denser ink. But wait, how did they maintain the right consistency of ink? After all, they need reproducible ink! They could test for light absorption, so basically hold the liquid against a light bulb and test for transparency. But they didn’t have a stable source of light from a light bulb, then they must have held the ink against the window and looked at the daylight through it. But what if it is cloudy, then light would vary? Ok, maybe they tested for concentration in a different way. Maybe they solidified ink completely by removing all water molecules then ink becomes solid powder (solute) then they re-dispersed it again in clean water in controlled amounts? But does ink solidify like that? that’s another thing to google in the morning. What about the ink’s viscosity? Maybe they measured it using the ‘falling ball’ method to determine its exact viscosity where a sphere of known size and density

but then again viscometers weren’t discovered until the 19th century so it can’t be that. Is Ink a Newtonian fluid? another thing to google.

Aghiad why can’t you sleep at night? asked my girlfriend … but how could I sleep when I know so little about ink? How can people go about their daily lives knowing virtually nothing about ink? One is left to wonder.

What could have been averted with a single google search led to 7 or 8 further questions. However, the next morning, I was satisfied to just look up ‘ink’ on google and go to the first Wikipedia page to discover that the common ink is called iron gall ink (and it obviously doesn't come from octopuses) it is made from iron salts and tannic acids from vegetable sources. I must admit, my curiosity about ink ended there, and I never bothered to look up any of the questions that troubled me during the night. And it turned out my girlfriend didn’t ask me anything during the night. I realised how utterly pointless and mentally agonising my state of hypnagogia was, but on the bright side, it made me rediscover my passion for ink fountain pens.

End.

Dec. 10th 2018