It isn’t often that you run into the words of a person who manages to deeply affect you, simply through her words. It isn’t often that you start caring about a person you never met, and who has no idea you exist. It isn’t often that you shed a tear over the death of a person you didn’t know.

But yesterday Ola Muath died, and the tightness I felt in my chest upon reading the news was suffocating.

Ola, with her beautiful spirit. Ola the fighter. Ola the strong. Ola the honest. Ola the unique. Ola is gone, and we will never read new words on her blog again.

An excerpt from a post in January 2011:
“if you were wondering how do I look these days? I would say I’m no
different from “Buddhism – Buddha’s followers -” that we know … pretty
casual, and COOL :).”

I urge you to honor Ola by going through her blog, Moles, which is courageous and heart-wrenching documentation of her battle with cancer. Its unabashed bravery is a unique case in Jordan.

The death of a woman who fought for something we all take for granted is also a great reminder of how short our lives are. In the words of Steve Jobs: “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

 Of course, different people are humbled by death in different ways. I personally am the worldly kind, and I love the Holstee Manifesto:

In honor of Ola and people who still have to fight with cancer on a daily basis, I urge you to make a donation the wonderful King Hussein Cancer Center. 

My 2 years niece saw me counting my drugs last night adding a new one to them,& she said:” Kol Hadooool ya 7abebee:)”oh how much I love Joj!

— Sha100 (@shammless) November 17, 2011

My thoughts are with Ola’s family.

In one line: Not as good as advertised.

After lots of raving recommendations to read “1Q84″, by Japanese author Haruki Murakami, I finally forced myself out of my reading-comfort zone and finished the book.

Set in a world of parallel universes, religious cults, and imaginary creatures, this book could definitely be classified as fantasy, which is my favorite reading genre.

Yet, while the book is so beautifully written that it is hard to put down, I was not impressed.

Maybe because I spend the bulk of my reading-time getting lost in the greatest fantasy and sci-fi around, I was not mentally nor emotionally satisfied with the under-developed plot in “1Q84″. It reads like a book meant to appeal to the generic bestseller list, as opposed to those of us who really treasure good fantasy fiction.

Murakami is definitely an exceptional writer. I’m sure that many things were lost in translation, but I was still completely taken by the beauty of sentences and paragraphs. The words fit together magically, and that is never an easy feat. Yet, beautiful sentences aside, the book’s build was too stretchy. There were many times, especially towards the beginning and the end, when the only thought on my mind was “Enough repeating!” It just felt like he stretched things on purpose to make the book of epic length.

Over all, I’d give it a 3/5, and mostly for pretty sentence structure. In terms of plot, there is nothing new nor particularly interesting. In terms of character development, most characters were not that interesting, and in fact, copy-pastes of each other.

I’d recommend it if you want to dip your toes into fantasy. But, if you already have read real works of fantasy and sci-fi, stick to the pros.

Other book reviews on AndFarAway:

The Millennium Trilogy
The Mists of Avalon
All My Friends are Superheroes 
The Lord of the Rings
His Dark Materials
Persepolis
Harry Potter
Blood and Gold
1984
Twilight
Maus
Fatal Identities
Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Alchemist
Eleven Minutes

Haruki Marukami in “1Q84″: “If you can’t understand it without an explanation, you can’t understand it with an explanation.”

The truth behind that sentence is profound. Obviously, you can understand many things you can’t comprehend by delving deeper into the subject. Yet, deep understanding is not artificial.

I can’t understand math, no matter who explains it to me. I can’t understand death. I can’t understand some decisions.

Understanding is subjective. It isn’t about the explaining.

Anyway, I really liked that sentence, so I thought I’d share.

While going through the millions of pictures that have piled up on my hard disk throughout the years, I came upon an annoyingly nostalgic picture:

This picture was probably taken during the year 2000 in Hasa, Saudi Arabia, on one of my dad’s family excursions. It brings back many, many memories- our bi-annual road trips, abayas, the warm winters of Saudi Arabia, and most importantly, the fact that I was once the tallest Assi.

Naturally, when the boys saw this picture, they all rolled on the floor with laughter, “Inti. Konti. Atwal. Mena?”

Yes. Ana. Kont. Atwal. Minkom. Tsawaro.

Today, I am the resident midget.

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Originally published in July, 2005.
This post is a part of the “NotSoFar Archive Project”. After eight years of blogging, the project aims to help you rediscover old posts, as well as go back in time. Somehow.

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