Abed Hamdan

Five amazing years I spent in Jordan, and they passed in a blink of an eye. I spent most of them in Irbid, where I went to college. I met so many great people there, and I will never forget those years. This is how I remember Jordan, and this is how I miss Jordan.

below is a photo of my beloved University…

Click on image for larger view

PS: Click on each image for a larger view

PPS: It’s sun rise not sun set

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See you in another life, dearest
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This is beyond false hope.. this is insane !
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يا أيها الإنسان ماغرك بربك الكريم ؟؟
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This is Irbid, summer 2007. Picture taken from my room..
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By the way, the hardest question so far is what do I want ?

What do you want people ? you’ve got no clue, do you?!

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hehe, good times

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Edward Said commenting on Chomsky’s work “There’s something profoundly moving about a mind of such noble ideas repeatedly stirred on the behalf of human suffering and injustice”

what if there’s nothing profoundly moving about the audience ?
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Little did I know then that the easy way is not hard enough, but the hard way is so lonely, lonely, loney….
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nor can I have my apple and eat it too…
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“Aboudii, you need to see what’s there ”
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you have no idea what I need…
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وليعلم الذين ظلموا أي منقلب ينقلبون…والعاقبة للمتقين
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“Man is condemned to be free” -Jean-Paul Sartre

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والأخرة خير وأبقى.
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I was walking in the streets of Irbid city last night, when I saw an old man selling these..!

I only paid 1 Jordanian Dinar for the 175 Iraqi Dinars!

No, It’s not because I like the pictures of Saddam, I don’t like the man, but I’m just fond of collecting currencies.

you can find just anything at the streets of Irbid, it’s so unpredictable! Man, I love Irbid!!

Welcome to Irbid city !!

Mexico or Mexican or Maxico ??

Coffee or Cafe or Cofe ??

What the hell is this ? LOL

by the way, this Cafe (or Cofe) is in Irbid - university street, in Yarmouk Mall, near the north gate of Yarmouk University !

OptiKos Shami

This OptiKos is also in Irbid - university street, near McDonalds, next to Umniah.

Have a nice day !!

This story happened yesterday at the barbershop, while Ayman (the Barber) was shaving my beard, there were bunch of guys waiting for their turn. Ayman whispered “Abed, look what Im going to do now…”.
Ayman suddenly looked out to the street and screamed “Holy God! what a sexy skirt!! a hot girl wearing sexy skirt is walking outside..” and he ran outside! Surprisingly, all the guys in the barbershop ran out to look at the girl!!

Then Ayman started laughing!! “HaHaHa , got you guys! nobody in the street” said Ayman!! LOL!

I really missed summer in Irbid city, the city has a unique flavor at summer. The story started when I was at high school. We used to visit Jordan at summer, and I have one aunt who lives in Irbid. So we used to stay at least one week in Irbid, where our family, and all my uncles and aunts met. We really had good times, there were laughter, tears, movies, staying up all the night, and waking up late in lazy summer days. Those memories are really something to remember.

Since then, years crashed down rapidly, as I suddenly saw myself living and studying in the same city I’ve always loved. Thing is, we as students usually don’t see the beauty arround us. We’re always studying, and wish to pass.

I still adore summer in Irbid city, specially when visitors from different countries come. It’s really nice to see people enjoy walking in the street. I like seeing families walking after 1:00 AM, and the weather is really nice. The street is full of Oriental Cafes, and the smell of Hooka is adorable. My friends and I usually set in some cafe just to watch people, smoke Hooka, and to listen to an old Arab songs ( like Um Kalthom), the atmosphere is just great!

One more fact about Irbid city, It’s not only you can find ANY movie, series, or software you want, but they’re also available with the CHEAPEST price ever! As a middle eastern city, copyright don’t apply here, and the prices are even lower than prices at Amman city. You can watch the newes movie just for quarter JD!

I wanted to write about this topic long time ago, but I dunno why I always keep procrastinating, I think I should join the procrastinators club!

Anyway, as a 4th year student in the engineering school of JUST, I think I’ve tried almost everything a student could do, except those red lines, if you know what I mean.

In Irbid city, you will have a typical student life, specially if you are living with roommates from Yarmouk university, where studying is their last priority. I don’t blame them at all, because they are victims of the trash system we have.

A typical student day:

First you wake up, probably at 10:00 am if you’re lucky, oh sure you’ve missed the 8:00 am lecture, now you should get dressed, which is not an easy job at all! you must start looking for the “cleanest” piece you have, and you might waste at least 20 minutes searching for you clothes everywhere, and It’s so damn hard to remeber where did you throw your cloths last time. Eventually, you will get dressed, then you will go down the street, looking for the nearset bicycle guy who sells the cheapest coffee in the street, light your “Viceroy” cigarette or Vaysoory as the Egyptian grocery guy call it, and then head to your “great” campus.

Let’s skip the daytime for now, and jump to the point where you come back home, probably at 5:00 pm. Now you will eat at some restaurant, since cooking is the last thing the world you want to learn, and Ugh, I need at least two posts to speak about the restaurants here, let’s skip it now!

Now it’s 7:00 pm, and you have nothing to do ! I mean really nothing! There’s no decent place to do any decent activity at, and even if such place exist, you will not have enough money to afford! so the typical thing to is to go and spend the night with the other (losers) collegues.

Then the interesting conversations begin! I’ll give you some examples of our extremely unproductive self-destructing conversations. Some guys act as teenage drama queens, they keep speaking about girls, and how cute are these girls, and bla bla… and you will have to listen to the same shit everyday, EVERYDAY, for 5 years.!
Others are sexually freaks, they are always speaking about sex, they can be funny, but It’s getting disgusting sometimes. What annoys me the most are those guys whom are always complaining!! either from their bad grades or from their miserable out-of-target lives…

Well nothing really interesting in the conversations we have, you get bored quickly, so then comes the so-called “Shi Sha” or Hubble Bubble or Hooka, It’s really important when you have nothing important to talk about, and you need something to do except looking at each others. This Shi Sha thingy is really bad, It’s more dangerous than smoking, and It’s a main cause of cancer, and It’s a waste of time and money! and It became one major part of any student life. I can’t imagine that I smoke Shi Sha with an average 6 times per month, which sux! my whole life I was an Athlete, I’ve always loved GYM, and I was a damn good ping pong player, great soccer player, and an impressive swimmer, now Im a lazy smoker! Don’t blame me, here we have nothing to do, but studying and smoking.

PS: Im not a smoker, I smoke shi sha ocassionaly.

Oh I beleive I’ve critiqued girls for smoking shi sha, I think Im not anymore…

1. They think that nose jewelry is cool. I hate it.
2. They think that green lenses fits all skins and should make them look pretty.
3. They think that blonde hair is always cute.
4. They think that smoking hubble bubble (Shisha) is stylish. Yuck !
5. They wear stretch jeans everywhere. huh, how about skirt ??
6. They know nothing about politics, as if they live on another planet.
7. They usually suck at engineering.
8. They like biology and chemistry, but they hate physics and math.
9. They have no taste of music, they like sexy male singers only.
10. They think that being fat is cool. ew!!

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has been found in dead birds on a private farm in northern Jordan.

Laboratory test results conducted overnight on Thursday showed that birds had died of the virus in the Ajloun district of northern Jordan. The strain has been detected recently in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

Health Minister Saeed Darwazeh is due to hold a news conference on Friday to give more details about tests and outline plans to combat bird flu.

On Thursday, Mr Darwazeh issued a seven-day deadline for “people raising domestic fowl to get rid of them, after which the competent authorities will have them killed”. He said that the Jordanian authorities had raised their state of preparedness to a “maximum level”.

Officials are concentrating on inspection operations of chicken farms in the Jordan Valley.

The H5N1 strain of the virus has killed more than 100 people worldwide.

It does not pose a large-scale threat to humans, as it does not pass easily from one person to another at present.

However, experts fear the virus could mutate to gain this ability, and in its new form trigger a flu pandemic, potentially putting millions of human lives at risk.

Copied from [ BBC News ]