For me, the question of the 20- and 30-something singles scene in Amman continues to sadden me with its lamentable stratification and fragmentation — everyone having to keep so many secrets.  It seems that most of the singles in Amman struggle with similar issues — disclosure of who is seeing whom, when to disclose any such liaison, and of course, the steep drop off between the generations, where family members’ opinions are significant  in relationships between adults.   Of course there is the added complication of Muslims and Christians mixing on the dating scene in Amman.

How do people date in Amman?

Based on a comment by a commenter   (age, 26)

When it comes to dating, there are certain rules, you can’t bypass.  Everything from driving around to going out to places, cafes and clubs to making out in a car or a room, gets adapted to those rules.

Location makes all the difference, unless they have the opportunity to make out in one of their parent’s homes “bil salon!” or one of their bedrooms when the parents are not looking (in west Amman) or in a collectively rented apartments, then the car is  the place ! Usually people make out in some remote location. It is usually risky, especially if a policeman happens to be there!

Based on a conversation with Rana from Sahab: (age, 22)

“I have a boyfriend, and I am in a happy relationship. I met him online on one of the forums. We chat, we talk, and we send each other emails. He sends me pictures and songs and writes me poetry. He is my best friend and he knows everything about me.

The only difficulty we face is that we can’t take it offline. When I see him in the street, I keep going as if he is a stranger”

Dating online is becoming very fashionable these days. I have been told that it works too, by that I mean it ends up in marriage, with one adjustment though–they don’t allow each other to chat or go online after marriage!

Based on a conversation with Mo (age 31)

“For me, we go out to have a drink or coffee, a brunch, a lunch a dinner… either in a group or alone.  It is not so shocking to see people, sitting so close to each other in certain places; it is not shocking to see them holding hands.  Dancing in a night club is usually a good place to get physically close. But really what we do is either drive around, meet at our married friends’ house to play cards, or talk.  We talk over the phone for hours every night!” (to the delight of telecoms)

Based on a conversation with Ghada from Jabal Natheef (age 24)

Dating in our side of the world can be defined in stolen glances.  I know I am dating when the guy stops to look at me, whenever I cross the street. Sometimes, when no one is looking, we exchange a hello.

The husband could not deal with the catastrophic request, so he went and created a huge sign, where he wrote love messages and stood in front of her office asking for her forgiveness. She happens to be a Royal Jordanian employee at the 7th Circle office. He did not stop there, but he invited some musicians au Spanish motif, and called different news outlets in Jordan to come and witness his sincere regrets. As you can imagine, the wife was very touched, went out crying and gave him a beautiful hug amid the cheers of the gathered crowd!

Not me unfortunately… I would hate it if my husband would put me in the spotlight like that… but what can i say…Allah yihanihom!  

For me this incident was interesting on several levels…. But most of all was the audacity of the husband, who was more ready to deal with a nation that, more often than not, suffers insecurity about manhood and does not tolerate the concept of public display of affection than divorcing his wife.

Mahmoud says : “ this man is a habeeleh! Actually look at his picture, he looks retarded!”

Dina said that this was the sweetest thing she heard… if her husband was that kind of man she would be happy!

Lama on the other hand hates public display of affection. She explained to me that she hates it when her brother and his wife start snogging… she is single and finds it both selfish and in bad taste…  she usually leaves the room with displeasure…. But they still have not got it!

The most intriguing bit, is that men in this country have no problem in showing affection to each other.   How often have we seen men holding hands while walking in the streets, or kissing on the cheeks? How often have we seen men give each other a pat on the back…? in other words, it is very acceptable for male friends to engage in a bit of a slap and tickle… the problem rises up when women are involved.

This story brought up a similar debate to that, which was created when Jordan was gripped with a Noor mania last year….  Both debates revolve around the lack of affection, whether public or private, among people here… parents don’t hug their children, and spouses don’t hug each other… so we have succeeded in producing generations of Jordanians who suffer from a lack of any physical display of emotions…

This  could be caused by several reasons;  One of them is related to the events that took place in Jordan in the last few decades.   As a matter of facts Jordanians have constantly been more focused on survival than on anything else, whether because of poverty or repeated disasters happening one after the other…  Another reason could revolve around the fact that parents were, and still are, very focused on bringing up men to take on responsibilities and therefore, it is not appropriate for them to be spoilt by love and mushi emotions…  The truth is many reasons come to mind… but I won’t go through them… even though I would like to know if you guys have some ideas…

The true question that comes to mind now…. Could this man’s actions be a symptom of a resistance against this emotional desertification that has characterized this country for decades? 

It is now 23:00 and I am exhausted… so will go to watch an episode of Gilmore Girls… I always loved that girlie series… I think I like the rosy life both Lorelei and Rori live… but my favorite one will always be the manipulative Emily… I love how what really matters is what other women say… kind of reminds me of here?

He is an A-hole. He does not respect you, leave him!

Now, my opinion has changed dramatically… it has become:

Where is your self confidence?

Elsa on the other hand used to hate it when her partner (ex-husband now…) used to check women out, especially when they were out and she was with him. This was always the base for an argument… she told him repeatedly that it made her feel uncomfortable, she felt it was not respectful of her as a women… his standard answer was a cold “it meant nothing”

Her mother used to tell her that being upset was not about him staring but it was about being insecure in her relationship…. which obviously she was not… and rightly so, since he ended up cheating on her…
Today, when she is with her boyfriend, she truly does not mind if he checks someone out,… which he seldom does, … and when he does, it is done discreetly and respectfully. Actually, it is ironic, that she would point out that a girl is cute…… what would he do in this case? He does nothing…. absolutely nothing… he might mumble something funny and move on.

So I guess her mother’s comment was right after all…. It really is not about who does what… it is about trust… if you trust the person, if you are secure about the person you are with… checking out other people is fine. The point is both men and women look every now and then… it is no big deal, but what is not normal is for people to stare and comment EVERY time some member of the opposite sex walks in a room. Which really was the case with Elsa’s husband, it used to make all of her friends uncomfortable… he would scan any woman’s body rudely…it was disgusting!

Why do men check out women?

I really don’t want to provide excuses for Arab men…they get away with too much as it is…. but let’s look into evolution here. We need to remember that even though we moved from the caves into modern buildings around Jordan… and we started eating cooked mansaf around tables in different Jordanians cities and villages instead of eating raw meet around the fire in the caves, we still share DNA with animals.

We should never forget that the aim of the human race is to spread DNA for the survival of the race! A guy, having to do little work to give birth to a kid, would be more likely to pass on his DNA if he mated with several women… Is this all? Well of course not. There are other reasons as well.. For example the fact that society celebrates men’s behaviours… I mean it is completely ok for a man to look around, but it would be viewed as completely unnatural and maybe a little sick for a woman to do the same…

I would also imagine that it is because the way women react to it… A friend used to let her husband know how cute the waiter is whenever she caught him looking at other women… she would tip these handsome waiters handsomely, and the sting of spending unnecessary money was enough to teach the husband not to look when she is around!

She still tips people handsomely every now and then, after 13 years of marriage!

Can you think of other reasons why men look at other women??

I wonder who would get upset by this video… Michelle Obama or Carla Bruni?

I had a nightmare yesterday… in the dream I sat in my room, knowing that I am home alone… suddenly my door opened and a total stranger poked his head into my room… I almost gave myself a heart attack… I went through the motions and the feelings of this scenario as if it was real…. I woke up in a cold sweat….

I knew the nightmare was related to a conversation I had with the sister the previous night… it was about a guy she thought I should meet… Meeting a guy has been on the agenda of several people lately… I guess people worry that I am not getting any younger.  For some odd reason I absolutely have to meet someone right now, get married on the spot and reproduce immediately (…don’t waste your time… you get married today, you have a baby nine months later… boom…boom…boom… as if this process is in the same category as buying tomatoes).

The problem here is that i don’t seek the same kind of guys i had when i was in my early twenties. At that point I was looking for someone Strong, i felt vulnerable and wanted to be protected. I wanted someone with the standard shit, money, house, car…etc. So that he can provide for me (I still did not know that I can provide for myself… ) And of course intelligence. 

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A few days Later….

I see that I have a wandering keyboard this week… but to return to the original thread, I want to introduce another couple of incidents that took place this week…

“Guess what?! Hala told me first day of Eid  “Fares got engaged to XXXX,” She said…Fares was her cousin’s boyfriend for a long time … we both were surprised at his choice, since both women were so extremely different… while the cousin was smart, ambitious and strong… the fiancée was quiet, unmotivated and dull….

The long conversation we had about why men tend to prefer boring women for marriage was shelved in my head till last day of Eid…. I visited some family members for Eid… They just moved back from Saudi Arabia… I said naively to the lady “you must be happy about being here, you regained your freedom now”.

“On the contrary”, she said… “In Saudi Arabia, I did not have to do anything at all…my husband had to do everything.” She said…

I was appalled! What I heard was “in Saudi Arabia, I could sit on my lazy ass the whole days, and the poor ass I married had to do all the work!”

I found her completely unimpressive… she seemed smart enough when she was first introduced to the family… (five years and three children ago) even though we were a bit uncertain.  I mean the husband is quite an intelligent man… and we did not feel that she was that spectacular… what we failed to realize then, was that he made an intellectual decision to marry beneath him….

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12 November 2008

For years, there’s been a popular conception that men are intimidated by intelligent women in this part of the world… however, intelligent women have a strategy…

They play dumb!

I can’t remember the number of times my grandmother told me to tone it down when I meet someone… or ordered me not to read publicly because it is not appealing… or treated my glasses as a shameless secret… The holly fear is that women who are too strong are less likely to find a man who will love them, let alone marry them.

Honestly I look at my grandmother and she is one of the strongest women on earth. She always knew how to play it down. And well she has been married for more than 60 years now!

Are Jordanian men intimidated by smart, strong women?  

Well…I was browsing when I came across an exhaustive study of people from primary school to middle age has proved that clever men are much more likely to marry than those with lesser intelligence. But for intelligent women, the reverse is true. Their chances of have that beautiful white wedding at Intercontinental Amman are considerably lower than other women who went through university because it was better than staying home!

The study says that one possible cause of this result is that many smarter women are too choosy in wanting higher status men whereas the men are not as choosy about status of females and hence can find a suitable mate from a much larger pool of women.

Another possible explanation (my lovely caveman analogy) men are more driven to seek physical beauty and youth as a result of selective pressures to seek fertile mates. Whereas natural selection favoured a female preference for higher status men as better providers…

“Men have no problem with an independent intelligent woman, but what I have found with women that call themselves that, is they are very judgmental, closed minded to certain things, and love to argue or debate as they call it”

I have been writing this post for a week now. I guess the new Jhumpa Lahiri book Unaccustomed Earth has been keeping me busy…. Not bad at all.. Lahiri knows how to show the human side of her characters…. Also this week i have realized that i am in love with Lebanese singer Marwan Khouri!

I have been begging Diala (an assumed name) to go out for a quite a while now…. between her two children, her petulant husband and her demanding career, she has gone incommunicado… Diala’s husband (lets call him Fadi) is a nice guy. They met at work and they liked each other… when he proposed, her family scanned him closely, and found him perfect in every respect. Good family, good manners, good financial position, good looking. Even us, her friends, we simply adored him, he is funny, witty, helpful and smart…

However dark clouds started appearing over their marriage less than a year after they got married…

While he needs someone to serve him, she needs someone to spoil her. He is very domestic but she is clueless when it comes to cleaning and cooking… He has a streak of sadism that would stay dormant if a strong partner stepped in; she is simply weak. After a while concerning patterns appeared between them. His sadism has been feeding on her weakness… and her depression has been feeding her vindictiveness.

From an ordinary point view, they have the perfect image,… Their family portrait could be published  in a magazine!  but when someone digs deeper… oh boy!

She has been avoiding not only us (her friends) but also her family because Fadi humiliates her subtly in front of us; he makes fun of her and calls her names, he acts arrogantly, does not take part in family events… so she feels embarrassed and prefers not to see anyone. This is called Isolation.  She, on the other hand withholds affection. She puts him down, and discounts his accomplishments. This is part of emotional abuse. He controls money, does not give her access to their joint bank account, spends family income without her consent, registers everything in his name, even though they both work… Surprisingly enough this is also a type of abuse; it is referred to as economic abuse.  They both use children to relay messages, they use them to make each other feel guilty…

The one thing they don’t do is physical abuse…Diala regrets that fact…

His problem is that he does not beat me up! If he did then we both would be forced to acknowledge the problem …

I got so angry hearing Diala’s troubles that I had to go out and take a walk.  I understood exactly how she feels… I am just amazed at how many people are in abusive relationships without even being aware of it… and I am talking about both men and women…

On a relevant note… I was talking to my counterpart at Sahab… she was explaining that people are in love with the series “Nour”… because it made us see that we are emotionally barren …

I wonder if this is the result of our educational system? Culture? Society? Religion? What is it exactly?

 Our friend Mayra (we call her Pansha sometimes) spent the last few years of her life in a relationship with a guy. She Anthrosoon realized that the relationship lacked intellectual and emotional compatibility. However, for whatever reasons they continued together. The wall between them built which led to a separation. When we talked to Mayra she came up with a theory that she needs physical, emotional and intellectual compatibility. Her relationship with her partner lacked both emotional and intellectual compatibility.

 Sara I discussed the intellectual compatibility issue, which we both found an interesting component in a relationship. Obviously I took Mayra’s side, and even though my friend understood Mayra’s point view, we still had a heated discussion about it. I could not shake our discussion from my mind for the last two days. I wondered about the degree of compatibility needed to ensure the success of a relationship. Does that mean that two people must like and dislike the same things? For example, since childhood I disliked wearing watches. I recently realized I dislike using umbrellas as well. Does my partner need to hate these two random items for a possible relationship to succeed? I understand the extremity of my example, but does the fact that we like the same books or we enjoy the same sense of humor, or even have passion for similar causes fall in this extreme category?

According to a study in India, similar intelligence between partners has a significant weight, since it helps in marriage stability and conflict resolution. Empirical studies (Blum & Mehrabian, 1999), (Botwin et al., 1997) have shown that there exists a low, but consistent positive correlation between intelligence levels of the two partners in a relationship. (Barton et al., 1972) on the other hand incorporated social-intellectual equality as one of the important factor in marital satisfaction. They report that when the partners have similar intellectuality, they tend to do something pleasing together; they agree that intellectual compatibility leads to a more stable marriage. On the other hand, studies show that there exists a direct correlation between intellectual ability and professional achievements. In these cases competition might exist between partners, which might lead to conflict. It also shows that if both partners have low intellectual abilities, the relationships tend to have more conflicts; therefore they agreed that at least one of the partners must have average intelligence and intellectuality for a relationship to succeed.

I talked to Mayra excited about the research I found; I wanted her to know that I finally understood her argument. However as we talked, we both realized that Mayra might have chosen the wrong term. Once we scratched the surface, something more important appeared; communication rather than intellectual compatibility.

Mayra and her partner lacked communication mechanism in their relationship. They did not talk; they did not have many things in common, which meant they did not do many things together; they would sit in silence when together.  They spent half an hour talking about their day and then they would drift, each to their business, either a book or TV or computer, very soon.   Her partner did not satisfy her emotionally, but neither did she. They did not know how to, and that left them frustrated and cold and disappointed.  They soon realized that they started avoiding each other, a little bit like “a temporary matter” Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Mayra cried while we talked and at that point we just stopped talking. She still needs to figure things out, and today I will light a candle for her.

…. I spent at least half of my life believing that there is one person for each one of us. I blame this idea that was planted in my head at an early age on a conversation I had at a very early age with a friend that I looked up to at that point of my life.  This friend said once in a moment of lucidity that we only have one true friend and we only have one true love.  Since I was gullible and easily impressionable, and the words came out of my mentor’s lips from all people, I lived years and years not only believing intensely in that idea, but fighting for proving it is right!  Ironically this friend’s life has been the perfect example of the opposite extreme!  His lifestyle is the proof that this nice idea is only a nice idea!  He has been going out steadily with at least 3 “fiends” because he hates the term girl friend and these “friends” not only know about each other, but somehow they managed to become best friends! With time my friend stopped believe in marriage, he does not think that one person can satisfy all his needs…. But I won’t get into this today. This is worthy of a post on its own!

Couple of years ago, I was talking to a mathematician friend, and I was arguing passionately that we only have one true love, and this friend went into a calm logical explanation that this is mathematically impossible, as there are 6 billion people on this earth and the probability that we fall in love more than once is simply more than 1!!! And I had no other option but to see the error of my ways!

These three conversations came to my mind today in my trip from Aqaba to Amman where I spent it being amused by May Ziadeh’s confused love stories. May was in love with 3 different men. A German guy, with whom she had a brief thing, but he disappeared from her life at a later stage and she ended up going to Germany few times to find him.

Gibran Khalil Gibran, with whom she corresponded for more than 25 years.  The stories say they have never met, although one rumour was that they met once, for one whole night, where they spent it talking على ذمة the person who came up with the rumour. Gibran on the other hand had a very busy love life that was characterized by a series of intense affaires with different partners. At the same time he was corresponding with May, sometimes very emotional and romantic letters, he was seriously dating a woman in Boston, having affaires left right and centre, with several girls and corresponding seriously with another lady!

So since their love story was only platonic it never crystallized into anything concrete, they loved each other without really loving each other. There was no passion, obviously since they never met and if the rumour was true they only spent one night together, that was not passionate enough because it never led to any other nights.  There was also no commitment what so ever because of his bohemian lifestyle and her strict feminist views and belief that love must lead to marriage other wise it is not love at all.  Beside the fact that they both were in love with other people. And whether in my idealistic phase or in my cynical one, the one thing that remains unchanged is that relationships without passion is not the kind of love I am talking about here.

The third man in her life was Abas Mahmoud il Aqad. A man that was the object of my fantasies since I was very young.  His dark skin and good looks, his defiance to the school system that he never finished, yet managed to become Abas Mahmoud il Aqad,  one of the most intelligent and intellectual men in our culture, all were elements that made me completely fancy Al Aqad, even if he is not a person in my life, yes the very same kind of feelings girls have for Enrique Iglesias,  Orlando Bloom or that cute Egyptian actor il sa2a..  May and Al Aqad had a very flirty relationship, where they dated on weekly basis… he wrote her lots of beautiful poems, and she wrote him lots of naughty letters… however, their love died in the crib, because she called him once and the phone was answered by Sarah, a woman that he fancied!

I guess what I am trying to say here, is that love is something very volatile, it comes and goes, and maybe it is time for girls to move away from this Cinderella notion, because I promise human beings are too weak and curious to fall in love only once.

Yesterday Veena joint us a bit late, she was preparing for another exam with someone that she fancies and who is with her in the same class. Last semester they had some sort of fling… she comes from a very respected Indian family where her life was structured by the values of wrong and right and woman respectability and honour and decency… she finally broke free from that  very strict system and decided to give herself a go with this guy.

In the last few weeks, she managed to fall in love with him and he managed to find himself an easy girlfriend who is not as demanding or serious as poor veena. The poor thing just found out yesterday… Veena is one of the most reserved people I have ever met, for her showing emotions is very hysterical and vulgar, and she prides herself at her refined manners… She had few relationships before, but she never showed emotions when they finished… she has a very good reason, she says, she usually likes them, and based on that, ends up sharing maybe a bit more than is accepted by her society.  Usually these boys who come from the same social background are as deprived of emotional attachment as she is… and once they get that kiss, or holding hands.. they move to the next girl… Veena started understanding this and she feels that showing emotions will make her acknowledge that she was used… so she simply pretends that she does not care and that she is also parting that relationship willingly.  The point is we had an animated girlie discussion about what she did when this new guy told her that he is seeing someone else… obviously we started hurling the worst words and descriptions on the guy! and we all were hoping that she hit him…

She told us that she took it very calmly, she finished what she was doing and then gathered her stuff and was ready to leave, the guy was very shocked, as he thought that they were over and he did not think she feels this way about him, so he asked her to stay and to talk about it, and she tried to explain rationally that she is upset and that she does not want to loose her rationality and go hysterical! Which I found really amusing but the guy who is actually a very smart guy, told her that human being are irrational and she could be irrational if she wanted, so she told him that she wanted to hit him… and the guy’s body language immediately goes into the defence mode!  But Veena is not violent and her rational self interfered to save the day to she started crying quietly to our disappointment.

They were both ok about it eventually, they talked about it calmly… she felt better when he explained that he can’t handle a serious relationship now and so he went to an easy one, and that if he was looking for a serious relationship, he would be trying with her! Blablabla… men are really full of bullshit but the argument worked… she instantly felt better and ended up leaving feeling ok…

Veena was very excited about the fact that she cried in front of the guy, that she told him how she felt, she even called him useless!  She felt that she is finally learning how to be herself, how to show emotions, she is finally growing claws! Growing claws comes from a book ny Isabelle Allends called Portrait of Sepia, we both loved this book and we both could related to the book when she told us about her new found experience of showing emotions Her objective is to unleash the irrationality that has been hidden by years and years of learning and training to be a classy lady…I think that even if the incident is very small it really shows that she is changing towards the person she hopes she will become…

I have nothing to say honestly… I simply wrote this because I needed to put my mind away from development and democracy, refugees and immigrants and multiculturalism, human rights and child labour and few other topics. Wish me luck!

I was completely fascinated! Even excited about the idea of a counselling before you get married! Apparently they get people to think about certain things that you would imagine that people intending to get married would have covered long time ago in details…only to be shocked at how many couples don’t have a clue! Such as kids, where do we want to live, the finances, the in laws, how to have an interesting life…..etc…etc… .I don’t know…these are the obvious things… but there so many things that are really really not obvious… all those awfully important details that parents would call the BASICS of life, and unmarried people would not even imagine… after all the most sophisticated unmarried brain is not equipped to think of all these things that encounter people when they do get married.

I will chose a perfectly safe example… like let’s say finances…these seminars get people to think about things like: who will take care of the finances at home? If they thought if they will have two bank accounts or a joint one? if they have any financial plan for their life? If the woman will contribute at all? How much would she contribute? Will she have some money for her for security? Other topics such as in whose names the properties are going to be if they both are working or if one of them is sitting home to take care of the children? What is their retirement plan? The kids’ university fund?!!…etc…etc… and all of a sudden what started as a perfectly simple and innocent marriage ends up being one hell of a complicated spiky thing!

From the conversation that we had… and I never saw them this stressed out. Bea said that she was amazed at how many people have not talked about important things things, and how many topics she discovered she did not cover with Peter. Peter on the other hand said that in these seminars you get shocked that your partner thinks like that! And it made me realize what a wonderful idea it really is to go through this before you get married… how many couples will be spared the horrors of divorce? How many children will be spared the mental abuse of an unhappy marriage? I don’t know honestly… maybe it is not like that, maybe with or without counselling, if a marriage is meant to stay it will and if it supposed to end it will….but I still could not help wondering how many people think after many many years of marriage if I knew this thing about my husband or wife, would I still have married them?!

I will sit down and enjoy my cup of tea while hearing Dido ironically a song called hunter, whom I have not heard in months… I will also go back to my painting… something happened and all of a sudden I am very inspired… I suppose I discovered the ink that is used with water colour and hell… it is brilliant!

T. literally spent these days walking between Bond street and Tottenham court Road, which happens to be one of the most famous shopping areas in the world! So YES a woman’s process of redefining herself, definitely includes  a major redefinition of her wardrobe! We turned from residents to tourists with her; we have been walking around London, attending musicals and concerts and posing for pictures in front of every high building!!

On the fourth day, T. confessed that one of the reasons she came here is to think of a marriage proposal that is perplexing her. The guy is smart, successful, ambitious, extremely good looking, funny and from a very good family. There is one little problem though, she feels that he is not in love with her personally, but he is in love the high score she made on his list of requirements. When she explained this, the visual image that was created in my head was rather funny. Here I imagined him sitting with her in a romantic setting explaining his principals in life, asking her questions and ticking on a list in front of him. for some reason I just remembered all those  guys explaining their principals in life to their girlfriends while  walking in the gardens of jame3 il jam3a (the Mosque of the University). I wonder if the gardens still attract these romantic souls?? In our case, the perplexity comes because 3arees il ghafleh! is too good to pass, especially that her parents like him, and she is in the right frame of mind, since all her friends are getting engaged and she feels the social pressure.

I am one of those people who are really unromantic! I don’t believe in fairy tales and happily ever after. I believe that relationships need hard work to flourish, they need wise judgements and  intelligent choices, but in this case I could not help wondering if two people made a very intelligent choice based on a very well defined list of requirements would that bring happiness to them? Would that be enough to ensure that the marriage would be successful? And where should a person draw the line of what is enough and what is not?! Just thought I should share….

I am reading one of the most intriguing studies ever, it is called Tearoom Trade. It is an eye opener to a shocking world I knew nothing about. And here I thought I am a cultured, well read individual… it is funny that being at school is a very humbling experience. It makes a person feel that the more she knows the less she really knows… perplexing hah? time to sleep… it is 2:30 AM and my eyes are closing on their own.