Our first (and possibly last) cable car adventure!

(pic: saudiembassy.net)

On the first, chilly day of Eid, (this is to give a picturesque beginning to the post) Rida and I actually ventured to sit in a cable car -- a REAL one! Really, I'm not exaggerating... ask Ed if you want to confirm this amazing fact:)
Not that I enjoyed it much when we started... the thing zoomed forward -- and I screamed so loud that the passengers of the cable car were almost deafened. Rida backed me up with a louder roar of terror... you really should've seen us...screaming our heads off!!
I could hear my brothers RSenior-RJunior screaming too... junior R was crying and saying that he wasn't a scaredycat, but we were all going to DIE!! And senior R was on the floor of the car with his face in his lap!!!...hahaha...
OOOppss.... not good of me to laugh now, huh?
I must admit there was a terrible uproar in the cable car... and most of the screams were mine...
When I looked behind or should I say beneath me, I could see the valley of Rijal-al-Ma' ... it was so terribly steep that I was ready to faint. Rida's eyes were clamped shut... junior R was screaming as the car rocked to-and-fro, senior R was now crouching on the seat with his and ears shut... so were mine...
...and each time it went lower and lower, the thing went slower and slower... and when it felt as if it had decided to stop, over the steep, moss covered valley, I screamed loudly: 'IS IT GOING TO STOP?!' and junior R would collapse into a wild fit of loud sobs and cries:)!
Senior R would crouch upon his seat uncomfortably in a quiet fear. Rida had stopped yelling; I had decided that the scene was really beautiful, and I was sort of feeling ashamed of my loud screams:P No use screaming, you know. When we at last arrived at the cable car station, I couldn't believe I had actually sat in that DEATH car that was hanging on a 'rope' as junior R calls it... we had just had a ride in a 'little box stuck on a long rope tied to poles between the two stations'.
Still... Rida and I are always cribbing there're no adventures around for us...
... and guess what Ed remarked when we got back? -- 'Never again-- once is ENOUGH!'
after all... that's why cable cars were made, right?

'pleasures of reading'

Assalamu'alaykum,

I was VERY busy, and I'm still busy cz we're swotting HARD for our exam., and Umma was giving us this revision for the exam, and there was this question in it: ' write an article about the pleasures of reading' and I wrote an article which Umma said turned out to be quite nice, and I hope I get the full 8 marks for it. I hope you'll like it too!

Reading is one of the most important ways of acquiring information about the world and people. The most famous books today are fiction like story books, fairy tales and poems. It is very necessary to choose and read the right books like encyclopaedias, books on science like anatomy and how our body works, and books on the world around us like books on history and geography and astronomy as they are more beneficial than fiction, which although it's good fun to read, does not add much to our knowledge -- except maybe vocabulary.

Reading should be encouraged and introduced among people -- especially children -- because not many people are interested in it these days and think it is boring and dull, and prefer playing games on the computer or watching TV instead.

The most famous authors are still remembered for their books because they make a person feel like they are actually watching and experiencing the things that are being described by them. My favourite authors are Enid Blyton, Carolyn Keene, Mark Twain, Gerald Durrell, Roald Dahl and Ruskin Bond because of their great sense of humour and light-hearted way of writing and one day, in shaa Allaah, I hope to write like them and publish books that will be enjoyed by many readers all over the world.

Reading is a very useful and interesting recreation and most importantly, it is a way of gaining good deeds, like by reading the Qur'aan and ahadeeth of the Prophet. Reading the Qur'aan is also a way of curing many diseases of the heart and the body.

Some people like to sit at their study tables and read, others read at bedtime, but (edit: much to the despair of our parents) we like to read everywhere all the time!

It is important that we not only read for enjoyment and pleasure, but also to learn important lessons and gain knowledge that will help us in life."

books that make you lol

“ Tom!’
No answer…
“Tom!”
No answer…

‘What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You Tom!’
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; she seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy, for they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for ‘style’, not service ; she could see through a stove lid as well. She looked perplexed a moment and said, not fiercly , but still loud enough for the furniture to hear, ‘ Well, I lay if I get hold of you I’ll-’

She did not finish , for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with a broom, so she needed enough breath to punctuate the punches with…

She resurrected nothing but a cat. ‘ I never did see the beat of the boy!’
She went to the open door, and stood in it, and looked among the tomato vines and jimpson weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance, and shouted:

‘YYYYYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUU Tom!’

There was a slight noise behind her, and she turned just in time to seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.
‘ There! I might have thought of that closet. What have you been doing there?’

‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing! Look at your hands, and look at your mouth. What is that truck?’
‘ I don’t know aunt.’
‘Well, I know. It’s jam, that’s what it is.Forty times I’ve told if you don’t leave the
jam alone I’d skin you. Hand me that switch.’

The switch hovered in the air. The peril was desperate.
‘My! Look behind you, aunt!’
The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger, and the lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board fence, and disappered over it. His Aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, then broke into a gentle laugh.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer/Mark Twain
* * *
By *Rasha*

copyright@rasha

ستبدا الحكاية

من اول البداية
من حيث ما تعيش

الزهرة الصغيرة
لطيفة جميلة

معبرة ...حكيمة

صديقتها ارنوبة

دائماً ودودة
لها صديقات اكثر

تعيش وسط الكرنب
لها اسنان مطلوعة

لها اذنان رقيقة

والبسة بسبوسة

دائماً محبوبة
تاكل اللحومَ

وتقلي بالشحومَ

تغريد العصفورة

عصفورة مغردة
تعيش في الاغصانِ

في الليل والنهارِ

واختنا سعادُ

لا تخلف الميعادُ
تطيعُ والديها

ولا تكونُ سيئه

والساحرة ُ خنفسة

تعيش كالقنفذة
قلبها كالشوكِ

وصوتها كالبوقِ

وهكذا النهاية

لهذه الحكاية

long overdue update by Rasha

بين ا لحديقة وا لنهر

وجما ل ا لوان ا لزهر

Between the garden and the river,

and the beauty of colourful flowers

وا لطير يشدو بالغناء

ا لعذب في شتى ا لصور

And the birds that chirp with pure song

In their different ways

سارت مها مسرورة

مع والد حان ابر

Maha was strolling happily

with her father, who was kind and good

فرات هنالك نخلة

معوجة بين الشجر

She saw a palm tree in the garden

tilting between the other trees

فتناولت حبلا وقالت

يا ابي هيا ا نتظر
حتى نقوم عودها

لتكون اجمل في النظر

She reached out for a rope

And said: Yaa Abee (O My Father)

Wait for me, until I straighten its trunk

And it gladdens the sight

فاجاب وا لدها: لقد

كبرت وطا ل بها العمر

Her father answered:

It is an old, fully grown tree

ومن العسير صلاحها

فات الاوان ولا مفر

And it is difficult to set it right

The time for that has gone..

There is no refuge now

قد ينفع الاصلاح والتهذيب

في عهد الصغر

al-Islaah benefits the most in the young days

وا لنشء ان اهملته

طفلا تعثر في ا لكبر

And if the young generation's upbringing is neglected

it will hamper them/cause them to stumble, as adults

=============================

Ed note: okay, maa shaa Allaah, this poem (which is out of Rasha's qira'ah wa'l kitaabah book btw) made me think of 3 things:

• I should seriously think of signing up Rasha for translation when she grows up, in shaa Allaah, the translation (except for stray editorial bits) was all hers, maa shaa Allaah. I especially liked the 'pure song' touch..laa quwwata illaa billaah
• How much gratitude I owe to Abu R, may Allaah preserve him, without whose constant reminders and living example I would have been the easygoing, laidback slacker mum to beat all slacker mums (subhaanallaah, he never wastes a minute...maa shaa Allaah..and has time to sit with the kids and help them revise the Qur'aan or iron out creases in their Arabic homework that I'm too dense to work out..after a long, hard day at work)
• There can never be a translation of the Qur'aan that does justice, or comes even a million light years close to the original words of Allaah. Muslims *must* learn Arabic to understand the overwhelming, inimitable brilliance of Allaah's Words for themselves, stat.

actually, make that 20

Did you know who was Abu Tammam?
[Ed: I confess I didn't, until Rasha told me this morning]
Abu Tammam was a great Arabian poet. His full name was: Abu Tammam Habib bin Aus. He was a poet and collector of Arabic poems. Here's one of them.



إذا جاريت في خلق دنيئا -- فانت و من تجاريه سوا
لقد جرّ بت هذا الدهر حتى-- افادتني التجارب والعناء.
وما من شدّة إلا سياتي -- لها من بعد شدّ تها رخاء.
يعيش المرء ما الستحيا بخير-- ويبقى العود ما بقي اللحاء
فلا والله ما في العيش خير-- ولا الدنيا إذا ذهب الحياء
إذا لم تخش عاقبة الليالي-- ولم تستحي فاصنع ما تشاء


Ithaa jaarayta fee khuluqin daneey'an/Fa anta wa man tujaareehee sawaa'u
If you keep step with someone with base charachter/then know that the one you see and you are the same

Laqad jarrabtu haadha ad dahr hatta/ afaadatny at tajrubu wa alanau
I have experienced this myself/until I benefited from this

Wa maa min shidda ila saya'ty/ lahaa min baad shiddatihha rakha'u
And there is no hardship/except that there comes ease after it

~Rasha~

I had a dream

~*Assalamu'alaykum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakatuh~*

this morning I got up with a smile on my face :)

I dreamt that I'm in London

and it's snowing

and I'm walking

navy blue coat

white school blouse

grey skirt that

swishes around my feet like a snowdrift

and a red scarf wrapped around my head

it doesn't mean danger

it only means

that I'm cold

and I'm Muslim.

~*Rasha~*

2X2=?

Father: 2x2=???

Boy: 4

Father: Excellent!! ( hands boy 4 riyaals)

Boy: (thinks) I wish I'd said 10!

By Rasha

:)

Woman: Are these apples Lebanese or French?

Fruitseller: Lady, you want to eat them or talk to them?

By Rasha

R=Rassaamah

Ed: R also = resentment, rivalry, you-put-up-her-pics-and-not-mine, so here's more ;)







By Rasha