STORIES, STORIES

Man, I remember when The Nerdist Podcast first started, how excited I was about it. Everything they had talked about on the first few episodes were stuff I could understand, things I had previously discussed with friends, lols I'd already had. Kindred spirits, I thought! I felt the full power of an internet connection as I listened to the podcast on the way home from a long day at work. How is it possible, I'd asked myself, that a bunch of people from thousands of miles away, whose backgrounds are so different from mine, could be on the same wavelength as me? And also, how is it possible THAT THE INTERNET WORKS? Why are we alive? What is the purpose? So much philosophy. It was purely by happy accident that the Nerdist team consisted of Whovians. Or was it?! I like nothing about bowling except for the fact that its existence allowed for the unfolding of the events in this video. You win this round again, internet.

Here's something that has bothered me and a few friends for some time now - the idea that we are working for free. Seth Godin's post  on the topic clarified some things for me. Should you work for free?   That depends on what you mean by "work" and by "free."  Work is what you do as a professional, when you make a promise that involves rigor and labor (physical and emotional) and risk. Work is showing up at the appointed time, whether or not you feel like it. Work is creating value on demand, and work (for the artist) means putting all of it (or most of it) on the line. In my day job - where I DON'T work for free, this is what I do (because I get paid for it): * I show up at the appointed day/time, and if I don't, I get deducted money. * I do what I'm hired for, or what is expected of me, whether or not I get praise for it (presumably because I don't need the praise, I need the money). * I set goals a little above the usual an...

I downloaded my Twitter archives. Here's what I found out: I'm pretty much still the same person on there. In 2008 I had maybe 2 followers. Back then, the ratio of followers to following didn't matter, and people spoke in the third person so that tweets "flowed smoothly." People were still fumbling about, learning about hashtags and RTs and FFs, and there were zero social media gurus and/or companies that tweeted things no one cared about. Kids, in the time-honored internet tradition of self-absorption and over-sharing, walk through Twitter history with me here. I first learned about early-adopterism through Twitter when my name was available and I got my handle without having to add numbers or underscores or Xs and Os and the word "sexy". It was its own reward. Some other Nessreen in another part of the world (or maybe in the same city) would find the handle already taken, and she would slam her first down the table in frustration. But not I. ...

Our writing session today helped me deal with one of the things I find difficult when it comes to writing - tone. Probably because I've been a blogger for so long, I'm so used to being purely subjective and moody about any topic, and it's become difficult for me to turn it off when I need to write, say, a magazine article. Like I said before , what I love about the workshops is that it's a safe place for us writers to admit that we are Not Good (Enough) as a way to improve our craft. When I do this around non-writers, it always comes off as low self-esteem or a glaring lack of confidence in my skills. This Lifehacker article really said it for me. I have a friend—a designer—who's convinced she's not very good. She doesn't believe her work is anything special. She doesn't even believe the fact good work is a result of her own discipline, preferring instead to give the credit to her environment or others' expectations. This belief is very deep...

Roqaya is one of my favorite co-workers. She's a mother of 3 - her eldest in college now - and she's level-headed, smart, devoid of drama, very chill, and has a great sense of humor. I don't know any "cool moms", but I'm imagining she's one of them. My tendency to over-analyze All The Things extends to small, seemingly purposeless conversations such as the one she and I had yesterday at one of our breaks. "I fucking hate my job," I says, because that's just standard convo starter, isn't it? "Who doesn't?" she says. "Well, I'm pretty sure you  don't, for instance," I tell her. "I don't hate that I have  a job, and it also doesn't mean that I'd do a shit job - I'll do my level best all the time because I'm getting paid for it. But I hate the actual teaching. You know?" "Yeah, I know. No, I don't hate my job. I hate that I have to generally work for money, but...

Our 2nd writing workshop set is now in session, and I'm pretty psyched about it. [Who says "psyched" anymore, you guys?] For this set, we're doing Creative Blogging workshops where we try to break out of the old, boring "I did this and this happened" writing method that we employ on autopilot as personal bloggers. I love these sessions, and not only because I've put in a lot of hard work to make them happen (this is our 4th session overall). In general, the goal is to: * Meet other serious writers in Jeddah who are willing to put aside some time out of their busy schedules to sharpen their writing. * Create a community of writers. * Tackle different genres of writing that we all have - or want to - dabble in. * Raise the bar for the writing industry in Jeddah. * Encourage self-learning and peer-to-peer learning, as well as good form in giving and receiving constructive criticism from fellow writers. * Develop critical th...

We're a month and a half into our Spanish self-learning quest, me and some friends. Things are still a little shaky, and we're still in that language level where most of what we know is plural forms of "apple" and "cat", or whatever it is that we Google-translate on the spot. I'd like to eventually get to a level where I can speak sentences that start off in English and trail off to cuss-sounding Spanish. Or, you know, just develop a Spanish accent to speak in English with. Whichever comes first. We're using SpanishDict and Duolingo to learn our grammar and vocabulary, and once a week, we all meet up and practice saying things out loud. The best part about all this? How bad we are at speaking Spanish.