CURRENT MISSION

To follow my passion wherever it takes me; to travel, to explore, and to further my life's purpose.

ABOUT ME

I am an eclectic person with a wonderful and warm personality. I am very friendly. I feel comfortable around almost anybody, from every place on earth, the more diversity, the better. My main love in life is literature. My other passions are traveling, of course, languages, bellydancing, music (especially Arabic and flamenco), horseback riding, swimming in the ocean, foreign/independent films.

I have had an interesting, full, and varied life. I've had every kind of job possible: attorney, writer, journalist, translator, yoga instructor, flight attendant, waitress, phone operator, model, dancer, hotel front desk clerk, room service. I like to try many things and to make my life as rich as possible.

I am thankful for my wonderful friends, who are like family to me.

I am optimistic, full of passion for life, enjoy food very much, good company, and good conversation. I am open and trusting. I feel if you treat people the best, they will give you their best.

I am excited to join Couch Surfing!!

PHILOSOPHY

Insist on yourself, never imitate (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Based on that, my philosophy is to live life at the fullest, to not let a sheep mentality overtake you, to never let fear paralyze you, to listen to yourself always, not to others, but to hear your own voice, and always believe you can do and achieve amazing things because you can.

To love, without attachment, expectation, possession.

To live a beautiful, exuberant, magnificent life. Aesthetics are important to me in all areas. They make life worth living, great literature, great art, great music. They elevate experience.

I believe in the Sufi concept of 'emptiness'...leave the ego and just be and get to know others, the world, share yourself and give all you can.

I have the wisdom of one condemned to die, I possess nothing so nothing can possess me and have written my will in my own blood: "inhabitants of my song: trust in water" --Mahmoud Darwish

Read Mahmoud Darwish and defend the rights of Palestinians. And NEVER choose to remain ignorant or be brainwashed by fictions.

The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired. --Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time.

Always be grateful. Gratitude is heaven in itself. William Blake.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I will participate by hosting people in my city whenever it is possible for me, by traveling and being hosted by wonderfully kind people, and by writing great reviews, adding pictures, or anything else...I am not too familiar with CS yet, but will be very very soon inshallah!!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I hosted a wonderful woman from the US who is actually living in Mexico, in San Miguel, for a month in 2008. We became very good friends and it was a great experience. I fell in love with her little dog Pancho! I missed them when they left. It wasn't through this website though, but it was the same, the experience, I mean.

Interests

Islam; literature, with a special love for Latin American literature; Sufi dance; Arabic poetry; writing fiction; translating poetry and fiction; bellydancing; traveling; foreign cultures and languages; Arabic music and cuisine and cultures; Italian culture; horseback riding; art; museums; painting; making true and deep and long-lasting friendships with people from all over the world; great food; great wine; great company; bookstores!!!

• arts
• culture
• writing
• literature
• poetry
• beauty
• dancing
• flamenco
• dining
• wine
• modeling
• movies
• traveling
• painting
• magic
• music
• equestrian
• surfing
• muslim
• swimming
• history
• languages
• law
• science
• dance
• sufism
• arabic
• islam
• bellydance
• arabic music
• gypsy
• sufi music
• arabic culture
• whirling
• sufi dance

Music, Movies, and Books

The works of:

Mahmoud Darwish. Rumi. Mario Vargas Llosa. Roberto Bolano. Alberto Moravia. Jorge Luis Borges. Lawrence Durrell. Ernest Hemingway. Les Miserables. Herman Hesse.

Wael Hallaq's "The Impossible State" --the most thought-provoking, brilliant and beautiful book I have read.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Spend great, quality time with a Nobel Prize winner. The most humble, intelligent, coherent, alive, kind, down to earth, passionate, funny, beautiful person. It makes you thankful to exist and motivates you to be your best. The way this person has treated me and my best friend has so much value that I've no words to express my happiness and gratitude and amazement.

Teach, Learn, Share

Everybody who is fully alive, awake, aware. Adventurous souls who love to explore the world, explore life, live to the fullest, enjoy beauty, want to elevate life through art of any form, make their life a work of art, are true, transparent, real. People who are generous and who always leave you with a sense of gratitude that there are such people in this world. Positive, happy people who realize that it is our duty to make ourselves happy so that we can bring happiness to others. Loving people.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Egypt, Mexico, United States

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