I know it’s been all about football lately, but I think that just football fans are aware about the importance of the European cup.

To make a change, I’ve found some interesting articles about Saudi Arabia when I was googling this morning.

You can read the impression of a BBC correspondent, who had a 10-days visit to Saudi Arabia in order to attend an economic conference. The same conference was a subject of many articles in the Saudi papers as some unveiled women spoken in that conference.

On the other side of The Atlantic, an American correspondent wrote what her newspaper called “Inside Saudi Arabia: a five part special report“. The report is too long to be read as it is written for a classical newspaper, but if you have some free time why to waste it reading my Euro 2004 posts?

Still in the States, where you can find out more about the Saudi women long way to gain their rights, and how are they keep on living in such a society that treats them in a way I must say it is “SO BAD!”.

Also about women and the relations between the sexes, a Canadian paper published this article.

Something funny? Have you ever heard that Barbie dolls are banned in Saudi Arabia? Yes they are, and I can be sure you won’t understand why! Or you can read about how young guys like me are “crawling” in the malls to hook up the — Saudi way!

Finally, if you think you had enough of Westerners writing on something the may not be able to understand, you can read about Saudi’s life after 9/11 by a Saudi guy.

I know some parts of these articles my be similar, but small differences are what make life looks this way. Have a nice reading!

This is the flag of Saudi Arabia 

Seven days ago, the Euro 2004 started with a big surprise on the opening day when Greece defeated the host Portugal. Nobody ever thought that Portugal, one of the favourites to win the cup, would show up with such weak performance. The Brazilian coach Luiz Philippi Scolari was blamed for keeping good players like Deco and Christiano Ronaldo out while oldies like Rui Costa were doing nothing on the pitch. When the coach finally waked up, it was almost over and Ronaldo’s late goal couldn’t save the local team.

On the second day, the long awaited clash between England and France was really worth waiting. The English fans were so happy to see their team taking the lead by Frank Lampard header from the free kick assist by the captain David Beckham. In the middle of the second half, England got a penalty kick and the English fans started singing because they thought that’s it but the French keeper Fabian Barthez saved Beckham’s shot and gave his team-mates a new hope. Even though, the French couldn’t make any real chances on David James. The match was on the way to end when France got a free kick in the loss time. Zinedine Zidane swings it and… Goal. A minute later, France got a penalty because of Steven Gerrard’s wrong pass and Zidane scores again. The match ended 2-1, which looked like a nightmare to England fans like me who couldn’t believe what happened in the last unbelievable minutes.

There were no big surprises on the rest of matches. Italy kept the result scoreless against Denmark which played so much better than Trappatoni’s boys, while Sweden shocked Bulgaria 5-0 thanks to Henrick Larsson and co. Germany’s boring style helped them to keep their one goal lead against Holland until minute 80 when Man Utd striker Ruud Van Nistelrooy, aka Rudi, equalized for the orange team. We still have no idea why their coach Dick Adovcat still insisting on playing with one forward only while he got plenty good attackers like Makaay and other players.

In the second round, Russian were the first team to kiss the tournament good-bye after they lost to Portugal 0-2. Greece proved they didn’t come only to enjoy sunshine and made a difficult draw 1-1 with Spain. The day after, the English lions roars high and beat Switzerland 3-0 by Rooney and Gerrard, while France were lucky again and the could sneak out with a 2-2 draw against Croatia.

In today’s matches, Denmark made a reasonable 2-0 win over Bulgaria and Sweden’s two coaches were smart enough to take advantage of the Italian coach mistakes to get their team a late equalizer by Zlatan Ibrahimovic preventing the Azuri from getting their first win in the championship.

My final exams starts this week, and all I can think about is “Summer Plans”.

I am not sure if I want to spend few weeks in Turkey, or should I save some money to buy an IBM ThinkPad laptop… or should I have an Apple iPod first?

Nothing is confirmed now, but I hope to get everything clear when I start my vacation 16 days later.

This summer is filled with events. There will be the Euro 2004 in Portugal, the Asian Cup of Nations in China and the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

In the Europian cup I’m with England, but I will definitely enjoy every bit of this to-be-great tournament.

The Saudi team is one of the favourites to win the Asian cup. They were in the final match in the last five editions and they won it three times. They lost the other two to Japan.

In the Olympics the Saudi football team could not make it to the finals, but I do not think it’s that bad. It will be better for Saudis to watch and focus on other good athletes like Hadi Souan, who won a silve midal in Sydney, and Husein Al-Sebaa, who is well-qualified to gain a midal in Athens.

I wish all the luck for Saudis… and England!

I’m writing this post but I’m not pretty sure if I’m going to be able to read it. The Saudi government suddenly and with no explaination decided to block all the blogs hosted by the BlogSpot service.

The Internet services offered for in Saudi Arabia for the first time in 1998. And since then, the KACST, the government body responsible for controlling Internet content, has blocked millions and millions of sites without any kind of clear policy about them.

I can understand blocking porn, violence or any offensive content. I can understand that there are some evil blogs which are rare compared to plenty ofgood blogs out there. If you have got a box filled with fine apples, and there is one single rotten apple among them, do you get rid of the whole box or just the rotten one? This is something I cannot understand!

I don’t think that KACST would need a technical miracle to block what they consider as bad blogs instead of blocking the whole BlogSpot domain. They had done it before when they blocked Yahoo! Groups while other Yahoo! services retained availabel.

I’ve tried to contact KACST through their unblocking form several times, but they did not reply until now.

Please, healp me to liberate my blog and thousends of good blogs by contacting KACST through their website or using this email address: webmaster@isu.net.sa

Freedom for BlogSpot!

As movie theaters are not allowed here in Saudi Arabia, it will take you some effort if you want to watch a movie.

I’m not a big movie fan. I think I’m just like a lot of people all over the world who are not movie-addicted but they would like to watch movies that may interest them when they can.

Every time I read or listen about a movie that I may like, I have three choices. The first is to go to Bahrain in a trip which takes only tow hours by car. Or I can wait until the movie becomes available on video or DVD. Or, and that’s what I do most of the time, I ask my good friends from KFUPM students to copy it for me on a CD-R and watch it on my computer. May be it’s illegal, but you can be sure you’ll get the best and the newest movies at the KFUPM geeks LAN!

Few days ago, I’ve watched “Lost In Translation“.

The first movie by Sofia Coppola, the daughter of the famous director Francis Ford Coppola, is a joy to watch especially after midnight!

I don’t want to go in details about the movie, but you may want to know that Sofia Coppola, the director/writer/co-producer of the movie, has won an Oscar for the best original script.

Last Saturday, I had to present a seminar for the physiology course I’m taking this semister. I was scared to death. To stand up in front of twnety of my class-mates and talk to them as a lecturer, that’s not me! Not at all!

But I wasn’t alone. I had to share my topic with tow other class-mates and the topic was about the sympathetic system. Before few days we decided to divide the topic and I choosed the first part. On the presentation day, my class-mates went to talk first and they almost ate my part so I became more and more nervous.

Finally, it was my turn but I had nothing left to say. I stood up and start talking: ‎”It’s nice to pretend to be a doctor even for few minutes and even it’s too scary… and even it’s too cold in here, but it’s OK.” Here, I felt like my heart beats just stopped for a second. Then I continued: “My colleagues almost said everything, so I’ll just brief what they said and may be add a little bit more… As you know…” I talked about the general things and on the minimum time allowed (3 min.) I finished my show with: “I think that’s all for my part. Any questions?” Hoping no-one asking me anything! “OK, thank you!”

When I was on my way to return to my seat the doctor asked me: “Where are you from?” “I’m from the Eastern Province” I replied. “So, you are Saudi?” he asked. “Yes I am” I replied. He looked surprised and asked me: “Are you sure?” “100%.” I replied and then took my place in the last row. I think that the blue jeans I was wearing and my accent were the reasons for that last conversation.

I wasn’t expecting to get more than 3-3.5 out of 5. But it seems like the doctore loved my presentation and gave me a full mark. I was happy to get a full mark, but I was happier that my “pretend-to-be-a-doctor” thing became the talk of the college the next day.

I think it’s not too bad for a Saudi student wearing blue jeans.. is it?