The "Just Kidding" Mechanism

There are will always be somethings in life that just plain and simple dont make any sense at all. Human nature is one of those abstract ideas that no psychologist can ever fully understand. They can make up theories and convince themselves other wise but i guess to each their own.

For the life of me, I will never understand why people cant be "man enough" and speak whats

The Funk Solution

So you may have noticed that I havent rambled on about the jungle of thoughts in my head for a while now. Why? Well truth be told I was in a funk. I walked around in public smiling and pretending to be great but inside i was suffocating and frustrating. Admit it, you have all been in this state at least once in your life. Two years ago when I graduated from my Masters and moved back home with the parents, I kinda went into this major phase of depression cuz lets just say it was at a time when finding a job wasnt easy and i was facing many other restrictions and obstacles after having lived on my own for the last 6 years. As a result, I had totally lost

Much Ado About Nothing Or Is It

So these past few weeks the world has been going on about this Kony character. Now for those of you who have been living in cave or under a rock and havent heard of him, allow me to introduce him to you. Reader, met Joseph Kony: this man is the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) which eventually somehow became an Ugandan guerrilla army. i guess that is what happens when just like a certain US president you think you are god's spokesperson. He abducts young children only to turn them into sex slaves or child soldiers. 

Great ... now that youve met him i can get back to my point. So its been all over the news how some young dude came up with a short film called "Kony 20102" in an effort to stop this dude. He presented it in the form of a picture perfect campaign. Apparently it worked wonders. My facebook news feed and twitter was over flowing with all sorts of article and video links on this guy and how we must do everything we can to stop him and what not.

The Kierkegaardian Human Understanding

So I am sure some if not most of you have heard of Soren Kierkegaard. The man was a Danish philosopher, and is even believed to have been the first existentialist philosopher too! Many years ago I came across and interesting quote by him and it just popped in my head again. He once argued:

"It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand, and what those things are. Human understanding has vulgarly occupied itself with nothing but understanding, but if it would only take the trouble to understand itself at the same time it would simply posit the paradox"

It is an interesting paradox he has provided us with, but true nonetheless? Are we really better off not knowing certain things? Better yet, are some things really better off unanswered?

The All Saudi Dream

Now we have all heard of the term or rather the expression "all American dream". This notion takes it roots from the Declaration of Independence promoting that all men are equal and have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (one could also say property, but that is a philosophy discussion for another day). Over time this catch phrase has become a sort of ethos of the US. Of course over time it use has expanded and these days no only is it used to talk about equality amongst men but the whole great paying job, white picket fence, dream house etc .... basically a kind of lifestyle. That got me thinking of something i like to call  "the Saudi dream".

The "Me" vs "My" Conundrum

I first started teaching Saudis in 2004 while i was still at Freshman at university. I would give the entire class help sessions for both Economics and Management. Since then I have randomly taught here and there but it was just last May that I began teaching the English at Language institutes.
Now we all know the Arab nation is infamous for not being able to say the "P", replacing it with "B". They love to barty and drink bebsi. I honestly dont really blame them for that since the Arabic alphabet doesnt exactly have a letter equivalent to "p" so the next best alternative is "b". I get that i really do, it may sound funny but i still get it.
Now cant say speak for other Arab countries but I've noticed a trend among Saudis where they seem to switch around the me and my when they are reading. So basically if it says me they will read it as my and vice a versa. Initially I ignored it off as having a dyslexic student, but realized

Institutionalizing Globalization

Globalization is such a complex phenomenon and can be analyzed from different perspectives; culture being one of them. To begin with, culture can be defined as a set of norms or beliefs shared by a certain group. Further more, norms are standards of acceptable behavior, rituals and traditions. It is often argued that culture is preserved by being institutionalized, but what does it mean to institutionalize? Basically, it means to set up an institution to provide for the needs or interests of the community as a whole. By cultural institution, it is meant that culture is reflected in the state institutions.

Examples of such institutionalizations would be the preservation of culture in the governmental and educational institutions. In doing so, not only is culture being reinforced and strengthened, but the “cultural identity” is also being preserved and strengthened. So what is this so called cultural identity? Basically it is an identity one acquires by living in a certain place or interacting with certain