Mohammed Ammar Bayrakdar

Lately, I have been quite busy with work and my dissertation paper. One of things that I have been realizing lately is that frustration tends to get the best out of me. Through frustration I tend to get more engaged with what I am working on and keep working and working and working until I get it right. It doesn’t really matter how many times you really work on things, because the next time you will become more vigilant to not repeat the same mistakes.You learn that frustration could be a good thing if you learn to manipulate it and turn it around to benefit you. Never mix frustration with intellect, rather be persistent on what your working on and you will succeed!!!

I have been working with my new company for just over a month now. I must say that with my new company, my career is finally heading in the direction I want it!!

Anyway, so I am working as a consultant for one of the banks in Saudi Arabia. The majority of the employees in the bank are Saudi nationals. Before I continue, I just need to say that my cultural adaptations is more towards the Western culture. I was born and raised in USA, but I moved to the Middle Eastern region and most of the pople I dealt/deal with have somewhat similar backgrounds as myself.

Anyway, my Arabic is not as good as my English but I do speak very good Arabic (I prefer speaking in English because my vocabulary is better). So, the people at my workplace know I am American with a Syrian Arab background. Ever since I started consulting in the bank, I only speak English. And well, the other day I found out that the Saudis there get offended when I speak English. My first question was why. It turns out they think I am showing off and I see myself over them with the way I talk in English. I actually had a long discussion with some guy about this and it took me a long time to convince him that when I need to talk in Arabic, I think of what I want to say in English, translate it to Arabic, and say it. I think he still isn’t convinced about this!!!

Here is a contradiction I pointed out just today. I said to the guy you get annoyed when I speak in English and you want me to speak Arabic because we are Arabs. So then I said, “Why do you write your MCDONALDS order in ENGLISH?”. His response was, “Because that’s all the people understand”!!

Last night, I continuously checked news websites to see if the democratic party reached a conclusion for their nominee. While they didn’t, I had a gut feeling that I would wake up in the morning and read headlines that stated Obama is the winner. So, today the first thing I did was check the news and well Barack is the nominee for the 2008 elections in November.

I have been monitoring Obama and Clinton’s campaigning strategy and to be objective about the entire situation, I do believe Obama had a stronger strategy when he developed a slogan “Obama For Change”. He build an entire campaign, that won, around that strategy.

I think that America needs to wash away the past and begin a new future from today and this is quite imperative for America maintain its power in the world. I believe, lately, that America has been going through some tough times with the stock prices tumbling, the depreciation of the dollar, the rise in oil and fuel prices, the loss of hundreds of thousand of jobs, the rise in the cost of living, etc.

I really hope the American nation makes the “right” choice in choosing a proper candidate to fix America!! I look forward for the time I could return to America and wok there!!!

I remembered the movie Office Space the other day, because there was this Hip/Hop song I really enjoy listening to; No Tears by Scarface.

Anyway, I went on youTube and watched a small video excerpt of a guy rapping along the song. It’s a hilarious clip.