6 Months into my new life

In today’s headlines Mahmoud M.Shadid had been a bit over 6 months here in Australia, “its actually a very interesting period in my life, I learned a lot about other people and culture and even more about my self” says while sipping his favorite morning tea, “I worked for the first time in my life which felt really good, and I got more focused on were I am and where I am headed”.

Mahmoud Mamoun Shadid who left Jordan in the end of June last year, heading for Australia to start off a new life, talks about his interesting and rich experience.

I just added that part to give this subject a little news touch as if I was interviewed in the hope that would spice it up.

Life in Australia is very interesting, especially in Melbourne there is lot diversity especially Indians and Chinese, and you can occasionally find a few Australians, just kidding but you get the point, the Italians, Greeks and Lebanese also are very noticeable, although most of my friends are Arabs I still get in touch with a few others.

The thing about a multicultural society, is that if you don’t a strong sense of belonging and actually believing in the things that you do on daily basis, you could literally loose it, cause everyone comes from a different background you sort of stick out from the crowd not because your special cause your different, and you get a lot questions and I mean a lot!, for example and I quote I have been asked all these questions

Why is sex before marriage forbidden? Isn’t it a personal choice?
Why do you pray 5 times a day and why do they have specific times?
What happens if you miss a prayer?
Why do you fast? What are the reasons for such a thing?
Why do some Muslims drink although it’s forbidden? But most if not all never eat ham?
Why does the meat have to be Halal for you guys to eat it?
Why the HELL do you set alarm if you don’t wake up????? (That’s a bit random)

Now most of the questions I can answer quite comfortably but some questions actually puzzle you bit, cause back home you never get asked such questions because everyone is the same.

This Process actually encourages you to go out and look and learn more about your own religion and your own traditions and habits, which is quite good.

Now as I mentioned it’s a multicultural society I still have a lot of Arab friends, and I still proudly listen to Arab music and poetry, I still talk Arabic in the train, I still occasionally smoke sheesha from time to time, and I still and always will enjoy the fabulous Arabian food, in short I am still Arabic and proud of it.

It really hurts to sea the Arabic youth here trying to take as much as they can for other cultures especially western cultures not knowing there identity is what makes them stand out in a crowd, and even if you try to grasp another culture in most cases you end up loosing your own.


Oh I forgot to tell you guys about my career here:

My first job was in telemarketing finished the training for 2 days, tried it out for a day, and I knew this was not what I wanted to do, so making the long story short I quit.

Second Job was at the Safeway Deli, interesting I got to deal with meat, cheese, olives and salads, what more can a man ask for, it was a really nice experience, and I learned a lot from it and still am.

I have trials in café’s next week hope it goes well, I really want to try out every work possible here I like learning new stuff no matter what they are.

I think that well do it for this blog…