After an Argument with my Wife
For me, the blog is not the place to deal with all too personal matters. However, I will start this post with mentioning yesterday’s argument with my wife: It’s been some time since I was back home for an entire weekend, and the free time, she said, would be a good occasion to get back to my website left deserted for months.
In the ensuing argument I defended this “desertion” with the well known argument that I simply had not the time (or better: would not take the time) to deal with my favorite past time of old days. As I have mentioned before, since coming to the Middle East a year ago and assuming the regional directorship of my Institute, I have felt overwhelmed by the new responsibilities and the seemingly unending things to take care for - many of them of a clearly administrative nature.
If you feel that sort of pressure you have to make choices. In this process, writing - be it for this site or for mainstream media, which I did with some passion ever since I left my job as a professional full-time journalist - has fallen back in my personal priorities. Topping this list (apart from the time consuming job with regular business trips in an area delineated by Casablanca in the West, Istanbul in the East and Hamburg in the North) is spending time with the family in our home in Maadi, pursuing my studies of Egyptian Arabic and lastly, keeping fit physically (I try to spend an hour a day exercising!).
All this said, I hope that 2008 may be different in that sense that I may find the time again for regular writing: Very many interesting and highly relevant (for the rest of the world) things are happening in this part of the world - and in many cases have a distinctly liberal dimension.
So hold out, sooner or later I profess to be back with news and commentary on my liberal times in Egypt and beyond - in sha Allah.
