Seasonal Greetings in Egypt. Happy Birthday: kol sana wento tayebeen.
Merry Christmas: kol sana wento tayebeen.
Happy Easter: kol sana wento tayebeen.
Happy New Year: kol sana wento tayebeen.
Happy Eid: kol sana wento tayebeen.
Ramadan Mubarak: kol sana wento tayebeen.
Independence/National Day: kol sana wento tayebeen.
Starting a conversation with a stranger or a friend: kol sana wento tayebeen.
Leaving an exam: kol sana wento tayebeen. Lol!

why there is no IALTS to the people who are going to live or work in any Arab country? All of us know that in order to be able to live, study or work in any English speaking country, one has to pass the IELTS exam. And this makes sense because anyone travels there has to be able to communicate with people. But why don't we have the same rule in Arabic speaking countries?. I mean we have a lot of foreigners who live in Arab countries but the majority of them can't speak Arabic. On the other hand, the places that hire foreigners to work in, require any local citizen to be able to speak English in order to hire him/her, instead of asking the foreigners to learn the language of the country they live in.

I know the question might be silly to some of you, and some will say that the answer is so logical, because English is the common medium language all over the world and it's the language that is used in business and trade. But I think the main reason that gave the English language this importance is because all the countries, even the non-English speaking countries, are using it in all of the official dealings.

I'm not saying that each country should be obstinate to only use its local language, but I'm talking about the languages that have a big number of people who speak them, e.g. Arabic and Spanish.

(I chose English to write this discussion because it's the common medium language all over the world) Lol :D

(Edited to correct some grammatical mistakes).

The Existence of Aliens It is hard to be one hundred percent sure about anything in the unending, great and changing universe we live in. What is right today maybe wrong tomorrow. However, our believes should be built on the evidence that we can see, not on imagination and predictions. Micheal Hart, an American astrophysicist, mentioned in his article ”An Explanation for Absence of Extraterrestrial on Earth”, that there aren't any other advanced civilizations in our galaxy because of the absence of the beings from outer space on earth. Moreover, Frank Tipler, a physics professor in Tulane university argued that human species is likely the only intelligent species that exist. The probability that we are alone in the universe is between 39-56%, and that we are alone in our galaxy is between 53-99.6%, as scientists in Oxford have calculated. Depending on these studies, even if there is any type of life on other planets, it is not an advanced one. Ellen Stofan, a former chief scientist of NASA and current director of Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum said that even if there is any life in outer space, it is not more than microbes and algae. Species out there, even if found, are not able to produce civilization. No one actually saw any alien except in science fiction movies. Moreover, there are no hard evidence, fossils or remains to prove their existence or to indicate how they look like. Scientists throughout history were able by using real evidence to know some information about creatures that existed even before human species such as dinosaurs. However, scientists failed to find such evidence for aliens. Moreover, the existence of UFO does not give a proof that aliens exist. No aliens were found inside any of them. In addition, after doing investigations on people who saw UFOs, the studies showed that they can be identified to be objects or phenomena. For example, they can be astronomical objects such as satellites or bright stars. They may also be unusual clouds or weather balloons. Moreover, the Allen Telescope Array which is invented to search radio signals over one thousand light years in the sphere and has been working since 2007, has not transferred or picked up any signals yet. Therefore, Aliens which are called an ’intelligent’ civilization by the believers do not even exist. ”I will believe it when I see it”.

The movie Titanic from a different viewpoint. Is Caledon really the bad guy? Most of us have watched the famous movie (Titanic). But have you ever considered thinking about it from a different viewpoints than the one that director wanted you to think in?

In the movie the director made Rose's fiancee, Caledon, looks like a bad, foolish guy. But is he really the bad guy?

Let's take a deep look into it. Actually, he is a noble, rich man from the upper class in the society, who really adores his fiance and tries to satisfy her by all means. He pays for all of her fancy needs, always buy her expensive gifts and always flirting with her. On the other hand, she uses him to save herself and her mother a place in the upper class which they lost after her father's death. Besides, she makes him to pay her family's debts, which he understands very well, however, he pays these debts for her because he truly loves her.

In return, she rewards him for all of what he did, a short time before their marriage, by betraying him with a homeless guy, Jack, whose talent and fortune in life is to breath oxygen every morning and to wander in the streets without having a job, a shelter nor a future. In addition, she persists in humiliating her fiance by making her lover to draw her nacked and to put the drawing in her fiance's closet just to stab his dignity and his manhood.

Therefore, I want to apologize to Caledon for thinking that he is the bad guy all of these years.

Would you accept such acts from your partner, whether you are a man or a woman?
If no, what would your reaction will be in this situation?

The Art of Marbling Have you ever thought about painting on water? This may sound like a dream for a person who is interested in art. Let’s turn this dream into reality and see how can we paint on the water surface. Marbling is the art of printing multi-colored swirled or stone-like patterns on paper or fabric. There are two types of marbling. Sminagashi or “ink floating” which originated in Japan where the art of marbling started, and Ebro or “cloud art” which started in Turkey. Some people believe that Ebro contains recognizable shapes while Siminagashi is freer. The things you need: 1-Water 2-Carrageenan (which is a powder we mix with water to make it thinker so the colors can float on the surface) 3-Rectangle container or tray 4-watercolor paper 5-Marbling colors 6-Sticks 7-Paintbrush 8-dropper Directions First, mix Carrageenan with water and let the mixture for 1 day. Second, put the water in the container. Third, to do the background of the design dip the paintbrush into one of the colors. Then, tip the top of the brush on other hand and drip the color onto the water surface which will spread out over the water surface. After that, dribble marbling colors carefully onto the water by using a dropper. Then, stir the paint very lightly and slowly using a stick so that it forms a pattern. After that, very gently place a sheet of paper onto the surface of the water. Finally, let the paper soak up the marbling colors, then remove the paper and let it dry. You can make a fame for your painting and put it in your room. However, marbling is one of the greatest ancient types of art, many people do not know it. One of the amazing things about it is that it allows everyone to create unique patterns even those who are not talented.

Correcting notebook entires written in a language that's not your native language, what do you think about it? It might happen that anyone of us find some notebook entries written in a language which is not his/her native language but he/she have reached an advanced level in this language that allows him to determine and correct the mistakes in some of the notebook entries written in this language. This person might not be able to correct 100% of the mistakes but at least he/she will manage to correct a number of the mistakes which will enhance the notebook entry and, of course, will benefit the writer of this notebook entry, especially if it's written in a language like English which is the aim language of the majority of the users on this application which leads to a higher possibility that some people won't get lucky to find a native speaker to correct thier entries.

What do you think about this, do you prefer to correct such entries as much as you can, or to leave it to native speakers to correct?

when to use the word "people" as a plural, and when do we use it as a singular? I was chatting with a friend of mine and we had a discussion about using the word "people" in this sentence "There is some people here who are coffee addicts.". So, I decided to search for the answer but I got confused about using the word "people" as a singular and as a plural, so what is the rule of using it in both ways?

Arabic diacritics (Harakat) (علامات التشكيل في اللغة العربية)

First of all, for those who don't know what is Diacritics, diacritics are marks that are added to letters and have pronunciation- and/or meaning-related values as well as grammatical values, so we can consider it as the vowels in English. I've met and spoke with a lot of Arabic learners and even Arabic native speakers who think that diacritics are something they can't understand. Even though Diacritics are being ignored by a lot of people in their writings, but it's very important to understand and pronounce Arabic in the right way. You may find a word with the same letters, but changing Diacritics will give you a whole different meaning. In Arabic, diacritical marks are:

1) the fatHah  (َ ), a semi-flat hyphen-like added on top of the letter,

2)  the kasrah (ِ ), similar to fatHah, but put below the letter,

3) the Dhammah (ُ ), a mark somewhat like the letter wow و in Arabic, placed on top of the letter,

4)  the shaddah ( ّ), a mark like the letter seen سـ when it occurs word-initially, and

5) the sukoon (ْ ), a mark similar to, and smaller in shape than, the letter ‘o’ in English, added on top of the letter.

Anyone interested can find more details in these links:

- https://blogs.transparent.com/arabic/arabic-diacritics-important-but-neglected/

- http://www.softschools.com/languages/arabic/all_of_the_diacritics_in_arabic/

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_diacritics

Hallo! Hallo! Ich heiße Mohamed. Ich komme aus Ägypten. Ich wohne in Kairo.