One year more... or less

One year on from the revolution of January 25th here in Egypt.

We asked
the delivery guy
if he was going
to Tahrir square.
He said
"No, this is not
the time to go to the square.
This is the time to work.
Halas."

* * * 

What's on the roof?

Roofs are more interesting in Egypt than at home.

In the US, roofs are mostly gabled. We might have tar paper or shingles or skylights, and in some cases even solar panels - but that's about as interesting as it gets.

Roofs that I've seen lately are flat and much ado is had upon them. A lot of buildings are half built... (speculation as to why: Did they run out of money? Do they leave them like that for tax reasons? Is it just the normal pace of construction?) ... and the top floor of a half built building is a lot like a flat roof.

In Syria I mentioned the satellite dishes, nestled across every bare square inch of rooftops, searching for the mother ship. In Damascus they changed the law and now there is just one dish per roof. More developed? I say, not as interesting.

In Egypt there is no such law. Roofs are littered with soft circles of all sizes as far as the eye can see, gazing towards ArabSat or NileSat, sucking in billions of channels. A half built building with no heating or windows will already have the dishes starting to sprout.

On our roof there is an elevator motor house, some water tanks, satellite dishes, a sunny sitting area, and a picnic area with a stove and some decrepit stationary bicycles. On a clear day you can see the big pyramids across the Nile. I would enjoy it more except that it is extremely dusty.

The staples of an Egyptian roof are (of course) the aforementioned dishes, the water tanks, and bird houses. We have speculated about the bird houses. Are they for foul (roof-top livestock)? Are they for the swarms of pigeons that seem to occupy them anyhow? Do people hang out in them? It seems people put a lot of care into them. Designs and gay painting. Large structures of wood.

I have simple dreams. I'd like to visit one of these exciting roofs.

...to turn

One adventure has come to an end. I entered 10 writing contests or tests of some kind. Here's a link to my kick off post from more than a year ago. I know I took my time, but I wanted to find a variety of interesting contests. (Honestly, I was also lazy at times and busy at other times, but that's life.)

I got a little ego boost because I won one of the contests I entered. Of course that means I didn't win nine of them, but I didn't expect to win any!

I entered essay contests, poetry contests, some with different kinds of judging, some contests were goals I set with myself to beat, I submitted to a variety of literary magazines. There is a summary of contests 1 through 7 here. Number 8 was a 50 word essay contest - and the only one I won! Numbers 9 and 10 were poetry submissions to good literary magazines, and none were accepted for publication.

I did this to learn: I wanted to learn about what sort of online writing opportunities are out there and I wanted to see if I could win anything. I am really happy with what I accomplished. I had a lot of fun looking for different contests and things online, there are a ton of fun things out there.

What I learned about myself and my own writing is that I need to  make it a habit. Those pieces that were recognized as "good" by outside sources were those I had worked on for a while.  Feedback I got often was some version of "Nice imagery, but needs to be worked more."

So what's the conclusion? It is that I need to make it a habit. Let's see if I can do that:
A blog post a week for the month of January... This one counts for week 1, but I'll do another in a few days (it's been brewing already).