Everything is subject to change in a split of a moment, or so they say. My life has been a series of split moments grouped together, forming one catastrophe and merging into another. I am clumsy by nature; I broke all my glasses. The only pair I never broke was the first, mainly because they were circular, like Harry Potter’s, and I thought by wearing them I was a magician.

I hate endings, but more than ever I love new beginnings. In order for the latter to happen, change must be embraced. That is how I have been living for a while now, in change’s not-so-warm embrace; in emotional and psychological metamorphosis, like Philip Glass’s famous opuses.

I have often run away from identity. Not in the sense of patriarchy or self, but that of growing up and reality. I have learned that identity cannot be separated from matter, and matter, to me, represents all that is tangible and at reach, like reality and submission to it, away from the fortress of a Utopia I tried to rebuild over and over again.  

So here I am. I am Nour Al-Ali, Rooni is my given nickname and I prefer to be called by it. I am in the last stage of my teenage syndrome. At last, I have entered the realm of my twenties, or as they call it; “getting older.“ I am a university student (for the time being). I study words and how they can be beautifully crafted into little, but very significant, commodities that shape our world as we (want to) know it.

My interests are vast and my thoughts are plenty. They baffle me into silence, and at times, get me writing. This blog will help me understand myself, my Arab identity, the universe around me and maybe learn a few tricks to get me going.

I am rarely at loss of words and always have something to say. But I don’t always spill the beans that easily.