Hope you all had a great new year with as few bangs as possible, as you all know ours was quite loud. I am not in Baghdad again, and my mom tells me that new year's eve was like war because of all the explosions.

OK announcement number one: THE MIRROR SITE TO THIS ONE, THE ONE CALLED [dearraed.blogspot.com ie the one without the underscore between dear and raed] HAS BEEN HACKED. THE MIRROR WAS CREATED BY GOOGLE/BLOGGER AND I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO CONTROL IT, NEITHER HAVE I FOUND A CONTACT US LINK TO WRITE TO BLOGGER, THE BLOGGER FORUM IS TRYING TO HELP.

announcement number two: concerning Faiza's blogs, would you guys please give me a break. she writes too much and too fast and I am supposed to translate all, she has 4 untranslated blogs and she called me today saying there are 8 more waiting to be posted and translated. please have mercy. and some patience