It wasn’t supposed to take 24 hours to get to Valdez! The longest thing was supposed to be the four hour wait in the Anchorage airport for the flight to Valdez! So I got to Anchorage, grabbed some lunch, found a place to pray, and sat down to read The Brothers Karamazov, when I hear […]

Got nothing better to do, so why not? Funny how I get more time to blog when I’m traveling than any other time. I feel so darn frustrated with Obama. I had such high hopes. And yet I kind of get why he had to sell out. He once said something like the Palestinian people […]

Today I had three presentations at a school not far away and one of the teachers told me something that occurred with one of her students that left me momentarily speechless. This teacher was familiarizing the class with my work by reading Silly Chicken. She took out a map and was showing the class where […]

LOL, that’s what one of the speakers at the I.LEAD conference said about me when he began his speech. I was asked by the organizers to talk about youth engagement and empowerment. The whole theme of the conference was youth engagement and empowerment. And the weird thing was they contacted me a few weeks ago […]

You know what the hardest thing of all is? It’s to create a presentation outside your comfort zone. And especially to people you’re actually trying to influence. This Saturday I’ve been invited to Ottawa to speak at a Muslim youth conference. Honestly I can’t believe they’re still having them! I am a product of Muslim […]

Read a very interesting article the other day about how apparently certain authors, especially in the business book writing field, are hiring special services that buy bulk copies of their books in such a way as to manipulate the sales figures and make these bulk sales count towards their sales figures, propelling them onto the […]

*different* it is down here! Completely different mindset! The people are very friendly! They say ‘Good Morning!’ like they really mean it. And one lady admired the color of my suit. Told me I looked lovely! Heard a fascinating story from the Muslim cab driver who drove me here. And he said something interesting. He […]

On a trip like Iran and Qatar! But all the experiences have been digested, thought through, replayed when necessary, and conclusions have been arrived at, in time for the next trip. In about forty minutes I leave for Dallas, just for one night, to visit an Islamic school who put together the funds to invite […]

Okay, so I’m back home, safe and sound, basking in the glow of an amazing adventure and that little refrain keeps running through my mind because it was the translation of a song one of the international storytellers sang at the end of her performance. Ana Sofia Paiva is a petite and delicate Portuguese actress turned storyteller […]

Waiting for the flight home, and deep down grateful to be back in Canada. Used to be I’d cross the border into the States and I’d feel ‘different’. Man, that was a while ago! Most trips don’t generate this kind of relief in getting back into Canada. I guess it’s because I was wondering if […]