ISSUE NO 5: AN INTERVIEW WITH HUSSAIN JA'AFAR HADI

An Interview with 

HUSSAIN JA'AFAR HADI

(Translation Student and Captain of the Iraqi National Billiards and Snooker Team)

Q: Who is Hussain Ja’afar Hadi?

I’m Hussain Ja’afar Hadi born in Baghdad in 1986; a 3^rd year student , at the Department of Translation in the Faculty of Arts. I am the captain of the Iraqi National Team for Billiards and Snooker.

Q: How was your beginning in that game? And when did you join the National Team?

I was fond of this game strongly, for finding a game which I can prove my ability in. Moreover, this passion made me a professional player.

The managers asked me to submit a test which was prepared to form new players in the National Team after my winning the title of Baghdad championship in 2004.

Then, I joined the National Team in the same year in which I won the title of that championship and I passed that test too.

Q: How do you balance your performance in that game and class activities?

Although it is hard, I try to be diligent in both of these two fields. Furthermore, these fields make me spend a whole day in trainings and study.

Q: In your opinion, how did you find the Department of Translation when you joined in that field?

The Department of Translation is very useful for us, because it teaches us English and its counterpart; our mother tongue (Arabic).  I feel I am lucky because I’m one of the students at this department.

Q: Describe your feeling when you participated in the play of “Hamlet”?

That play gave me a wonderful feeling to be among a group of my department’s colleagues. We exerted our efforts in a dramatic work which received approval by all who watched it.

Q: What are your local, regional and continental achievements?

Locally: I won the Iraqi championship for three times 2005, 2006 and 2008, as well as the second place in other years of the same championship.

Regionally: 1:- We won the Bronze medal in the Arab championship for billiards which was held in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2006.

2:-We won the Bronze medal in the Arab championship for snooker which was held in Egypt in 2009.

3:-We won the Bronze medal in the Arab championship for billiards which was held in Syria in early 2010.

Continentally: We managed to reach the third round among 128 players in the Asian games which were held in Vietnam in 2009.

Q: How did you become a captain of our team?

I became a captain for various reasons. For being an old player; since 2004.For my adherence to the trainings, and I also achieved good results; therefore the head of the association of our game and our coach trusted me to be a captain.

Q: What are your ambitions in future?

My ambitions are to represent my country well in the next international assemblies such as: World championship in Qatar, Arab championship for Snooker in Bahrain as well as Arab championship for Billiards in Morocco. As for our field, I wish to exert the greatest efforts to pass the final exams of this academic year successfully.

I wish to  

Q: Any words you would like to say in the end of the interview?

Achieve the best implementations in order to raise the name of Iraq high in the international assemblies.

Interviwed by  

Mushriq Amjad

ISSUE NO 5: BROTHERHOOD

Brotherhood

It is a term used for more than one topic, one of them, which I am going to discuss with you, is the relation between brothers that are related to each other by blood. Many of us may not have brothers, but have friends or relatives or even one of their parents whom they consider a brother and that’s exactly what I want to talk about. 

We might think or consider someone as our brother but there is no one like our brothers whom we have shared the same mother, father, family, house and grew up together.  They are the ones who would never judge you. You might think of it as if you were one soul and separated to be you and your brother. I say that my brother means the world to me. Each one of us has his own ideas and memories with his brothers, some of us think of them as relatives, protectors, heroes or even his own parents, but whatever was the idea, you can’t live without them.

Especially, if you were the youngest  member in your family; you will have the attention, care, love and all these annoying things you hate from your elder brothers, so that sometimes you think that they are your parents not your own brothers. It is a bitter sweet feeling because it can be very annoying -trust me. But, at the same time if you have it, you would not change it for the world for one simple reason; that is you can’t exchange a part of your soul whatever price you are offered. 

I recall this incident from history which I know for fact to be true. It is told that once upon a time a king brought a lady whom he was about to kill her husband, son and brother and gave her the choice to save one of them. Can you imagine how cruel is that? Anyway, she chose her brother saying that she can always get married and have kids but how can she have another brother when her parents are dead. If you can only imagine how brave, strong, loving woman she is. 

Can you think of a situation as bad as this one? Nowadays, people had lost a lot of these pure, tender, precious feelings with their parents so how about their brothers.

So, whenever you have a fight with one of your brothers just, remember this lady and try to think: does the thing you are fighting about worth it? Does it worth losing or hurting your own brother?

To conclude my article, I like to thank God for giving us such blessings as having brothers. So, go home and tell your brothers how much they mean to you. Trust me, you won’t regret it.

With love

Written by: 

Israa. A. Ameen

ISSUE NO 5: HE AIN'T HEAVY, HE'S MY BROTHER

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

By The Hollies

I dedicate this song to my own brothers whom I love to death and would sacrifice my own soul to save theirs.

The road is long                                                 
With many a winding turn                                                                            
That leads us to who knows where,
Who knows when
But I'm strong,
Strong enough to carry him.
He ain't heavy, he's my brother   

So on we go.
His welfare is my concern
No burden is he to bear,
We'll get there.
For I know
He would not encumber me
He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

If I'm laden at all,
I'm laden with sadness
That everyone's heart
Isn't filled with the gladness
Of love for one another.

It's a long, long road                                                                             
From which there is no return.
While we're on the way to there,
Why not share?
And the load    
Doesn't weigh me down at all.
He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

He's my brother…             

طريقنا طويل
وملئ بالمخاطر                                                                        
 يمضي بنا إلى مجهول لا نعلمه                                                
ولا نعلم زمانه                                                                                      
لكنني قوي  

قوي بما فيه الكفاية لأسانده واحمل عنه همومه                                                     
ليس عبئا بل انه أخي                                                            
وهكذا نمضي

جل ما أتمناه سعادته  

ليس عبئا يثقل كاهلي                                                 

 وسنكمل الدرب معا                                                                                      
لأنني على يقين                                                                                                  
انه لن يعرقل خطاي                                                                  
ليس عبئا انه أخي                                                                 
وان كنت مثقلا بشي على الإطلاق                                                                                       
فأنني مثقلا بالأحزان                                                                                  
ولكون قلوب الآخرين                                                                                    
قد  هجرتها سعادة
حب واحدها للأخر
إن دربنا لطويل جدا                                                                              
درب لا رجعه فيه                                                                
ومادمنا نقطع الطريق نفسه                                                      
لم لانقطعه معا                                                                                    
وما أواجه من صعاب                                                                                       
لن تكبل خطاي
ليس عبئا انه أخي

أخي                                                                                             
Translated by:
Israa A. Ameen

ISSUE NO 5: SOME IDIOMS AND THEIR TRANSLATION

Some Idioms and Their Translation

   

He is an eager beaver when it comes to work

عندما يتعلق الامر بالعمل فهو كالديك النشيط

He has a finger in the pie in every department

له يد في كل مكان 

He was placed in a tight spot

وضع في موقف لا يحسد عليه

The home team was able to waltz off with the championship again

استطاع المنتخب الوطني ان يظفر بالبطولة مجددا

Don’t count on him he is a yellow-bellied man

لا تنخو رجل لوث الجبن خصاله

You should thank me, I saved your skin

عليك شكري فقد اعتقت رقبتك من المشاكل هذا اليوم

My uncle is hale and hearty who never get sick

ان عمي رجل سليم معافى لم يجد المرض منفذا اليه

Please explain the matter in a nutshell

لا تطل علينا الحديث من فضللك

He is now a lame duck,though he had seen tremendous days

افل نجمه الان بعد ان كان يبرق مثل ضوء القمر

Don’t you try to do snow job on me

لا تحاول ان تخدعني

She decked out for the party

قد بدت في ابهى حلتها من اجل الحفل

Salepeople  come on strong when trying to sell the product

يفتل البائعون عضلاتهم في محاولة بيع البضاعة

I think you should call a spade a spade

اظن ان عليك ان تسمي الاشياء بمسمياتها

Im not taking the deal unless you get everything in black and white

لن اقبل بالصفقة الا ان جعلت الورق شاهدا على كلامك

  

He is dead as a door nail

ميت كالحجر

He was forced to eat a crow

اجبر على ان يذوق طعم سمه

You should get a wiggle on to get home

عليك ان تسرع من خطاك لتصل الى المنزل

He started to take a shine to the pretty girl

بدا قلبه بالميل نحو الفتاة الجميلة

I have good vibes about this man

يطمئنني قلبي لهذا الرجل

You must be off you rocker to do this

لا بد من انك فقدت صوابك لفعل ذلك

This product is selling like hot cakes

يباع هذا المنتج مثل الثلج في عز الصيف

  

He tries to take after his brother by studying hard

يحاول ان يتبع خطا اخيه بالاجتهاد

forget about  what happened, let bygones be bygones

لا تشغل بالك بما حصل.عفا الله عما سلف

He turned out to be just a flash in the pan

تبين انه مجرد سراب

You have no right to rim me out

ليس من حقك ان تصب جام غضبك علي

  

He can do everything, he is a jack of all trades

بمقدوره فعل كل شي فهو ذو سبع صنائع

Translated by: Aseel K. Mahmood

ISSUE NO 5: FRIENDS OF THE MONTH

Friends of the Month 

4^th Year

Yasemeen Nizar is one of the prettiest and smartest girls one may ever meet. As she graduates this year, we wish her the best in her forthcoming life. We will miss you so much dear.

--------------------------------

 

3^rd Year 

We chose Sara Sabah because of her morality and intelligence. How A quick-witted girl Sara is, Her performance in the lectures is very strong and she is the most lovable student in our grade. a very optimist student, and always has a sense of humor.

-------------------------------

 

2^nd Year

Rasha Khalid is the source of sweetness, and the girl with the cutest smile and a big heart .

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1^st Year

Athba Kadim is the most wonderful and beautiful girl. The smile never leave her face and she has a great energy, as we like to call her she's the first year’s butterfly.

 

ISSUE NO 5: JOHN DRYDEN

John Dryden

John Dryden (9 August 1631 – 12 May 1700) was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.

Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire, where his maternal grandfather was Rector of All Saints. He was the eldest of fourteen children born to Erasmus Dryden and wife Mary Pickering, paternal grandson of Sir Erasmus Dryden.

As a boy Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire where it is also likely that he received his first education. After the Restoration, Dryden quickly established himself as the leading poet and literary critic of his day and he transferred his allegiances to the new government. Along with Astraea Redux, Dryden welcomed the new regime with two more panegyrics; To His Sacred Majesty: A Panegyric on his Coronation (1662), and To My Lord Chancellor (1662). These poems suggest that Dryden was looking to court a possible patron, but he was to instead make a living in writing for publishers, not for the aristocracy, and thus ultimately for the reading public. These, and his other nondramatic poems, are occasional—that is, they celebrate public events. Thus they are written for the nation rather than the self, and the Poet Laureate (as he would later become) is obliged to write a certain number of these per annum. 

In November 1662, Dryden was proposed for membership in the Royal Society, and he was elected an early fellow. However, Dryden was inactive in Society affairs and in 1666 was expelled for non-payment of his dues.

Dryden was the dominant literary figure and influence of his age. He established the heroic couplet as a standard form of English poetry by writing successful satires, religious pieces, fables, epigrams, compliments, prologues, and plays with it; he also introduced the alexandrine and triplet into the form. 

In his poems, translations, and criticism, he established a poetic diction appropriate to the heroic couplet—Auden referred to him as "the master of the middle style"—that was a model for his contemporaries and for much of the 18th century. What Dryden achieved in his poetry was not the emotional excitement we find in the Romantic poets of the early nineteenth century, nor the intellectual complexities of the metaphysical poets. 

His subject-matter was often factual, and he aimed at expressing his thoughts in the most precise and concentrated way possible. Although he uses formal poetic structures such as heroic stanzas and heroic couplets, he tried to achieve the rhythms of speech. 

However, he knew that different subjects need different kinds of verse, and in his preface to Religio Laici he wrote: “...the expressions of a poem designed purely for instruction ought to be plain and natural, yet majestic...The florid, elevated and figurative way is for the passions; for (these) are begotten in the soul by showing the objects out of their true proportion....A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.” 

AH, HOW SWEET IT IS TO LOVE!

By JOHN DRYDEN

AH, how sweet it is to love!

   Ah, how gay is young Desire!

And what pleasing pains we prove

   When we first approach Love's fire!

Pains of love be sweeter far

Than all other pleasures are.

Sighs which are from lovers blown

   Do but gently heave the heart:

Ev'n the tears they shed alone

   Cure, like trickling balm, their smart:

Lovers, when they lose their breath,

Bleed away in easy death.

Love and Time with reverence use,

   Treat them like a parting friend;

Nor the golden gifts refuse

   Which in youth sincere they send:

For each year their price is more,

And they less simple than before.

Love, like spring-tides full and high,

   Swells in every youthful vein;

But each tide does less supply,

   Till they quite shrink in again:

If a flow in age appear,

'Tis but rain, and runs not clear

Prepared by 
Raghad H. Iskandar

ISSUE NO 5: NO LOVE WITHOUT DIGNITY

No Love without Dignity

Who of us does not search for love?

Who does not dream of finding love?

Some people are lucky that they find love when they are adults; some are suffering to find love probably in their middle age while some die as they search for love and did not find love. This is true.

But, is it possible that one belittles himself for the sake of love?

Oh… I do not think so.

Yes, sometimes we have to sacrifice everything for love, but when it comes to dignity it seems that we try to love.

It is not necessary that one pretends or does unsuitable things although he is not satisfied, and for what? For someone’s satisfaction so that then you get love??

That is insanity!

So, who wants to find love needn't think or search a lot.

Try to live your life peacefully and behave according to your nature.

If love is your destiny, one day you will fall in it.

Written by

Abbas Abdulmuhsin

ISSUE NO 5: GANDHI

 GANDHI

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha—resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, a philosophy firmly founded upon ahimsa or total nonviolence—which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is commonly known around the world as Mahatma Gandhi or "Great Soul", an honorific first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore), and in India also as Bapu (or "Father"). He is officially honoured in India as the Father of the Nation; his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated  there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.

Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience while an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, during the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he organized protests by peasants, farmers, and urban labourers concerning excessive land-tax and discrimination. After assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns to ease poverty, expand women's rights, build religious and ethnic amity, end untouchability, and increase economic self-reliance. Above all, he aimed to achieve Swaraj or the independence of India from foreign domination. 

Gandhi famously led his followers in the Non-cooperation movement that protested the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (240 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930. Later, in 1942, he launched the Quit India civil disobedience movement demanding immediate independence for India. Gandhi spent a number of years in jail in both South Africa and India.

As a practitioner of ahimsa, he swore to speak the truth and advocated that others do the same. Gandhi lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun himself. He ate simple vegetarian food, eventually adopting a fruitarian diet, and also undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and social protest.

On 30 January 1948, Gandhi was shot while he was walking to a platform from which he was to address a prayer meeting. The assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a Hindu nationalist with links to the extremist Hindu Mahasabha, who held Gandhi responsible for weakening India by insisting upon a payment to Pakistan.  Godse and his co-conspirator Narayan Apte were later tried and convicted; they were executed on 15 November 1949. Gandhi's memorial at, New Delhi, bears the epigraph "Hē Ram", which may be translated as "Oh God". These are widely believed to be Gandhi's last words after he was shot.

Prepared by: 

ALI HASSAN