Beheading the Cat, The Metallic Crocadile, Does This Make My Head Look Big and Guest

Part of this group's reading were two short stories, a novel and today we had a guest speaker. The first short story was called the Beheading of the Cat and I actually liked this story a lot. It was about a man who sees the ghost of his aunt Badriyya who is trying to match him up with a young girl of fourteen. The girl is portrayed by the aunt to be the ultimate wife, a slave in fact. He is already seeing a woman named Nadine, a free-spirited student. Nadine scares him, she is so wild and he is infatuated with her, but she makes him uncomfortable. I really liked Nadine's character, she knows what she wants and knows how to get it. If Abdul can't handle her, then it is his loss. She doesn't need a man to define who she is as a person. Abdul struggles with the traditional arranged marriage and values his aunt lays out for him, and wanting someone like Nadine to have a connection with, but at the same time also tame. I thought it was interesting that Nadine referred to him as her Lebanese Hamlet focusing on the key line "To Be or Not To Be" as a allusion to his wishy-washyness. Overall, I think this was a good story for their group because I think it showed the struggle between traditional Lebanese values (the aunt) and modern Lebanese values (Nadine). The second story was a little more difficult for me to understand. I was confused with the structure of the story, what the underlying meaning of the story was. We also read Does This Make My Head Look Big In This, which is a book about a 16 year old girl, Amal who decides after four days of serious consideration that she wants to wear the hijab to honor her faith. I found it interesting that she deliberated for only four days. To me it seemed like a short period of time. A girl's appearance is very important in high school and the fact that she is bullied for it at school, makes me wonder why she made the decision she did. But at the same time, despite the fact she is bullied she was courageous enough to stick to her beliefs. Finally, the guest speaker, Monica Eraqi I thought was fantastic. She was really so close in age, I could tell the class was very comfortable asking her questions about her life and really wanted to know more. It was great to hear what her experience with arranged marriages was like. The way she described it as being like eHarmony.com made it seem not so foreign. To me, it almost seemed more realistic. I'd rather have my family who knows me at my best and at my worst find me a husband than some computer program. I also thought it was so interesting to find out about her upbringing and how two very different cultures have influenced her life. Overall, I think the culmination of the film, readings and guest speaker gave us a good idea of what life is like for people of Middle Eastern decent living in Western culture.