3 years ago, i formed a mild case of ’shark phobia’, it’s not serious (well i don’t think so, since the symptoms of shark phobia aren’t the symptoms i get wen i see a shark–eek!) how it all started…i was in Sharm El-Sheikh, Summer ‘01 and it was my first visi. I really wanted to ride the ‘Discovery Boat’ that everybody was talking about (it’s a boat with a double glass layer at the bottom so you could see what’s going on underneath…) those of you who’ve visited Sharm, know what i’m talking about…anyhoos, i rode the boat and it lasted around 2 hrs…the fish were beautiful, i don’t recall seeing any sharks, but i’ll never forget those fishes’ eyes, they just kept on staring ahead, ogling with blank expressions on their faces–ok, i can’t say faces, since fish don’t have faces, so what am i supposed to say?! o for the love of God, improvise!!…ok, so fish freak me out as well…the discovery boat wasn’t a problem…my brother had video taped the whole trip, 4 days later, we arrived baq to Cairo and my brother couldn’t wait to show my grandmother the footage he captured whilst we were on the discovery boat (my brother, then 12 yrs old, wanted to become a director–he’s grown of that phase and wants to become an engineer) so as my brother was explaining to my grandmother all the types of fish, i slowly started to realise, as the fish were swimming along peacefully, just how ugly they really were!! i never thought i’d say that after i was dumbfounded by their beauty just 4 days prior to my brother’s “screening” of his major premiere of the footage he shot…but at that moment, those fish were the epitome of ugliness and i was the most frightened i had ever been in my life!!! sitting there, surrounded by my brother and grandmother, i slowly picked myself up, walked past the television set and rushed to the balcony (thank God for Cairo–since 95% of the buildings over there have balconies!!)–i sat on the chair and let the cool wind and savored the moment…wow!! air…there’s nothing like it, gives u the sense of freedom, not water, all claustraphobic–a sure thing is, nobody can hear u scream under water!!! so as i was sitting on the soft chair in the balcony, i slowly started to think about how something so beautiful could be soooo scary, the more i thought about it, i felt like i was being suffocated…my brother had interrupted my thoughts to tell me that it was time for lunch, and out of all the things my grandmother had cooked, was, yup u guessed it, fish…i sat at the dining table with a smile plastered on my face thinking of a way to get out of there, but there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, these things were all over the place!! we rarely had fish in the house because my brother is severly allergic, so the fact that they were there, for my grandmother, my mother and i, was like a sign from God!! For 3 months i had fish/shark related nightmares…surrounded by electric eels in a pool, submarines that were stuck underwater with fish surrounding them, and the list went on…then i came to the conclusion that something HAD to be done…i had to get rid of these horrible feelings and fish infested dreams…the question was, what should i do, how shall i do it?!! lukily enough, the discovery channel had it’s ever-so-famous shark documenatries as part of the “shark week” program…so i checked the tv guide for the listings and at 7pm that night, i was staring at the black tv screen…i was too afraid to switch it on…15mins later, i switched it on…and there they were, the teeth, the eyes, the stare, the blood…i tried to lock all of that fear inside of me, i kept on telling myself that i could do it, and that other people would have taken years to get over their fear of sharks…i kept on repeating that to myself…but it didnt work exactly as i had planned…what i planned was, a miraculous ‘cure’ of my fear… i logged on to the internet after the documentary was over to prove to myself that i had been cured…i typed ’sharks’ in the google image search engine…it was all going well until i came across an image of a shark’s eye…the whole world seemed to freeze…without panicking, i closed the window and switched the computer off…you’re probably wondering what i did next…well, believe it or not the dreams gradually disappeared….but still, my fear of sharks remains…my brother thinks i’m crazy, but everbody’s afraid of something, everybody’s got a fear…

What’s yours…..?

think about it…time for me to sign off, ta ta for now :*