Question for my international readers...

With the kids out for a long summer holiday and this being our first official day off..I and 'we' haven't found our groove yet. I am working and HOPING towards a routine where the kids can do some work and I can do some research and posting. My Time line number two is not quite ready yet...I am working on it though.

So since I got the sitemeter which told me very nicely that, no..I was NOT talking to myself (always encouraging even though blogging has become a personal outlet for me in terms of 'spewing' out my thoughts)...I noticed that I do have people from all the continents (no, not South America though, scratch that) ... from a lot of continents visiting my site. Since I am always always curious as to how other people think, and since I have lived in Saudi Arabia, experiencing a shift in perception that was life changing..I would like to hear from you, what you think of all of it. What is your perspective on the changes that you have been reading in the blogosphere regarding the U.S., the UK with all the restrictions that are being placed on people more and more, losing their rights in the name of fighting terrorism etc. What has been your observation? You can always be anonymous but please do tell me what country you're from.

I lived in Alkhobar, the Eastern Region in Saudi Arabia, shortly after the Gulf war (or Gulf war number 1 as some call it). Since I had wanted to experience 'life' like anyone else and did not want to live, cooped up in a compound, we had rented an upstairs apartment on the corner of Prince Nayef and 23rd street. In front of us was a block of villas, then a wider street which I think was either 24th or 25th street and on the other side was a boys' school. For prayer, they'd come out and face Mecca, so I always knew my directions. Then, one balmy sunny day (of which there are many in KSA, but then, there are many here in Austin too, except it's greener), I was bored, standing in front of my window, looking out and just contemplating my experiences so far when all of the sudden, I experienced, literally a shift in thinking. I felt a shift in perception that was almost unnerving. An epithany and as epiphanies go..you cannot really convey that 'aha'..and if you try, you are trying to convey to someone else, the impossibilty of trying to make them 'taste' what you tasted, hear what you heard, without being able to provide the actual food or the actual sound. I felt I understood how Saudis and my asian expat friends looked at the West. I had been on one side of the street for all my life, living in my little house looking at the other strange ones across of me. Then, before I knew it..I found myself in one of those strange houses and looked over at my little house and thought..wow..is THAT how it looks like?

You get the picture. How does that house of Blues (because that's the state of this union right now) look like from where you are looking at it?