Bullying.

After reading about Day Of Silence on LebaGaGa's blog and after receiving this video (an Irish homophobic bullying advertisement for LGBT awareness) I realized how much everyone is trying to put an end to harassment in schools.
I also realized how narrow-minded people are in Lebanon.

While in the USA or in Europe, young gay and lesbian are protected by their school and by the state from this kind of bullying, here, in Lebanon, you are alone.

Being in a Catholic school, all the students take catechism classes (which is more like brain-washing). And once every year, we have the famous sex-talk.
And gosh, you can't imagine how funny it is to listen to a priest talk about sex.
One thing lead to another and we end up talking about gay people.
Being a priest, and being Lebanese, the teacher was of course homophone. So we had to listen to him talking about those freaks of nature, those sinners, those creatures of Satan and whatever else he came up with.
Ignorant.
I was actually amused and asked what if someone in this class is gay. What if he is listening to you talking like this right now, how awful would he feel?
I wasn't talking about myself, of course. All I could do was picture gay angels with rainbow-colored wings chopping his head off and sucking the blood out of his mutilated body.
But if someone is going this whole identity crisis how bad would he/she feel after hearing this?
His answer? "They are no people like this in this school."
Ignorant.
"Did you know that 10% of any population is attracted to the same-sex?"
"Not in here! We educated you ourselves, you will never end up like this!"
Ignorant.
Aren't you supposed to spread love and peace?
Look at yourself! Turning into a bully! Yes, a bully!
What if I told you I was gay?  I wouldn't be surprised if he just went like "Rou7 khod 7abbit Panadol, you'll feel better".

On a brighter side, there's this guy in my class who just insults everything that moves.
You know, everyone got used to that and nobody pays attention to what he says anymore.
So during a history lesson he just randomly decided to start insulting everyone.
Even the teacher didn't pay attention to him.
Then came my turn. "Hayda? hayda mich rejjel!"
I didn't even notice that he was talking to me. I couldn't care less. But the teacher got really mad and forced him to apologize. That really surprised me. In a good way. I wanted to see what he was going to do.
He did not apologize. How pitiful is that?
The huge bad-ass bully who couldn't even apologize to me.
So yeah, as long as they are not priests, the teachers here can be awesome. :-)

Even if you are all by yourself, what's a bully? Just a messed up guy doing stupid things.
Bullies are weak.
Whenever someone is whispering and pointing at you, whenever someone randomly calls you names, whenever someone is making fun of you, smile and walk away.
Don't give them the attention they want to get, don't make a big deal out of it.
Show them that you don't care and everything will be alright.
They will leave you alone, forget about you and try to find someone else to annoy.