Allow me to reintroduce myself….

(My name is Hov', OH, H-to-the-O-V
I used to move snowflakes by the O-Z)

If this just rang through your head right now…......................Nice!!!

On the real though, this blog has been dead. Dead dead dead. The reasons for this are wild and vast. I mean we started this blog as unemployed graduates with a lot of time to indulge in our obscure, alternative thoughts and hang out on coffee shops fantasizing about life. Oh wait, we still subscribe to the latter, but now we have less time to mess around and pursue what we really want to. Ah the corporate life! Aslam, co-blogger and homie, in a bold move (great for him, but horrible for me), moved to Sharjah to teach English for almost a year now and is probably going to keep going on world adventures. I, on the other hand, have missed my friend A LOT, but I’ve also somehow become a workaholic type and this has pretty much killed my creative drive. NOT ON. NEED THAT.

This blog was started by us as outlet the share our thoughts, critiques, tastes and ideas on everything that we love and are inspired by. These are not always common or mainstream, but they are real and affect us in a real way. I must say though that, for me, it is very frustrating having all these ideas about the world I live in and not always being able to share it with people who relate and who essentially ‘feel’ me. This is one of the reasons I wanted to be part of a blog - a space that is mine, where I can share the things in my mind with more people than in real life. We’re not up in this blog game to get more followers, or be invited to the cool parties, or to win any popularity contests. No. The Rebel and The Urban Edge represents a place for us to share our honest, sometimes outlandish contemplations, and to share what keeps inspired, interested, bothered. It’s a space for authentic, original and fearless thought that will maybe inspire, maybe present new perspectives, maybe just be fun, hopefully all of these! Or none. Deuces!

I’m so grateful for this space! I literally dream of things to write. I am constantly jotting down and I am so driven by this blog! I’ve sat down a million times to write, but honestly it hasn’t just been time constrained. Things like being uninspired, distracted and fearful all got in my way. But ain’t nobody got time for that! So we're back in the game. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to visit this blog and read our stuff. It makes my heart happy! Plus, today I saw that had over 10 000 views. Good Lawwd! OK fine, 5000 of those views were probably me, but still! Me and Aslam are on it now! Please come back for more!

In our attempt to re-invigorate the blog, we have a shiny new banner! These pics were taken in December of last year, when I hung with Aslam-guy in his new hometown. We work up early, hustled from taxi to taxi to metro in search for a true gem in the heart of plastic Dubai – a place called The Archive in Safa Park. The Archive is essentially a coffee shop in a park attached to an even cooler modern library that boasts the most impressive collection of Islamic and Middle Eastern arts and culture books that I’ve ever seen or probably ever will see. I read so many different, amazing things – a photo diary documenting Hajj in 1939/1940 (my fave), a book on all of Azzedine Alaïa's work in the 21^st century, a book explaining the history and types of Graffiti work and their meanings in Palestine, an entire collection of poetry from Khalil Gibrain, a book documenting and explaining every single high rise building built in Dubai up to a few years ago, Zaha Hadid’s entire architecture portfolio, history books of the Arab dynasty, books on Arabic calligraphy, art work of Al Ghazali philosophy, just to name a few. Needless to say, we were joyfully lost in those books for hours. Literally. For breakfast, brunch, lunch and afternoon tea. We indulged and we found our happy place. Oh! How can I forget! We also got to see a mural that graf artist El Seed, who we love, did just a few days before at The Archive. It was a great day indeed.

So welcome back again and see you soon?

Peace and love,

Nafeesa