Be in the world as though you were a stranger or a wayfarer

somewhere..

2006-08-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

I've never been one to watch movies and I don't think I've ever watched a movie more than twice, except for maybe the lion king. That is until today. I watched "A Cinderella Story" for the third time today. Now before I get labled a total psycho let me try to explain why.

The story revolves around the life of a 17 year old girl. She's lost both parents and lives with her stepmother now. She works hard, in school, at home, in life. She works hard because it distracts her from her problems and eventualy it will be a way out for her. She's graduating a year early and plans on heading away to college..as far away from "home" as possible.

The girl is a social outcast even though she is beautiful, smart, and funny. I think its more her fault though. She hides. Because of how she grew up she doesnt feel like shes worth much. Then she meets a friend who changes her world. For the first time in her life she feels important, wanted, and special to someone. She finds someone that actually understands her and likes her for who she is. She couldnt be happier until she finds out that the guy is the star football player and the most popular guy in school. He has everything a person could want. Friends, fame, and what seems like happiness. But he's not totally happy..there is something missing in his life and she fills that void for him.

So, whats the problem? She doesnt feel like she fits in his world and thinks she'd be doing him a favor if she just disapeared. She also decides to stand up to her stepmother and go for what she wants for the first time in her life. He cant seem to find a way to fit his old world (popularity, football, his fathers dreams) and the world he wants (to be with her and go to college) together. She tells him that the things he has to do cant be harder than what she had to go through. Finally, he stands up to his dad and gets the best of both worlds and they live happily ever after.

Yes, total chic flick. But I like it and I usualy dont like movies.

Anyways, I've been looking for a document I need to straighten out my college stuff. I've spent the whole day looking for it and I cant find it. I found a bunch of other stuff though. One of the things I found was lyrics to a song from Fival (cartoon movie). I used to sing it sometimes and my sister always said I sang it wrong.. so one day she decided to prove herself right so she printed them out.. and we sang it together and recorded it on my phone. Memories suck in a really awesome way. They also make you gain weight! So far the damage they've done to me today: 3 or 4 big chocolate chip cookies and an ice cream bar.

anyways, these are the lyrics.. pretty sweet..

Fv: Somewhere out there,
beneath the pale moonlight,
someone's thinking of me and loving me tonight.

Ty: Somewhere out there,
someone's saying a prayer,
that we'll find one another in that big somewhere out there.

Ty: And even though I know how very far apart we are,
it helps to think we might be looking up at the same bright star.

Fv: And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby,
it helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky.

Together: Somewhere out there,
if love can see us through,
then we'll be together, somewhere out there,
out where dreams come true.

oh and lastly.. something I read today that made me feel good:
Jannah

have you ever....

2006-08-27T19:37:00.000-07:00

Life bites.. A friend of mine had that next to her MSN name for a few weeks. Every time I read it I'd roll my eyes and smile, thinking of how a summer full of organic chemistry classes can drive just about anyone crazy. But the more I think of that phrase now the more it makes sense to me. Not only that, I actually feel it. Life bites..and when it bites it leavs a scar.

There are things that happen in life that leave you "bitten". The severity of the bite depends on how fortunate you are and how strong you are to fight it. Sometimes you never heal from it..kinda like a poisonus bite that will always leave you with a trace of poison in your system. Eventually, though, the wound will start to heal. Sometimes there will be a scar that people can notice for a while but then it either goes away or they stop noticing. Sometimes you'll forget about it as well. But if it was strong enough and if it hurt enough you probably will always look at that scar and remember how and where you got it.

I have quite a few scars. There's the one I got when I was 6 and fell off of a bike into a ditch. Theres the one I got 5 years ago when I was in San Diego and went to Mission Bay with my dad, his cousin and her family. There are the burn scar I have from a couple summers back when we had the girls halaqahs. And then I have life scars.. Like feeling abandoned and wondering what might've, would've or could've been. Like losing a best friend because of someones jealousy. Like being betrayed and losing trust in people.

All these scars are a part of who I am today. Even though it's been hard sometimes and even though it hurted like hell sometimes I think I've done well alhamdulillah. I've grown stronger..both physicaly and in the deeper, non-pyshical, way.

Now, the thing is (and yes this is the point I've been leading up to), I see this blow that's coming really soon and I know it will leave a scar..a scar that will last my whole life..a really bitter-sweet scar. I dont know if I can handle this scar. I really think it might be to much for me. This scar that I'm talking about is this summer coming to the end. It's bitter-sweet because I've had some amazing days. Amazing yet absolutly horrible and hard. It would of been all worth it and I wouldnt classify the end of this summer as a "scar" if I had reached the goal I was working towards. But I didn't and now...its time for me to go back home..back to reality.

This brings me to my next thought. Have you ever wanted something so bad that you didn't mind risking everything you have for it? That you became selfish for the first time in your life and thought of only yourself? And then once that thing slips away you realize what you've done and how now you need to put just as much energy into fixing the mess you made as you did into messing things up.

I'm not in anyway saying that this summer was a mistake or that fighting for what I wanted was wrong and I know if I was given the chance to go back and do things differently I wouldnt. This summer has been amazing and I have some of the most amazing memories from it. Maybe even some of the best times of my life. All I'm saying is it hurts.

Yes, I'm admitting it (I guess there's a first time for everything, eh?). I'm hurting. And I'm angry. And I feel let down. As far as why I'm hurting..well its no ones business but at least I know why. I just wish I was as clear on who/what I'm angry at and who I feel let down by. I know I'm angry at myself and I feel like I've let others down but the rest is a blurr. I'm just mad at everyone.

At the end of the day its all in the hands of Allah (swt). It's all writen. It's all our qadar. I know that and I accept that. InshaAllah there is good in all that happens and all that has happened. And I know that inshaAllah I'll be alright..its just going to take some time to get used to the scar.

little kids <3

2006-08-06T21:23:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't updated in ages. Alot has happened and alot has changed since my last post but I'm not planning on talking about it. I'm posting because something really touched me today and I don't have anyone to share it with right now =P.

I've had pretty bad depression for the past few weeks. I think all that has happened this summer is starting to get to me. I was handling it alright until my uncle, wife, and her girls started staying here. That added more stress and most of all it caused me to constantly supress my feelings and emotions. So basicly im just exhausted..mentaly, physically, emotionally.. What most people see from me is a front. But today I really really did smile and I was truly happy and ya I was happy, walhamduillah.

I'm taking a seminar on the authority of the sunnah and the methodology of hadeeth at ICSD. Alhamdulillah the lectures are nice. During the second half of the day today I couldn't stay focused so I volunteered to do the babysitting. That was the BEST thing I could have done.

There were 4 boys ages 5, 4, 3, and 1 and half or 2 and a 2 year old girl. The two older boys, Ziyaad and Abdullah, were adorable mashaAllah. If you want them to sit down all you have to do is tell them stories of the prophets. They race each other to be the first to recite a surah you ask them to. When it came time to clean up neither one complained and both pitched in. If you give them something they recite in unison (with the 3 year old, zayd, after them) "Jazaakillahu khairan!!". As far as the 3 year old, he was the troublesome one. Always climbing things and refusing to take a nap. But he still listened and followed the older ones. The girl, Aminah, was a sweety and didn't give me much trouble. The littlest boy was the one that made me the happiest. He really missed his mom and would go to the door and start to cry until I picked him then he'd put his head on my shoulder and hold me really tight and cry for a minute or so then look up at me and smile. He fell asleep in my arms and I sat there while telling the kids a story and holding him and I felt so happy.. I can't explain why but it just gave me the biggest smile ever.. me wants a baby =P. I have to say the cutest moments were when the kids would speak to me in bengali and expect me to know what they were saying.

I can't explain why I love kids so much. If I had to chose my favorite thing in this dunyah, after the people I love, it would be children. The way they are so innocent and loving.. it just melts my heart. I miss the kids I used to teach back home :(

Speaking of home.. I miss home. I never thought I'd miss it or the people there this much. I miss my mom. I miss my sister. I miss my room and space. I miss my friends. I miss my khalas. I miss my brother. I miss my school (yes, I actually do). I miss the simple life there. Don't get me wrong, I've had some good times here in San Diego and I have some amazing friends here but its just not.. I dont know.. its just not what I want.

I wish life was simple.

and ya, I'll just end off on that note.

"I call you karima to hear your laugh"

2006-04-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

My uncle is one of those people that has an answer for EVERYTHING. So when he called and made the mistake of calling me by my sisters name I go "wow khalu, I can't beleive you don't know my voice :(" but I was laughing so he goes "I know your voice, I just pretend to mess up so I can hear you laugh". They started preschool there.. he told me "You have a job if you move here, and we pay good!" I miss it down there. I'm so bad though, I haven't been keeping good contact with everyone there.

I felt like I had a really good day yesterday so later on I was thinking about what I did differently for it to be so awesome and one thing that came to mind was how I treated my parents. I didn't notice this till later but everytime they called me I would answer promptly, everything they asked of me I did, and I took time out to sit with each of them alone and give them a hug and ask whats on their mind and how they're feeling. It's not that I'm usually disobediant it's just that I did more than usual yesterday and I saw the result of my actions in how my day went; I was happy, went to sleep with a smile, and was able to accomplish things that I had been wanted to "get around to" for a long while. So, alhamdulillah. My lesson from yesterday was that nothing but barakaah comes from pleasing your parents and making them happy.

I can't explain how much I hate going to school. I have classes 3 days a week (only morning class on Friday) and the night before classes I literally can not sleep couse all that is on my mind is how torturous the next day is going to be. Besides the fact that I hate the timing of my second class just having to go out as much as I do now and mixing with the kufaar as much as I do is annoying. Another thing that is hard is mixing online classes with attend classes; my advice to anyone that is thinking of doing that: Dont!. The two styles are totally different and I'm finding difficulty mixing them both.

Today I wrote down a list of things I need to do (which actually included updating this thing :P). I have a paper I need to write for one class but other than that I don't have homework today, alhamdulillah. I feel like ditching the list for a while and baking. Yes, I'm weird. So hopefully dad got butter :P. If things turn out good I just might post pictures.

muslim pickup lines

2006-04-13T10:56:00.000-07:00

Something happened yesterday that reminded me of this.. lol..

1. Oh my gosh! I just saw part of your hair, now you're obliged to marry me.

2. Our parents engaged us when we were little; they must have forgotten to tell you.

3. I'd like to be more than just your brother in Islam.

4. To watch you pray is a sin of its own.

5. Will my platinum VISA cover your dowry?

6. You can't play basketball with a jilbab on; marry me and we can go one-on-one our entire life.

7. Muslims are supposed to have many children, and I am more than willing to do my part...

8. Will you help the cause of the Ummah by helping me fulfill my deen? "

9. Wanna pray in jamaat? Shoulder to shoulder, feet to feet?

10. Assalamualaikum, so what time does a hurain like you have to be back in Heaven?

11. What school of thought do you follow, because I thought about you all through school.

12. Can I have your Wali's phone number?

13. So, read any good Surahs lately?

14. Do you believe in the hereafter? Oh, you do? Then you know what I'm hereafter.

15. Would you like to see my collection of Bukhari's?

16. Let's get married so I don't have to lower my gaze every time you walk in the room.

17. Didn't we meet when I went on Hajj/on the day we testified Allah was our lord?

18. Is your dad a terrorist, 'cuz you da bomb!

19. I've had to fast every day since I first saw you.

20. That Noor on your face really brings out your eyes.

I miss SD :(

2006-04-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

So the other day my mom calls one of the aunties from San Diego and shes like "the whole masjid ribat is at Howayah's right now" and my mom is like "mashaAllah!" and then shes like I'm going to pass the phone around so you can speak to them. It was bittersweet. Brought back soooo many memories. Howayah's house is the house I talked about before with the great view outside. Just talking to them all made me really miss being down there. Later that night Intisar called me and we talked a bit which was also nice.

It's interesting how people can notice the smallest and most odd things about you. My dad is good at pointing these things out to me. The other day we're eating and he goes "you've been eating lemon on your food a lot these days", and I looked at him and was like "even I didnt pay attention to that". Then later on I made him tea and I put the sugar in and mixed it and he goes "whenever you mix sugar in tea you always tapp the spoon on the edge of the cup twice". This time I didn't comment but I payed attention to what I did when I mixed the sugar for mom and noticed he was right. My sister used to do this to my brother all the time..to the point that he would get upset and ask "what are you doing, writing a book about me!"

My brothers pretty cool. He's moved back to Corvallis and commutes to Portland for work, miskeen. He came over the other day and gave me my Cd's back (about time!)..except he forgot one :(. I told him and he was like "wow you keep a good inventory". He's one of those people that picks on me a lot. He was over the other day and started picking on me, I was like "yo, you better stop.. you owe and your still picking on me!" He actually really really owes me. He was at work last week and my other brother called him and was like "you forgot to leave me x money that I asked to borrow".. so Adam is in Portland no way he can get the money to him so he calls me and asks me to lend my other bro the money.. I was like let me check if I have that much on me now and I checked and didn't so hes like can u go get some from the bank? I was home alone and in no mood to walk to the bank but hes like "come on its on walnut it wont take you 15 mins each way", so I did.. and now he owes me :).

and I'll finish updating later couse mom wants me..

if only you let me do it my way!

2006-04-07T17:20:00.000-07:00

Last summer some of the girls would go to highland (Linus Pauling? is that the new name?) and we'd chill there. Usually the moms would chill as well. One time Dina's mom was on the phone and when she finished she came and sat with us instead of the moms. She got married like really young and sometimes tells us stories about it.. this is the story she told us that day.

Not too long after she got married she wanted to make a dish(I forgot what it was) but she didn't know how to make it. So she goes to her husband and is like "I was thinking of making 'x' for dinner but I want to make it the way you like it so can you please tell me how you want me to make it?", by doing this and asking more questions she got the whole recipe from her husband. She made the dish and it didn't turn out all that great so she tells her husband "see, if you had let me make it the way my family does it would have turned out right!".. isnt that just like ingenious? When I told my mom the story she told me "make sure you don't tell the story to your husband untill after you use it on him!". I don't think I could ever do that though..

I'm babysitting AQ right now and the kid is driving me crazy. First he wants me to read to him then he wants to look at pictures then movies..the whole time hes turning the monitor off and on, turning the volume up and down, and moving it side to side. Not to mention all the snacks hes asked for in the past half hour alone! I cant help but love him to bits. I want a baby just like him, inshaAllah.

lol.. I better get offline and check what hes doing before he does something that will get me in trouble!

just..

2006-04-05T18:00:00.000-07:00

I'm really starting to not like the idea of going to class...especially my second class. Its not the class itself as much as it is the timing. I really really don't like the time that it's at and how long it is. I like the teacher and she actually does good in explaining the concepts and is really nice. Today before break she asked us "do you want five or ten minutes?" we were like "ten" and she was like "ok", alhamdulillah this was good for me and Omar since we needed to pray dhuhr. Also, towards the end of class she gave us the option of working through more problems before starting the assignment or starting the assignment right away which would let us out a few minutes early, and ofcourse we chose to start right away. So, alhamdulillah it's not too bad but it's still frustraiting.

I guess my day today hasn't been too bad. I got up around 8, checked emails, spent time with mom, ate a quick breakfast, and got ready for class. The first class was alright. Came home answered emails (and got out of going to orientation for online classes!), did some of my math homework, then headed to class. After class mom wanted to go get something from the store and then say salaams to khala Aisha since she is leaving tommorrow..now I just prayed asir and then I dunnu.. see what mom needs..study..get some sleep..get dinner ready since dad should be home any minute.

As far as tommorrow goes..dads off and I have homework so hopefully I get to stay home and don't have to go anywhere. I remembered what I was going to post but I'll post it tommorrow just incase I dont have anything to say then :P.

school started :(

2006-04-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

I'm on a sugar streak again! Since I got up today I've had leftover cake and cookies from sunday(had people over), mango sherbet, and now I'm working on the dozen Ferrero Rocher's that khala Aisha gave me. Yesterday I had leftover sweets, a sinckers ice cream bar, and then ice cream again. Oh well, I'll burn the extra calories by studying :P.

School started yesterday. :(. Before I get into that let me talk about the day before yesterday, Sunday. Khala Aisha is leaving Thursday and khala Umm Mish'als brother came to Corvallis to go to OSU on Saturday so my parents decided to invite them and a few other people on Sunday. I usually don't mind when they invite people over except that it was the day the clock changed and I'm usually a bit messed up that day since I'm behind an hour. But, alhamdulillah, the day went well. I had a pretty good time with the guests as well, although towards the end I retreated to my room to work on some things that I needed to finish. When everyone left I look at the clock and its 12. I then get into an argument with my dad over cleaning the kitchen. He tells me I have school in the morning and need to wake up for fajr and that I should leave the kitchen till tommorrow. I said I cant sleep with it dirty plus it would be harder on me to do it in the morning since I have things to do and I don't want mama to do it. He went to bed, upset. I cleaned most of the kitchen but then felt guilty for disobeying him and upseting him so I went to my room and worked on some of the things I needed to do untill a little after 1 then I slept.

Ok, getting to what I did yesterday. I had planned on waking up at 7, which is when my dad goes to work, since I wanted to finish a few things before going to class, which starts at 10. I hadn't changed my clock yet so I kept looking at it and thinking wow its still early untill it said 7:30 and I remembered OMG THIS IS AN HOUR BEHIND and got out of bed. I quickly finished the rest of the kitchen and then sat to do what I needed to do. At 9:30 I got up, got dressed, packed my bag, and left at like 9:50 and got to class like a minute early. This class is entertaining. The teacher is really funny to watch and she looks like an easy grader so Alhamdulillah. I came home at 11 and sat with my mom for a little then sat to finish some things. I prayed dhuhr as soon as it came in and then headed back to school for my second class. I walk into class and the first person I see is my friends brother..I almost walked right out of class. It was cool though. He was in class wearing a thoub and kufi and during break he goes to the hall says iqammah and prayed dhuhr. This class sucks. Its two and a half hours long. The teacher is nice, I know her from before, but her voice is really calm and puts you to sleep :P. After class I went grocery shopping with mom. Then I came home and ate. Then prayed asir. Then dad asked me to do yard work. Then I spent half an hour cleaning my shoes couse they got muddy. Then made dinner with mom. Then did paperwork for dad (for like two hours!). By the time I finished that it was pretty late so we prayed isha and then I went to my room and did some reading for school and then I was too tired to finish reading so I slept.

As far as today, I haven't done much. I'm home alone now. I probably should start on some homework (YES I ALREADY HAVE HOMEWORK!!!!!!!!). hmm.. there was something I wanted to post on here but I forgot.. khair, maybe later.

....

2006-04-01T10:15:00.000-08:00

I'm in one of my bad moods again. I'm not sure why..like really not sure. Maybe it's the fact that break is almost over? maybe it's the feeling of not accomplishing what I wanted. Or, maybe it's just because I've been sick for the past few days and havn't done much, which I hate.

Yesterday I decided I had enough of the laying in bed, or sitting around so I got up and cleaned the house, much to my mothers disaproval. My mom has this idea that when you're sick you don't do any unnecissary work and I'm not really good at following that. I can't stand having to sit around for a couple days. She reminds me that there is so much I can do while "sitting around". For me, reading or doing something that takes intillectual energy is harder on me when I am sick than to do moderate physical activity..so ya, this is one thing me and my mom differ in. Alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal.

I went to the masjid yesterday. I'm not sure why I keep mentioning this every week since I think by now anyone that reads my blog on a semi-constant basis would have figured out that in general I go to the masjid every Tuesday and Friday. Likewise, they also figured out that when I mention that I went to the masjid on either of those days I usually follow it up with "it was alright alhamdulillah". :P. So ya, it was alright alhamdulillah. One thing that struck me, and in a way frustraited me, was that I realized how many "teen girls" there actually are here! Just yesterday there were 9 of us at the masjid and the ones there weren't even half of the ones in Corvallis. Sad, so sad :(. Allahuma ahdina wa ijm'ana 'ala taa'atuk..aameen.

One thing that really stuck with me from the dars yesterday was the way khala Dalia explained and put emphasis on the ayah "wa lakaad yessurna al Qurana lil dhikri fa hal min mudaakir". If you put SINCERE effort into memorizing or understanding or reading the Quran Allah swt will make it easy for you. The key though is sincerity. SubhanAllah, when you think about it you realize that sincerity is the key to so much in this life..and it is the only way we will attain Jannah; by sincerly worshiping and obeying Allah swt alone. It's really sad to see the lack of sincerity in the ummah. It is way way too common to find double standards and people saying with their tounges what they really don't have in their hearts. So what she said really stuck with me. Sincerity and effort in learning and implimenting the Quran in our lives.

so ya, I got up at 9 since there is something I really need to do and now its past 10 and I still haven't gotten to it. Alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal. I should work a little harder at putting priorities straight.

'ajeeb..

2006-03-29T16:21:00.000-08:00

I think today I got the weirdest comment that I have ever gotten. My sister tells me "you look like a melted lemon popsicle". What in the world did she mean by that? I'm not sure and I dont think I want to know. I gave her a "what are you smoking?" look so she tried to justify the comment with "well, because you are sick you look yellow".. my mom refuted that by saying "actually she is pale not yellow" and at this point I figured I'd just leave the room.

I don't know whats up with me this winter. Usually I get sick a couple times during th winter but this year I've been sick like twice a month. Ofcourse, my mom is ready to give anyone that asks a list of reasons as to why but I don't really agree with them all :P. Alhamdulillah though, I get fast after a couple days so its not that bad.

I spent most of the day out yesterday which I really really didn't feel up to. After the dars I came home for a bit then went to UmmAQs for the "meeting". That whent well, alhamdulillah. We finally put things down on paper and are just about done planning..the only problem is we have different views of how to go about things and although we both see the others points we don't feel it's the right way to go about it. InshaAllah khair though.. hopefully we'll reach agreements soon and if not I think I'll just give in to her.

On the way back from her house we stopped at freddies couse I needed Tylenol. So I walk in and there are these two girls in abayah and hijab that I've never seen before. I go up to them and I'm like "assalaamu 'alaikum" they answered salaams and I couldnt figure out where they were from so I wasnt sure if I should talk english or arabi. After a minute or so I figured they were saudi students that had been here for 5/6 months. I asked if they'd ever been to the masjid and one of them said she went but no one was there. I told them when the women are at the masjid mostly and told them that if they ever needed any help or wanted to know something about the area or community that we could trade numbers/emails and keep in contact. They didn't take the offer too well so I was like man this is such I waste I need my medicine.

I can't believe school starts on monday. I have totally wasted this break. Some of it is my fault but at the same time it's not all my fault. InshaAllah I will use the next few days as best as I can since I'll be pretty busy once school starts. I can't believe I have to attend 2 classes :(. I also can't believe that one of them is 2 hours 20mins long!!!!!! That is crazy.

khair, I feel really really lightheaded...and I'm starting to think it'd be best if I go to bed.

been long enough?

2006-03-25T14:14:00.000-08:00

I think it's been long enough since I've updated and I'm a bit overdue to update so here goes.

Alhamdulillah I am done with exams and my spring break has now started. It's really interesting how throughout exams everyone couldn't wait for the break and now we are sitting around wondering what to do with this extra time. I have things to do and I know there is so many benificial things I could do but it seems as if I have wasted my first two days off.

During the time I spent in cali I had the chance to work with the girls "youth group"/halaqah and it was a really nice experiance. It also gave me ideas about how we can go about re-creating the one here. It has been one of UmmAQ and my hopes for the past while to get it started again but we haven't had the chance. When I came back from Cali I was really excited about it and had all these ideas of how to go about it but after spending a couple weeks here I'm not so sure if the approach we are taking is the right one. A few of us were supposed to meet up today in order to discuss details so we can officially start next Saturday but things came up and the meeting got canceld. We set up a tentative meeting for Tuesday. InshaAllah everything works out and Allah swt puts barakaah into our efforts since it seems like it is something that is needed VERY bad here right now.

I miss my uncle a lot. He called the other day and when I picked up the phone he goes "mashaAllah!! you went home and now you've forgotten about me! No phone calls..no emails!". I was like "khalu if only you knew, I've just been so busy with school.. I miss you a lot". He went on to say that he was the reason for me being behind in school and he was sorry about that and I was like "noo!! I'm the only one to blame". And he said what he always says when hes half upset and half playing around "GhaafarAllahu lenna wa laaki..aameen". I miss hearing that. No matter what I'd do that would "upset" him that would be his reply to me. He used to pick on me ALL the time. One day I jokingly complained to him and said "khalu!! You're always picking on me, I didn't do anything!"..he told me "Thats because I love you the most..men pick on the ones they love the most ;), you know that". I couldn't help but smile. I remember how jealous I would get when women would call him, he thought that was too cute, but it really annoyed me! One time we needed cups upstairs and I was too shy to go to the stairs and knock/call him so I called him using my friends phone (who I had scolded before for calling him!) and he didn't pick up. He called back a few minutes later and I picked up and he goes "Assalaamu 'alaikum, sister did you call me?" I was like "yes brother I did" and hes like "forgive me I had my phone on silent" and I go "no problem brother I just wanted to ask you a quick question" and hes like "go ahead sister" and I was like "who am I?" and he got all confused and was like "excuse me sister?" and I go "omg khalu its me" and hes like "YOU GIRLS ARE PLAYING GAMES WITH ME" and I was like "nooooo!! we needed cups so fatima gave me her phone to call you" and he goes "ghaafarAllahu laana wa laaki" and he was laughing.. it made me happy to make him laugh.

ahh, alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal. I'd say that since around the time we left to cali until now has been amazing for me in different ways. Things have just felt good, alhamdulillah. I can't really explain why or how but I know how I feel. As much as I miss some things, was disapointed in others, and stressed about exams I have been feeling good. The one thing that really got me down though was not being able to teach anymore, but I wont get into that now.

I sorted out my classes for next quarter. I'm attending at BC :(. I really didn't want to have to do that but khair inshaAllah. I have class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. :(. Monday & Wednesday from 10-10:50 then 1:30-3:50 and Fridays its just the 10-10:50 class. I so shoulda applied to Chemekta instead of LinnBenton. The rest of my classes are online though, so alhamdulillah.

I had more I wanted to write but I've like forgotten it all :/. Maybe I'll take up someones advice and actually write things down as they come to me. But one last thing (mostly for Hina :P), how in the world did I get an 100 on a Rich Bergeman test?

Allahu Akbar!

2006-03-17T18:08:00.000-08:00

Alhamdulillah I just finished all the overdue work I have in 2 classes. InshaAllah tonight I will finish the work for the 3rd class and that will leave me with only one more class that I would have overdue work in.. plus the finals, two are due monday, another on tuesday, and the fourth wednesday. Now I can go to the masjid tonight without feeling guilty and I can go to khala Dalia's tommorrow (inshaAllah) without feeling guilty :P. I'm still stressing though couse I have so much I want and feel like I need to do this week.. plus spring break looks packed with the girls halaqah preperations and stuff.

My trip to San Diego: reflections and memories

2006-03-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

When my uncle called and asked us to come down to San Diego I was reluctant to go. I didn't know what to expect there and I wasn't sure if I should go or not. I decided to make istikhara and see how things went. It seems like since the moment I finished the istikhara things started to point towards me going. Now that I am back home and I have had a chance to think about the trip I am really glad I went. By not being at home I was able to focus on personal things that I hadn't had time for while I was at home. Likewise, I learned a lot of lessons while I was down there and gained experience while teaching at the school there and having the responsibilities of the "ameer's niece".

The time that I spent at home (uncle's house) I often spent in seclusion. I would go down when asked and sometimes I would go voluntarily if I thought it would bring benefit but in general I spent it alone. This time alone gave me time to think more and like I said to do things that I have wanted to do for a while. I don't really want to write a lot about home life though.. so I'll move on to writing about the masjid.

There is one thing about the masjid in Corvallis that I love: you never feel like a stranger there. As soon as someone new walks in they recognize that and do their best to make them feel at home. Although I have been to different masaajid in a few different states I've never felt this anywhere else. Unless you know someone at the masjid conversations don't go past salaams, if even that. You can imagine my shock, and happiness, when I found that seem type of attitude and feeling in the masjid in SD.

I met some really wonderful people down there...people that I don't think I will ever forget. Be it the little kids I taught, the grade school kids that I did homework with, my little sister's age friends, the girls my age, the "college age" girls, or the aunties. There is at least one very memorable person in each of these groups. One of the very special things about these people was how attached they were to each other and to the masjid.

The masjid there has something going on just about every day. On Mondays there is dinner and women and children Quran class. On Tuesdays there is an Arabic class. On Wednesday there is a mens Quran class. On Thursday there is dinner and a Fiqh class. On Friday there is jumuaa', lunch, dinner, and a Tafseer class. On Saturday there is dinner and a general lecture. And on Sunday there are boys and girls youth groups. The one thing that both the masjid and the Imam lacked in (inshaAllah this is not backbiting since it has already been discussed openly :/) is 'Aqeedah and Tawheed.

'ala kulli haal, from this you sort of get a picture of how my days were spent. Although I did not go everyday to the masjid I was there a lot and I enjoyed the time I spent there. At home I was often upstairs in my uncles study/office. I also went to a few different people's houses, including my dad's cousin.

Some of my favorite people in SD:

Umm Nuh and her family. Umm Nuh is American and she is married to an Egyptian. Her husband is overseas a lot on business but mashaAllah she has raised her kids so wonderfuly. Her oldest daughter, Amina, is a year or so older than me. We got along pretty well and developed a good friendship. She also has a daughter whos a little older than my sister, Bayaan, this girl tabaraakAllah is one of the most sweetest and awesomest people I met there. And ofcourse her two littlest ones Daniyah (8/9) and Mohammad (7).

Fatima, her sister, and little bro. This girl is afghaani and mashaAllah she is also amazing. Shes college age and we got along VERY well. I'll write about some of the things we did together later but ya shes great. I also got close to her sister, Safiyyah, who is my age and her little brother Yusif who is 8.

Firdows!!! I've got to say she was probably my best friend down there.. although its hard to choose just one person. Shes a little older than me...nursing major... half Somali half Yemeni�head of the girls youth group and just an amazing person.

Anila. I didn't get to see her a lot but from the few times I did see her we got close. Shes Pakistani and very sweet. Also in university.. (notice a trend? most of my friends are older than me :S). I promised to email her often but havnt had a chance to email even once since I came back. tsk.

Aisha (who spells her name Isha). This girl is the funniest I have EVER met.. but she also has a very serious and sentimental side to her.

Umm Khalid and her daughters. Umm Khalid was probably one of my moms best friends while we were there. She's yemani/eritrea and one of the kindest people I have ever met, mashaAllah. Some of her children are married but the two daughters that live with her still, Intisar and Khalida, were some of the people that I got very very close to. Both of them are in uni and both teach at the masjid school. I got closer to Intisar though.. and man I miss her.

I could list people for a long time but I promised myself to start working on homework at 11..so this will do for now.

As far as some of the best memories I had there.. ahh they're too many but I'll try.

-Walking to the store after Jumuaa' with Bayaan and getting loads of junkfood. The last jumuaa' that I was in SD I didn't eat anything before going to the salaah. I was feeling a little sick that day. My uncle told me he would get me lunch from downstairs after the salaah and I said ok. By the time he got me the food it was just us and Bayaan (who like lives in the masjid =P). My sister only asked for soda so my uncle sent up a plate of macaroni and two sodas, and tells us hes invited out so hes leaving. AFTER he leaves my sister says shes hungry and Bayaan mentions that she didnt eat anything.. I told them I was still feeling sick and to share the food. After 'Asir I realized that 1. I was really hungry and 2. they weren't full.. I figured ok, we'll go to the store.. only problem was that this was the ONLY day I didn't bring my bag so I didn�t have money, bank card, or checks. Somehow we managed to put together 9$ from change I had on me, my sisters purse, bayaans purse, and bribing her brother into giving us some money (which I did pay back btw!). So what exactly did we end up buying? Half a gallon of ice-cream, 4 candy bars, a bag of chips, and lemon aid... we had 0.1$ left =P. And yes we all got sick.

-Doing skits with the little kids at the youth group! This is a memory I don't think I'll EVER forget. It was one of the sweetest things I did while I was there. It was only me, Firdows and the kids. We split them up into groups by age and had them do a skit each. They said it wasn't fair that we weren't going to do one so we did one as well.

-One of the nights my uncle calls me and says "the masjid administration has to discuss some issues so I'll be back in like half an hour", he ended up not coming back till almost 1am. It was us, Umm Nuh's family, and another auntie. Umm Nuh had 2 other girls with here so there was a total of 7 girls and Mohammad (Nuh went home with a friend). First thing we do is go down to the parking lot and play tag.. then we go down to the men�s area and u know.. I got really bad asthma because of all the running outside lol.. so we're in the car with my uncle and I was coughing so he goes "maryam, are you ok?" and I was like "ya, alhamdulillah" and my mom told him whyyyy I was like that.. so he goes "you don�t have your medicine?" and I said "no".. so he calls up an uncle and goes and gets me medicine from him. aww!

-Watching the sunset at Howayyah's house. Everyone thought we were leaving a week before we actually left so on the second Saturday that we were there they had the first "goodbye" party for us. It was at a sisters house and this sis's backyard was a porch. Under the porch was some land and then a lake/resevior. I spent a lot of the time we were there sitting on the fence of her porch�looking out at the lake and just chilling. Mohammad came to me and was like "I got you some brownies", it was seriously the cutest thing EVER, tabaraakAllah. The sunset was beautiful.. it was one of those like really calm and special moments that you wish the special people in your life were there to share with you.

-Helping the kids with their homework. Like I said before the masjid is like a home to the people there, so one of the things that I saw that left me in awe was how the kids would come from school straight to the masjid and sit there doing their homework until the time for the dars. I would usually sit with the younger ones and help them with their work. One day Yusif and Mohammad had like major overloads of work and I sat with them for an hour or so and they finished it. Yusif had 17 pages of math that he was supposed to do over a few weeks but left it until the night before it was due. When I told Fatima he had finished them her comment was "you have to move down here.

-1...2..10! I'm an English major! Fatima was trying to get the kids to shut up during one of the lectures so she goes "ONE.. TWO... TEN!!!".. the only problem is her saying that caused more noise. All the girls sitting around her found it comical that she said Ten after Two.. her justification of it was "Hey, I'm an English major.. I'm not expected to know how to count!". So ya, that became the joke for the rest of the time we were down there.. When Intisar didn't kept confusing where Oregon was we'd tease her and say "Oh, I forgot... you're a GEOGRAPHY major".

-Me and Intisar "fighting" at the last goodbye party. It was sad. I didn't want to say goodbye to her and she didn't want to say goodbye to me (even though we saw each other again at the masjid the night before we left couse she came to say goodbye then! aww).. so she started a playful fight "wow, I cant wait till you leave" type of fight.

Alright, I'm fifteen mins past the limmit I set for myself.. maybe I'll update more about SD or maybe not. Right now I'm cramming to finish my classes in time. I have been staying up till 2 or 3am everyday in attempt to finish and alhamdulillah I'm getting there..

San Diego Pictures

2006-03-16T10:03:00.000-08:00

I didn't take as many pictures as I usually would while I was down in SD but here are some of the ones the ones I did take.

This was the sunset on Feb 15th while we were driving down to SD

This is the view from my dads cousin's house in Mira Mesa. It's the "desert" side of SD.

Sunset at Mira Mesa

Same sunset, just a little later.

lol..as far as what this pic is about.. some of the girls were making fun of Bayaans cake at the "goodbye" party the last Sunday we were there.. and in the process this picture was taken. Amazing how her cake is what has been eaten the most and they were still making fun!

Thats about all the pic's I can post. The rest have people in them :P. In total I only took about 38 pictures the whole trip. Compair that to the 100+ I've taken on one day trips and it seems like almost nothing!

doneeeeee

2006-03-14T23:00:00.000-08:00

I'm DONE with my writing final (at least the rough draft.. but final drafts are easy). Alhamdulillah!!! Out of all my work this was the one thing that I was dreading so bad. Now, inshaAllah, I can actually write an update tommorrow :P. I've been wanting to for so long but haven't had a chance. Ok, next assignment.

I miss home..

2006-02-22T20:28:00.000-08:00

I've been here for a week now, alhamdulillah it wasn't as bad as I had thought but it's still not great. I love the masjid, the people there, and my uncle, but apart from that I don't like anything. I'm happy that us coming has made a difference for my uncle and that he is feeling better, walillahilhamd, but at the same time I'm really starting to yearn for home. And well..today my mom said "if your father is able to wait another two weeks then I'd really like to stay till your brother comes down here then we can go up with him", and it seems like my father will wait two weeks because if he doesnt then he has to drive down to sacramento again and I know he'll do just about anything to not have to do that again.

When I complained to my mother today (yes I know I shouldn't have) she told me to renew my niyyah.. that I should focus on the fact that we are here to inshaAlalh do our best to help my uncle and cousins for the sake of Allah swt. She also reminded me that I had the choice not to come but I chose to come.. I understand all of this but still 2 more weeks is too much :(.

I miss my students at the school :(. They used to brighten my day every day. I taught at the saturday school here but it wasn't the same. I had a talk with the principal of the school about how we started our every day school in Corvallis and other things like that.. she asked me how much the teachers get paid and when I told her we all volunteer the time she was really shocked.. and then she was like "if you decide to take up my offer and move here we will pay you", I was like nah man its not about making money.. it's about working together to raise a good generation of muslim kids. its about doing things for the sake of Allah.. its about taking time out of our busy schedules to help others.. if the school has extra money we use it to enrich the learning for the kids.. buy a new computer.. buy them gifts..", and don't get me wrong I'm not saying its bad to pay the teachers I'm just saying that I don't think the money should be the focus.. it should be a side factor..

I miss my dad. He called us yesterday and when I talked to him he was like "no one is here to wake up at fajr and make me coffee! No one is here to call me and ask me what I want for lunch and when I'll be home.. no one to make me tea after dinner.. no one to call me if I stay out late after 'isha.. no one to make me something sweet and then tell me I cant eat from it because I'm diabetic".. I was like "ya, I miss you too baba".. I just tried calling him but he wont pick up the home phone or his cell :(.

I miss the masjid.. the next time I see it it will look totally different.. they're starting the construction on the womens area :(. I miss my stable internet connection.. I miss being able to do school work.. I miss having my own room.. I miss being able to get up at night without waking others up.. ahh khair.. I just miss home.

That's not to say that I didn't benifit from this trip and that I dont think I've learned things from it because I have.. I'm just a bit down now so the only emotion I feel like expressing is this one..

trip

2006-02-18T01:52:00.000-08:00

I've been in cali for a few days now. Alhamdulillah, I
have to say its better than I expected and I'm
actually enjoying some of the time I am spending here
(so far). My only problem right now is school work, I
have over due assignments :(. No matter how hard I
try to do my work I just don't seem to do it. Here I
am up untill past 1 and all I've done is list the work
I need to do, yellah.. inshaAllah khair.

I spent most of the day at the masjid today, it was
nice. I went for jumuaa with my uncle (my first jumuaa
in maybe a year or so :/) and stayed at the masjid
untill after asir. I went again a little after
maghrib to listen to a lecture and have dinner and
didn't get home till like a quarter to 12. I like it
there, alhamdulillah. I got a teaching job already as
well!! I'm going tommorrow morning from 9-4 or so..
and then there is another lecture at 7 so I might just
stay till then. The masjid has wireless net so
inshaAllah I'll take my books and laptop and I'll be
online the whole day ;). Not to mention the fact that
I got VIP status and my uncle said he'll give me the
key to the office and I can chillax there all I want,
and use the masjid computer.

That actually reminded me of something funny that
happened today at jumuaa. After the salaah and stuff
my uncle comes upstairs to the other side of this
door/partition thing and calls me so I go see what he
wants and he's like "can you please hand me the
donation box that is in the womens section?".. I
didn't think much of it.. so I go, take the box, and
take it to where he is and give it to him.. I swear to
God EVERY SINGLE person that was still in the womens
area (about an hour after salaah) kept staring at me
like I was stealing the box or something. It wasn't
untill then that I realized that they didn't know I
was the ameer/commitee member's neice and that I was
actually helping out the masjid and not jacking their
funds.. my big mouthed sister decided to give a
presentation and explain the situation so by the time
I had finnished talking to my uncle everyone was a bit
more relaxed having realized I wasn't a crazy niqaabi
robber :P.

OHH.. I got proposed to at the masjid tonight. And no,
you wont get to hear the details of how it happenned..
lets just say I've learned to keep my mouth shut
around aunties that I don't know very well no matter
how sweet and nice they are!

anyways.. I'm out of it.. I think i'll sleep and see
what I can do in the morning inshaAllah.. I really
should have slept early..Allahul musta'aan.

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:S

2006-02-15T00:16:00.000-08:00

:S. It's a little past midnight and I'm too exhausted to stay up anymore. I'm halfway done with my assignment but khalaas I can't.. I'll have to finish it at my uncles or something and honestly I could care less if I get points taken away.

Alhamdulillah I've finally calmed down a bit about the whole trip and all. Everything is just about ready and I've finally packed all I need (I hope so at least :S). My mom had wanted me to get a cell before heading down but we havnt had a chance to do so yet, inshaAllah maybe I'll get it when we're down there.

So my brother just calls my dads cell at past twelve telling me my other bro is in the hospital.. wonder what stupid thing hes done this time. great. my dads gonna get up.. anyways I'm to tired to stay up any longer anyways.

leaving at fajr.

2006-02-14T19:47:00.000-08:00

I'm leaving at fajr. I can't put into words how I'm feeling right now or how crazy of a day I have had. I have a really weird feeling about this trip. InshaAllah khair. I've packed all my books (school and other), cd's, laptop, camera..important things, but I still have to pack cloths. I also have to submit an assigment tonight and finish prepairing things for my dad. Alhamdulillah.. please make duaa that things go well and that I calm down because right now I'm way too hyper/jittery/stiff/weird... and I suppose most of all overwhelmed.

midterms are over with, alhamdulillah

2006-02-12T23:47:00.000-08:00

Alhamdulillah, I just turned in my last midterm like 15 mins before the duedate :P. Usually I dont wait untill this much of a last minute but this week has been way too full. I have an urge to stay up late online since I have permission to stay up and use the computer tonight but I know I shouldnt. Last night I was up reading untill a little past 4am and I payed the price today and since tommorrow is another full day I probably shouldn't do the same thing again. I don't have to go to madrasah tommorrow alhamdulillah, but I have to go to UmmAQ's in the morning and run a few errands.. hopefully I wont be out too much so I can finish some home work before we leave so I wont fall too far behind.

"you're not engaged or anything?"

2006-02-12T20:05:00.000-08:00

I was having a talk with one of my friends earlier today and it brought back a good/funny memory. I was supposed to do some things with her tommorrow but her dad just got in a car accident so I was telling her how I didn't feel it was proper to call up and ask her mom if she could come over and stuff..

Khadija: Ya, you're right. It does seem a little insensative if we ask a lot from my parents right now.
Me: Thats why I said maybe next week..
Me: actually..
Me: can you do me a favor?
Khadija: sure
Me: can you tell your mom that I can't come to the school this week and most probably next week.. I'll call her later when your dad is awake so I don't disturb him but I want to give her enough notice
Khadija: ok, why though?
Me: I'm probably going to be out of town but please don't tell anyone yet
Khadija: I wont
Me: Ya, I know you wont thats why I told you
Khadija: remember like a year or so ago when you didn't come to khala Taghreeds and me, tassnym, and sarah made up a list of possibilites why you didn't and then we finally decided the reason you didn't come was because you got engaged and we even asked your mom?
Me: OMG YES !!!!!
Khadija: its not something like that is it?
Me: Khadija, you're crazy.

If only she knew... like seriously.

I'm on my last midterm right now.. I'm seriously crazy for putting it off till now. I'm probably heading out of town in a couple days.. inshaAllah I'll have a phone by tommorrow couse I'll need it while I'm not home. man.. ahh alhamdulillah.

to miss something this much..

2006-02-11T09:19:00.000-08:00

There's a certain friendship that I had, one of the most special. I don't think anything could be like it because it was unique. I miss it. It's not possible to point fingers at what brought it down but I just know that some nights when I'm laying in bed awake I'll think of how it was. It's beautiful missing something that much (I had to spend an hour explaining to another friend what I meant by that last night). May Allah swt guide her and bring our hearts together again..aameen.

Today (technically tommorrow) is the last day I have to turn in my midterms and I have two more left. I'm not really motivated to do these two since I've had to re-do my other ones because the power or internet would get cut off in the middle and I'd loose all my work. The first time it happened I was on the last question of a 2 hour long midterm so that was really really frustraiting.

Ever since we moved I've had pretty good energy--I've been waking from fajr everyday and sleeping at my normal late time. The past few days my energy has gone way down. I'm a little sick so that might be it although my mom has another theory and I think she is right.

I seriously love my dad, alhamdulillah. We came back from UmmAQ's house last night (whent there since there was no dars and ended up staying there till pretty late) to find that he'd used the rest of the Samboosik mix from dinner and made a plate of Saboosik, awww. He was at an uncles house since the 'amu's wife is away so they were partying :P. My dad called me when we got home and is like "about time you came home! 'amu wants such and such recipe", I was like "would you like me to make it instead?" and I can hear amu in the background and hes like "laaa! jazaahullah khair, I want to try to make it", so another guy in the back is like "learn how to do the laundry first before you try cooking".. they made so much fun of him :(, I've got to say it was amusing especially when he gets angry and told them off.

and ya, I'm blogging so I have an "excuse" for my procrastination :P. Now I'm gonna go out with my mom for a while, run some errands, and then when I get home I'll worry about my work.

masjid school

2006-02-05T19:03:00.000-08:00

The masjid is FINALLY getting fixed up. After a couple years of talking about it and raising funds they're working on it now. They've finnished most of the mens areas and they'll be working on the womens area for the next couple of months. The one thing that sucks is how we just started the school and had organized everything and now we've had to pack up everything. Alhamdulillah, a family here has offered the school a house to operate in..May Allah swt grant them Janaat al Firdaws..aameen. Honestly, I really like the new venue and I think it will be a lot better for the kids.

On friday we were packing the things and today the men hauled most of the stuff. A few of us will be organizing the next few days and then we will start school again mid-week. Today I was cooking for the men with UmmAQ. It was nice alhamdulillah. Now I'm babysitting AQ and trying to follow the game.

I have midterms all this week. I havn't studied at all. The one thing I like about midterms is that once they're over you know you only got 4 weeks till school is out. Anyways its maghrib..

test?

2006-02-05T17:41:00.000-08:00

My blog is seriously acting up..

I just wrote up an update not sure if it'll end up showing up or not.. but ya.. I'll do one tommorrow inshaAllah if it doesnt.

..

2006-02-03T17:15:00.000-08:00

test..

uh oh..

2006-02-03T11:18:00.000-08:00

I'm exhuasted man.. the past few days have been too much for me, but alhamdulillah. I was planning on updating a while ago but got sidetracked and now I don't think I have time. My dad wants to eat after jumuaah and I havn't even started. I've been up since fajr and I have no idea how the time has passed. I have overdue schoolwork (first time this quarter!!) and I'm not sure when I'll have time to get to it :(. I ditched my partner for a different one. It was mean but I had to. I actually never agreed to being her partner she emailed me and asked if I had a partner yet and I said no and she started making plans for us to partner. She's an animal science major and I've taken a few classes with her and I know she's not the greatest writter so when I got an offer from another education major who wants to write about the same thing as me I sorta backed out and now I feel guilty.

anyways..

kids..gotta love them

2006-02-01T10:09:00.000-08:00

There is usually a halaqah at the masjid tuesday mornings but this week it was tuesday evening. One good thing about it being in the daytime is that there usually isn't too many kids. Since this was a joint halaqah and goodbye party thing there were a lot of people. While we were sitting in the dars the kids were running all over the place. First UmmAQ gets up and takes them all to the kids room and then another mother goes and finally I was like aight this aint working so I got up and went to the room with them.

When I went in they were playing something they told me was called "airplane" or "parachute"--to me it was jumping off of the tables while holding chairs (u know, the small kid ones) over your head and disturbing the men downstairs. I had them sit down "or else" and they did :D, alhamdulillah. I told them a couple stories, asked them some questions, played a few quiet games, and then one of the kids goes "when you were little did you always want to be a teacher?" and thats where it got interesting..

I'm sure we've all been through the over-asked question of "what do you want to be when you grow up?" After answering the question I decided to ask it. When I'd gone around and asked each kid I ended up being in the room with: 3 Doctors, 1 Dentist, 1 Pharmacist, 1 Computer engineer, 1 soccer player, 1 baseball player, 3 undecided, and 1 rockstar/figure skater. Was I shocked? Yes and no. I think I was more sad. I wanted to see what made some of these kids say some of these things so I asked "give me your best reason for wanting to be "x" when you grow up, who is someone you look up to", and the answers I got also made me sad. Some of the kids said "becuase they make a lot of money", others said "figure skaters are so cool the way they do tricks and stuff", and so on.

As upset as I was I realized it wasn't the childrens fault. It's the fault of the parents who don't exhaust any energy on the tarbiyyah of their children. They think that the few hours a week that they send them to the masjid for sunday school is all the Islamic education that their children need! And then, when they get older and they see the fruits of what the seed they planted they will deny that it was their planting that went wrong instead it was the fertlizer and outside influneces. How often to we hear parents say things such as "What can I do? They pick it up at school". Oh really? Well maybe if you taught them the proper walaa' and baraa', showed them right from wrong, and followed up on what they learn, who they interact with, and who they spend time with, then just maybe they wouldn't be so influnced.

Another thing I find really sad is the fact that some of the parents are really good. For example, the parents of the kids that gave me the most shocking of answers are what most people would consider "religouse". The father comes to the masjid a lot, prays jamaa'ah, the mother wears niqaab and stays at home, yet it's as if they have no knowledge of what is happening to the kids..and even worse its as if they don't care! And wallahi I'm so sick of people blaming it on society and public schools. If you really think that your children can't go to school without being influnced negitvly then pull them out! But honestly, I think its up to the parents if they raise their children right then the public schools wont have as great of an impact.

I know a kid who was in kindergarten, so he was about 4 or 5. The teacher asked them one day "who do you look up to? who is your role model?" and the children started naming people "Michael Jordan", "Police officers" and so on. When she came to this boy, who was the ONLY muslim in the class he said "Abu Bakr Radiyallahu 'anhu". The teacher got shocked and goes "who?" and he goes "The great commander and leader of the Muslims after the prophet Mohammad SAWS passed away". The teacher was so astonished by his answer that she called his parents and said she had to have a meeting with them. The parents kept questioning the boy "what did you do? what happened in school?" but couldn't understand why the teacher would want to meet with them. When they were talking with her she goes off on them and says that "you're making the boy grow up too fast. Instead of enjoying his youth and dreaming of things that children dream of he's thinking ahead of himself and wanting to be something that he can't be". The parents were upset, and told her that they don't force things on him..they simply tell him about great people and he chooses his own opinions.

Allahu Akbar! That is the kind of tarbiyyah that our children need. They need parents that are attentive to them. Parents that teach them and watch over them. Parents that instill the Islamic morals, akhlaaq, ethics, and knowledge into them at a young age so they identify themselves by it and not by any "outside factors" or influnces. Alhamdulillah the community and masjid try to do their best by offering a a place for activities, the masjid school, sunday school and so on but that is not enough for the children. They need it every day, every minute, they need posative rolemodels in their parents and it needs to be constant.

InshaAllah I plan on keeping up these "babysitting" sessions during the daroos.. maybe I'll record one of the discussions I have with the kids couse its so cute some of the things they say.. so innocent.. I know I've focused a lot on the "bad" side of things in this post but alhamdulillah there was also a lot of good. A couple things that really made me go "aww" was when one of the little girls said "I want to be like you when I'm older", I told her "don't be like me, be like someone greater than me.. like Maryam AS, Aisha AS, and the rest of the great muslimaat", and she goes "but arent you trying to be like them too? so if I be like you then I'll be like trying to be like them" (shes like 4), so I just laughed and said "but I want you to be better than me" and she looked at me a little confused.

Another thing was when one of the boys said "When I grow up I wont shave my beard!"..that one made me laugh.. but then I went on to ask "why wouldnt he?" and that started me talking about how when Allah swt tells us or commands us to do something we obey etc etc..

and I'd really like to write more but my dads up and ya..

and I confess...

2006-01-29T13:03:00.000-08:00

I confess that I spent two hours last night looking through a cooking/cookware magazine instead of doing my reading for class and now I have an extra chapter to read today!! (can't wait to see Hina's comment on this.)

I also confess that this winter has been one of the weirdest that I've seen..except maybe to the really snowy one we had a couple years ago. Within the past 24 hours we've had everything from sunshine, thunderstorms, rain, and now horrible wind.

My last confession is that I'm posting in order to procrastinate more and that I really do not want to write my paper.

Last quarter I had to read an essay called "How to write nothing in 500 words". I showed parts of it to some people because I found it extremly funny--probably one of the best essays that I had to read. In the essay the author, an english proffessor, takes examples from real student essays to show what not to write in an essay.

Well, now that I'm faced with some really boring essays I've noticed a trend in how I write them.. so here is my "how to write nothing in 6 pages" :P.

1. Write in double space font.

2. Use Times New Roman or Arial on 12pt

3. Make the page margins smaller, usually the teacher doesnt notice.

4. Use a header and footer, make sure the header is long.. include everything possible such as your name, the teachers name, the assignment, the date, the class.

5. Indent the first line in paragraphs

6. Use double spaces between paragraphs.

7. Use alot of footnotes!!

and ermm thats all I can think of now. And honestly, I usually don't do this but when I have a paper like the one I have today I do. And sometimes.. just sometimes, I get away with it.

its sunnyyyy!!!

2006-01-27T10:40:00.000-08:00

It's sunny! The weather is awesome, tabaarakAllah. It hasn't been this nice in forever. Alhamdulillah.

home alone! :D

2006-01-26T16:11:00.000-08:00

I have this weird system when I'm home alone. The first thing I do is fool around for a while and just chill for like half an hour or so. If there is nothing to do then I'll clean the kitchen because I like that the best. If there is still nothing to do then I'll clean the rest of the house. And after that I'll usually cook or make something sweet and then if I'm still home alone and still bored I'll do schoolwork. Well, today I was home alone with absolutly nothing to do.

My parents and sister didn't get up till I woke them up around 11. By the time they got up I had made my mom tea, my dad coffee, and made breakfast. They ate fast and then they were going to leave untill my brother came. When he finally left they left. My dad calls me when hes close to Salem and is like "so what exit do I take", I was like " I thought I told you to take jefferson exit?" and hes like "but I passed that".. and then I got blamed for his carelessness :P.

I've had an ok time alone I guess. I cleaned the kitchen, prayed dhuhr, cleaned the house, cooked kebsah and cake and kunnafah, and was planning on taking a nap when I get a call telling me that my brother (Adam) is coming from portland and wants to have dinner with us. I'm like aightt this is what I've made what do you want? he's like "I want indian food". I told him to go to evergreens he laughed and was like "come on man I'm not down there a lot anymore, please?" So now I'm supposed to be frying onions and stuff but I dont feel like it..

I usually like being home alone but today I just dont feel like it :(. I don't feel like being alone.. I've been really weird the past week or so, I keep having these really intense mood swings. I'll get really hyper sometimes, reallly tired others, really sad sometimes, super happy other times, its just too weird.. I've been a bit over stressed so maybe thats whats doing it to me.

I took today off of teaching too, well actually I told khala I couldnt make it wendsday and she said take thurs off too u can start again on Sunday. This morning the phone rang and it was Imams number and I didnt get to it fast enough so I called back and he answered so I got too shy to ask for khala and was like "is khadija there amu?" and he goes "shes asleep" and then I was like "oh, maybe it was khala that called?" and he goes "whos number is this?" (it sounds right in arabi :S) and I go "Ibrahim Ibrahim" and hes tone totally changes and hes like "ahhh that was me who called, is your dad there?" and I was like "hes asleep" and hes like "jazaakillah khair for the call Maryam, have him call me when he gets up" and I was like "haadir inshaAllah" and he goes "baarakAllahu feeki, assalamu 'alaikum". I sat there going "why in the world did I call back???".. usualy I wouldnt have done that but I thought khala wanted me today couse UmmAQ has an appointment and cant teach..

anyways, my parents will be home soon.. I better go start on stuff.

tis great, alhamdulillah..

2006-01-24T17:18:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before or not but the Masjid started a full school instead of just a weekend school. This was the first week for it and alhamdulillah so far so good. I went today couse I'm one of the teachers (shocking? :P). It was AWESOME alhamdulillah. It was so cool to see all of these kids that were in public schools sitting there in class. I had to leave early because we had guests coming but man the time I spent there I just couldn't stop smiling. Working with children is amazing, tabaarakAllah. We're still sorting out who is going to teach which grades and teach what but it seems like I'll be doing some pre-school and some english for the older grades. Today I was teaching computer and helping with pre-school.

Today has been pretty busy. I got up and decided I should work because I'd be busy for the rest of the day but I was too tired and ended up wasting time. I fell asleep for about half an hour on the couch after doing some reading and probably would have stayed asleep if my mom hadnt scolded me. We had to babysit my niece today..it was aight alhamdulillah. We went to the masjid and took her with us. At first she was scared but then she started to calm down. I had to carry her the whole time while I was praying dhuhr though. She's finally not afraid of me when I have niqaab on!! The first time she saw it my brothers were around and when she saw my mom she goes "SCARY SCARY!!" so my mom takes her niqaab off, same thing happened with my sis and then she saw me and I couldnt take niqaab off and she kept muttering "scary.." it was cute.

About half hour after we came home AbdurRahmans family came. My mom and khala started cooking together and I sat to try and finish some work. Between the two kids and the aunties talking I couldn't do anything. miskeenah, my sister had to put up with the kids. Alhamdulillah I finished one assignment and I'm working on the rest. Hopefully I'll have time to finish since amu is sleeping (in my room!!!!!!!!!) and my dad is still at work. But now its maghrib time.

scary

2006-01-24T09:13:00.000-08:00

Allahul musta'aan.

I am on the blogger site again and I just realized that I've posted close to 500 posts since I started this blog, not including any other blogs! Thats just crazy man and scary. Its way too easy to get carried away and write without really thinking about what you're writting while posting on here. I'm sure I've said ALOT on here that I probably would regret saying if I go back and read it all.

I've been thinking for a while of closing this thing down. The reason I started it was to keep in touch (and know whats up) with certain people at times when we couldnt speak on a constant basis. Actually, thats why I started most of my blogs. I don't really think there is much need anymore..Allahu 'aalam.

I think I'm going to start using my msn space instead :P. We'll see.

One writer said:

"If you speak, then consider your words, articulate your speech and make clear what you intend; do not allow them to carry a number of meanings, and do not use words that may be misunderstood, or words that are ambiguous and will need further explanations and clarifications, for your opponent will not remember your explanation, and if his heart is diseased he will release your words and direct them where he pleases."

`Ali ibn Abi Talib said:
"Oh writer! An Angel watches over all you write. Make your writing meaningful for it will eventually return to you and you will be questioned about what you wrote."

Allahul musta'aan.

2006-01-24T08:44:00.000-08:00

When we were driving back from Portland last week my dad brought up an interesting subject and talked about it the whole way back. He had finally heard of something that happened and had a lot to say on the subject. It was an extremly akward conversation to have--especially with my dad. I finally understand WHY he was so passionate about what he had to say and why it caused him so much anger. The news he heard was about a girl we know who took off to meet someone she met without mentioning a word to her family. When I heard what happened a couple weeks ago I was depressed by it but I'm beyond that now with other things I keep hearing.

It is beyond amazing to see how easily (and quickly) a girl will forget everything else that exists in the world when she starts to "love" someone. Why is it that they are willing to consider leaving and breaking the ties they have with the people that truly love and care for them, the ones that may seem "harsh" but in reality they are only doing it out of their love for them, for someone that they can't even be sure is real? I'm not saying that everyone and everything on the net is bad, laa, there are a lot of good people and things I'm just saying that, in general, if you have to do something in total secracy then it probably isn't good. Likewise, I don't think I'd think too highly of someone that would urge you to do such a thing without the knowledge of your family.

'ala kulli haal.. I have to babysit my neice today, finish 3 assignments, go to the dars, and help my mom since we'll be having guests later on. I think I'll go get some sleep first, inshaAllah.

football

2006-01-22T20:17:00.000-08:00

Seattle won!! YES.

Why do I still follow sports? I have no idea but I do. Ever since I started with my brothers I've been keeping track even after ammi destroyed the tvs :P. I didnt see/watch/follow the first game today much but I was stuck in my room for part of the second so I heard it on the radio. so ya.. thats all..

ya, great.. like I didnt know..

2006-01-22T16:35:00.000-08:00

I was up all night last night and I'm exhausted today. I'm just so out of it and it seems like things just keep piling. There is no way I can finish my paper now.. especially not by five with the things my dad just called and asked me to do.

I've had it with school. I just missed the drop deadline too :(. Two of my classes suck so bad. What in the world am I going to learn by studying the english renissance period (still can't even spell it right :P :P)? like dude I so dont need to take a whole class on that stuff. And dude, seriously, how much can I learn from watching a 2+ hour video on Martin Luther(not MLK)? or other weird things like that. Yes, it will satisfy one of my liberal art requirments but I could satisfy it with a class that I'd learn more from!! This is what happens when I take online classes. And anyone that knows me knows how much I dislike to go out exessivly, to mix unnecissarly, and so on but seriously if you want me to continue studying I really can not stand taking more of these type of classes that simply fill a requirment but bore me to death. I think I'll transfer to Portland Community College they got more online classes, khair we'll see.

You know, I'm so happy that every time I start getting down I get reminded that there is someone in a worse state. I mean I always know that there is but right when you are feeling this way then someone close to you mentions whats happening with them its like a greater reminder :/.

Anyways.. the sun is shinning and its a beautiful day.. got Quran on and still have a little time on my hands.. InshaAllah khair. At least my brother will be over for dinner so I'll get a lot of alone time, alhamdulillah.

.....

2006-01-21T19:00:00.000-08:00

Today's been a pretty weird day. I can't say anything special happenned but it wasn't normal. Alhamdulillah it wasn't that bad though. I got homework for one more class that I need to finish by tommorrow. After that my next due date is Wednsday.

I found out two more people I know are getting married inshaAllah. I'm really happy for one but I'm more shocked and worried about the other :/ inshaAllah its for the best. mashaAllah this year has been like the year of marriages.

Anyways, I'm not really in the mood to post but there is one thing that I saw today that made me smile. I was looking through my sisters school message boards(it has HUNDEREDS of members) and I was browsing the poetry section. There are a few muslims on the boards and some of them had some nice work but there was one that caught my eye the most. This was written by one of my sisters friends (the girl that got marrieds little sister).. I thought it was deep for a 12 year old, mashaAllah.

When the creatures can't stand
And birds refuse to land

When the heaven and skys fall
And the time comes to a stall

When the planets stumble
And the mountains crumble

When the oceans dry
And the babies nevermore cry

When the sun rips apart
And the day never begins to start

When reality and dreams mix
And life is like only fragile sticks

When the moon strays
And the space frays

Behold this is the day
When the earth won't stay

When the stars are tossed and hurled
For this is the final day
This is the end of the world

Portland.. the home of two story safeways :/

2006-01-20T09:28:00.000-08:00

Overall this trip was pretty nice alhamdulillah. It was very unlike our normal trips to Portland but it was still cool. Usually when we go up to Portland we spend most of the time around Masjid Assaber and chilling with Abu Owais's family this time we didn't even get to see them :(, but alhamdulillah it was nice.

We left our house around 11 but didnt actually get on the highway untill around 12. My dad decided to make a few stops first. Since I didn't feel like getting out of the car so I spent some time drawing, reading, and taking pictures. I was trying to get a picture of a couple hawks but it was sorta too far away :P

As soon as my dad was done with all of his errands we headed towards Albany to take I-5 since its shorter than taking 99. Much to my dissapointment my dad didnt take 34 couse I wanted to get pictures of the flooding! I still got some OK pics from 20 though!

Once we got past Albany it took about an hour to reach Portland. PSU (Portland State University) and OHSU (Oregon Health and Science Univeristy) are so totally different than OSU (Oregon State University). I've seen them before but this time we were driving through the university area to get to 'amus house and I really understood why my friends in Pland kept telling me they get lost at school.

The weirdest building for me was a two story Safeway with a parking garage :S. For those not living in the Northwest Safeway is like one of the biggest supermarkets in the area. It's owned by the same company that owns Vons and some other supermarkets. My dad said that FredMyers was the same, but I didn't see it. I wouldn't be as surprised if Freddies was like that couse it's a department store not a grocery store!! Anyways, feel free to make fun of me :). I live in a city where the population of cows is higher than people so its not surprise that I'm surprised at these things :P. Actually that was Hermiston, Corvallis has more people than cows !

Anyways my dad found the building pretty fast since another person we know lives there as well.. its like the PSU apartments or something.

When we got there the women were in the living room and kitchen area while the men were in Aboodi's room. Khala had told me that there was wirless connection so pretty much the first thing I do is take the laptop out and try to get connected. There were passwords on all the networks so I was a bit bummed. The auntie was like "why dont you just plug it into the cable internet?" I was like "ya, but I need a modem and wires" so she went and brought me a box with just about every type of modem and wire you could imagine, except it didnt have a cable wire and it was soo unorganized. I ended up emptying the whole box and winding every single cord trying to find the right ones. I found a modem, its power cord, and an ethernet, but couldnt find a capble cord :(. My mom was just laughing at me. I guess I looked a bit wack but oh well. Finally khala was like "why dont you eat instead of wasting your time doing this? couse as soon as we're done eating we get Aboodi's room and there is a computer with net in there." And thats exactly what I did.

While we were eating I decided to upload the pics I took to my laptop since I put a 32mb card in the camer instead of the 128 I usually have in it couse it had pictures on it already. I was sitting next to my mom showing her the pictures and she said something that made me go "huh?". She was like "you really like Oregon dont you?" and I go "ya, its pretty mashaAllah" and she says "I have this feeling you'll be leaving it soon". Before I could ask her more my sis and khala come into the room so I go on with my picture showing.

After we ate and made tea for the men we traded rooms. Amu has cable internet on his computer in his office but the internet on the other computer is like the campus DSL or something and dude its worse than dial up! I mean its fast when its working but it dc every few minutes. But alhamdulillah it was better than nothing.

We chilled out till around 9:30. The men went out to some stores and masjid and stuff but we stayed home. Around 9:30 my dad asks if we want to go home instead of spending the night. My mom was like "ya, sure", but Aboodi threw a fit. He started crying and was like "no amu you have to stay", he seriously broke all of our hearts. My dad gave in and we ended up spending the night.

The way we set up the rooms to sleep was a littttle annoying. AbdurRahmans room is pretty big mashaAllah so we spread out blankets on the floor and slept in a row : my dad, my mom, my sister, Aboodi, and then me. I'm not good at sleeping away from home especially when there are a lot of people in the room and even more so when there is a 4 year old next to me that doesnt stop talking or moving so lets just say I didn't sleep much that night.

My dad had promised my sister and AbdirRahman that he'd take them to the zoo the next day. Literally the minute he opened his eyes the kid goes "IS AMU AWAKE!! WAKE HIM UP SO WE CAN LEAVE". I was like "shhhhh if you want to go sleep another five minutes" and every time he'd get up I'd tell him that untill it was close to 10. By that time we(me and khala) had gotten breakfast ready and were trying to wake everyone up. After they ate and had their coffee the men sat and chitt-chatted for a while, and probably could have done it all day, untill my sis and aboodi got upset and were like "dhuhr is going to come in and we havnt left yet!"

I went with them to the zoo and it was aight alhamdulillah but lets just say that Zoo's arent the best places to go in winter, especially in Oregon. It was a bit rainy and muggy and cold and most of the animals were inside but they had fun so alhamdulillah its all good. I felt like such a mother while we were there! both pockets of my jaket had something or another that was related to him and I was carrying a bag with food and stuff for him. I guess I also sounded like my mom with the way I was always telling him "put your hands in your pockets so you dont get cold", "keep your hood on!", "dont run away like that" etc. And every time he needed something he'd be like "maryam, I'm hungry". "Maryam, I need the bathroom". "Marya try to catch me!" and then take off. Hes cute though.

After we finished from there my dad went to one of the middle-east stores to buy some things. Usually we go to Abu Omars but this time he went to some christian(almost sure) arab store.. The lady in there was errm, I'll refrain from commenting. The funniest thing that happened there was when aboodi asks her what her name is and she says "rula" (no idea how to say or spell it) and he comes to us running and goes "HER NAME IS GORILLA!". Pricless.

My dad had wanted to leave as soon as we took him home but they had food prepaired so we stayed to eat and then left right away. If you get stuck in Portland rush hour traffic you probably wont get back home till around 10 and he didn't want to get stuck couse my brothers were coming over later on. Alhamdulillah we made it home by like 6:30. When we were a little past Salem my brother calls and tells my dad 34 is closed and they have a detour that takes you to junction city then up 99. My dad was like "why didn't you just take 20?" (my bro lives in portland now and was driving down as well), and he goes "oh, thats exactly what I did. The guy told me take the detour so I made a U turn and headed back to Albany. The detour would be like an hour long, I was only 10 miles from Albany". So typical of him! 20 was clogged up bad though. It was around the time that HP workers got off when we got onto it and man it was bumper to bumper, stop and go, traffic.

Anyways, I have more pictures that I wanted to post (zoo, traffic, portland) but dude its almost 11 and I havnt started on my hw.. maybe later or tommorrow.

so sleepy..

2006-01-19T11:50:00.000-08:00

I'm still in Portland :/. The net I'm on is pretty bad man, its a campus connection. I'm so sleepy, I pretty much didn't get any sleep last night but I'll explain more about that when I get home inshaAllah. Yesterday I had assignments due so I sat and finished those and today I want to stay at the house and finish more homework but my sis and 'AbdurRahman want to go to the zoo.. lol.. so we'll see what happens.

I took a bunch of pictures but now my camera is dead :(. I also made a sort of stupid mistake of uploading one round of pictures onto my laptop and now I have to burn it on a CD to get it onto a pc :(. My batteries are dead too, but khala said she'd give me more!

Great, they convinced my dad to take them, so I have to go as well. The moms are staying and 'amu has work to finish couse he has class tonight.. so am stuck babysitting :P.

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so typical..

2006-01-18T10:32:00.000-08:00

Last night my dad said "I want to leave by 10 and no later than that!", its almost 10:30 and hes still asleep :). Actually, everyone but me is still asleep!

I didn't pack last night, even though my dad told me to like ten times, couse I knew this would happen. And like dude, is packing for a two day trip even that hard? I just grabbed my bag and started putting things in order of most important to least important :P(joke). But ya, I got the laptop, school books, notebook, pens, digi cam, and cloths. I charged the camera batteries yesterday but my sis used two of them :( Lets hope they still work.

Ok, dads probably gonna get up now.. my sisters teacher just called and I had like a ten minute convo with him so I'm sure that woke everyone up. This teacher is hilarious.. but ya, I'll say more about that another time..

bleeehhhhh

2006-01-17T21:04:00.000-08:00

This is going to be like so short couse I have to go so soon and I'm in the middle of bbq-ing.

Ok, so today has been so totally crazy. I got up a bit sick so I didn't get up too early, around 8:30ish. My mom had a lot of errands to run so we did that in the morning and then went to the dars. I had the worst Asthma that I've had in like months today :( It was so horrible man and my medication is in a box in the garage :(. I so deserved it thought.. its my fault for doing stupid things and then getting upset and guilty about it and then I get asthma! smart on my part, eh?

So tommorrow we're headed to Portland inshaAllah. I want to come back at night but my dad said "No, I told 'amu we'll spend 2 days with them"!!!! DUDE THEY MOVED A MONTH AGO AND THEY'VE COME DOWN EVERY WEEKEND AND MORE.. we so dont need to spend two days there!! but khair. InshaAllah I'm taking my laptop and khala told me there is wireless net there ! ! !

The river is flooding. I saw it today on my way to Albany. The amount of rain this year is insane. Albany was worse. The whole way on HW 34 it was pouring and all the fields had a good half foot or more of water.

Anyways, moms mad couse I'm online while cooking. so ya.. whatever.. I'll just get off.

:/

2006-01-16T19:30:00.000-08:00

I'm in an annoyed mood. .

I'm at a point now where I seriously can't stand my sister, and no I'm not in the mood to explain why.

I've heard way too much crazy things today. Are all girls psychos in one way or another(yes, including me)?

Oh, we'll be out of town on wendsday and Thursday :(. Great. We're invited to Umm 'aboodi's in portland. They "dropped in" again today. I don't mind guests, most of the time, but their "dropping in" is getting annoying!! Ever since they moved to Portland our house is like their house in Corvallis. ok ok, I know I shouldnt complain about it but man.. I just sorta don't like it when my dads at work and they come and amu wants to pray and eat and stuff and its like dudeee.. but ya.. I'm just in a bad mood today.

Anyways, my sis wants the computer *rolls eyes*. Tommorrow is so busy man its crazy. Great.. anyways.. whatever

sooo

2006-01-15T21:12:00.000-08:00

so my dad left a while ago. Instead of coming online, which would seem like the "normal" thing for me to do, I decide to clean the whole house. I swear I'm psycho. But dude, I actually like housework! I cant stand school, at least sometimes :(.

I had a discussion with my mom about dropping school the other day--it didnt go good :P. The thing is I KNOW what she's saying is right.. its just that I'm lazy etc. My moms argument was that I needed something to fill my time, that I need constant "stimulation and learning", and that what I'm studying will inshaAllah help me later on. She also said that if I can come up with a good enough alternative then she'll let me drop it. Alhamdulillah, she dont care if I get the degree so its all good I guess.

Is it just me or is the younger generation the biggest group of blind copy cats? I've been observing my sister and her friends for a while now and some of the things I've noticed is just so sad man. The things they are interested in, the way they dress, and what they do is like shocking. What happenned to playing tag and beging innocent kids?

ya know, to be honest, I put alot of blame on us "older girls" for how they are turning out. Since we're the people they look up to and copy how can we expect them to be any different if we arent? Its just that I really dont remember looking up to older girls when I was their age and wishing to be like them :S, but then again I'm not normal so who knows..

anyways, dad should be home soon again.. maybe I'll rant about this more another time.

Brutal.

2006-01-15T18:09:00.000-08:00

Let me start off by saying I WISH I LIVED IN VIRGINIA!! I started classes on the same day as Umm Qaylah, right? Now, lets compair the amount of work she has to do vs. the amount I have to do. So what is Umm Qaylahs assignments for this week? TO WRITE IN HER ONLINE JOURNAL!! Thats it! Nothing more. :(. Want to know what I have to do? And yes, I know this is not wayyyyy too much and that I've had great loads but for a FIRST WEEK when most people don't have classes or books sorted out it is way too much.

A. ok, so this class started on Monday and the assignments were all due Sunday(today). 1) Read 1 chapter. 2) post introduction and get aquainted with your study group. 3) Post reactions (500 words) to the PowerPoint and what you learned from it. 4) Post your "text, context, subtext" paper. 5) Post summary of chapter.

B. This class started Wednsday and everything was due Sunday. 1)Read 100+ pages. 2)Do the "objective and subjective" exercise. 3)finish technical descriptions rough draft.

C.This class started Wednsday and everything was due Sunday. 1)Read assigned pages(not a lot). 2)Post answers to questions. 3)Post reflections

D.This class started wends and everything is due next wends. 1)Read 40+ pages. 2) send in and respond to media watch reports. 3)Answer DB questions. 4)Finish quiz 1.

Anyways, I'm done alhamdulillah.. except for the quiz for the last class couse I don't feel up to it right now and its not due today :P.

think dads home.. great

I just don't know..

2006-01-14T15:11:00.000-08:00

There is an option on blogger to "email" your posts to your blog. So all you have to do is open a blank e-mail page, insert your blogs email address, write the post and when your done click send. Usually I'll do this instead of logging into the blogger website-its easier and I'm not too fond of blogger.com. Today I decided to post through the blogger site, this was about 45 minutes ago.

When I logged into my account it displayed all of my blogs for me, some of which I had almost forgotten about. I went through a couple of them reading both the published and unpublished posts. It was like a rush of memories. It reminded me of when I was unpacking my room. It took me almost a week to unpack because, among other things, I would go through EVERYTHING before choosing where I wanted to place it..and everything had some sort of memory attached to it.

That reminds me, I have pictures of my room at different "stages" that I'm not sure if I want to post or not. Untill today I haven't totally finished organizing it. There are a lot of reasons why, but the end result is that it needs a little more work..inshaAllah soon. For now I'll stick to writting papers and eating chocolate :D. I replenished my supply of chocolate yesterday.. let me tell ya'll the story!

Yesterday was the "womens", i.e. auntie's and khala's, Eid party/get-together.

Actually before I go on let me complain about how unfair it is. The kids, the women, the guys, the men, they all have there Eid things going on but the teen girls are always left in the dark! And its been like this for YEARS.. ahh khair.. so back to my story.

While the women were out in the activity room area having some sort of Fiqh Quiz I was chilling with a couple of girls in the musalaah. My mom comes and is like "do you want to run to the store and buy drinks? It doesnt look like there are any". I wasn't really "feeling" the whole party and was happy to be granted the chance to leave. While I was in the store I happened to pass by the candy aisle and figured "hey! why not?".

When I got back to the Masjid I took the things to "our corner" (the back of the musalah and went out to see what the girls were stairing in awe at, lets just say I was beyond surprised. This one auntie, khala Summayyah, had organized "games" for the moms to play..she had them playing catch with water balloons and balancing baskets on their heads, I kid you not! After one particularly "heated" match of "balance the basket on your head and transfer as many of the balls as you can to the other side of the room" between khala Aisha and Maysa's mom (both pali's, go figure!) it got really intense and almost resulted into a, "lets take it outside", type of fight, with Maysa's mom leading the way.

After watching this take place for a while all of us "party poopers" who refused to participate decided that we had seen enough and that it was time to go chillax. Lets just say all the junk food came in really handy while we tried to overcome the shock that we had just sustained. I'm not saying I'm against the parents having fun, no by all means, its just that.. uhh nevermind. I think I'll just stick to making cotton candy for the kids with a garbage bag over my abayah :P.

But dude, like seriously all jokes aside, I just haven't been feeling it this Eid. I mean we've done some ok fun stuff but I'm not so sure I've enjoyed myself much. Like I said before, on the first day I stayed (and skipped class :P) to help out with the kids party thing till about dhuhr and had a pretty good evening-minus the wind storm. The second day of Eid we had guests coming over for dinner so I was busying cooking with my mom till around 3 when I had to go to school.. I spent 4 hours at school and ended up coming back with all the guests still here! I babysat untill 11 and then cleaned and slept. Thursday we had guests over again for a while and the net came in so I was busy with that and ya, I just said how Friday was. We might go up to portland on Sunday for some thing they're having but I don't even feel up to doing that! I guess khala Summayyah was right, I am a party pooper :P. Oh ya, I was invited to a party today but I'm not going couse its one of them music filled parties..

Ok, I guess thats enough of me and my random rants and topic jumps. Make duaa that I finish all this stuff before tommorrow :(. I miss taking pictures, I need to charge my batteries.

Alhamdulillah :)

2006-01-13T09:22:00.000-08:00

It's interesting to look back at the begining of this move and to see how much we(my mother, sister, and I)were against it and now we see that, inshaAllah, it was/is for the better. Alhamdulillah a lot of good has come from it and in a way it has been a lesson- wa 'asa en tahibu shay'an wa howa sharun lakum..wa 'asa en takrahu shay'an wa howa khairun lakum.. Allahu ya'lamu wa entum laa ta'lamoon.

It seems like I get one of these lessons yearly. Last year, around this time, it was what happened with me and my uncles hajj plans. I will NEVER forget how close(yes closer than this year) I was to going and how dissapointed I was when I didn't and then I remember going "wow, subhanAllah" when I found out what happenned; the same "wow, subhanAllah" that I get when I think back on this move.

When I think back to all that has happenned between last 'Eid al Adha and this one I can't believe how much has taken place! It seems like just yesterday I was staying up all night talking to yasi on my dads phone. I remember the FIRST time we did it it was the 9th of dhul hijjah and I had promised my mom I would get up and make sahoor for them. I stayed on the phone untill 4am and then went downstairs, used the computer, and baked bread. SubhanAllah, since then we've moved 3 times and all too much has happenned. Khala Hannan and Huda left. I felt the void of their absence this year. I miss my Noufi-the way I could put her to sleep and the way she hugged me whenever she saw me. SubhanAllah. So much has change and so much is still the same.

It's 4:30. I need to be at the masjid in an hour and a half and I'm stuck here with more homework than I would like. I guess that is one thing that almost never changes :P. I decided to drop my 2 attend classes. Why? For a few reasons I suppose. I have a little too much on my plate right now and I finally came to my senses and decided to lighten my load of school work. I was at 20 credits now I'm down to 13, sadly :(. Another thing is I'm not to keen on attending class. I'm not the type that likes to go out a lot and in order to attend these classes I'd be out from 8-1 two days a week..with dars on tuesday and Friday and my Saturdays and Sundays booked I realized that if I attended these two classes I'd more than likely go crazy. The only thing is that if I continue to do this and only take online classes I will NEVER finish. The amount of classes offered online are limmitted each quarter, and the ones in my field are even more limmitted. Allahu 'aalam. If it was up to me I would drop school..I have close to no motivation to finish-the only reason I am is to, hopefully, please my parents and maybe learn something along the way.

Now, before I end off this all too useless and boring post, there is one other thing that has been on my mind and has been bothering me. Why is it that people consider me a good friend yet they are in such a dire need of a friend? If I was really all they make me out to be wouldn't I then at least help fill some of this void and need? I do believe and know that in general one needs interaction with more than one person since each person brings something different to the table and can help them in different ways but if they are lost and suffering in all directions then I must not be bringing anything at all to the table..I just come empty handed and feast without even a thank you at the end.

When I look at myself I dont see a "good friend". To me a good friend is someone you know cares, someone you can trust and know that it will be safe, someone who you can go to for advice and will give you their most honest and sincere advice, someone who doesnt get bored of listening to your rants and raves, someone who doesn't need to tell you they care or love you couse you already know, someone that can make you laugh when your sad, someone who worries for you if they dont hear from you for a day..someone that is there.. and ya, alot more. But when I look at me I dont see any of this. Sometimes I wonder how others have been fooled into seeing good in a person that has non in them. Alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal.

This isn't to say that I don't try to have these types of qualities, ofcourse I do, we just all have our own shortcomings. It's scary though. If you look at some of the qualities one would like in a friend you realize that those that don't have these qualaties, such as keeping trusts and telling the truths, have nifaaq. May Allah swt protect us from being of them..aameen.

This dunyah, subhanAllah, sometimes you really dont know who to go to.. who to trust.. what to believe.. and who is true..

anyways, I suppose I should go bury my face in my technical communications textbook. Is it just me or do teachers lack all sense of mercy? Who in their right mind would assign 100+ pages of technical communication read over a 4 day period? Especially when its the first week of classes and ALOT of students dont have their books or classes sorted out yet. Looks like I'm stuck with some 2nd class teachers this quarter..

Eid Mubarak!

2006-01-13T09:20:00.000-08:00

eid and stuff..

2006-01-10T20:22:00.000-08:00

ok.. let me start off by saying I'm at my friends house and there is one of the scariest wind storms going on right now. Alhamdulillah I'm usually not scared of these things but we're all really scared. SubhanAllah. Power might go out and we cant find matches :).. at least we sorta know where a phone that dont take power is.. dunnu if my dads gonna drive now or not.. so who knows might end up spending the night here! ok now to get to my blogpost..

The past few weeks have been exhuasting, walhamdulillah. The week with khala Enas was awesome but it was so tiring man. The week of moving sucked couse I so didnt want to move. And the week of unpacking was horrible because I couldnt unpack my room!! The only thing that got me to do it was that I had school and needed some of the things in my boxes and ya.. alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal.

As far as how my Eid was--some of it sucked and some of it was aight alhamdulillah. The night of eid was HORRIBLE :(.. morning was better. I went to salaah and then chilled at the masjid till past 11. I missed 2 "first day"s of class :S. If I'm lucky I wont get dropped from the classes if I do get dropped I'm sorta in trouble. Anyways, masjid was nice alhamdulillah. I sat and listened to the khubah and then I sorta ate and then I spent like an hour and half making cotton candy for the kids. After the masjid we went to khala Aishas for a little then went to another aunties and chilled there till after maghrib. The men had went to slaughter and they brought home the livers etc and then went to either our house or another uncles(not sure) and cooked it then brought some of it to us.. I dont like and really have never been able to eat that stuff so I had some rice. Around 6 I came to UmmAQ's house and I've been here since..I'm supposed to call my dad now but I dont want to couse its mad scary out there.

InshaAllah the net will be in by monday. It was supposed to be in last Friday but the company made a mistake and it took 6 hours on the phone with them for them to realize the mistake and actually do something about it. So ya, alhamadulillah 'ala kulli haal.

short short update

2006-01-03T11:34:00.000-08:00

I wrote a small update but I put the wrong email address in (instead of @blogger I put @hotmail) so its lost..

In short: I'm at the library got not more time left.. couse there is a stupid limmit.. I'll have net at home by friday inshaAllah. We moved on Saturday couse we've been so busy with guests and stuff. And I miss you guys like so so much :(.

greeeat

2005-12-25T12:49:00.000-08:00

*translated from arabi*

Mom: So what happened with your hajj plans? Why couldnt you go but you're going to egypt end of January?
My Uncle: I really wanted to go this year but inshaAllah next
Mom: InshaAllah
My Uncle: And I dont want to go to egypt now either! I'm really busy as you know but your sisters wont leave me alone.. they're pushing on me to come now and take care of things.
Mom: na'aam. May Allah swt make your affairs easy for you..aameen.
My Uncle: Aameen!
My Uncle: Do you still want to send Maryam with me?
Mom: To be honest I wanted to come as well and take both girls but Maryam is having second thoughts because of school and other things
My Uncle: You want to come? What about you're visa issues
Mom: *tells long story that I dont feel like typing*
My Uncle: Well, I really want to go in the summer that way I can spend more time and I could go for Umraah. If I go now I dont think I'd be able to.
Mom: I think it would work out best for us all if we'd go in the summer
My Uncle: Then talk to your sisters please. I've tried to tell them but they're stuck on me coming now. Maybe if you speak to them and tell them that you would be able to come in the summer they will agree.
Mom: InshaAllah I'll call them as soon as I hang up with you..
*now moms on phone with aunt.. cant be bothered to listen in to the conversation*

So whats the point of me posting this conversation? I'm not totally sure. Its just another example of how plans are always changing in my life, inshaAllah for the better. I don't care too much either way. It would be nice to go.. and I sorta wanted to go before the summer to see Stuckoooo, but if its not meant then Alhamdulillah. What will happen this summer? Will I even live till then? Only Allah knows so I'm not going to worry about it.

A few days ago I was stressing about stuff and a friend of mine told me something that I already KNOW but just maybe needed a reminder of. What she said was something along the lines of "You're only going to be 16 once so enjoy it. You dont want to look back at these years and see a lot of worry and stress. No matter how hard times can be there will always be sweet moments in the midst of them--so enjoy those moments. Learn from the difficulties. You want too much in too little time, you cant do everything! If you keep this up you'll distroy yourself. I think of the things that marks our teen years the most is resilience and you're living proof of that. So stop worrying about whats to come, live for now, couse you're not garunteed another breath. And dude, duaa is the weapon of the believer." Then she goes "WOW I helped Maryam with something that has to do with computers(couse she helped me out when I was working on Word earlier) and gave her advice on the same day :O :O". Brat.

So ya, I'm coo alhamdulillah. And when I get my voice back I'll be even better! It was actually really funny when I picked up the phone when my uncle called. He couldnt understand a word I said and I had to repeat like 3 times. At the end he was like "whats wrong with you? You're arbi is getting worse by the day!!"(hes a joker) and I was like "laa khalu I'm sick" and hes like "ohh salamaat! laa baa's tahoor inshaAllah".

why do friends do things, sometimes unintentionlly, that just totally break your heart. I know alot of people alhamdulilah, but most are just casual friends. There are a handful of people that I just love more than myself.. and just small things that they might do is just I dunnu..

the wedding..

2005-12-24T21:40:00.000-08:00

I just got back from the wedding. It was nice alhamdulillah. Actually, it was very nice. I had a good time and I think everyone else did. There were SO MANY people mashaAllah.. People from seattle, Portland, and khala Enas even surprised Maryam by coming all the way from Iowa! It was sweet when she walked in and the brides mom goes ENAS????????? and then takes her by the arm to Maryam and they hug aawwwwww yaaaa.

Along with being nice it was busy. I felt like the brides cousin or sister. I have totally lost my voice now LOL. I cant talk.. I just nod my head. Alhamdulillah. it was tight. I'll have pictures in a few days inshaAllah for those of u that I can show pics to :P. And now I am going to bed. InshaAllah I hope my dad is busy tommorrow so I can get some time on the net.

2 week vacation!

2005-12-24T14:04:00.000-08:00

Yes yes, ya'll will get a break from my ramblings! InshaAllah, the net will get cut off on Monday and wont be on for too long of a while. Since my dad is off tommorrow (christmas) I'll probably be busy and wont have time to update or come online..

As of right now I'm home alone with my sister and just getting ready for the wedding. All the cooking/baking is done walhamdulillah and I'm just chillin till 3. ok ok maybe not chilling but whatever. I'm feeling better than yesterday alhamdulillah, but my voice is still messed up and im congested.. but alhamdulillah..

Anyways sis wants me off and to go upstairs with her..

rush..

2005-12-23T18:27:00.000-08:00

There was actually something I wanted to update about but now I've forgotten it. It wasn't another "what I did today" or "how annoyed I am" post; it was going to be a good one :(. But I guess I could turn this into one of those two :P.

Today was another super busy day. I'm sick again, walhamdulillah. I saw khala Summayyah at the store today and I go "assalaamu 'alaikum" and she goes "Maryam, you have a cold?" lol. khair inshaAllah. I was out most of the morning and then I had baking to do. Alhamdulillah that went well, except for one cake!!@#@#. I forgot to put eggs and umm lets just say you dont want to try it.. so I have to make another tommorrow morning inshaAllah.

I'm about to head to the other house with my mom to do some unpacking then inshaAllah I'll come home and finish up some things that I need to do tonight. Weird how I cant call the other house "home" yet. Even though it looks alot better than this one, since there are boxes and things EVERYWHERE here, it doesnt seem like a home. I have most of my things at the other house now, everything but my bed and some clothing. My boxes are stacked in my closet and the furniture is against the walls, and this is exactly how I plan to keep it. Ok ok, maybe not exactly but I really do not feel like unpacking my boxes this time..

Anyways. I miss some people and I'm worried about others.. oh, now I remember what I wanted to post about but I dont have time. I'll do it later or tommorrow inshaAllah.

@Q!$@#$@#%Q@#%^

2005-12-21T20:18:00.000-08:00

Today has been horribly busy. Again, I was up from fajr and working. Alhamdulillah we got a lot done but there is still a lot to be done. Right now I'm home alone, my mom sis and dad are at the other house and I'm supposed to be here working, but I'm taking a little break :P. Before my mom left she told me to "finish packing the white bookshelf, pack your closet and mine and the bookshelf in the living room". Great. By the time I'm done with this it'll be late and I still have to stay up AFTER that to do things for me that I need to finish.. so like I'll be up most of the night :(.

My brothers are coming to help tommorrow morning because they'll be "busy" later on. At first I didnt like the idea of them coming at 8am but now I'm happy couse I want to be out of the house by 1 :P. I have this really strong feeling my dad will say no about tommorw couse we're "moving and dont have time" :(. I wanna go so bad. bleh that reminded me of two other things that I have to finish on my "personal time".

oh and lastly before I go, HINA YOU SUCK! I came on now to speak to you and I'm stuck talking to your little sister LOL. Get your computer fixed please.. oh oh oh oh oh another thing, do you have one of those cake stand things? and if you do would your mom let me borrow it till after the wedding? so far I have 2 and maybe 3 but I need one more :S and I need it before friday.. I've been too busy to get one from someone.. so if you have one bring it to Maryams tommorrow? if not I'll find another way to get my hands on one.. and ya I'm to lazy to email you.. actually, I'll just go ahead and send an email out to a couple ppl now.

:(

2005-12-20T19:29:00.000-08:00

ok, so the other day I called up all the companies to switch service to the other house. The one that I had the most trouble with was the internet company but finally I got it settled and figured it would be in by the 1st and cut off here on the 28th. I thought "aight, cool, 3 or 4 days without net wont be too bad". Today my dad came back from work and goes "the internet company called me in the middle of a meeting today". and I'm like "oh, what did they want". and he goes "they said they're going to cut off here on the 26th and it wont be in the other house for another TEN BUSINESS DAYS".

Now, I know most people will think I'm crazy for getting really upset about this but I am. Other than the fact that I need the net for my shadyness I also need it for more important things. My schedule is way too full till Monday(26th) so there is no way I can take care of all the things I need to finish by then..

For starters I have to get my schedule for this quarter and books in order. I had things worked out fine untill my mom threw in the "we're going to egypt in january".. now everythings a mess because I can only handle 12 to 14 credits now and they all have to be totally online classes.. and online classes get full like the day registration opens :(.

Khair.. instead of complaing about things here maybe I should actually try to start on some of it so that I maybe have a chance of finishing :P.

uff

2005-12-20T15:01:00.000-08:00

Its 3 and I literally just stepped into the house.. and my mom pretty much said "ok, we'll pray, pack some things, then go to the other house".. I'm dead man.. schedule for the next few days doesnt look any better! Wendsday and Thursday is packing and moving.. then thursday after dhuhr I'm supposed to go to brides house etc.. then friday and saturday I have cooking for the wedding.. and sats the wedding..

Frappaciono in 20 degree weather is tight.. especially after not being able to eat anything for a week. :P.

sooo wanna go back to bed

2005-12-20T07:21:00.000-08:00

I stayed up from fajr today. Why? Because I didnt pack last night and if I dont do it now I'll regret it later on in the day. My mom has a buncha errands to run before the dars so I have like 2 hours of packing then I'm outa the house. InshaAllah we'll be done by 12ish and I'll not have to go to dars..

I have to many emails to write/respond to. 5 that I should do today.. argh.. I hate moving.

On a brighter note! I ate a full meal last night :D. Alhamdulillah. Since last tuesday I havnt been able to keep anything down.. even after my cough/sore throute/stuffyness was gone my stomache was acting up.. and last night was first time I was able to eat a "meal" and not clear fluids.. so alhamdulillah. It was actually sorta funny when I couldnt eat.. first my dad and sis accused me of faking it to get pity and attention! Then my dad started to nag at me(knowing it would bother me and get me to eat) by saying things like "being anorexic is one thing but now your bulimic :O" *sigh.. haters!

Dinner (pics included :P)

2005-12-19T17:55:00.000-08:00

Today I was left home alone for hours. I can get sorta crazy when I'm alone sometimes and well today was one of those times :P.

Before my mom left she gave me a list of things to do. When she left I was sort of bored so I started on the organization and stuff and then decided to start cooking. I made the dough and started on the first pan of fatayir and was almost done when someone came online and I ditched everything(well sorta). I had about 2 more to make to complete the pan but I was like forget it and put it in the oven. A little later a couple khala's drop by thinking my mom is home. I had to "sit" with them and that was like annoying, but alhamdulillah. They decided to pray asir and then leave.

I'm not sure if it is arab custom, just how my family is, or a custom in general but if someone comes over and you're making something you have to give them from it? My mom had a few of khala Faykahs plates and I know she likes the fatayir I make so I emptied out the pan into her plates and gave it to her since both her and khala Aisha were fasting. My mom was happy when she found out later but it put me a little behind in my work.

I stayed online for a while after they left but around 3:30 I went off. It wasn't untill AFTER I went off that I realized my dad had said he would be back at 4 and wanted dinner ready. Alhamdulillah, he called at 4 and told me he was going to pray maghrib at the masjid and then come home so I had a little extra time. Between 3:30 and 4:30 was a really crazy time for me. I had to finish dinner, shower, take some things over to khala aisha, and have the food ready(ie. on table) before my parents came home. Oh, and did I mention wasting time by taking pics of everything (including salad :P).

fatayir before getting baked :P. And yes I know they all aint the same size! leave me alone :(.

khala 'Aisha's plate of fatayir.

Our plate.

Salad :/

Soup..I think its barly soup? I dunnu what right translation is :/

anddd finally.. cheese cake :P. karima likes cherry.. so to be nice I made half cherry for her..

andddd now I must go start packing... I've dodged it the whole day but its time that I face it :(. Plus, if I dont do it tonight I'll have to do it tommorrow and that would suck.

Moving.

2005-12-19T10:14:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of the sunset the other night. I'm picture crazy, sorry.

So its official now: we're moving, again. Up untill yesterday it was still tentative since my mom kept changing her mind. Finally she decided to just agree and you know whatever. I totally understand why my mom wouldn't want to move-this will be our FIFTH move this year, wallahul musta'an.

Now, the question is why do we move so much. I got asked that the other day and I didn't have an answer to the question so I've decided to do a breakdown of the umpteen moves we've gone through.

1. Moving from an apartment in San Francisco to the UCSF student housing. Reason: mom was a student at UCSF and they were closer to school :).

2. Moving from San Francisco to Ashland OR. Reason: mom got married and left school

3. Moving from one place in ashland to another. Reason: I dont remember, I was young. I know the others because my mom told me :P

4.Moving from another place in Ashland to yet another. Reason: Again I dont remember.

5.Moving from another place in Ashland to our last place. Reason: It was bigger and nicer.

6.Moving from Ashland to Yreka California. Reason: Shaykh Hasan Az-zibadi was living there(about 45 mins from Ashland) and my dad wanted to live closer to him.

7.Moving from Yreka to Waldport OR. Reason: well, my dad couldnt stand the desert climate and my mom got a job in Newport OR.

8.Moving from one house to another in Waldport. Reason: dad wanted it.

9.Moving from Waldport to Corvallis OR(an hour away). Reason: my brothers hated the small town and wanted to move to a bigger city and my mom was tired of living away from Muslims.

10.Moving from the house in the south to sequoia house(in corvallis). Reason: the house was waaaay nicer and the owners also owned the Imams house and wanted a Muslim family to live in their house after renovating it.

11.Moving from my beloved sequoia to boulder house. Reason: they wanted to sell the house :(.

12.Moving from boulder to glacier(down the street). Reason: they wanted to sell the house + owners of other house were muslim.

13.Moving from glacier to the house I hated. Reason: they wanted to sell the house.

14.Moving from that house to Hermiston. Reason: dad was tired of commuting back and forth after doing it for more than a year.

15.Moving back to Corvallis. Reason: dad no longer works for state.

16.Moving to the other conifer house. Reason: it was nicer and dad wanted it.

17.and now, moving yet another time. Reason: dad wants it... the last time we moved I told my mom I wouldnt move again till I got married :S. 4 or 5 months later and here I am moving yet again. *sigh.. I'm 16 and I've moved 17 times. Is that sad or what?

bleh. I'll take pics of other house today and load them.

back! :P

2005-12-16T17:15:00.000-08:00

My brother brought my niece over yesterday. Since I was sick I tried to stay away from her and just sat on my bed reading but she came up to see me anyway. When I saw her it brought tears to my eyes; her cloths were dirty, she was sick and no one cared, her hair was a mess. Shes past two and no one has even taken the initiative to potty train her! I couldn't help but feel sad and angry. Sad at the state she was in and angry at her parents who aren't even worthy of the title of a "parent".

My "brother" (not the one that brought her over but her father) is a kaafir who has anger problems and is definatly not fit to be a dad, but he adores his daughter. Her mother is a kaafir **** that already has 3 children out of wedlock. Neither one of them is fit to be a parent and neither one is being a parent. The girl is dragged from one house to another, from one family member to another. As I sat there looking at her smiling at me I couldnt help but think of her future and wish to help her, but how?

I'm so depressed. The whole day I've pretty much been in tears. I need to pull it together, but I'm not sure how. I have no desire to go to the masjid right now. My dad is on his way back from work and I didn't do all that he asked me to do. I feel overwhelmed and uncapable to handle all that is expected of me.3

I've been maad sick the past few days. I'm getting better alhamdulillah and I'm happy for that. A person doesnt value their health untill it is taken away from them, even if only slightly and for a short period of time. I have so much to be thankful for: my health, my youth, my time, and I need to use it better.

cough

2005-12-13T17:02:00.000-08:00

My day today has been like so totally interesting.

I got up this morning feeling really weird. I came online around 9:30, talked a little, read some things, then went off. I didnt want to go to the dars couse I wasnt feeling good but my mom said I had to. I sat to have breakfast with her and I couldnt stop coughing. Finally she was like "ok, you need to stay home".. and well, thats when the adventures started :P.

I wont comment on what I did, but I will say that had I been in normal state I dont think I would have, or maybe I would.. who knows. When mom came home I was so out of it.. Every time I'd try to talk I'd mumble, and my sister thought it was on purpose. My mom fed me and then I passed out on the floor in her room. I'm up again, with the worst stomache pains I've ever had, but I think I'm about to head to my bed.

There is this really bad flu going around. Its a regular flu + stomache flu and I think thats what I have :(.

I so can't belive Maryams getting married. TabaarakAllah! Now we have something to plan for :P. Tassnyms gonna be excited! anyways.. moms cooking couse dads gonna be home soon and the smell of food is bugging me.. plus upstairs is a lot warmer.

Tassnym got her wedding after all!

2005-12-13T12:16:00.000-08:00

sugarlily2004: did you hear about Maryam?
sugarlily2004: M
sugarlily2004: Maryam M.
sugarlily2004: lol
umm_suhayb: what?
umm_suhayb: no?
sugarlily2004: she's getting married
sugarlily2004: to Ahson
umm_suhayb: to?
umm_suhayb: again?
umm_suhayb: lol
sugarlily2004: LOL
sugarlily2004: no
sugarlily2004: she's not getting engaged...just married now
umm_suhayb: lol
sugarlily2004: this month
umm_suhayb: when?
umm_suhayb: what?
umm_suhayb: wow?
sugarlily2004:
sugarlily2004: yeah
sugarlily2004: she told me last night
umm_suhayb: mashaAllah!
sugarlily2004: i know
sugarlily2004: i'm so happy for her!
sugarlily2004: lol
umm_suhayb: ya
sugarlily2004: she was saying that Shahida auntie and Saeed uncle came and they all worked everything out on Saturday
umm_suhayb: aww
umm_suhayb: mashaAllah
sugarlily2004: and the wedding's on the 24th of this month
umm_suhayb: wow
sugarlily2004: at 4 pm
sugarlily2004: at Peavy Lodge
sugarlily2004: lol
umm_suhayb: where is that?
sugarlily2004: in Adair
umm_suhayb: ohhh
umm_suhayb: ok
sugarlily2004: i think we've been there before
sugarlily2004: lol
umm_suhayb: ya
umm_suhayb: kimi's wedding was there
sugarlily2004:
sugarlily2004: yeah
umm_suhayb: anddd amu abdul nasir's
umm_suhayb: ya
umm_suhayb: that place is sorta nice
sugarlily2004: yea
sugarlily2004: h
sugarlily2004: it is really nice
umm_suhayb: but I like where dania had hers more I think
umm_suhayb: actually this one is cool couse its not so formal
sugarlily2004: lol
umm_suhayb: so is it going to be a pakistani or an algerian wedding?
umm_suhayb: lol
sugarlily2004: lol!
sugarlily2004: i have no idea
sugarlily2004: i didn't get a chance to ask her
umm_suhayb: lol
sugarlily2004: she's like crazy busy
sugarlily2004: and so is her mom
umm_suhayb: ya, ofcourse
sugarlily2004: so she told me to pass the message on
umm_suhayb: aww mashaAllah
sugarlily2004: about her wedding
umm_suhayb: I'm sort of still in shock.. especially since the engagment was "called off"
sugarlily2004: yeah
sugarlily2004: i was too last night
umm_suhayb: although I never totally believed that
sugarlily2004: i was like "are you serious?"
sugarlily2004: lol
sugarlily2004: yeah
umm_suhayb: I thought the "calling off" was to divert attention from it
sugarlily2004: i don't know
umm_suhayb: you better tell Rahima that her man is taken
sugarlily2004: i think it really was called off
sugarlily2004: LOL!!
umm_suhayb: lol
umm_suhayb: do I have a dress?
umm_suhayb: I think I do
sugarlily2004: LOL
sugarlily2004: yeah
umm_suhayb: we havnt had a wedding in forever
sugarlily2004: now i have to find out what i'm going to wear
umm_suhayb: I should wear lengha
sugarlily2004: yeah, i know
sugarlily2004: lol!!
sugarlily2004: you should
umm_suhayb: get me one!
sugarlily2004: but that's too much of a "bride" thing to wear
sugarlily2004: lol
umm_suhayb: lol
umm_suhayb: not really
umm_suhayb: some of them arent that bride-y
sugarlily2004: yeah
sugarlily2004: that's cause they're too plain
sugarlily2004: lol
umm_suhayb: lol
umm_suhayb: I guess Tassnym got her wedding after all; its just that I'm not the Maryam getting married
sugarlily2004: lol!!
sugarlily2004: yeah

wow..

2005-12-12T13:43:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure who I mentioned to about my "brother".. the one from breastfeeding etc. Well, my mom had been wanting to get in contact with his mom for a while now and I tried searching some, but couldnt find the exact contact information. I dont know what brought up the subject this morning but I started searching again this morning; the search was a lot more fruitful. I found her work contact information and an organization she was affiliated with. I sent off an email to the organization asking for her contact information and within a couple of hours I got this back:

Mona,

I got your e.mail! I have goose pimples just thinking about you! Where are you? How is Nouni (me :P)?

We are still in S.F. our address is **** between Kirkham and Lawton. Still in the sunset. our phone number is the same ****. My work number is ***.

Zekor (Zakariyyah) is 15 years old now, soon to be 16, and almost 6 feet, Leila is 13 years old and is about

**. Curtiss is great as always.

Are you in SF? if you are let us meet.

I hope this e.mail finds you well.

Love,

Mona Marachli

My mom was like "wow".. and I just emailed back. Weird :/. I got me another mahram :P. and I'm a month older than him. :/

Corvalllis

2005-12-11T10:25:00.000-08:00

These are some random facts about Corvallis that even I didnt know :P.

Our Community of Corvallis, Oregon

Harvard Business Review’s “Creative Index” - February 2004 placed Corvallis in the

top fifteen cities for Technology, Talent & Tolerance.

On NBC's the Today Show - March 2004, authors Pete Sambert & Burt Sperling in their book

“CITIES RANKED & RATED” recognized Corvallis in the top ten.

Mens Journal - April 2004 rated the Community as the seventh best place to live.

USAToday - January 2002 listed Corvallis as 4th in the nation for the numbers of patents issued.

OTHER RECOGNITION:

BIZ Demographics placed Corvallis as 7th in the nation for great places to do business.

BikeUSA listed Corvallis, 9th in the nation as a Bicycle Friendly City

National Arbor Day Foundation awarded Corvallis "Top Tree City" in 2002

Orange County Register picked Corvallis "Best Pac10 Campus" in 2002 (I still think most of OSU looks like a dungeon.. and LB looks like a prison..)

MORE FACTS ABOUT CORVALLIS:

Corvallis has the highest education level in the state

Corvallis has the second highest income level in the state

Corvallis is the birthplace of computer inkjet printing technology by Hewlett-Packard

Corvallis is home of Nobel Prize winner, Linus J. Pauling (LOL was that for re-building Highland?)

A graduate of Oregon State University invented the computer mouse (Now, we besta get recognition for that! Imagine no computer mouses :P)

NOW, lets take a virtual tour around the city.. (click on pics to make them bigger)

This here is a very old picture of one of the main shopping centers.. There is a lot more built now.. but ya.. its on the corner of Kings and Walnut.. kings = street with masjid on it.

This is the all so famous court house downtown.. on an all too typical over cast day

This is the new Highland Muslim(named such due to the amount of Muslim students that once attended it :P) school.. renamed..

This is an arial of what looks like the 53rd street area, right hina? The edge of walnut and stuff..

This is part of OSU. You can see Reeser Stadium.. the Hilton "garden inn".. basball field (does that even have a name?) and some other stuff..

This is a bit of the riverfront and sorta an overall view of part of the city..

" If I hit the jackpot tomorrow", writes Gary Warner, in the Orange County Register," I'd quite the rat race and move to Corvallis. You'd find me at the New Morning Bakery with a big mug of coffee and a cinnamon roll, scanning the local real estate listings." LOL! this is the bakery.. its pretty good if you ask me..

Anddddd this is the library..

Have I bored you enough? how about another two pictures or so.. I'll try to find one of the masjid.. and one of the prison and dungeon :P.. I have lots of dungeon but cant find one of the prison :(.

ok these are the best pics of the prison, aka LB campus, that I could find:

This is an arial of OSU campus area

This is one of them dungeon buildings :P

and ya, this is a really small pic but you can see a few of the campus buildings in it..

And finally, I'll end of with a nice picture of the riverfront..

Better Grammer...

2005-12-10T19:15:00.000-08:00

As-Salaamu 'Alaykum Wa Rahmatullaah

This is Umm Qaylah posting on Maryam's blog today because there is something that has been bothering me for the longest time but after the most recent post, I couldnt hold it in any longer.

Have any of you noticed that once Maryam starts typing its nothing but....and then when she needs to go onto another topic its .... again? All she ever uses are "..." Its so friggin annoying and you dont understand half of what she is talking about. At times I have to hold a paper up to the screen just so I know which line I am reading (lol, I dont do that but sometimes I wish I would). Are you trying to drive us out of your blog?

Maryam, my advice to you, please use paragraphs and some punctuation other then "..." I understand it is your blog and that you can express your feelings and emotions the way you please but woman, please save us a headache. Have some mercy on our eyes and minds!

I appreciate it. Jezaaki-Allaahu Khayren.

Oh and I love you.

Was-Salaamu 'Alaykum Wa Rahmatullaahi Wa Barakaatuh.

:/

2005-12-09T19:05:00.000-08:00

Today has soooo not been a good day for me..walhamdulillah. Maybe I'm making things out to be bigger than they are.. actually I probably am.. but still it wasn't the best of days.

I got up sort of late.. around 10.. usually I'm up earlier but I was exhausted.. my mom got upset though.. I dont get why since she knows I'm not feeling good.. but khair.. that sort of ruined my mood in the morning.. Things were fine after that untill I decided to check if my final grades were up. I found out that everything but my math grade was.. and I told my mom my grades.. and ya.. thats when I got really frustrated and it ruined the rest of the day for me.

I had 3 B's. I was happy with them alhamdulilah.. mann if I get a B in math too I'll be estatic.. but mom wasnt.. she got reaallly upset about it.. I dont see why.. and I really dont care why.. actually I know why.. its couse she got so used to me getting A's that a B is a big deal now.. need I remind anyone what I got my first semester in highschool? If I'm not mistaken it was something like an A.. an F.. a D.. and a C or something like that.. so dude I'm happy about these grades.. shes not though.. and shes made it clear to me all day.. bleh.. I'll get to this later..

Because I was upset.. and I knew the next thing I'd get talked to about was my room.. I decided to clean it. To be honest, the room was a mess.. it was horrible.. my room is usually one of the messier parts of the house(when I dont share it) but it has never been this bad. Now, the reason my room is messy sometimes is because by the time I've cleaned the house.. done my schoolwork.. helped cook or cooked.. sat with my parents.. seen what my sister needs.. and done something for myself.. I dont have time to clean my room, and even if I did I dont have the energy. Ever since I started to share the room with my sister its been even harder to keep it clean and organized because we both have different ways of doing things..

This is the first time since we moved to this last house that I've taken the time out to really clean the room.. usually my sister would do it but her way of cleaning is to sweep everything under the rug and hope it will clean itself.. In order to get things straight I pretty much had to take everything apart and put it back in place.. bookshelves.. closet.. beds.. it took me from dhuhr till maghrib.. This made my mood really bad because I saw how careless my sister was. it just was very annoying having to organize her cloths for her.. organize her things for her and so on.. You'd think by the time a GIRL is 12(almost 13) she'd know how to pick things that have fallen off of the floor and hang them again. She'd pretty much just thrown all cloths on the closet floor, including socks and stuff.. that bugged me alot.. but khair..

Anyways.. after that my dad came home and goes "I'm invited to dinner at so and so's house can u make me something to take with me?".. I said ya (was almost done with room).. so I went down and did that.. went to finish the room and then take shower.. but they wanted to pray.. I told them pray and I'd pray later.. anyways.. when I got out of the shower my sister got all upset at me couse she said I took too long and she needed the bathroom to make wudoo.. :(.. she made it up to me by making me something to eat since I hadnt eaten all day.. but still it was annoying.. And ya.. now I'm here ranting.. oh I didnt go to masjid tonight which also bothered me.. just to add more to the list.. :P.

I guess it wasnt the most horrible day.. but it was more like a build up of things that have been bothering me from before. I try hard to make everyone around me happy and do what pleases them but its just never enough.. and this whole grade thing today kinda shows what I mean.. actually there were two reasons why this bothered me.. this is one and the second is I'm so tired of everyone having this idea that I'm some genious that must be good at everything I do.. and is giong to grow up to be this fantabulous person.. I'm tired of going to the masjid to have aunties ask me "what are you studying?" "did you get your grades yet, how did you do?" "nooo dont major in that.. you're smart!!! dont waste your time on things like that..you need to go into medicine".. or my all time favorite "who is older? you or my son/daughter?".. its like get a life so you dont have to intrude on mine.. I'm not a genious or anything close to that.. I just work hard when I need to and try to take the easy way out when I can :P.

Another thing that bothers me is how sometimes my parents (and others) treat my like I'm still a kid.. and other times they treat me like an adult.. its like make up your mind.. I personally dont think I'm either.. I'm lost someplace in between.. I guess my moms main issue with me is she thinks I dont manage my time well enough.. I guess shes right some times.. but at the same time she isnt.. I know what I need to do and when I get the time I take care of it.. but ya.. if its not obvious already whats really bothering me the most is that my moms upset with me and that I havnt sucked it up and apologized yet.. ahh khair.. I guess I should know by now that everyones tempers are short and everyones a bit stressed.. and I should let this stuff slide.. and stop making big deals out of small things..

OH! the funnest thing I did this week was keep Tassnym in suspense for the whole week thinking I'm going to tell her some biggg news.. what happened was at the begining of the week she said something about how we need a wedding and how I should get married... and I go "you never know.. i just might have something to tell you next time I see you".. and she begs me to tell her.. makes me promise to email her and then I sign out.. she emails me like every day going "I'm still waiting.." and I'll email her back about something random.. and then finally I was talking to her yesterday and I go "ok ok.. I cant hide this from you anymore" and she like "YA ABOUT TIME" and I was like "ok.. this might be a bit of a shock for you but.. but.. I'm in love." and she goes ".." and I was like "ya.. see this guy has totally taken ahold of my heart.. hes the most adorable thing you've ever seen.. his name issssss" and I pause for a good 3 mins.. come back "sorry, about that.. where was I?.. oh ya his name is.. Abd" then I pause for another minute.. " Abd al Qudoos". and she goes "OMG MARYAM YOU FREAK.. YOU MADE ME WAIT ALL WEEK FOR THIS".. ahh it was sweet :D.

ahh there was one other thing I wanted to talk about in this post.. it was about what I want to do in break.. but seeing as how bad my writting is right now.. and how long this post is already.. I think I'll put that off..

mmm.. ya..

2005-12-09T10:46:00.000-08:00

what day is it and what time is it? I'm seriously so distorted with time the past few days. The whole day yesterday I thought it was Friday.. and now I think its thursday :S.. khair, I have an 'udhr so its all good :P.

I came home yesterday, even though I really didnt want to. When I went over to UmmAQ's on Wednsday I was maad sick, upset about my exam, and wanted to come home.. but I went to her place couse she wanted me and I wanted to make her happy. I was feeling a little better yesterday so I was enjoying myself more and wanted to stay longer but when I called mom she was like "we miss you at home".. and I know that doesnt mean that they literally miss me but that they need me home so I came..

The time I did spend there was nice alhamdulillah. AQ has totally stolen my heart man.. mashaAllah tabaarakAllah.. may Allah swt preserve him and make him of the ritchious..aameen. We pretty much just chilled out.. got a little crazy.. and had a good time.. we went to bed early though couse I was so tired.. which is something we NEVER do :/.. but yesterday was fun. We made chocolate cake (yum).. but she kept it for her husband whos coming back tonight(end of the quarter).. andd we invited another sis for dinner.. and just had a good time alhamdulillah.

How was the exam? Don't ask. I'm too scared to check the SIS gradebook now.. Grades are supposed to be up by tonight. Yesterday I showed someone an email I wrote one of my teachers and the reply I got.. she was like "you sooo needa teach a course on how to suck up to your teacher for a good grade". nah.. this teacher is so fair man.. thats the only reason I sent it.. you couldnt get him to cheat you a grade if you gave him the world.. but ya..

While I'm on the topic of school.. I want to mention something that has come to my mind every time I go to the LB campus (I wont even get into the OSU one..thats whole other story).. Is it just me or is this campus the worst designed one in the world? To start off it looks like a prison.. right? I mean the way its built and all. The ONLY nice area is North Santiam Hall (my advisor and favorite teachers moved there! yesss) but ya.. the other thing is if all the buildings are connected why dont they have interior corridors? I'm not about to blame them for my sickness, because it was the qaadar of Allah, but dudeeee going in and out of the heat really didn't help!

Anyways, enough about school. I have a month off and inshaAllah I want to use the time wisely.. It seems like I'll be stuck in oregon the whole time as well :(. Not so exciting but I guess I should make the best of it.

oh, and before I go off. I miss yasi! if you read this sign on please.. k thanks.

stressed..

2005-12-07T16:28:00.000-08:00

The past couple weeks have been crazy man.. I've been so torn.. not sure who to please.. and even if I did how to please them.. not enough time in the day to get things done.. and definatly not enough time to chill out.. with all that was going on the last thing I needed was finals.. alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal.. I cant wait for them to be over so I can focus on more important things..

I got up really sick this morning. I pretty much couldnt get out of bed.. I had wanted to take my math final in the morning because I promised a friend I'd go to her house around noon.. but I wasnt up to it and I didnt have a ride.. so now I'm at school, with about 15 mins till maghrib, and I havnt taken the exam yet :(. This time I'm going to wait to pray first then take the test instead of doing what I did last time and missing maghrib, inshaAllah.

The other finals werent so bad, alhamdulillah. On monday I went to the LB (btw, only one person is going to understand half of what I'm about to say.. but who cares).. so I went to the LB campus at like 11 since I was told that the final would be at 11:30.. ended up not starting untill 12.. but I was cool with that. That final was easy.. After the exam I tried to track down a few teachers but didnt get ahold of ANY of them.. which was sooo anyoning.. but alhamdulillah..

Tuesday was more busy. I got into the exam a little late.. but found my teacher right away. I'm such a teachers pet.. its sad.. like even the ones I'm not fond of they are of me.. its weird.. this one teacher (writting) likes me too much.. its cool though.. for example, he gave my the essay questions 10 mins before everyone else got them and when the girl next to me asked him for one he was like "you'll get yours soon".

The way they had the writting exams set up was crazy man.. in the main auditorium of the forum they had all the classes taking the test at the same time.. there was like 500+ students in there.. and every student had to get BOTH of their bluebooks signed by THEIR teacher.. and return them to their teacher at the end of the exam.. It was insane trying to do that.. but again, my teacher made it easy on me.. he signed both my books at the same time.. and he came up to me to take the exam from me.. it was sorta freaky though.. couse he was watching me the whole time I was testing.. and when I finished he got up and stood and came towards me :S.

After the test I went to meet up with my math teacher.. but she was in her office even though she was supposed to be.. so I went to the library.. stayed there for a while then realized i had to head back to her office.. her office is in IA on the second floor.. I go there and shes not there.. at this point I'm so mad.. and I'm like okk I'll go see the other teachers that I need to see.. I go to South Santiam to see one and sehs not there.. so I go to Takena hall, which is totally across the LB campus, and there is a note on the door saying his office moved to NORTH santiam hall.. That made my mood even worse couse I was right there before.. anyways on my way there my math teacher sees me.. and shes down in the courtyard.. I'm up on the second floor.. so she calls me and I'm like what the.. whos that.. and I go down see her.. then we head to her office which is the other side of campus.. then back to NSH(which looks AWESOME now).. and ya.. it was tiring..

bleh.. as you can tell i'm bored.. I have another 10 mins to go pray.. then get coffee(probably shouldnt) and go in for the exam.. I have to get a good grade on this or I'm in trouble.. but I just feel so sick.. and I'm tired.. and I guess a little upset.. but khair.. if anyone sees this.. please make duaa I do good.. BTW- I'm at the benton center now if you wanna show up ;) :P.. and yes i'll pay for your friggin gas.. sheesh.

and this keyboard is soooooo annoying.. ugh..

finals sucks!

2005-12-06T09:31:00.000-08:00

I was at the college most of the day yesterday.. had a couple exams.. today have 2 more.. and then inshaAllah I'm done.. unless the teacher lets me take my math final tommorrow then I'll do one today and one tommorrow..

Its cold. I'm sleepy. Make duaa I do good please. so cant wait to be off of school.

Yahoo! DSL Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less

sacrifice..

2005-12-02T10:32:00.000-08:00

I can be hard headed somtimes.. get stubborn.. and dont back down when I should.. I've wondered if I could sacrfice this to end a problem or argument or whatever.. I never could think up a good answer couse sometimes I'd do and sometimes I wouldnt..

A few days ago I got the answer. I decided to delete 3 years worth of saved files on this computer. Schoolwork, notes, memories, pictures, audio files, EVERYTHING. Why? Just incase. I didnt want to be a cause of a problem that could be avoided with a little(understatment) sacrifice on my part. As I did this, my sister stood in awe.. As soon as I finished I went upstairs and layed down; too depressed to talk :(.

*topic jump*

I didnt sleep at all last night till an hour or so before fajr. It took my mom a longish while to wake me up. I finally did get up.. but whent back to sleep, which wasnt the plan. I have 3 final papers due today and one other assignment so I had planned on staying up from fajr. Didnt work. My mom came to wake me at 9, again didnt really work. So now its half past ten and I've wasted a good while online.. and non of the assignments are done :(.

.....

2005-11-28T10:43:00.000-08:00

I got up this morning in a very good mood alhamdulillah. I couldnt sleep well last night so I was a bit short tempered.. but other than that I was in good mood.. and then I kept getting bombarded with one thing after another and now I'm in a very not so good mood :(.

I'm started to get tired of people that take advantage of knowing you care.. khair whatever.

I think I'll just study. I can't be bothered to type up the update that I wanted now. Maybe later.

am I ready?

2005-11-27T10:44:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I'm talking to someone and they asked me "do you think you're ready to get married?" The questoin sorta caught me off guard and my answer of "I dont know.." sounded amusing to them. But that was the truth.. with all of the "you need to get married" talk this question took me by surprise.

I thought about it a little more.. and this is what I've come to..

I'm ready for the physical demands of a marriage.. all of them inshaAllah.. but I think I still lack in the mental demands (if that makes sense :S). I dont think I'm 100% mature enough yet.. and I think I could do stupid things that I could regret later, wallahu 'aalam. then again, I dont think you will ever totally be ready.. so I wouldnt turn someone down couse "I'm not ready".. bleh.. I dunnu..

carbonated juice water

2005-11-26T11:52:00.000-08:00

A couple months ago an uncle and my dad were travelling together and they bought this stuff that isnt soda or juice, its something in between.. my sister called it "carbonated juice water", and the name stuck. And ya, thats what I'm having for breakfast right now :P.. a 16oz bottle of sugar. tsk tsk.

My eating habbits have gone down again. My moms starting to get fed up with it again too. I've gone back to either eating junk or not eating.. tsk tsk. The other day I wasnt feeling good and I got a lecture about how I deserve it since I'm bringing it on myself.. and dont you know you're borderline anemic so if you dont eat it gets worse and you start to have low energy.. etc etc... so what do I do after this lecture? I have leftover sweets for breakfast.. no lunch.. and some salad and pasta and brownies for dinner at masjid.. and then I get up today and have this for breakfast..

Anyways, yesterday was nice at the masjid. A lady accepted islam a couple weeks ago and just this week her 15 year old son also accepted islam.. so it was sweet. They had a small "party" for them before the dars and stuff.. so it was nice alhamdulillah.

Dad called a while ago said to make him food and he's on his way... so I should get off and do it :P

diciplining kids..

2005-11-25T10:08:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I'm at this aunties house and she has a 4 year old kid. When the kids dad is leaving he throws a tantrum about wanting to go with him and his dads like "next time inshaAllah. I'll come and take you to salaah with me". He calms down for a minute but as soon as his dad leaves he starts up again. Instead of taking him to another room, calming him down, talking to him, and possibly punishing him the mom just lets him throw the tantrum and scolds him every now and then. It takes a long while before the mom finally gets up and deals with the situation. Throughout this I'm taking notes of what not to do with my kid. I seriously dont get moms that do this. Especially when its their fault for spoiling the kids when they were younger and giving in to their wishes. Children don't learn that way. You have to be consistant with them from he start or they will think that they can manipulate you by saying "I'll cry if you don't let me".. me wants a kid :(

As far as why I was at an aunties house instead of at home (sleeping) as I would have preferred, my dad had guests over for dinner. One thing I totally dislike about arabs is their extravagance in meals when they have guests. I am definatly not against ikram al dayf but there is a limmit.. sadly, most people end up crossing that limmit. I also dislike coming home at 11 to find the kitchen a complete mess.

'ala kulli haal, I have a paper due today that I should work on. The quarter ends in two weeks, walhamdulillah. Registration for next quarter starts on Monday so for all the people petitioning for me not to sign up they have 3 more days :P.

I need you..

2005-11-23T11:31:00.000-08:00

Todays dads day off.. so I'm heading to school for most of the day. I got me another exam so ya.. I can study better there.. and I can only take the exam there.. so I might as well go a bit early and spend some more time there..

It's like 11:30 and there's still frost outside. Its so cold. I want to go back to sleep.

One more thing before I send this in and go back upstairs.. Yasmeena I need you to not be upset with me :(. I'm sorry if I hurt you, it wasnt my intent.. I love you.. I'll sing for you!.. ahh khair..

:(

2005-11-22T20:09:00.000-08:00

I just wasted 2 tries on my "quiz".. :S. I got like 60%.. I didnt study.. so I soooo deserve it :P. I'm "studying" now for the last try.. (each time its a different quiz...but u get the best score etc).

Today sorta sucked, walhamdulillah.. I upset someone that I hate to upset.. and that just ruined it for me.. amazing how its the people it kills you to see them hurt that you hurt the most :(.

On a little bit of a nicer note I had a nice conversation this morning with someone I havnt spoken to in a longgg time.. It was akward at first.. but it was a nice conversation.. I guess we both could relate to some feelings of the other and so on.. The advice she gave me at the end was sort of funny couse its whats everyone has been telling me latly.. she said "Ukhti, my advice to you is to find a good brother and marry him. Be patient in the marriage.. nothing will ever be perfect. Be patient with him.. put his desires before yours.. and whatever you do dont ever get a divorce it will make these feelings 100x worse".

Anyways... I got me a review buddy(inshaAllah)! Now I just need to find me a hifdh buddy, couse I'm slacking way to much on my own :(... and islami classes started up again.. this time we have nahw.. yucky.. so ya.. thats another reason I've been more busy latly.. I know like 2 people that wish I'd quit school lol.. they're annoyed with the time I spend on it :(.. sorries :(..

bleh.. dads gonna be home from salaah soon.. I better go back to study

bleh.

2005-11-22T10:42:00.000-08:00

so last night I was maad depressed and stuff.. usually I'll take it out in writting.. this time I did something sorta different.. This is what I spent 2 hours doing instead of hw :P

You cant see the details in the scan which sucks.. and my handwritting is bad.. I did a couple others(which were nicer) but they're personalized and I aint posting them on blog :P.

Lets see.. what else did I do last night? I took a bunch of pictures with my sis couse I promised yasiii.. not as tsk-y of as last times pics though :P.

Anyways.. I got test today PLEASE MAKE DUAA. I havn't study anything man.. I have to go to dars today too.. and I dunnu.. The last person I thought would open up to me is now.. and Its weird couse we havnt talked in forever.. :/ 'ajeebness

khair.. moms gonna kill me if she sees me not studying :P.

dont!

2005-11-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

It takes two people to fight, so don't fight back... it only makes things worse..

some pictures

2005-11-21T11:35:00.000-08:00

I took some pictures yesterday and when I was uploading them to the computer I found some from last summer that I hadnt uploaded. These first two are from when we went to a river with khala Aisha and her husband once..

This was the sunset on Friday..

overreacting sucks..

2005-11-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

I'm such an over-reactor.

Onther thing I've noticed in me and that I'm trying to change is how I'll react without thinking sometimes. Its not always..and not with everyone.. but sometimes when I'll already be annoyed, or I'm having a bad day and have a short temper, I'll react to fast.. and its usually not the reaction that I'd like.

Anyways.. I got a lot of studying to do today.. I had a project that I was supposed to be working on for the past week, and all I've done is get the data for it.. and ya its due today.. Tommorrow I got a test after the dars.. and then I have 2 or 3 papers due on friday.. and 2 quizes(alhamdulillah, only one is math)..

I dunnu whats up with me and slacking in work.. last night I was up till like 1 just messing around with my sister and stuff. It was fun but I could have used it better. Actually, nah.. It made her happy.. alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal..

LOL.. the most annoying thing ever is when someone says "I have to tell you something I've been hiding".. then goes "ok, nevermind.. I just remembered something..I have to go.. assalaamu 'alaikum". so annoying.

if they dont.. why should I?

2005-11-20T10:56:00.000-08:00

If people dont care then why should you?

But then theres the whole thing about treating people how you'd like to be treated..

If you make your intentions sincere to Allah swt.. then the reactions of the people shouldnt make a difference to you..

bluntess is awesome

2005-11-19T13:09:00.000-08:00

I seriously love it when I friend is just blunt with you..

umm_suhayb: *sigh
umm_suhayb: I suck, eh?
sugarlily2004: yeah
sugarlily2004: but it's ok
sugarlily2004: you're wacked out more than usual today
umm_suhayb: ya..
umm_suhayb: and its making me mess up.. do stupid things.. I shouldnt be online..
sugarlily2004: then just say your goodbyes and go invisible
sugarlily2004: or get off the comp and get some rest or something
sugarlily2004: or go do something else
umm_suhayb: ya

burnnnn

2005-11-19T11:58:00.000-08:00

OUCH! LOL

umm_suhayb: you know what
umm_suhayb: I think
umm_suhayb: ill be quiet
umm_suhayb: :)
sugarlily2004: lol
sugarlily2004: yeah
sugarlily2004: that would be a good idea

I want to be in seattle..

2005-11-19T11:53:00.000-08:00

I wanna be in seattle now! :(. They're having yasir qadhi class now.. I have about 5 emails that I havnt answered yet asking when I'll show up blah blah.. lol.. as if I didnt already send an email to the group list saying I'm not coming.. noo they have to rub it in.. go figure.

I got up maaadddd early today. Why? I wish I knew. Its the weekend and I dont have too much homework so I should have slept in! Alhamdulillah though.. got some things done that I needed to do and now I'm sorta free for the rest of the day.

lol.. I have no desire to update.. and I have nothing to say.. I'm just killing time again.. and NO I wont fill out any more question things haha.. one was enough :P.

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reaaaallly quick

2005-11-18T17:06:00.000-08:00

todays been interesting..

I only have a few mins since I need to eat, shower, get ready, and leave to masjid in less than an hour :S.

I didnt take my exam yesterday since the teacher sent out an email and said to take it next week.. couse she realized that two exams after each other was too hard. Alhamdulillah that was good for me though since I was really really not feeling good yesterday.. not like what I ended up doing was much better for me though.. at least if I'd gone for exam I woulda been able to come online.. khair inshaAllah.. instead of exam I did stuff with my family and stuff.

Today I had a couple papers due.. totally ditched one of them and just finished the other one. The first thing I did this morning was look up a couple news articles and those ruined my day.. spoke to yasi and stuff also got me down..

About mid day these two missionary girls nocked on our door.. and I was like "tell them to come in".. so my mom did.. and we sat and talked for like 2 hours till they had to go.. it was nice alhamdulillah. They wanted to come masjid today but couldnt.. said they'd come over again next week inshaAllah..

aight I have to scat NOW or moms gonna kill me..

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100 questions..

2005-11-16T19:12:00.000-08:00

I said 40 mins to kill.. well now 30.. so here I am about to do just that :P.. I'll answer as many as I can before 7.. and maybe finish the rest later.. some of the q's are sooo lame.. and not all my answers are serious.. I'm also running on no food and no sleep so gimmii a break..

100 questions to ask a prospective husband/wife.

1) What is your concept of marriage?

commitment, sacrafice, patience(lots of it), compromise.. Alot of people put too much emphasis on the "love" part of marriage.. I agree its a great part but its not all of what its about.

2) Have you been married before?

Nope.

3) Are you married now?

LOL NO?

4) What are you expectations of marriage?

I know its not always going to be a bed of roses but I want to do my best so that it is. There will be hard times, good times, bad times, easy times.. and I understand that.. InshaAllah if both people try their best to fulfill the rights of the other then inshaAllah things will work well..

5) What are your goals in life? (Long and short term)

Please my parents.. Raise my children(inshaAllah) on the deen.. be best wife I can be.. do good in school till whenever I finish(or quit :P).. and most of all strive for the aakhira..

6) Identify three things that you want to accomplish in the near future.

Pass my math class!!!!!! Finish my hifdh(inshaAllah ya rub).. and what I want to do in the really near future is go to sleep!

7) Identify three things that you want to accomplish, long term.

dude..scroll up and look at question 5..

8) Why have you chosen me/other person as a potential spouse?

I aint chosen no one yet innit :P. But I guess I could turn this into a "What am I looking in a spouse" question.. Someone thats on the deen.. thats their main focus in their life.. thats #1.. everything else comes after.. oh, they cant be more than 10 years older than me :S..

9) What is the role of religion in your life now?

Life is centered around it...

10) Are you a spiritual person?

Depends on your definition of "spiritual".. am I soofi spiritual, no way.. but other definitions then ya possibly..

11) What is your understanding of an Islamic marriage?

husband protector of the family.. wife protector of the house.. etc..

12) What are you expecting of your spouse, religiously?

To put the deen before everything else.

13) What is your relationship between yourself and the Muslims community in
your area?

Thats like the only relationships I have.. its tight alhamdulillah.

14) Are you volunteering in any Islamic activities?

Yea. all masjid activities.. and almaghrib.. specificly seattle qabeelah..

15) What can you offer your zawj (spouse), spiritually?

It'll take alot of sabr to live with me so that will increase them in ajir?

16) What is the role of the husband?

Provider, protector, and teacher of family..

17) What is the role of the wife?

Cook, laundry person etc.. all boring stuff :P. joke.
ermm.. support for husband.. mother of the children.. you know.. keeps the house running.. (to tired to put it correctly)

18) Do you want to practice polygamy?

LOL. I guess up to husband.. I'd be maaaad jelous.. but its his right.. so alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal.

19) What is your relationship with your family?

Its good alhamdulillah.. both with my immediate and extended.

20) What do you expect your relationship with the family of your spouse to
be?

His family is my family.. InshaAllah thats how I plan on treating them, and inshaAllah how they'll treat me.

21) What do you expect your spouses relationship with your family to be?

Same as mine with his..

22) Is there anyone in your family living with you now?

I live with my parents and sister.

23) Are you planning to have anyone in your family live with you in the
future?

Allahu 'aalam.

24) If, for any reason, my relationship with your family turns sour, what
should be done?

na'oodhu billahi min dhaalik.. but if it were to happen then I'd respect him not having contact with them.. but I wouldnt break contact with them.

25) Who are your friends? (Identify at least three.)

What good will this do? It's just names..

26) How did you get to know them?

ermm.. some at masjid.. some family.. some internet

27) Why are they your friends?

couse they're awesome.. I can trust them.. be myself with them..

28) What do you like most about them?

honesty..

29) What will your relationship with them after marriage be?

same as now..

30) Do you have friends of the opposite sex?

LOL, are you kidding?

31) What is the level of your relationship with them now?

You expect me to answer this?

32) What will be the level of your relationship with them after marriage?

I'd like to go out with them every weekend.. that cool with you? *rolls eyes*..

33) What type of relationship do you want your spouse to have with your
friends?

NON! he not supposed to talk to girls.. tsk tsk

34) What are the things that you do in your free time?

Go online.. sleep.. read.. sew.. cook!!!!.. listen to things.. hang out with mom... run/exercise

35) Do you love to have guests in your home for entertainment?

I'm so used to guests.. and ya I like them alhamdulillah.

36) What are you expecting from your spouse when your friends come to the
house?

Leave the house or sit in a different room :P. No way he gonna sit with us!

37) What is your opinion of speaking other languages in home that I do not
understand? (with friends or family)

If it dont bother you then I will.. if I does then I'd respect that and not.. except the only other language I know good is arabi and I plan on teaching that to my kids.. so I guess I'd speak it at home :/

38) Do you travel?

Sometimes..

39) How do you spend your vacations?

Vacation? Whats that?

40) How do you think your spouse should spend vacations?

however way he wants.. as long as its with me :P

41) Do you read?

Yes

42) What do you read?

mostly islamic books.. and textbooks.. I stopped most fiction a long time ago

43) After marriage, do you think that you are one to express romantic
feelings verbally?

LOL. I am so not posting my answer to this on blog.

44) After marriage, do you think that you want to express affection in
public?

depends whats meant by that..

45) How do you express your admiration for someone that you know now?

I dont know..

46) How do you express your feelings to someone who has done a favor for
you?

Thank them.. and treat them well.. and try to return the favor..

47) Do you like to write your feelings?

Yep, all the time.. but no one gets to see it :P

48) If you wrong someone, how do you apologize?

Depends who it is that I've wronged.. if its my mom I'll do things for her.. tell her I'm sorry.. give her a hug... and bug her till she forgives me... if its a friend I appolgize and try not to wrong them again.. etc..

49) If someone has wronged you, how do you want him/her to apologize to you?

Whatever way they feel most comftrable with.. as long as its sincere

50) How much time passes before you can forgive someone?

Usually right away..

51) How do you make important and less important decisions in your life?

Think them through.. and make istikhara

52) Do you use foul language at home? In public? With family?

in general the worst I use is.. "flip".. "idiot".. "stupid".. "jerk".. "majnoonah".. etc

53) Do your friends use foul language?

LOL SOME!

54) Does your family use foul language?

Nah..

55) How do you express anger?

I dont.. I usually keep it inside..

56) How do you expect your spouse to express anger?

The way they usually do?

57) What do you do when you are angry?

read quran.. go to my room and lay down..

58) When do you think it is appropriate to initiate mediation in marriage?

if there is difference that cant be reconciled without it.. but in general I dislike other ppl getting in the middle of spouses.

59) When there is a dispute in your marriage, religious or otherwise, how
should the conflict get resolved?

resolve it through the deen..

60) Define mental, verbal, emotional and physical abuse.

mental = mind games.. verbal = foul language.. name calling.. and irrational harshness.. physical = anything that leaves a mark..

61) What would you do if you felt that you had been abused?

:/ cry?.. wait till he cools down and talk it over..

62) Who would you call for assistance if you were being abused?

Allahu 'aalam..

63) Do you suffer from any chronic disease or condition?

I have asthma that goes and comes.. but i dont think thats chronic is it?

64) Are you willing to take a physical exam by a physician before marriage?

ya..

65) What is your understanding of proper health and nutrition?

Eat well.. sleep well.. excersise and stay in shape? lol.. I dunnu..

66) How do you support your own health and nutrition?

Eat good(usually).. work out at home.. and go running when I can..

67) What is you definition of wealth?

That on yowm al Qiyaama you got enough good deeds to enter jannah inshaAllah.

68) How do you spend money?

Barly spend it on myself.. I splurge when I buy things for ppl though..

69) How do you save money?

In my room.

70) How do you think that your use of money will change after marriage?

Disisions will be mutual..

71) Do you have any debts now? If so, how are you making progress to
eliminate them?

Nope, no debts walhamdulillah..

72) Do you use credit cards?

My moms bank card :P

73) Do you support the idea of taking loans to buy a new home?

74) What are you expecting from your spouse financially?

75) What is your financial responsibility in the marriage?

76) Do you support the idea of a working wife?

If its needed.. and he wants me too.. then ya.. but only in a halal inviorment.. such as from home.. islamic school etc..

77) If so, how do you think a dual-income family should manage funds?

Mutually..

78) Do you currently use a budget to manage your finances?

lol.. I dont work.. but sorta

79) Who are the people to whom you are financially responsible?

no one..

80) Do you support the idea of utilizing baby sitters and/or maids?

maids are a big no no.. babysitters are hmm I dunnu maybe.. if it was needed I'd rather it be my mom/mother in law.. etc

81) Do you want to have children? If not, why?

YES YES YES

82) To the best of your understanding, are you able to have children?

Yes

83) Do you want to have children in the first two years of marriage? If not,
when?

Whenever Allah swt grants me them.. and no I soo dont wanna use contraseptivs

84) Do you believe in abortion?

85) Do you have children now?

86) What is your relationship with your children now?

got non..

87) What is your relationship with their other parent?

bleh

88) What relationship do you expect your spouse to have with your children
and their parent?

bleh

89) What is the best method(s) of raising children?

on the deen.. rais them to be the best muslims.. and leaders they can be..

90) What is the best method(s) of disciplining children?

a balance between harshness and understanding.

91) How were you raised?

man.. I can write an essay on this..

92) How were you disciplined?

same answer as above..

93) Do you believe in spanking children? Under what circumstances?

sorta.. it depends on the circumstance

94) Do you believe in public school for your children?

Yes and no. I think they have a benifit if they child has strong values instilled in them already.. but they do alot of harm as well..

95) Do you believe in Islamic school for your children?

ya..

96) Do you believe in home schooling for your children?

totally..

97) What type of relationship should your children have with non-Muslim
classmates/friends?

they aint friends.. they're aquiantences..

98) Would you send your children to visit their extended family if they
lived in another state or country?

yes

99) What type of relationship do you want your children to have with all
their grandparents?

strong one

100) If there are members of my family that are not Muslim, that are of
different race or culture, what type of relationship do you want to have
with them?

My step bros.. ya.. I still want one

I answered last few q's really fast couse dads on his way.. but ya..

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done, walhamdulillah

2005-11-16T18:24:00.000-08:00

The exam took me 50 minutes.. I soo coulda done it before iftar.. but alhamdulillah.. I'm glad I listened to mom and made her happy.. The test wasnt too hard.. easier than the other ones.. so alhamdulillah..

I called my dad and he told me "I cant come now, I get off work at 7 tonight call me then".. I didnt feel like asking him about walking anywhere couse I know he'd never agree since its past maghrib.. and hes probably right about that.. so I'm stuck here for another hour.. how wonderful.. My mom told me to study.. maybe I'll go mathlab when it opens again at 6:30.. but for now I'll chill here..

You know whats annoying? When random people will come up to you and start getting into your business.. this kuwaiti girl(know by the accent) comes up to me while I'm studying before the test.. and she dont wear hijab or anything.. never seen her before.. so I didnt even know shes muslim(think shes shia) anyways.. she comes up to me and is like "assalaamu 'alaikum".. I answer and I'm trying to be nice and all.. but man was she so annoying.. but u know.. in a way it was sorta cool.. couse usually those types wont even answer your salaams if u give it first.. so ya, whatever..

aight.. I got 40 more mins to kill..

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yawns

2005-11-16T17:01:00.000-08:00

coffee is so awesome after 24hours without sleep.. sad how they rip u off here.. I bought coffee and chocolate.. now I need to find a place to pray.. then go take my exam.. duaa's plz..

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test :(

2005-11-16T16:03:00.000-08:00

I just got to the uni about half hour ago.. I had to pick up a graded test and ask a few q's at the mathlab.. which like totally sucked couse my test wasnt back yet and I need it to review for the test tommorrow! I'm about to go in and take todays exam and man I so dont feel like it..

Maghrib is in less than an hour and I know I wont be done by then.. I brought something to eat with me but I wont have my bag with me during the test.. my mom told me to study untill maghrib then take the test.. but I dont want to do that couse its a waste of time andd after maghrib I have to find a place to pray and all.. I just hope I finish fast, its easy, and when I'm done my dad isnt busy and can take me home.. and if he cant inshaAllah he agrees to let me walk to the masjid (10 blocks) or UmmAQ's(26 blocks).. inshaAllah I didnt forget my masjid keys :/

yaa my sis is on! InshaAllah mom will let me take test now :/.. although coffee before the test would be awesome..

ha! she told me no :(. khair.. that means I'll be here for a few hours.. alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal..

anyways.. I guess I'll try study some.. wouldnt be surprised if I get bored and come on again though..

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horrible night!

2005-11-16T03:41:00.000-08:00

Tonight has sucked so bad, walhamdulillah.

I guess I should start with maghrib time.. AbdurRahmans mom called and was like "I'm not feeling good can I bring him over?"..ofcourse we said ok and hes been over since. Also around that time, while my mom was praying, UmmAQ calls and goes "have your mom call me as soon as shes done, its important!".. I made a joke about how things that are soo not important are always important for her, thinking she wanted to talk to my mom about us coming over today since she had invited me online already..

anyways.. when my mom finished salaah and called back I was praying.. and I keep hearing her go "subhanAllah" and asking if hes ok.. UmmAQ has ALOT of bookshelfs at her house and my mom always tells her its dangerous with a toddler.. couse some of them are like those three/four shelf ones.. so AQ was playing and pulled one of the bookshelfs trying to get a book from it and the whole thing like fell on him.. his cheek got cut open and he was out of it..

I can't put in words how much that ruined my night for me.. I dont think I could love that kid more if he was my own lil brother or son..and knowing that his mom had no one with her wasnt easy either.. she was cryinggg and in horrible state.. the funny thing is mom was disturbed by this as much as me.. and she has this problem when she gets like that she sorta forgets all her medical history.. well not all but certain things.. she told UmmAQ how to close the wound and alhamdulillah she did that.. but she also told her to breastfeed him..and that put the kid to sleep.. and when I pointed out thats the most stupid thing to do to him right now she was scared if she told her to wake him up it would scare her and shes alone etc. but alhamdulillah after like half hour she did and the kid started to slowly go back to normal.. I talked to him on phone and he was mad confused.. but alhamdulillah..

As far as the kid at my house.. hes a bundle of trouble.. I havnt slept for one minute tonight.. he keeps yapping away.. and now hes like "I want to go home.. go wake up 'amu Ibrahim to take me". Thats the last thing my dad would want now. My sister couldnt stand him and woke up my mom.. when mom came to our room I was like "1. it woulda been sooooo much better if I went to UmmAQ.. 2. can I please go downstairs?". She was like "yes, can I please have your bed?". I'm stuck down here till fajr and no ones on :).

I wanted to go to UmmAQ soo bad and she wanted me soo bad but was to shy to ask since I have tests and the last few times I had tests I was busy with her so she feels guilty. My mom agreed for me to go but there was no ride.. and I was shy to ask from my dad since he came back late from work couse he had meetings etc. alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal.. I got no sleep and no studying in tonight.. thats really gonna help tommorrow! khair inshaAllah

I want someone come online :(.. this is soo boring..

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2005-11-15T12:04:00.000-08:00

I got of going to the dars and uni today. My mom didn't even want me to go to the dars she wanted me to go to school. That was shocking. When I convinced her it would do me no good she goes "fine, come to the dars at least you will get more ajir than sitting at home doing nothing and I know you wont do your work". Man she knows me too well! But ya, I'm not feeling up to it and she can tell so she dropped it.

I cant believe how late I got up. If it wasnt for khala Faykah calling TWICE I wouldnt have gotten out of bed. I answered the phone and she goes "are you asleep" and I go "no no not at all" she started laughing and was like "you sure sound asleep" and I was like "ya, I'm a little sick but alhamdulillah"(not a lie).

I stayed up ALL night last night so I guess I should have expected it. I was up waiting to go down till a little past 1 then I fell asleep till 3 and went down to almost 5.. I couldnt sleep then couse it was way too close to fajr so I stayed awake till fajr and was like "ok, I'll sleep for a couple hours then get up".. ended up sleeping to almost 11 :(.

Anyways, got some things to take care of. Please remember me in your duaa's.. I got exam tommorrow and after tommorrow :(.

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Forgive me..

2005-11-14T16:33:00.000-08:00

Please forgive me if:

I dont send emails that I promised to send

I'm not on at times I promise to be on at

I ignore you or seem to ignore you while talking

I sound extremly blond while talking and make ridiculous communication mistakes

I sound mean or rude while talking

I don't take enough time out for you

this week... especially Wendsday and Thursday.

Its already almost the end of monday and I've done NON of my work. I've spent most of the day trying to understand the concepts in my two math lessons.. and have only now grasped them..

I stayed up till 2:30 last night with yasi. I wanted to stay up more but my sis was awake and wouldn't of gone to bed if I hadn't. It was a very fun night though.. we were just crazy man.. we were watching TV together (through her webcam :P).. convinced islaami to call a 1800 number (and no I wont mention what it was for !).. and just had an awesome time.. it ended with a phone call at 3am that was just awesome(not being sarcastic). I was in bed at the time, waiting for my sis to fall asleep so I could go back down, and as soon as I heard the phone I wanted to run down and get it.. but didnt.. and good thing too.. my dad got up and checked the phone, wasted some time, then went to sleep.. I was too scared to go back down :(.

So yes, thats my excuse for putting off work last night :P. I cant study at home man.. unless my sis is VERY busy with something.. if shes not its just not calm enough.. watch my mom make me go to the college tommorrow. I hate going :(. I dont want to go.. khair anyways

I'm sorta, kinda, very annoyed with people and their styreotpyes. For example, the other night I'm talking to one of my friends in portland that I havnt spoken to in a while.. so we were talking.. catching up on news and stuff.. and then I showed her some pics and she goes "you were niqaab out all the time?" and I said "yes". and she goes "where are you from again?".. and that just ticked me off.. couse its too common for people to associate things, such as this, to people of certain countries.. usually this wouldnt bother me too much but its like the 5th time in the past few days I've dealt with comments like that (not about same thing, or even about me)

'ala kulli haal.. I think I'm going to take a break of this.. and go cook..

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sooo in lovee

2005-11-13T16:47:00.000-08:00

I am soooo in love with these two boys man.. I cant decide who I love more :S. The first one is 4.. soooo cuteeee mashaAllah. The second one is 22months and is like the most adorable thing you've ever seen. Both of them two kids make me so happy wallah.. They're a handful but I dont mind the trouble they make.. I just love hanging with them. naa'am. (yes I'm insane)

There is a 3rd one too.. but I dont get to see him as much since hes up in portland... and since hes a tad bit older I dont think its right for me to call him "cute" or "adorable", but I can say he is awesome. He's 8, half cambodian half egyptian.. hes my karate partner :P. Hes one belt before black.. all his sisters/bros have high belts as well... only one is ahead of him though.. anyways he keeps thinking he can beat me up.. and he probably could if he really tried.. but he hasnt been able to yet :P.

Yes, I know I'm crazy. Its school work. Trust me. This week is packed with work.. I have TWO math tests this week.. 1 quiz.. 4 or 5 papers due and a bunch of reading.. so ya.. alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal. And I was planning on taking more classes next quarter? hmm, maybe I should re-think that.. but I soo wanna finish in 3 years.. so ya, we'll see.

anways.. have to go eat.. maghrib time..

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recommendation..

2005-11-13T12:20:00.000-08:00

I was looking through files today.. and I found the letter of recommendation that I had one of my teachers write me.. I needed it for another class.. anyways, if you want a good laugh here it is..

Denise M. Nkemontoh
******
Beaverton, OR 97008
November 21, 2004

To Whom It May Concern:

I am pleased to write a letter of recommendation for Maryam Adham. I am a high school Language Arts teacher with OSUs K12Online program. I have gotten to know Maryam over the last year as she has taken four courses with me.

Maryam is a motivated young woman of many talents and considerable self-discipline. She is an outstanding writer creative, thoughtful, and thorough. I have kept a number of her papers as examples to show future students what an "A" paper looks like. Her papers are both technically correct with few grammatical or spelling errors as well as they reflect an understanding and synthesis of the subject matter.

Through online discussions, Maryam has been quick to come to the aid of peers with questions regarding the class work. In one particular case, she mentored a peer through much of the class. In addition, she has actively participated in online forums where students discuss their belief systems. Maryam talks about her beliefs, values, and practices with a clarity that helps others better understand the Islamic perspective. Her peers appear to feel very comfortable in asking her to further answer their questions.

Maryam has been actively involved in both her Mousque and the local community. As a member of the Mousque, she has taught younger students in their Saturday School. Maryam has also taken part in community service and other activities which have benefited the local community. She is a positive model for her peers.

While a serious student, Maryam is also very likeable, personable, enthusiastic, trusting and trustworthy. She shares both her heart and her laughter with all whom she encounters.

I have no reservations in recommending Maryam for any position. She would be an asset to any program or job. Please feel free to contact me with any questions at *** *** ****.

Sincerely,

Denise M. Nkemontoh

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I love her so much :(

2005-11-11T01:59:00.000-08:00

My dads on his way back from California. The last time we called him, about an hour and twenty minutes ago, he was passing the Shasta mountains and still hadn't even crossed the border into Oregon. He said that it would take them another 5 hours or so to get back but I doubt it will take more than 4.

Alhamdullilah today was good, although it was another one of those busy busy days. I got close to no sleep the night before since everyone, including AbdulQudoos, stayed up till past 1! I ended up sleeping around 3, getting up for fajr around 5:40.. staying up till 8ish then sleeping till I couldnt ignore AbdulQudoos jumping on me anymore :P.. The rest of the day I spent either busy with guests or busy with homework. Alhamdulillah I finished all I have to do for this week/end except for an essay thats due tommorrow. I'll try writting it in a bit.. or maybe I'll just put it off till tommorrow.

How do you comfort someone that has sustained numerous losses and is extremely depressed? I mean come on after a while vowing your support and proclaiming your love for them looses its affect..but what can you do when you're hundereds of miles away other than make duaa' for them and be there to listen when they need someone to talk to? I can't think of anything else.. but this doesnt seem like enough.. its not enough. :(

I cant stand seeing her like this.. na'aam qaadarAllahu wa ma sha'a fa'aal.. but I want to do more to help her. When my dad called me from Sacramento to ask me to find him addresses of some places there all I could think of was "thats where yasi is.. I want to go see her". It hurts so bad seeing her like this.. and I want to do all I can for her.. if I could take the pain instead of her I would.. but thats not possible.. I know shes strong and she can make it through it inshaAllah.. shes made it through so much before.. and inshaAllah I hope to be there for her anyway I can..no matter how far apart we might be.. :( and yes, I'm speaking to her right now.

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frozen.

2005-11-10T02:13:00.000-08:00

Its freezing, again.

Something I find interesting is when I have a limmited amount of time on the computer I usually end up updating alot, but when I have a lot of time on the computer I usually end up updating less.

Yesterday was an okay day. I spent most of the day studying *shock*. I actually spent a good 3 hours studying for my math quiz and guess what! I got 100% on it : D. This class is really driving me crazy. Its not that its too hard its just that I can't do good on the tests. I'll get 100's on all the quizes for a chapter but when I take the tests I'll get like 50%, and its the tests that really matter. It seems like I'm not the only one having this problem. The class average for both of the tests we've taken so far are considerably less than 70% which is what is needed for a "C", passing, grade. Because of this the teacher, who sucks, has finally decided to do something about it and is putting together re-takes, walhamdulillah.

This class has been a challenge for me. Why? Because I'm not good at math to start with and I havn't done math in like a year. Its not that I'm really bad in math its just that I havnt had a lot of help in it. Since about 7th grade I've been pretty much teaching myself. All my mom has been doing is making sure I do the work. In Highschool my math teacher sucked. She had a "sink or swim" style of teaching, where she let you figure out your mistakes on your own. Math online isnt the best way to go about learning it anyways so ya.. My mom is good at it but the only problem is when she helps me she starts to explain things in arabi, since thats how she learned it, and it sorta kinda isnt easy to understand that way. Anyways, enough school talk.

I went to bed at like 7am yesterday. I had some things I had wanted to finish last night but kept getting sidetracked. By the time I finished them it was a little past 3am. After that Stucko signed on and right when I was about to excuse myself and go to sleep Yasmeen signed on. I couldn't leave. I stayed on untill close to fajr time and then signed out and layed down for half our untill fajr came in. By the time my mom and sis had gotten up and we prayed it was around 6:30 and by the time I fell asleep it was around 7.

Today has been exhausting as well. After I woke up, did some house work, and prayed dhuhr, more people came over. I am so sick of hearing them say the same thing over and replying. 'Ala kulli haal, they stayed for a while and then UmmAQ called, asked if we were busy, and asked if she could come over and possibly spend the night. Ofcourse we said she could and since I had promised another friend I'd tell her a good time for her to come over I called her up as well and she came. Alhamdulillah it was fun and stuff..

anyways.. I think imma head sleep... maybe I'll update later.. or tommorrow..

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uslessness..

2005-11-08T03:07:00.000-08:00

I think im about to go to sleep.. or at least I should... todays been a weird day.. walhamdulillah..

I've tried to call yasmeena like 50 times(not exagerating).. I've left her voicmails.. txted and emailed.. seriously worried about her man.. I'll keep trying tommorrow inshaAllah..

dad and bro are in cali.. I ended up not going since bro whent.. they probably wont be back for a few days..

I have so much hw this week and I've done nothing.. I havnt even started on one assignment.. I had an essay outline due today(technically yesterday) and didnt do it.. khair.. inshaAllah I'll catch up tommorrow..

I went on paltalk for like the first time in 6 months(almost) today.. paltalk used to be nice.. now it sucks and is boring.. I stayed on long enough to answer some offliners I had and then I was off..

I want to sleep downstairs couse I know if I sleep up it'll be hard for me to get up for fajr but I dont want to upset mom... hmm.. and ya I know this is useless update..

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inna lillahi wa inna 'ilayhi raji'oon.. : (

2005-11-07T06:41:00.000-08:00

subhanAllah...

I had planned on getting up tonight and coming online.. but qaadarAllah I ended up not.. my dad came home very late (or so I thought..) and I just didnt feel up to it..

After fajr this morning my dad went upstairs to get ready for work and then came back down.. I was still in living room about to go up to my room when he calls me and my sis.. he hugged us.. held us close.. started to cry.. and told us that my grandma passed away last night.. that was just the shock I needed man.. subhanAllah.. As soon as he let go I went back to living room and asked my mom "when, how, what?" and she told me she only found out this morning as well and thats why dad came home late and stuff...

so ya.. alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal.. dads trying to head down to LA today.. he wants to be there for janaazah and stuff.. and to make sure its done correctly.. couse his bro there doesnt pray and stuff.. I want to go with him..Allahu 'aalam if I'll end up going or not..

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subhanAllah.. alhamdulillah 'ala kulli haal..

2005-11-06T15:51:00.000-08:00

SubhanAllah.. inna lillahi wa inna 'ilayhi raji'oon.. I dont know what to say really.. subhanAllah..

just yesterday I was speaking to yasi for the first time in a long time. We were talking, everything was fine.. she kept saying how she missed me and felt I didnt care anymore.. and was even jelous of others I talked to and stuff.. and like I told her that wasnt so.. and said I almost felt the same.. but alhamdulillah at the end it was nice.. since we hadnt talked like that in forever. and then.. subhanAllah..

Today she comes on for a few minutes and tells me her mother passed away last night... subhanAllah man.. there are some things that cant be put into words.. this is one of them.. I didnt know her mother at all..talked to her like once but still.. subhanAllah.. we only spoke for a couple mins today but there was no doubt how she was feeling.. subhanAllah, this girl has been so much.. when I think of her it puts me to shame whenever I complain.. I love her so much but I feel useless sitting here unable to do anything at all for her..

im home alone right now. :(.. I dont want to be here by myself.. i had/having another good deep fruitfull conversation with muji.. may Allah swt make it easy for us to do all that we plan.. inshaAllah like this we will be doing our part, as best as we can, for now..

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why?

2005-11-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

why am I up so early? I've been up since like 5 and I dunnu why. Now I'm all sleepy and want to go back to sleep lol.. wonderrrrfullllll. I haveee math quiz to study for.. essay outline to work on.. and some easy stuff in other classes to finish today. Alhamdulillah this week looks like a light week in school :D.

I kinda maybe might go to UmmAQ's today to plan for tommorrow with her and nymo.. that is tentative though.. both me and her have to finish homeworks before we'll be permitted to leave the house :P. tsk tsk man, we aint in elementry school still where our parents gotta "ground" when we havnt finished our hw.

Its another FREEZING day today.. andddd I better go upstairs before dad gets up to go to work. :P thats my excuse to go back to bed.

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Be in the world as though you were a stranger or a wayfarer

somewhere..

have you ever....

little kids <3

"I call you karima to hear your laugh"

muslim pickup lines

I miss SD :(

if only you let me do it my way!

just..

school started :(

....

'ajeeb..

been long enough?

Allahu Akbar!

My trip to San Diego: reflections and memories

San Diego Pictures

doneeeeee

I miss home..

trip

:S

leaving at fajr.

midterms are over with, alhamdulillah

"you're not engaged or anything?"

to miss something this much..

masjid school

test?

..

uh oh..

kids..gotta love them

and I confess...

its sunnyyyy!!!

home alone! :D

tis great, alhamdulillah..

scary

Allahul musta'aan.

football

ya, great.. like I didnt know..

.....

Portland.. the home of two story safeways :/

so sleepy..

so typical..

bleeehhhhh

:/

sooo

Brutal.

I just don't know..

Alhamdulillah :)

Eid Mubarak!

eid and stuff..

short short update

greeeat

the wedding..

2 week vacation!

rush..

@Q!$@#$@#%Q@#%^

:(

uff

sooo wanna go back to bed

Dinner (pics included :P)

Moving.

back! :P

*cough*

Tassnym got her wedding after all!

wow..

Corvalllis

Better Grammer...

:/

mmm.. ya..

stressed..

finals sucks!

sacrifice..

.....

am I ready?

carbonated juice water

diciplining kids..

I need you..

:(

bleh.

dont!

some pictures

cough

yawns