Sunday, July 27, 2003

run-on sentences are so much fun

Has anyone been noticing that my posts are getting shorter and shorter? I was scrolling through some of my archives early this morning, looking for things to do to stay awake, and the fact that I was half-asleep and struggling to write a coherent paper did not put me in a good mood in the first place. So I read through my archives and rolled my eyes at some of my posts and thought sourly, Paragraphs, woman; paragraphs! And why the hell do you sound like you're drunk or on crack? It should be illegal for anyone to be that hyperactive. Brevity, you crazy child; it's all about brevity. I say talking to yourself, aloud or not, is normal. But talking to yourself in the middle of the night can be a bitter experience. It's all about scornful self-deprecation then. Writing research papers does not put me in a nice mood, you see. Good thing I got a few hours of sleep, and went to my halaqa session and fiqh class. It helped put things in perspective.

So I was tearing my room apart the other evening, trying to find something I never came across in the end. Instead, I found nostalgic stuff like wrinkled letters, cheesy birthday cards, old report sheets from elementary school (I got an "excellent" in reading back in first grade), stuff like that. The cutest thing was a pile of letters I wrote to my father when I was seven years old and in first grade, and he was visiting Pakistan for a few weeks. Here's one:

By yasmine to Daddy
Hi daddy I am yasmine. How are you. Did you get to pakistan on friday March 25? Are you in pakistan now? We all miss you. Daddy sometimes Nasser is a bad boy. He is a bad boy all the time. He fites with me and Shereen. And we do not like Nasser when he is a bad boy. Love yasmine

I sat there on the floor, surrounded by mountains of boxes and folders and books, and laughed so hard I had tears pouring out of my eyes. It's always such a hilarious experience, revisiting my childhood. But I still don't understand why I could capitalize everyone else's name and not my own, though. Here's another cute, albeit extremely repetitive, one:

Dear daddy. how are you. we are fine. how are you? do you like your Easter vacasin? How is pakistan? do you like it? we all miss you. We are in Sacramento for one week. we all miss you. how many more weeks do you have laft now daddy? we are all fine. how are you? are you having a good time? we are all fine. I am fine now too. love yasmine

You know, I really do amuse myself. And I'm such a sentimental fool, too. I can't help it.

Now I have to go fix this paper I worked on last night. Someone explain to me how I managed to write an eighteen-page paper that was supposed to be fifteen-pages max. I guess this is the part where I do amazingly technical things like change the double-spacing to one-and-a-half-space, and fiddle around with the margins. Maybe I'll even make the font half a size smaller. If I'm lucky, no one will be able to tell. What the heck.

Hey, I did all of the above on my university admission essay. It worked, didn't it?

>>Just to add:<< One of the things that was really, really instrumental in helping me stay awake last night (as I moaned and groaned and groused about my paper—to myself, of course) was Waleed's blog (Half Past Nomad), which was periodically updated (every 30 minutes) as he participated in the Blogathon2003. Faiza, Yaser, and Adnan also guest-blogged. Four amazing writers (say, Masha'Allah ;)) whose blogs I'm constantly checking for updates, steadily posting on one blog over a 24-hour span. How slick is that?

It'd be nice if you sponsored Waleed...your money goes towards a great cause (I think sponsorship's still open for another 24 hours or so). If not, hey, go read Waleed's blog and commend him and the guest bloggers for all their awesome and inspiring efforts anyway. That's the least you could do. :)

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