Went to a PTA (Parent-Teacher Association) banquet at the Concord Hilton this evening, where my Shereenay Beanay was recognized as the 32nd District PTA’s Scholarship Recipient. It was funny, cuz they gave her the $500 check straight up (instead of sending it to the financial aid office of the university where she’ll be going), so at the end of the dinner, our dad was like, “Does this mean you can just cash the check and spend the money how ever you like and skip the whole college deal and they wouldn’t even know??” LOL! Leave it to my Daddy to come up with the wack ideas. Haha. Ahhhh, but my Shereen was looking beautiful up there, and her winning essay (which she had to go up to the front of the room and read aloud) was simply amazing. I woulda gone crazy blinking back tears if I hadn’t been so busy snapping away with the camera. And we all know the Yaz doesn’t cry, of course. :-p So that just goes to show you how byoooooootiful her essay was. Daddy loved it, I know, cuz I was watching his face the entire time. :) Shereen had sent off the essay as part of her scholarship application package while Ummy and Daddy were in Pakistan, and even after she found out she won she deliberately kept the essay content a secret so that he would hear it for the first time today. Everyone loved it. Yayyyy for the Bean! :-D

ok, so I had an epiphany today: Today is February 27th. And there are only 28 days in February. And my birthday is on March 1st. And I’m going to be 22 years old. Oh my God…

Stellaluna
by Janell Cannon

They perched in silence for a long time.
"How can we be so different and feel so much alike?" mused Flitter.
"And how can we feel so different and be so much alike?" wondered Pip.
"I think this is quite a mystery," Flap chirped.
"I agree," said Stellaluna. "But we're friends. And that's a fact."

=)

I skipped my Human Development lecture today (*gasp!*) in order to instead attend a workshop entitled “Body & Soul: Women of Color in Cinema” at noon. Not that I really care one way or another about women in cinema, but a friend of mine is part of the Multicultural Immersion Program that put together this specific workshop, so I felt obligated to go and show my support. Yeeee-uuuhhh. :-D Anywayz, this workshop is part of the “Celebrate Your Body Week” at our (uhh, I mean, MY) university, which is co-sponsored by, among others, the Student Health Center, Intercollegiate Athletics, and the Counseling Center. I seem to have somehow missed all the readings, debates, speeches, movies, discussions, and various workshops related to this week, but I’m glad I went to today’s event, cuz it was pretty interesting.

One of the workshop coordinators raised the question of “What Is Beautiful?”, actually writing it out on the board and inviting everyone to go up and write/draw either what they personally consider beautiful, or what the media and society at large encourage them to believe is beautiful. So we had a very interesting assortment of responses: babies, a smile, curves, flowers, long hair, tall+slender, diversity, light skin, etc etc. I wrote, NON-CONFORMITY. No lie. And no sarcasm intended either. I happen to think non-conformity is beautiful, ok. People who possess the self-confidence to walk through life with their head held high and an utter lack of regard for what others think of them or want to mold them into have my complete admiration. It’s just sad, however, to realize that the whole notion of “what other people think” is very important to some. Funny thing is, I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job of being a non-conformist myself lately. Well, not “lately”; it’s been a long process. Normal people scare me. Looking like a clone or doing the same thing that everyone else does terrifies me. I’ve always refused to conform to the prevailing standards, hence my infamous “Rebel Child” nickname. :-p The point is, I’ve pretty much finally reached a point in my life where I am perfectly happy and content with myself as a person, and as a result I can afford to view the media’s and other people’s standards as laughable and ludicrous. Somewhere along the way, a few years back, I guess, I gave up on caring what people thought of me, and let me tell you, it’s an extremely liberating experience. I love the things that make me, ME. Which is not to say that I’m deliberately ignoring the fact that I could use some major improvement in a variety of ways…which involves things like procrastination, spirituality, and discipline (and oh, a looong list of other things, yeah). When it comes down to the nityy-gritty though, I love me. So there.

We saw a montage of various music videos…TLC’s “Unpretty,” Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful,” and some song/dance scenes from random Indian films that I of course have never heard of, let alone watched. And I rarely watch television in general, so I don’t know much about music videos, but all I can say is: the TLC chicas had some weird hairstyles in their video, Christina Aguilera looks freakishly odd in hers, and Bollywood movies just plain scare the heck out of me. So there! ok, that was a major tangent. My point is, the songs (well, the first two anywayz…I don’t know jack about the Indian ones. lol) had awesome ideas though. Basically, I left the workshop with the following messages: You are already beautiful just the way you are, and you shouldn’t have to listen to what the mainstream society or the misguided voices in your head say. You can try to look or act like someone else, but in the end you have to live with YOURSELF. And the only way you can live in harmony with who you really are is to accept the fact that you may never look like someone else, and that’s ok. You are always beautiful, both inside and outside, and those who say anything to the contrary are not worth the pain and anguish you cause yourself by taking their words to heart. Eating yourself up over society’s standards of what is beautiful and what is not, and trying to change yourself just to make OTHERS happy, is the wrong way to go.<--Kinda rough paraphrasing, but you get the idea? And not just girls either, I'm talking about guys too...Because EVERYONE is beautiful!! Allah (swt) created us all, and only He has the power and authority to judge the true measure of beauty.

Following the film, we broke up into groups and discussed our reactions to what we had just watched, as well as our thoughts about women and the pressures they face to conform to society’s perception of beauty. One thought-provoking point that someone brought up was the fact that there are cultural distinctions for what characterizes beauty, meaning that the definition for beauty varies across cultures. That reminded me of my last visit to Pakistan (summer 2000), and how my aunts and cousins constantly crowded around me, clicking their tongues as if I were some piteous little orphan and exclaiming, “You need to eat more! You're too skinny! Don’t they feed you in America? You’re not sick, are you?” In contrast, I have some friends here in the U.S. who, on the one hand, look at me enviously and wonder, “How do you manage to stay so thin??” and yet then turn right around and make spiteful comments like, “You better start working out regularly soon, cuz you’re not gonna stay a skinnybones for long at the rate you keep eating those french fries.” grrr… And I remember, one of my closest friends from high school—oh man, she was a track-&-field and cross-country star at our high school, and she’s wayyyy thinner than I am—but everytime she hugged me, she’d laughingly remark, “Yaz, you’re so tiny, watch, I could just push you with my finger, like this, and you’d fall right over!” LOL! And no, for the record, I am NOT anorexic. No, I don’t have an eating disorder of any sort. No, I am not all that skinny at all, actually (and no, I’m not in denial either!). But still, instead of being annoyed now, I’m starting to realize that maybe the fact that everyone I know thinks it’s abnormal to be thin could be a good thing after all, because it means that there are some people who refuse to set stock in the Westernized modern conception of beauty. Which is not to say that Western influence isn't creeping into every nook and cranny of the world though. I noticed that all the actresses in the Bollywood films were tall, slender, fair-skinned, and blue- or green-eyed. Interesting, no?

Goo Goo Dolls
::Name::

And don't it make you sad
To know that life
Is more than who we are

On the way home from school today, i stopped and bought some hearing aid batteries. And since i was at the store anywayz and couldn't resist spending money, i also bought 3 chapsticks (diff types, don't worry. lol), a RED spiral notebook with perforated sheets (awesome invention, yo) and 2 cool pens. I'm beginning to think I have an obsession with pens...and not those cutesy glitter pens that come in 89740257057 different colors, either, but the good ol' reliable Pilot Precise Rolling Ball Extra-Fine blue-ink pen. I'm majorly in love with this pen...everytime i'm at a store, i buy another one--the same exact pen, every single time... If that's not obsessed, i don't know what is. But it's not as if i have 47487 gazillion of them sitting around anywayz...I think the rest of the family appreciates this pen as much as i do, cuz every time i turn around, i lose one. Or two. Or five. Which is why i must resort to going on constant shopping sprees to replenish my collection of identical pens. haha. Btw, extra-fine pens are my friends. :) And the reason for this is that...*newsflash!*...i'm left-handed. I can't handle regular ball-point or medium-point or whatever pens, cuz i have a tendency to smudge my writing with those, which just defeats the whole purpose of making an effort to put stuff down on paper. I mean, would you really put your precious time and effort into writing something down if you knew that, at the end of the whole process, the sheet in front of you would just be a huge, illegible, smudgy blob of nothingness? Uhhhh, noooo... Extra-fine-point pens are cool, cuz the ink dries hecka fast. I like writing in Urdu though, since writing from right-to-left ensures i don't smudge as i go along. Which brings up an interesting thought...do right-handed people who write in Urdu (or any other right-to-left language) smudge? I know my dad doesn't. And since most Urdu-writers are right-handed, and I haven’t run into any so far who smudge as they write, does that mean that left-handed English-writers are the only ones who smudge their writing? Aaaahhh…I’m confusing myself, even. hahaha.

Hello, children! hahaha. i just realized how funny that sounded. Who cares though. It's my blog and i'm in a happy mood today for some reason. Do i need a reason? Must there always be a reason? Or can i just be happy for the heck of it and not have to justify it? Hmmm...oooooh, deep deep thoughts. Philosophy 101, Yaz-style. LOL

ok, forget philosophy, let's talk about another P-word...everyone's favorite P-word...yes, PHYSICS!! (actually, my fave P-word is Prophet...or Prayer...or...ummm...i'll come up with some more laters...). So yeah, physics is evil, in case you didn't already know or in case i haven't previously established. One of the most evil things about physics (besides the fact that it's a useless class) is that those evil people way up high somewhere in the upper echelons of Those-Evil-People-Who-Run-this-University (i'm actually just kidding--i think--about the 'evil people' part, ok? it's just here to add drama to my random story. Chill out, yo) always manage to put their heads together and decide to offer physics early in the morning. Which is so jack. I mean, students are barely awake in the morning anywayz. And to expect them to sit through 90 minutes of the sheer mind-numbing torture that is physics lecture with their eyes open and their brains at maximum-alertness-level?? My goodness...

But anywayz, I was running majorly late getting out of the house this morning, so i was crazy speeding up to school. Oh wait, the funniest part...So i was driving along Broadway, on my way to the freeway, and i hit this 4-way intersection right down from the post office...and i was so out of it that i was treating the stop sign like a signal light. So i'm all sitting there, *doot doo doo*, just chillin, fiddling around with my discman and Zain Bhikha CD, eating my Reeses peanut butter cups (Reeses should make a commercial about ME..."How does YAZ eat her Reeses?"...then a nice shot of me gobbling down Reeses like there's no tomorrow, oblivious to the world....yeahhhh. haha). After about 40 seconds or so (which is a LONG time to be sitting at a stop sign, ok), i decide to look around to see what's up, and by this time everyone else at the intersection had already decided i was out of it and unfit to drive, i'm guessing, cuz that would explain why they gave me weird looks and just zoomed off to go their merry way. I was like, uhhhh, oops! Oh, but it gets even better. A block down, I almost ran a red light just because, for half a second, my brain was registering it as a stop sign instead. *sigh* I swear i started laughing at that point. :-D It was just too ludicrous. I mean, leave it to the Yaz, right? :-p And no, normally i DO NOT drive like this. Just today, for some reason. lol.

Yeah, so i was really speeding to school this morning. Crazy stuff. I even managed to scare myself, the way i drove on some of those curves. *tsk tsk* And all so I could make it to my physics test on time, sheeeeesh. The things i do for my grade point average. I think i should get extra credit for effort like that. I'll be like, Ummm, i think you should give me a 'high pass' in lab and an A+ for lecture, cuz i think i broke any and all previous freeway speeding records to get here on time! Yeah, that should do it, no? After physics, i met up with Somayya and she bought me breakfast...yayyy for FRENCH FRIES!! hahahaha. okok, i was going to get some vegetable soup...it's soooo good, i swear. But it wasn't ready yet, and i was hungry, and Somayya brought up the idea of fries, and i was like, YEAH!! She bought me a LARGE serving of fries too, no less. That totally made my day. :-D So maybe that's why i'm so happy. I dunno.

Alhamdulillah though, for all the good things i have in my life! I don't really take the things i have for granted...i hope... I think i'm pretty aware of the fact that, masha'Allah, i have it a lot better than other people all over the world. But it's always good to remind myself, still.

k i have to run along and help a friend with a paper. I dunno how i get myself into these things. *sigh* Maybe i'm too nice (umm, no, you tell 'em, Somayya! haha). Or maybe I just get easily flattered by the fact that my friends think i can help them when it comes to writing. Or maybe i'm just looking for random things to do so i can slack off on my OWN studies. Or maybe all of the above. For multiple choice, though, I think the answer is always 'C.' :)

i'm very bitter at the moment because i've realized i can't access peoples' comments to my posts off my computer anymore, goshdarnit. The weird part is, i CAN read them off any other computer (i.e. campus computers). Weird weird. Gotta check it off my dad's computer tomorrow, to see if it works there too. Otherwise, any techie people out there who can explain this funky dilemna?

Anywayyyyz, i think my annoyance at not being able to read the comments has supplanted any cool stories i had to share on here. Hmm.. One exciting thing: Unity Halaqa tomorrow! :) This is something we started just a short while back, but alhamdulillah we've been able to hold many Unity Halaqas since last summer. Basically, there are several ongoing brothers' and sisters' halaqas throughout the Bay Area. The Unity Halaqa gives us an opportunity to combine these separate halaqas into a joint halaqa, held monthly at a different Islamic center or masjid. Each area (i.e. San Ramon, Fremont/Hayward, Santa Clara, San Jose, Oakland, etc.) alternately hosts a Unity Halaqa, at which a guest speaker is invited in order to motivate the attendants towards increased Islamic awareness and activism within our communities. It's a great opportunity to get to know other Muslims in the Bay Area, masha'Allah.

Found and printed the following off the Hidayah Online Forums a while back... Amazing place, masha'Allah. I've been a lurker on there for ever; just need to post or comment one of these years. :-p Check out the main Hidayah Online website as well. Anywayz, this is soooo beautiful in its simplicity:

A THOUGHT ON SALAH
Ihya Uloom ad-Deen, al-Ghazali

It is narrated of Haatim bin Al-Asamm that he said in answer to a question about prayer:

"When the time for prayer is at hand, I make proper ablution,
go to the spot where I intend to pray,
and sit there until my limbs and organs are in a collected state.

"Then I stand up to perform my prayer,
facing the Ka'aba between my brows,
the bridge-over-Hell beneath my feet,
Paradise to my right and Hell to my left,
and the Angel of Death behind me,
thinking all the while that
this is my final prayer.

"Then I stand between hope and fear.

"I carefully pronounce, 'Allahu Akbar!'

"Then I recite the Qur'an harmoniously,
bow in humilty and
prostrate myself submissively.
I then sit back on my left haunch,
spreading out the left foot,
raising my right foot on the toes.

"I follow this with sincerity.

"Then I wonder whether or not my prayer has been accepted."

Subhan'Allah.

i was driving up to school today, and i could SWEAR i smelled french fries somewhere along the freeway. Yummyyyy! I have an obsession with french fries, in case you didn't know already. :) Somayya told me last week, "Yaz, you're the only person i know who picks a place to eat out based on whether or not they serve french fries." haha. :-D

First of all...HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SHEREENIE BEANIE! :)

Well, my Ummy and Daddy are baaaack, and i'm oh-so-excited. :-D They flew into San Francisco last night, and some of the psycho soap opera drama family (our relatives. lol) came down from Sacramento and then headed out to the airport with us. It was funny cuz we had to take 2 cars, since my dad had warned us that there would be tons of luggage, so Aslam mamaji had his SUV and i convinced Yaser to drive our SUV, since i absoluely hate driving it myself. It's so hard to check my blind spots while driving that huge monstrous vehicle. lol. But nice child that Yaser is, he didn't whine about having to drive OUR car to go pick up MY parents. lol. Yaser is a cool kid. <-- That's so funny how i call him "kid" when he's a month younger than me and about 25 years older mentally. Well maybe not that much. But no one's as goofy as ME. So mentally, everyone's older. :) It's hilarious, I was just talking about the SUV, and now i'm cracking up here cuz i'm remembering how my friend Aaron gets a big kick out of it…Everytime I drive the SUV up to school (which is not often at all, if i can help it…maybe twice so far?), he goes, "Watch out, everybody! Yazzie's on the freeway in her souped up YazMobile, and she's gonna roll right over you if you don't get the hell out of her way!" And then he's constantly giving me psychotic advice like, "Just drive right over 'em!! Go, go, you can do it!!" Insane friends, yes, what can i say...

Its funny how my hometown is technically only 25 miles away from the City, but during the day it usually takes almost twice as many minutes to get there cuz of the crazy traffic. But since my parents' flight came in at about 8 p.m., we headed out of the house about an hour before, and there was hardly any traffic at all. So Aslam mamaji and the aunts were following Yaser and me and Shereen, and because Aslam mamaji didn't really know the way to the airport, Yaser had to make sure we stayed RIGHT in front of them so they could follow us. This was compounded by the fact that Aslam mamaji drives slowwwwwwww, so WE had to go majorly slow too. grrr... Yaser was all whining, "Maaaaan, the whole way down to your guys's house, Aslam mamaji was going like 65 in the FAST LANE!!!" So we spent most of the drive making fun of how Aslam mamaji drives like a grandma. haha. Oh, did i mention the speed limit is 65 mph? Aslam mamaji was going like 63 or something, omg. We were bored out of our minds. People were passing us in the SLOW lane, for cryin out loud! I mean, no one in their right mind drives at the speed limit in the first place; to drive below the speed limit is just incomprehensible to me. Now I can safely say I’ve seen everything. <-- And that just made me sound like some old geezer. Hahaha. Oh, and Yaser and I made fun of Shereen cuz she kept saying "'Frisco" and "SF" and I was like, "Uhh, dude, you know no one calls it that, man." She was like, "Yes, they dooo!" I was like, "Hellooo, if you live in the Bay, it's 'the City,'" and Yaser was like, "Yeah, woman, get it right...You only say 'Frisco or 'SF' if you're talking to the non-Bay folks, cuz they don't get it." For a non-Bay child, he seems to have it allll down. lol. I think Shereen managed to throw Yaser off-guard once by randomly blurting out, “I wish Nasser were more like YOU!” I think he was hecka flattered, but he played it off with some sarcastic remark, as usual. Haha. But other than the boring driving and the silly conversations, we made it to the airport and back uneventfully. The parents are mighty awake and alert and chipper today. I’m like, Uhhh, aren’t you supposed to be jet-lagged or something?? LOL.

Let’s see, what else, what else. So funny…I think NORMAL people compose blog entries that are about half the length of what I’ve already written, and then go away after hitting the “post & publish” button. I on the other hand, can’t seem to stop writing until I’ve absolutely, completely emptied out whatever exists in this thing I call a brain. LOL. Which is my cue to run along now. =)

*ok, I know y’all have been waiting years for this, but…WARNING: THIS POST IS LOOONG. IF YOU CAN’T HANDLE IT, READ IT IN INSTALLMENTS!* :)

Now I remember why I always used to get all frustrated with keeping a diary or journal when I was younger…once life catches up with you and you’ve got a bajillion things going on at once, you fall behind in writing stuff down, and then it just becomes such a hassle to keep track of everything that went on. Aaaahhhhh!!…

But let’s try anywayz. Shereen and I were talking earlier about how the past week has been so amazing and fun…Something exciting going on nearly everyday, so that it’s seemed like a week-long Eid celebration. Wednesday was Eid, of course, and everything about that is kinda fuzzy in my mind by now, so if you wanna know what we were up to, check out the Feb. 13th post on Shereen’s blog regarding our crazy day. =) Thursday, I…ummm…went up to school, even though I had no classes. Tutored for a couple hours, and had lunch with Somayya too...my favorite cousin-by-default, friend-by-choice, partner-in-crime, yeeee-uhh!. =) Funny thing is, Soms and I always try to take most of our classes together, but once in a while we hit a quarter where we have NO shared classes, and we get all sad, cuz then we have to resort to making appointments in order to see each other. So we had a yummy lunch, and an amusing chat about my no-boys policy. Yes, it always comes right back to that, doesn’t it? :-p Somayya and I were laughing cuz she pointed out that I have majorly high standards when it comes to guys, while her criteria is basically “silly boys with goofy smiles.” LOL. Actually, I think HER criteria is majorly awesome too; I’d just like to add on to it a bit, that’s all. :-D

Friday was cool cuz I went to the daycare in the morning. The little kids said, HI! Or I’m sure they would have if they knew you. =) When I was leaving, one of the little boys, Adrian, handed me a sheet of construction paper, saying, “Here, this is for you, ok?” It was a drawing of a snowman, painstakingly executed with orange crayon, no less…a wobbly little snowman complete with a top hat and long, scraggly fingers. I call them “Freddy Krueger fingers.” Hehehe. I remember how I used to live in mortal fear of Freddy Krueger when I was little. Oh, the days… In the afternoon, I came home early from school, and Shereen and I drove down to the South Bay for the Eid celebration there. I already kinda talked about that in my last post.

Ahhh, Saturday. Zaytuna Institute, my favorite place to hang out. Anyone who wants to get a sense of the strong presence and the awesome vibe of Muslims in the Bay Area should head to Zaytuna. I was checking out the comments to my last post, and there seems to be some…uhhh…disagreement about Zaytuna and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. I’m not about to infringe on other people’s opinions about Zaytuna and Shaykh Hamza and start a full-scale debate here, so all I’m going to say is this: I don’t know much about Zaytuna’s involvement with schools, etc. overseas, so I’m not going to address those comments, but I do see the impact that Zaytuna has had on the lives of Muslims here in the Bay. All I know is, our Muslim community in the Bay is Masha’Allah very strong, and the credit for that can be attributed in no small measure to Zaytuna and the amount of effort that Shaykh Hamza has put into educating our community, both Muslim as well as non-Muslim, about Islam. Maybe it’s because I live in this community that I can appreciate the full measure of our Muslim presence and involvement here, and yes, I do take it for granted much of the time… I didn’t realize before that there was so much controversy surrounding Zaytuna and Shaykh Hamza’s teachings, etc., so it’s pretty eye-opening. All I can say is, everyone’s entitled to their personal opinion, and I respect that.

So anywayz…Shereen and I went off to Zaytuna on Saturday morning, and we were there all day (got home at about 10-ish that night). It was an amazing day, masha’Allah. What I love the most about Zaytuna is how all the people I run into there are always so nice and polite and peaceful and happy. It’s just so awesome. I really can’t get over it. The peaceful vibe there is so cool. Anywayz, there was stuff there for people of all ages. Muslim artists had set up tents/stands diplaying their artwork for sale. Masha’Allah, we have sooo many talented brothers and sisters! I didn’t even realize. The photography, paintings, craftswork, etc. were simply amazing. Too bad I’m a broke-ass college student, or I’d be forking over the big bucks to support our Muslim bros and sistas. =) And then local Muslim businesses were tabling too, so we had a whole full-fledged bazaar deal going on…vendors selling their Islamic goods and stuff. Shereen and I spent a wayyy long time at all the gazillion hijab tables. Hehe. Checking out the hijabs is always fun, ok? You know it. ;) We bought our dad an "Eid Mubarak" coffee mug (sooo byootiful. Makes even ME wanna drink coffee, and that's saying a lot. hehe), this majorly cool lavender herbal body cream for our mom, and a wooden tasbeeh for a friend of mine. When Seher got there a little later in the afternoon, she and I made another round at the hijab tables AGAIN. I was her consultant, cuz every table she stopped at, she’d be all, “Oooooooh!” and I was like, “Buy it, just buy it if you like it!” I know, I’m an awesome consultant, aren’t I? Haha. Anywayz, Seher was having issues choosing between light green, dark green, light brown, medium orange-brown (“rust,” she called it), and orange hijabs. I was like, “Buy ‘em all!” I helped a lot, ok. :-D Seher was like, “Greeeeennn! Yay for Islam colors!” I love you, Seher. You’re a crackhead baby too, you know it. But I’m happy cuz I convinced Seher to buy a burgundy head-wrap. It’s all about the reds, yo! I was laughing at Seher cuz I told her, based on what I’ve seen so far, her wardrobe consists of only greens, browns, oranges, and grays…all those earth tones. I told her she needs some RED. And she was like, “Well you know what, you’re going overboard on this whole red deal. You need some more variety too!” So we compromised. I bought a burgundy wrap AND a gray one. :-D

Umm, what else…There were all these hecka fun kids’ activities. Shereen and I wandered by one of the stalls, and I was like, “Oooh, Shereen! Buy me a chocolate cupcake, pleeease??” (cuz I cleaned out my savings account towards my cell phone bill…more on that later…so basically the cool Bean child was paying for everything that day. Haha). She was like, “Okay!” but then, short-attention-span kid that I am, I looked over and saw this other table where one of the sisters was handing out sugar cookies to all the kids, who were sitting there personally decorating their cookies with frosting and sprinkles. I was like, Oh man, we gotta go there. So Shereen and I wandered over and the sister who was supervising saw us standing there allll wistfully, so she smiled and offered, “Here, would you like to decorate a cookie too?” We were all, YES!! Hehe. So we sat ourselves down and did just that. Shereen saved her cookie for later, but The Yaz doesn’t quite comprehend the concept of delayed gratification just yet, so I gobbled mine up right away. It was yummyyyyy. ;) Oh oh! And there was a petting zoo…with the cutest rabbits and chickens and geese and teeny-tiny goats the size of cats, and umm…yeah. And there were these 2 ADORABLE ponies…you know the ones that are small and short, with long manes? Shetland ponies, is that it? The little kids were getting rides on them. I wanted a ride too! I’m a small person…everyone tells me I look like a kindergartener anywayz! I shoulda wheedled a ride on the pony too. Haha. But no, I’m still taller and bigger than the real 5-year-olds, and I don’t think all that exertion woulda been good for the cute ponies. LOL. Anywayz, major cuteness, man. I took a picture of some kids on the ponies. I took lotsa pictures…insha’Allah they’ll come out right though. So yeah, we basically spent all day wandering around and talking to people. It was awesome, masha’Allah.

After Maghrib salah, everyone settled down to hear Imam Zaid Shakir speak. Amazing speaker, masha’Allah. According to Shereen, he spoke at the 2001 Zaytuna Conference…unfortunately, my memory fails me, so I felt as if I were hearing him for the first time. A couple of the things he touched on (I took detailed notes, but what’s below is somewhat paraphrased. And any mistakes and misinterpretations are mine, of course):

“As Muslims, we shouldn’t hesitate to be critical of injustice, violence, and cruelty. And if we oppose the impending war with Iraq, we should oppose it out of solidarity with the earth, because the earth will have her say. We are polluting the earth, and warfare adds to the pollution, because of nuclear waste. This is in addition to the pollution resulting from petroleum, steel, burning off the oil wells, and depleted uranium. We should protest on behalf of the earth and on behalf of the auliyah.” ...

“In the days of Rasul’Allah (saw), there were people who were willing to sacrifice everything they had for Allah. We, as well, should be willing to give up everything we have for Allah’s sake. Our devotions, our sacrifices, our struggles benefit ourselves, our families, our communities, society at large, and the world…they benefit humanity.” ...

“Dedicate yourself from a young age to serving Allah (swt). What do you have to lose? You are not missing out on anything by giving up wordly pleasures, but rather, you are gaining everything spiritually. Pursue the pleasure of Allah. Follow the example of Ibrahim (as)…Have the imaan to smash idols. And idols are not necessarily concrete physical things…they can be human beings (rock idols, pop idols, idols of the silver screen, etc.), but they can also be actions and ideas that are against the teachings of Islam.” ...

“Muslims too have put their blood, sweat, and tears into building this country. So if someone tells you that you don’t belong here, and you’re scratching your head and wondering if they’re right, then you don’t understand the history and contributions of Muslims in this country.” ...

Following that was Isha’ salaah, and then Shereen and I stayed a bit for the recitation of the Burda (Poem of the Cloak). The Burda is a lengthy poem praising the Prophet Muhammad (saw), written by Imam al-Busiri between 1260 and 1268 CE in Egypt.

So that was Saturday. On Sunday, we slept in a bit, and then Shereen and I got ready for the peace march/anti-war rally in San Francisco. She was wearing this black t-shirt that says “TERROR WILL NOT END TERRORISM” in red lettering (I bought it off the Afghan Student Association after Sept. 11th), and she wanted to make a sign with the same slogan, so The Yaz had to get down on her hands and knees and put her mad block-lettering skillz to good use, really quickly before we left the house. ;) It was funny though, I was laughing at Shereen because her sign was this thick piece of cardboard attached to a broomstick with what seemed like a gazillion miles of tape…I was all, “Duuuude, that is SUCH a ghetto sign!” She was like, “Oh, you’ll see real ghetto once we get there. This is nothing.” She was right too. :) So anywayz, we left home at about noon, and took BART (not “Simpson”… BART=Bay Area Rapid Transit… like the subway, but aboveground) into San Francisco. Instead of getting off at the Embarcadero, where the march was supposed to start, we went one stop further and got off at Montgomery, so instead of being at the tail end of the march, we were somewhere in the middle. It was way more fun that way. ;) Funny thing is, we were expecting major crowds on BART, so needless to say we were kinda disappointed when we got on and the cars were almost empty. Leave it to our complacent preppieville folks. *tsk tsk* But as we progressed, more and more people kept getting on at every station, until the train was PACKED. It was awesome. Finally the train was so jam-packed that there wasn’t even any standing room left, and still there were people trying to squeeze on at every stop. Luckily, we had this no-nonsense driver, and although I guess she was obligated to continue stopping at every station, she made effort to make sure no more people got on. Every time she made a stop and the doors automatically opened, we could hear her voice booming over the loudspeaker at unsuspecting new riders: “This train is out of service! Get back off the train! NOW!!” Shereen and I were totally bustin up. We ended up getting into some cool conversations with the people around us too. The woman squeezed into the seat next to us exclaimed, “Nice lettering on that sign!” One man peered at our sign and remarked, “Yes, that’s a wonderful concept. We were just discussing that over dinner last night.” Another man shared with us a Quaker saying: “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.” Alhamdulillah. Someone tell that to George Bush and Ariel Sharon and all the other jacked up leaders of our world, please.

Once we got off BART, we basically hit the march right at the steps leading up out of the BART station, so it’s not like we had to look really hard to figure out where the fun stuff was going on. The streets were jam-packed, masha’Allah. It was so amazing. One of the coolest things about the whole march was the vibe…it was kinda like the same vibe I got at Zaytuna the day before…people were sooo nice and polite to each other, even though we were all strangers. For example, Shereen, being the short and oblivious child that she is, kept hitting various people in front on her on their heads with her sign. I was like, “Duuude, WATCH that thing,” and the people in front of her would turn around all confused and she was all, “Oh no, I’m sorry!” and since they were facing us anywayz they’d look up and read our sign and smile at the message and be like, “Oh, don’t worry about it, it’s ok!” and it was just so nice! It was like a shared sense of humanity and brotherhood, even though, as far as I know, most of the people were not Muslim. It was simply amazing how people from such diverse races and religions and backgrounds came together as one voice to protest U.S. policies and actions, and to articulate their hope for peace. The organizers' estimate was that close to 300,000 people showed up to march. Masha’Allah, it was a wonderful experience. So we slowly wound along with the massive crowd, from Montgomery, past Powell, past Market, and finallyyyy all the way down to the Civic Center, where the march culminated with speeches and stuff. I say “stuff” because Shereen and I stuck around for only a couple of the speeches before we decided we were majorly hungry and had to EAT. It was past 4 by then. So we walked towards the Civic Center BART station and hit up some random café on the way, which turned out to have the yummiest tuna melts and cinnamon rolls ever. And they gave me free potato chips with my sandwich! I was all excited, you can’t even imagine. ;) And then we came home. The End.

I can’t think of what else to write about. I think I’ve written wayyyy more than enough. This should take everyone a few days to get through, anywayz. :-D omg, this is longer than a freakin paper for a writing class. Aaahhh…

Wow, i was just checking out my blog, and realized i haven't posted since Monday. I swear i did the whole quinessential double-take...i opened up my blog expecting to see the date heading over the top post say something like, "Wednesday," so i'm like, "doot doo doo," just sitting here opening up hecka different webpages, and i come back to my blog, and it says, "Monday." I'm like, "Ok, cool," and go back to my emails. And then I'm like, "Wait, MONDAY??" Daaang. So here i am, back to the wonderful world of posting rambling thoughts on my blog. Oh, the joy. :)

I can't believe I'm online at almost 3 a.m. on a Friday night (uhh, Saturday morning?) anywayz. Especially since I'm half-asleep in the first place. Shereen and I just got back at almost midnight from the South Bay, where we went for an Eid celebration deal. Wayyy awesome. One of the main speakers was Imam Suhaib Webb...sooo amazing, masha'Allah. For those of you who've never heard him speak, try to go whenever you get the chance, insha'Allah. I wish i could talk more in detail about the event and the speech itself, but i'm not awake enough to be adequately coherent. So here's some snippets i jotted down...

"Malcolm X once said, 'My whole life has been a chronology of changes.'"

"How many of you live your lives as a series of changes? Look at your position last year, at this same Eid last year...Can you honestly say that you have improved your relationship with Allah?"

On the mothers of the Ummah and their responsibilities: "The hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world."

The whole thing about change reminds me of something we discussed in halaqa during Ramadan... We brought up the concept of Ramadan being a test, and the idea was that if you're the same person at the end of Ramadan as you were in the beginning, then you didn't benefit. Something should be better. There is no point in repetition [i.e. daily fasting for a month, etc.] if you're not going to use every day of Ramadan, or every day of your life, to improve yourself.

I'm online right now cuz i'm reserving tickets for the Eid-al-Adha celebration at Zaytuna Institute tomorrow. I could spend hours talking about Zaytuna and the peaceful vibe there, but i need to head off to bed. Check out the website link though...There's some hecka cool articles, audios, and videos on there, masha'Allah. Maybe after i get back from there tomorrow, I'll post about it, insha'Allah. But Zaytuna is a beautiful place, masha'Allah, and the people i meet there always look so peaceful and lit up from the inside...you can almost see the nur shining from their faces, you know? The celebration starts in the morning, and there's various stuff going on throughout the day...And Imam Zaid Shaker will be speaking in the evening, insha'Allah. The Yaz is exciteddddd. =)

k, i'm going to sleep now!

Just got home. It's way past 9 o'clock, daaaang! Talk about a looooooong day. Those of you who did du'as for me, THANK YOU, THANK YOUUUU! Jazak'Allah. :-D Want an update? Of course you do! So i never even got around to studying for the physics test, thanks to my other 2 insane midterms, but somehow i sat in the lecture hall this morning and managed to b.s. to my heart's content. Insha'Allah it'll work out, I dunno. I'm still excited that i even had anything in my head to b.s. about in the first place, cuz i totally went into that one with blank confusion. Physics is majorly eeeevil though. Human Development was awesome. Studied for that one more than anything else, and i think it'll reflect on my grade, insha'Allah! i hope so...gotta do well in at least one of these midterms, or i'll be kicking myself, cuz we crackhead children are supposed to be geniuses. Or SOMEthing. hahah. Hmm, what else...African American Studies 100 (Ethnicity in the United States)...awesome class, btw. The professor is straight-up hilarious. But that was another b.s. typa midterm, cuz i had barely even got to look over the notes that midterm either (i know, i know...concentrating on one class and neglecting the others wasn't quite the way to go. Ya think i woulda figured this out by now, right?), but alhamdulillah it went well, i think. Then i tutored for an hour. The nice freshman kid still won't stop thanking me every 2 seconds. hahaha. Gotta work on that one.

What else...Walked across campus to my car, took a shortcut through Briggs Hall and scrawled, "Yaz rockt das Haus! :) " on the blackboard in the hallway...it's tradition. lol. I've been doing that for like 2 years now on a totally random basis, since i hardly ever go through that building. But i think it started annoying someone, cuz i notice these days there's rarely any chalk at the blackboard anymore. Like it matters; the board is so dusty that i can use my fingers and it looks just as cool. :-D Then i met up with crazy Deval and helped her with her essay, which took like 3 freakin hours or something. Deval is such a demanding child. lol. I'm sitting there trying to make sense of her crazy paper, and then she'd interrupt me with some random thought or other and get me all sidetracked, and then 5 seconds later she'd glare at me and pound her fist on the table and go, "Stop talking! Get back to the paper!" Pissed me off too. I was like, "wtf is your problem, man! You keep doing that, and you're gonna be editing your sorry paper all on your own!" Somayya was like, "Yeah! If i were you, Deval, i'd be kissin her ass right about now! I'd be like, 'Yaz, you want something to eat? More chips?'" hahahah. Thank God for Somayya. What would i do without my partner in crime to keep me (IN)sane?? Such a sad life that would be. =) And then Somayya left and Deval kept looking at me all worriedly and going, "Are you mad?" Which is, of course, the surest way possible to make me mad. :-p But i was like, "No, Deval, but it's been a hella long day and i'm exhausted and i wish you would stop lurking over my shoulder so i can finish this damn paper of yours and go HOME!" lol. Don't mess with the Yaz when she's tired and hungry. :-p

Then i drove all the way home too, which was actually kinda funky... Popped my Zain Bhikha CD into the discman (i'm hooked on Zain Bhikha and Dawud Wharnsby Ali these days), bumped the volume wayyy up, and just chilled out. Commuting is good for chillin purposes. For reals, yo. The crazy thing was, though, that i was so lost in my weird tangled-up thoughts and basically just spazzed-out, so the next thing i knew, 60 miles had gone by and i'm exiting the freeway and blinking at the brightness of my hometown lights. Barely remember anything of the drive at all. Weird, huh? Don't worry, i doubt it's the early onset of Alzheimers. lol. It's just that long drives are majorly relaxing if you know where you're going, and after two-and-a-half- (or whatever) years, I've got my stretch of 80/680 down like the back of my hand. I could be driving those 60 miles blindfolded and know where i'm going. So it's alllll good. Yeah...

Somayya got me a byooootiful skirt! i'm all excited. Somayya is my hero, yo. She's got Imam al-Ghazali down to an art without even knowing it...cuz she's Duties of the Brotherhood in Islam in action. It's like the whole "personal aid" chapter where you anticipate your brother's/sister's needs before they even have to ask you. ;) Way to go, dude. Can i be like you when i grow up? Oh wait, we're not planning on growing up anywayz...

so i just got back from my weekly halaqa, and i am sooo unbelievably TIREDDDDD. Believe it or not, i actually did not get ANY sleep last night cuz i was up ALL night studying. And when my head started nodding over the books at like 4 a.m. and i had to hecka blink my eyes to focus on the text, i decided to come on over to the computer...cuz hey, being online always helps me stay awake. :-D I'm sure y'all can relate, don't lie! So i did interesting things like check my emails 32840398490 times and talk to weird friends on AIM and oh yeah...add some color to my blog! Hecka exciting, yes wayyyy. I'm still trying to figure out where the heck i'm going with this funky color combo, so i appreciate feedback. And hey, mad props to ME cuz i never knew HOW to change the colors before (hence, my blaaaaahhhh white background)...THEN, i had an epiphany and realized that the Tag-Board color palette was good for SOMETHING, cuz it gives you the codes for colors. Coolness! :-D So yeah...

Halaqa was cool in terms of seeing all the awesome sistas, but ummm...sadly NOT productive in terms of actually absorbing anything educational, etc. *siiiigh* WHICH is, of course, my own fault for going to halaqa all zoned out and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. Not that i shoulda skipped out on halaqa...but maybe i shoulda gotten SOME sleep at least last night? I dunno. But it was crazy crazyyyy cuz Aisha kept asking me questions or prodding me when it was my turn to speak, and i, sad case that i am, was like, 'Huh? Whaaaat? Where are we? I don't get it! I'm confusiddddd...' You get the point, i'm sure. :-p Geeeez, Yaz, gotta get with the program, genius child! (For the record, i'm NOT usually this spazzed-out in halaqa. lol) Umm yeah. But anywayz, we just finished reading Imam al-Ghazali's Duties of the Brotherhood in Islam, which is very sad because i am in love with that book. I've been meaning to post some passages/quotes/ahadith/etc. from there, but YazzieSpazzie the crackhead child is falling asleep over the keyboard here, so we must sadly postpone that til another day when she is, insha'Allah, a bit more alert and coherent.

Speaking of incoherence though (and JUST when you thought you had gotten rid of me! ahahahah, gotcha again, suckas!)...last night i was studying for my Human Development 100A (Infancy & Early Childhood) midterm, and on looking over the syllabus i found this hilariously self-deprecating thought that i had written at the bottom of the page sometime during the first week of the quarter...

"Professor Jennings says, 'First children are always the experiment.' Well in THAT case, no WONDER i turned out so abnormal! muahahahahahaha!!"

Yes, i crack myself up, i do indeed. It's such a crazy life being the Yaz, what can i say. lol. What else was i gonna say... Oh! Interesting things to think about (more Human Development stuff)...We were talking about scientific versus non-scientific inquiries, and some example of non-scientific questions would be, "Why is love needed to survive? Is love good? Why do we love our kids? Do we love them just so they'll survive? Why should we survive if we can't love?" Yup, hecka mind-boggling, ain't it? And i posted that just cuz i'm bitter that (i think?) y'all are slacking off and doing random things and reading my blog while i have to go read heavy textbooks and skim my notes and pretend i know what the heck i'm lookin at and trying to convince myself that i will indeed, insha'Allah, do awesome tomorrow. So how bout you go rack your brains over those deep and mindless questions, so we can ALL be miserable together! yayyy. :-D

And before i forget...funny AIM convo for y'all to shake your head in bewilderment at while you ponder what a weird crackhead i am. This is me and a friend at around 5 o'clock (my time) this morning...

ME: i have 3 midterms monday
ME: do some du'as for me, will ya?
AISHA: you mean, TOMORROW?????
AISHA: inshallah you'll do fine
ME: no cuz tomorrow is sunday
ME: oh wait, yeah, tomorrow
ME: hahahah
AISHA: today is sunday, girl
AISHA: LOL
ME: today is sunday?
AISHA: OMG
ME: uh huh
AISHA: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
AISHA: dude go to sleep!
AISHA: hahaha
AISHA: that was too cute
ME: HAHAHAHAHA
ME: yeah that was
ME: what can i say
ME: it comes naturallyy
ME: :D
AISHA: i can so imagine u online tomorrow like, 'yeah i have a test tomorrow' while ur missing out on the test haha

Talk about mind-boggling, yo. Yes, the Yaz needs some sleeeeeeeppp. So i am gonna go practice some shut-up techniques in the best way possible...sprawled on my bed under like 3 blankets because, believe it or not, it's HECKA COLD around here! and the Yaz HATES...ABSOLUTELY HATES...the cold. Am i the only person who warms up their hands at the toaster in the middle of the night in between studying? Hmmm...i really should shut up before ya'll think i'm even more of a freak of nature than you have already figured out. =) Don't forget...do du'as!

i woke up at 2 p.m. todayyyy!! heck yeah, i'm all excited. Normally i have crazy vampire-ish tendencies where i pull all-nighters in a supposed attempt to study but end up talking to friends on AIM instead. Sooo productive, yeah. But last night i fell asleep at 9.30, and now i feel awesomely rested. It's such a foreign feeling for me to be rested; how sad is THAT??

I had some random dreams too, but i can only remember the last one. In my dream, I was talking online to some friend (as i always am. AIM is the devil, for those of you who don't already know....sooo damn addicting, omg!), and heard the doorbell ring, so i was like, 'brb,' and went off to answer the door. And lo and behold, there's my parents back from Pakistan, with a throng of all our crazy soap-opera-drama relatives right behind 'em. I was like, WHOA!! hahaha. Talk about random surprises, yo. So everyone comes in and chills out and we have crazy catching-up session with everyone. So i head over to the corner when my daddy-o is talking to two elderly patriarchs-of-the-family-lookin men, and my dad kinda looks at me sideways, like, hmmmm.... and takes my chin in his hand and turns my face at a couple different angles, and goes, "Nice nose-piercing. Did you just get that done?" And in my dream, I remember i was totally thrown off-guard, like, oops, bustedddd! because i had forgotten i HAD my nose pierced in the first place. lol. And whaddaya know, the elderly baba-jis come right to my rescue, cuz right away they start bringing up names of random women who (in my dream at least) are respected, accomplished, and renowned as learned Muslimahs. Oh and incidentally these women all have their noses pierced. :-D (Yes, i have retarded dreams. Shut up.) And my daddy-o is just thoughtfully nodding along with each name, like, "Truuuuue..." and i'm standing beside him emphatically and sagely nodding along too like, "Yeahhhh, listen to the bab-jis!!" hahahaha. The coolest thing, i just remembered, was that the baba-jis and my father were all speaking in Pukhtu, and i was following it all perfectly. Cuz ya know...Maala ligga ligga Pukhtu raazi...Singra haal dey? Khashta dey? Tol khashta dey. :-D But anywayz, i woke up laughing. And that's always the best way to wake up, isn't it?

Now that I got the fun stuff outta the way, just wanted to say to those of you who stop by and read my hecka lame ramble of a blog...Do lotsa lotsa du'as for me, ok? I have THREE midterms on Monday and ONE MORE on Tuesday, and i am in dire need of prayers and du'as, because i have barely even started studying yet. So everyone's favorite slacker child might not be online for a couple days (how she will be able to restrain herself and survive, we don't know yet). In any case, yeah, do du'a.

Khodey pey amaan, ya'll... fi aman'Allah!

so i'm kinda bitter right now cuz a friend and i made plans to have brunch or whatever together at Bakers Square this morning (HER idea, incidentally) and then she called me at the last possible minute, RIGHT when i was about to pull into the Bakers Square parking lot, to tell me she couldn't make it after all. I'm like, wtf man. I'm a very bitter child, yes i am, because flaky people really REALLY REEEEEALLYYYY do annoy me. *sigh* ok yaz, get the hell over it. lol. Self-pity is another thing that annoys me, so i try not to wallow too often. Good philosophy, yes? :-D But it's ok, cuz i was starving so i bought myself a yummy brownie...and guess what, it has M&Ms on it! Whoa! There are very few things in life, I believe, that can't be cured by chocolate. So yeah. :) Anywayz, it's probably a good thing we skipped out on Bakers Square anywayz, cuz the last time i went there (September), some random waiter boy who worked there told me, all straight-faced, that I was "the finest Pakistani girl he'd ever met." Umm yeah...no lie. So it gets even weirder, cuz at the end, when we were leaving, right when my friend and I turned around to walk out, he called out to me, “I really wish I could see your hair.” And you know me, I can hold in the laughter for only so long (which is NOT LONG at all), so I started cracking up, and I was like, “Sorry, buddy, but even my friend here has never seen my hair, ok?” I turned around then and kept walking, and I swear I could feel that fool’s eyes boring into my back the entire time it took me to get to the door. It was hella weird. Once out the door, my friend and I just collapsed in laughter. I was like, “So I wonder just exactly how many Pakistani girls he HAS met?” hahaha. Whatever though. But yeah, it was majorly weird, and I keep having this paranoid feeling that I'll run into him if I go back to Bakers Square, so i've been missing out on the YUMMY chocolate cream pies since last fall. *siiiiigh* :-( Honestly, that's a major sacrifice for me.

You know what, since we’re on the subject (or i am anywayz), I’m getting all aggravated with the whole guy issue these days. I was complaining to a friend once, “I don’t know what the hell it is… Either I’ve become less oblivious over the past year, or guys have become way more obvious.” And she was like, “Yaz, I hate to tell you, but you’ve become less oblivious.” So I was like, Just wonderful. So I dunno. Whatever though. Maybe someday I’ll get over getting checked out or hit on everywhere I go. It’s hella weird though…I’m like, Geeeez, should I get rid of the hijab and bust out with the NIQAAB now, or what?? Cuz the hijab doesn’t seem to be doin jack these days. Unfortunately, I lack the imaan and discipline to implement the niqaab right now though. *sigh* :-p

Those of you who don't know me are probably reading this and thinking i'm such a shallow and self-centered person. Well it's MY blog! j/k, j/k. Actually, it IS my blog...and the reason i initially started this was so it'd be a means of venting and ranting and raving for me. Sometimes i'll write as if i'm talking to myself, and sometimes as if it's aimed at a general audience, which would be YOU, whoever you are...and stuff will probably be majorly raw and personal...and i'm sure i'll read it later and wince, because i'm very conscious of the fact that this is a public blog. I don't mind that it's public either. For all those you who have been visiting...I'm majorly flattered, and want to thank you for the awesome comments and feedback. But my point is that i'm still in the process of learning about religion and the world and people...and mostly still getting to know MYSELF. So bear with me, y'all, and try to put up with my psychotic stories.

And just for the record, so you're not getting the wrong impression from my weird posts...i may sometimes find the whole getting-hit-on-by-random-guys deal amusing, but i don't appreciate it, and i DEFINITELY don't encourage it. Laughing at it is just my personal way of dealing with it and moving on, because being annoyed or frustrated about it doesn't help much. So analyze that. And refer to my post down there somewhere about guys being a no-no and unnecessary drama right now. Sometimes i'll find the whole thing hilarious, but most likely i'll be aggravated, and if i post my random stories up here, it's not to make y'all think i'm a vain and shallow person, but rather just so i can vent about it and get it all out of my system. ok? ok. Just wanted to make sure y'all understood that.

Now that we've gotten everything all clear...i gotta go print out my resume and work on a personal statement for an internship application. More on that later, if i do get it, insha'Allah. ;)

Anyone with access to the children's section of your local public library...go find and read The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau and Gail de Marcken. GORGEOUS illustrations and a beautiful storyline! Basically, it's about a generous quiltmaker who sews the most beautiful quilts in the world, and then gives them away to those who are poor or homeless. And there's a powerful and greedy king whose castle is literally stuffed to the brim with treasures, but who has never been happy enough to feel the joy of smiling. When he hears of the magical quiltmaker, he hurries to her and demands she present him with a quilt, hoping that her gift will finally make him smile. She refuses point-blank, reminding him that her gifts are only for those who are poor and needy. Finally though, she strikes a deal with the king...for every gift he gives away from his castle and storehouses, she will add another piece to a quilt for him. When at last all his posession are gone, his quilt will be finished. The king hems and haws, of course, but finally gives in. Going out into the world, the king finds those who may be in need of his gifts. "Morning, noon, and night...for years and years...the king slowly emptied his wagons, trading his treasures for smiles around the world." Finally then, the king's treasures are all gone, and the quiltmaker goes in search of him...

This is the passage i found so beautiful:

After a long search, she finally found him. The king's royal clothes were now in tatters and his toes poked out of his boots. Yet his eyes glittered with joy and his laugh was wonderful and thunderous.

The quiltmaker unfolded the king's quilt from her bag. It was so beautiful that hummingbirds and butterflies fluttered about. Standing on tiptoe, she tenderly wrapped it around him.

"What's this?" cried the king.

"As I promised you long ago," the woman said, "when the day came that you, yourself, were poor, only then would I give you a quilt." The king's great sunny laugh made green apples fall and flowers turn his way.

"But I am not poor," he said. "I may look poor, but in truth my heart is full to bursting, filled with the memories of all the happiness I've given and received. I'm the richest man I know."

"Nevertheless," the quiltmaker said, "I made this quilt just for you."

"Thank you," replied the king. "I'll take it, but only if you'll accept a gift from me. There is one last treasure I have left to give away. All these years, I've saved it just for you." And from his rickety, rundown wagon the king brought out his throne.

"It's really quite comfortable," the king said. "And just the thing for long days of sewing."

Masha'Allah! There's a couple more pages, but that's ok. I just wanted y'all to read this part. :)

so today was like THE most unproductive day ever. But it's all my own fault for having vampire-ish tendencies and heading off to bed at 5 a.m. :-p I was supposed to wake up at 8, but instead shot upright in bed in a major panic at 12 noon. Yeahhhh, it was a great feeling, knowing i had slept half the day away. *siiigh* Good thing i don't have classes at all on Thursdays. But stilllll...!! I was planning on doing some major studying today, cuz i have 2 midterms on Monday and another 2 on Tuesday. To all those 2 people or however many that visit this random ramble of a blog...do lotsa du'as for me, PLEEEEASE! :) So anywayz, it was a majorly unproductive day... My little sister was 2 hours late to school since we all overslept and ignored the alarm (she woke me up on her way out, but i fell asleep again. lol). And we forgot to take the garbage out last night, so the garbage trucks bypassed our house this morning during the weekly garbage pick-up. Our mama would be so scandalized if she knew...when she's here, the household runs like clockwork. WE, on the other hand, are mellow (read: lazy), so we just kinda go with the flow and forget to do a lotta things. lol.

The worst thing was, it's Thursday today, so i was supposed to go to the daycare and read to the little kids! I was supposed to be there at 9.30 though, so waking up at noon meant that was out of the question. Dammit, i feel stupid and flaky...i let my cute little kids down! Just shoot me and put me out of this guilt trip misery. *sniffle* Anywayz, for y'all that are confused...for the past 2 years (since November 2000), i've been volunteering at this one local daycare. The "Stories To Go" program, part of our county library system, sends volunteers to selective pre-schools and daycares all over the county to read to the little kids there. Basically, i check out a stack of kids' books from the library, and then once a week i go to this one daycare and read out loud to the kids...if i'm on break, i usually go twice a week. It's soooooo amazingly fun though! Obviously I'm sure you all know that little kids have hecka short attention spans, so story-time only lasts like 1/2 hour or so. So after that, I just chill and hang out with the cute little kids before i head up to school. OMG, it's SO FUN! Seriously...there's nothing that compares with finger-painting or drawing crayon pictures or molding random objects with play-dough or marking your handprint with a paint color of your choice (RED!) on a piece of construction paper and getting it laminated for your mama in terms of the fun factor (and yes, i've done all that and more. haha). :-D If i weren't such a little kid already, the daycare volunteering deal would definitely bring out my 5-year-old side. :-D Btw, the little kids all seem to have issues pronouncing my name the right way, and they're so adorable that i've forgiven them long ago and gotten over it. Which means they're the ONLY people in the whole wide world who are allowed to call me "Jasmin" and get away with it. That doesn't go for the rest of you though, so don't EVEN try it, unless you want to get hurt! (yeah, -=§hÊ=-, that goes for you too! i saw that evil little comment you left me! ;) hahahah)

so thennnn...what else... i went to the mall earlier and bought myself some formal-ish black pants. I think I bought them for Eid. But I'm not sure. It was a kinda random idea, cuz i figured i'd wear 'em for Eid, but i don't have anything else to wear with it. I was gonna sew a kameez out of this coooool length of fabric i bought, only i don't have any time now cuz of my stupid midterms that are like 1-2 days before Eid. lol. :-p But it's ok, cuz I'm still majorly in love with my new black pants though!! The Yaz is majorly in love with EVERYTHING. Except for guys, of course. Guys are a no-no. ;) hahahaha. Seriously though, i've never really met a guy that i could say i was in love with. It's all good though...i doubt i'm really missing out. Relationships and all that crazy stuff are just wayyy too much soap opera drama stuff for me to handle. I'd rather kick back and relax, go with the flow...i figure Allah will provide me with Mr. Perfect (NOT Aladdin!) one of these years, insha'Allah. But yeah, all that crazy love stuff is just unnecessary drama for the Yaz. It's funny, cuz earlier my sister randomly goes, "You know, you're so lucky you don't like people!" I, being out of it as i usually am, didn't get it at first...i was like, "Whaaaat?? i DO like people! i like everyone!" hahaha. She's like, "Noooo, i mean you're lucky you don't have crushes on guys and all that stuff. Your life is so much easier!" Duh. :-D Guys are drama. :-D Pleeease, restrain yourselves from sending hateful comments my way now. lol.

yo peoples...i seem to be getting some visitors in this thingie. WOW, awesome! lol. probably cuz i've been going on a commenting rampage on other people's blogs recently. hecka fun stuff. ;) so anywayz, thought y'all might find this quiz interesting...my Human Development 100A pofessor emailed the link to the class, saying that if we complete the quiz and then write a paragraph analyzing how accurate we believe the results are, we get extra credit points! yeeeee-uhh!! What more could i ask for? :) so anywayz, it tells me my top 3 intelligences are (in order): Language (linguistic), Social (interpersonal), and Self (intrapersonal). Hmm...interesting, interestinggg.... LOL. There's also spatial, body movement (kinesthetic), logic/math, nature (naturalist), and musical. Obviously i sucked at the "body movement" one, cuz i can't dance worth jack. Ohhh darnnn! :-D Only thing I don't understand is, how come I'm a calculus tutor (and a darn good one too, if i may say so), but the "logic/math" score was kinda low? Maybe cuz I don't look at the world from a logical perspective. This IS the crazy psychopathic crackhead child Yaz, after all. Normal people worry me. And i find the illogical to be intriguing and oh-so-amusing. So yeah....

http://www.literacyworks.org/mi/assessment/findyourstrengths.html

i forgot to say this earlier...HAPPY FIRST DAY OF DHUL-HIJJAH! <--even though the 1st day is practically over. :-p just read an article entitled The Virtue of the First Ten Days of Dhul-Hijjah, by Shaikh 'Abdullaah Ibn Jibreen. Some excerpts:

Al-Bukhaaree narrated from Ibn 'Abbaas (raa), that the Prophet (saws) said: "There are not any days in which righteous deeds done in them are more beloved to Allaah than these days, i.e. the ten days (of Dhul-Hijjah). They said: 'O, Messenger of Allaah, not even Jihaad in the path of Allaah?' He said: 'Not even Jihaad in the path of Allaah Most High, except if a man goes out (for Jihaad) with his self and his wealth, then he doesn't return with anything from that.'"

Imaam Ahmad narrated from Ibn 'Umar (raa), from the Prophet Muhammad (saws) that he said: "There aren't any days greater, nor any days in which deeds done in them are more beloved to Allaah Most High, than these ten days (of Dhul-Hijjah). So, increase in them the saying of Tahleel (Laa-ilaaha-ill-Allaah) and Takbeer (Allaahu-Akbar) and Tahmeed (al-hamdu-lillaah)."

The moon looked so byooootiful as i was driving home tonight, masha'Allah! Reminded me of my favorite poem back when I was 12, which i still think is simply amazing..

"Winter Moon"

How thin and sharp is the moon tonight!
How thin and sharp and ghostly white
Is the slim curved crook of the moon tonight!

::Langston Hughes::

So funny…I just got out of physics lab (it was boringggg) and heard someone yell, “Yaaaaaaz!” Turned around, and there’s these 2 girls I tutored in calculus last quarter. So we had a nice little reunion. :) Somehow they ended up commenting on my weirdness, and one of ‘em said, “Yeah, you’re quite the individual, Yaz. What’s your AIM screen name? ‘WildChild01’?” Noooo, it isn’t actually. Hahah. But I just thought that was hilarious. By the way, this whole “Yaz” deal is funky these days. In case you didn’t know already, “Yaz” is my nickname. My name is really pronounced “yaas-MEEN” (and yes, I CAN be mean. lol), but non-ethnic people pronounce it “YAZ-min,” and so in high school, someone came up with the brilliant idea of calling me “Yaz,” and it stuck even after I started college. Which is cool. I don’t have any issues with that. But I’m accustomed to only really, really close friends calling me “Yaz,” and all of a sudden, everytime I turn around, some random person is calling me that. I’m like, Wait, who ARE you??! lol. The craziest part is, everytime my friends introduce me to someone, they’re like, “This is Yaz,” and I make a point of overriding that with, “Hi, I’m Yasmine,” but I guess once people hear “Yaz,” that just sticks with ‘em. So I have all these random people calling me “Yaz” these days. *siiiiigh* Lemme put it this way…Those of you who already call me “Yaz” are are doing so only because you have been granted the special privilege of doing so. But when you introduce me to someone else, please please PLEASE use my whole name! Verstehen Sie jetzt?? Es soll nicht so schwer zur verstehen sein. Ja Mann. Danke schoen. ;)

Speaking of tutoring, I had a calculus tutoring session on campus yesterday. Nice little freshman kid. Well, I guess I shouldn’t say ‘little.’ Everyone’s taller than ME. haha. But as a third-year, I keep thinking the freshman look so…so…LITTLE! He’s a nice kid though. Kept thanking me every 2 seconds. I was like, “Duuuuude, stop already!” haha. After that, I went off campus to tutor this one chica in geometry. Ummm…you know, I got an A+ in geometry in 9th grade, somehow. I still don’t quite understand how that happened. Especially since I used to suck at math in general back in the day, and now I totally get it. But anywayz, I need to review the geometry a bit, cuz of all those wack theorems that you need to know in order to prove crazy wack things like ‘why the length of AB=the length of BC, given that angleABC=angleXYZ and sides F and G are parallel’…or whatever. :) But the girl’s mom is soooo nice. She’s all intrigued by me. Hahaha. She told me I look younger than 21! She’s totally my hero now. For those of you who don’t get it…the age of my personality is 8 (some have averred that it’s more like 5, but that’s another story)…I actually tell people I’m 8 when they ask my age. It’s hecka fun. Yes, I know I’m a crackhead. But to continue…So the mom told me I look Italian or Greek. Duuude, I’ve looked at this face in the mirror everyday. I don’t think she’s quite right. But who knows, maybe I do look Italian or Greek! That would be majorly cool, no? lol. AND she paid me a whole month in advance already. I’m like, Whoaaaaa. PLUS, when I was leaving, she was allllll worried….she’s all, “Drive safely! And you know, if you ever feel tired or you’re just not feeling well or whatever, you’re welcome to stay the night here, you know.” Turns out her husband does business in Hong Kong, so he’s always gone and it’s just her and her 2 daughters. But I swear my jaw almost dropped. Cuz this woman has literally known me for a total of only 2 hours, and to have the magnanimity to make a generous and compassionate offer like that to someone who’s still a virtual stranger was just so…AMAZING, masha’Allah. You know, sometimes I get all bitter and cynical about people. But then, subhan’Allah, people just do or say the most wonderful things, and it gives me hope for our crazy world. :)

YESSSS!! it works! masha'Allah. you can talk to me now, peoples! hahahaha :)

the comments thingie is jacked up! aaahhhhh... so bothersome, man. i wonder how i managed to do that, too. hmm... some people just shouldn't be allowed anywhere in the vicinity of a computer. LOL. yes, i Do crack myself up. self-deprecation is an indispensable quality. ;) never forget that, peoples! laughing at yourself is good. otherwise you'll become old and bitter. or YOUNG and bitter. which is even more inexcusable and worse. yupyupyup. meanwhile, i gotta teach myself how to fix this thing. *siiiigh*

just wanna see if the goshdarn comment box works now. dooodooodoodoodoodoodoodooo. yes, i'm singing. stop laughing!

so i'm sure y'all will be excited to know that the Yaz was sitting at her computer, eating yummy croissants at 5 a.m. Shut up, I KNOW you're jealous! You know what, I just noticed that when i write emails and stuff, I start out a lot of my sentences with "ok" or "so," which is really weird. I'm guess i talk so much that I start from the middle of the sentence. How crazy is THAT. It's fun being a crazy child though. You know you wanna be like me.

In case you wanted to know, I'm on campus right now. I never realized before that leaving home only half an hour later than usual would mean having to deal with traffic. It wasn't real traffic though...it's just that, for me, "traffic" is a title given to any situation where I have to drive slower than 80 miles per hour. Hey, it's a 60-mile commute, one way. I'm entitled to enjoy it. For your information, I always set my cruise control at 80 mph in the mornings on my way to school, and having to go even 78 is cause for major annoyance. Don't worry though...I go 74 (yes, 74! NOT 75...yeah, i know i'm majorly obsessive-compulsive) on the way home in the evenings, cuz it's just better for relaxation purposes. Plus, in 2001, I received TWO speeding tickets within a six month period, and needless to say, my daddy-o was not amused. Neither was I, because traffic school is not my idea of a fun coupla hours. So that's when I decided to speed to my heart's content in the mornings, and take my time in the evenings. Good idea, no? I haven't gotten any more speeding tickets since then, so I must be doing something right. Alhamdulillah. :)

But yeah, I left home later than usual today, and then I got stuck behind hecka people who drove like grandmas (some of them looked like they WERE grandmas), so I got to campus at exactly 9 a.m., which is when my physics lecture started. And I had to park all the way across campus from the lecture hall where physics is at, cuz that's the only convenient place where I could find parking. So that turned out to be the parking structure (parking garage...I wonder why people call it a "structure"? I mean, that's kinda obvious and redundant, right? Shooot, my house could be called a structure..."Hi, my name is Yasmine and I live at that one structure with lots of brickwork and geraniums because my father is an obsessive gardener." That works too, i think).

And the annoying thing about the parking structure are all the parking attendants there. They're like beyond annoying. I can't even think of a better word. That's how infuriating they are. I've been parking at the parking structure on and off for the past 3 years of college, so they see me around there a lot. And one of the guys just bugs me because he always wants to strike up random conversations with me or comment about random things, and I'm just like, What the hell? This past fall, when my car broke down, we shuffled our cars around so that I was driving my sister's car and she and my brother were sharing another car. And the first day that I came back to campus with my "new" car (it's still my car even now, because my old one is still in the shop), the attendant guy made a point to walk over and ask, "Heyy, what happened to your car?" And no, he wasn't questioning me in a concerned way either...More like nosy and none of his business. And it was annoying, cuz i was like, Duuuuude, why do you even care? And why are you even keeping track of what cars I drive? Kinda stalker-ish, i say. And then he went off on this tangent about how his father drives the same exact car and blah blah blah, and I'm standing there like, ok am I supposed to CARE? ok I KNOW i'm sounding all evil and mean about this whole deal. But you wouldn't understand unless you were there. Yes, i talk to random people all the time and take great pride in my conversational skills, but this is just kinda creepy.

And another parking attendant TOTALLY creeps me out cuz one day during fall quarter, I walked by him to get to my car and he goes, "yo sista! lemme get all dressed up too and how 'bout we go clubbin together!" I swear, that's exactly what he said. I was like, "Sorry, I'm not the clubbin type, ok?" and kept walking.

It's just majorly weird though. Plus, it kinda pissed me off cuz I tried to analyze it too much, I guess, and I was like, What, why did he say 'too'? I'm not overdressed. This is how i ALWAYS dress, and no, it's not formal at ALL. And did he think the fact that I was wearing hijab actually made me more susceptible to his advances? I mean, come ON. It's majorly bothersome and aggravating though, cuz i'm starting to think, What kind of world IS this if a Muslim woman wearing hijab still gets hit on and checked out by random guys? Maybe I should switch to niqaab, cuz the hijab doesn't seem to be helping me out much these days. ehh.

But anyway, these days, I tend to stay away from the parking structure, only I didn't have much of a choice this morning, since I got to campus all late. And then once i got here, I decided I didn't feel like going to physics lecture after all. I'm a crazy child. Need to work on this discipline thing. But hey, this is only the first physics lecture I've missed. And i've gone to ALL my other classes this quarter! So maybe i'm doing ok after all. Alhamdulillah. :)

So much bida and fitnah in the world these days though. Crazy crazy stuff. I seriously think we're getting close to the End of Time. So sad. On Sunday when I went to my halaqa at the masjid, there were all sorts of crazy tremors (sorta minor earthquakes). One of the sisters said that that morning there had been a little shaking, so I guess the ones during halaqa were aftershocks. But it was still kinda scary. We were sitting there going, Should we go outside? Huddle under the doorways? Or what? And then another sister pointed out, "Well this IS the masjid. So if there's gonna be an earthquake, this is the safest place to be!" Subhanallah.

ok, i think that's all I have to say for now. Plus, i wanna go take a nap on the comfy (majorly SQUISHY! haha) chairs on the first floor of the library. You don't understand, i've been looking forward to this alll morning! :) Much love and peace to y'all...

i think sometimes we become desensitized to the bad things that happen everyday... I came across these lyrics and it made me think about our crazy modern world where we just walk around in a little bubble. So many of us have it a whole lot better than gazillions of people all over the world, but you know, complacency is not the way to go. It's good to be thankful for all the things we have, subhan'Allah...but ignoring the bad stuff, or blatantly denying that bad things even occur, is just messed up and sad. And what's sadder is that all of us, myself included, have been guilty at some point or another of ignoring the negatives just because they don't fit in with the rest of our perfect little bubble-enclosed world.

Ignorance

Don't wanna read the paper
I don't like bad news
Last night a man got shot
Outside the house of blues
I'd like to ignore it
I'd like to just pretend
That the reason for it
Is something I can comprehend

I don't listen to the radio
Last time it made me cry
Two boys went crazy
Fifteen kids died
And I don't know their families
I don't ask 'em how they're going
They're on the other side of the world
But it's way too close to home

I've got something to say
And I thought it might be worth a mention
If you're not pissed off at the world
Then you're just not paying attention
And you can turn off the TV
And go about your day
But just cuz you don't see it
It don't mean it's gone away, hey

We don't talk to our neighbors
They've got funny-colored skin
We see 'em out on the sidewalk
But we don't invite 'em in
We only eat when we're hungry
And we throw the rest away
While babies in Cambodia
Are starving everyday

We risk our lives
We hit our wives
We act like everything is funny
We hide our pain
While we go insane
We sell our souls for money
We curse our mums
We build our bombs
We make our children cry
We watch the band
While Vietnam
Just watch their children die

::Kasey Chambers::

ok, so it's past 3 o'clock in the morning, and i'm barely making any progress on this stoooopid paper from hell that I got an extension on and need to turn in one of these years. Tomorrow (oops, I mean, today...it's Monday already, huh) woulda been a good day to turn it in to my TA, but judging by the progress i'm making (or the lack thereof, more like), i'm not so sure I can pull this off by tomorrow. *siiiiigh* Sometimes I think college is so overrated. My dream is to drop out and go live at Baskin Robbins forever. Juuuuust kidding! haha. That does sound like major fun though. I mean, shooooot, tell me, if you had a choice between sitting through 2 hours of physics lecture on a Monday morning, or chillin at Baskin Robbins and eating YUMMY ice cream, WHICH would you rather be doing? It shouldn't be toooo hard to decide. Anyone who chose physics over ice cream needs to be hit over the head. Get a brain scan done, homie. Cuz there's gotta be something seriously wrong with you.

I'm really hungry right now. Everyone else has gone off to bed already, like the smart children they are. I'm gonna be the one stumbling bleary-eyed through the day tomorrow like a zombie on crack, if such a thing even exists. And for the record, no, I don't know jack about crack. Haha, that rhymes! omg, I'm so easily amused. lol. But as I was saying, everyone else is in bed, so it's majorly quiet around here, which means I'm sitting here listening to my stomach growl. And the fact that I can actually hear sounds at such a low pitch should tell you something about just how quiet it is! haha. Speaking of hearing, my ears are acting funky these days. I know I've had issues with my hearing for ever, but this is just ridiculous! I need to schedule an appointment with my ear specialist again. It's time for my annual audiogram (hearing test) and check-up anywayz, so maybe he can take a look at this deal while he's at it. My hearing has been pretty steady over the past few years, so I've never really worried about it getting any worse than it already is...But I feel like I've spent the whole past 2 weeks or so going, "Huh? What? Whaaaaat?" Having people repeat themselves 598590572 times is not fun at all. Trust me, I'm annoying myself. lol. Mad props to everyone for putting up with the craziness. And take my word for it, this is worse for me than it is for you. Only I just never complain about my issues. Cuz the Yaz never has drama, remember? hahaha. :)

k, so the stomach is saying, "FEEEEEED MEEEEE!" And since I have very little self-discipline and i AM hungry, i'm gonna go scrounge for some food in the kitchen. Peace out, homie g-funk children!

So on Fridayyyy....I had to put up with psycho Deval for two and a half freakin HOURS in physics lab! (btw, 'Deval' is pronounced like 'navel' with a 'D') Oh and another thing...I wonder why every time Deval and I have physics lab together, our TAs "coincidentally" schedule our seating in such a way that the two of us are NEVER seated at the same lab table. Hmmm, I do wonder why... So anywayz, Deval was all the way across the room today, and when I looked over at her, she gave me this huge cheesy grin and started singing at the top of her lungs, "My name is Yaaaaaz, and I'm too sexy for my own GOOOOOD!" I was like, "oh my god, what was THAT?!" Everyone looked up all startled, and then started busting up, and Deval goes, "What, you didn't hear it right? Lemme sing it again!...My name is Yaaaaaaz, and I'm too sexy for my own GOOOOOOD!" I was like, ok, you freak. So I'm sitting there like, ok, I don't know youuuu...And everyone in our lab is looking at us like, What FREAKS! hahaha.

Yes it was very interesting.... I just thought i'd share cuz i remembered that this morning and it was totally making me crack up. I think our TA and fellow lab folks are quite used to my and Deval's psycho-ness by now. Everytime we act up, they just give us these amused looks, like, There go those silly kids again! Yeah, I guess everyone and their mama is way more mature than we are. And it ain't gonna ever change, as long as I have something to say about it!

Another funny exchange from Friday:
Andy: So, Yasmine, how did you manage to get an exension on your paper?
Me: Well--
Somayya: All she had to do was smile, cuz she wakes up looking cute...RIGHT, YAZ??
Me: oh my god...SHUT...UP!

i know, i know, this whole post is making me sound so freakin big-headed. I'm not in the least, actually. To be honest, compliments embarrass the hell out of me. Seriously. Which is why when people compliment me, I say the most retarded things ever in an attempt to laugh it off, but it only results in even more crazy memorable exchanges that people don't ever let me forget. Take the following, which was what Somayya was referring to in her punchline above too...

Somayya: Yaz, you just look cuter and cuter everyday!
Me: [cheesy grin to stave off the embarrassment] I know, cuz I just wake up looking this way!

That was in October, man. And I think everyone on campus has heard this story by now. lol

Speaking of stories...For those of you who may not have heard yet...YES, i got my nose pierced last Monday. NO, it barely hurt at all. NO, i did not cry (this is the yaz of course; what else did you expect? the yaz does not cry, homie. And yes i know that's abnormal. Spare me your theories, cuz I've already got the yaz all psychoanalyzed.) YES, i'm in love with it. My Pukhtun nose and I are getting along a lot better these days. lol. And NO, the parents are not going to be amused when they return from Pakistan in exactly two weeks and see my pierced nose. They're going to freak out, is more like it. lol. Deval's been telling every single random person in our physics lab throughout the past week: "Yasmine is SUCH a rebel child! Her parents are out of town and she went and got her nose pierced!" And everyone looks over at me like, man, you're just asking to die, aren't you? I think they're all seriously concerned for my safety, cuz Deval just had to go and make it sound as dramatic as possible. Yazzie Spazzie and her crazy soap opera life. As if! The Yaz never has dramas, for your information. hahaha. Hecka funny. I saw Javier on Friday too, and he called out to me across the Dutton courtyard, "I hear you got your nose pierced!" I was like, "I sure did, and it looks majorly cute, look!" He was like, "I'm going to have to tell your parents now, you rebel child!" I was like, Riiiiiight. And then there's like the 4974974209 people who haven't even noticed yet. Which is okay by me, cuz as I've already said, unnecesary attention and the (sometimes) resulting compliments just hecka embarrass me. Watch the yaz get all red, yeee-uhh. hahaha. Yes, it's very interesting.

I guess just saying, "Thank you," is a good way to go when people compliment you (shoot, that's what i usually say, when I'm not in a super-retarded mood and try to laugh it off by saying something dumb and dumber instead), but even saying "thank you" sounds so...so...arrogant? It's as if you're acknowledging the fact that the compliment is true. And I hate acknowledging things like that. Because it embarrasses me. Yes, i know I have issues. Yes, we all know I'm a confused child. haha. I can't help it!

K, i need to go figure out where i misplaced my Imam al-Ghazali book at (Imam al-Ghazali is the man...da mon...der Mann...for reals!), and then get ready for halaqa and stuff. And then come home from that and work on this paper from hell that I've been putting off for over a week. Can we say...procrastination? It seriously can't get any lamer than this, man.

k i changed my template. let's see if the damn thing really works. some people really do have issues with html.

just testing out this crazyyyyyyy stuff. gnarly, dude! <--i think my comp lit prof used to say that. hahahaha