. that darn mozlem .

That’s it.

I’m tired of this. Well, actually I’m tired of running away. From what you ask?

Two words: Organic Chemistry

Let me be clear in that I’m not frustrated, scared crapless, or hate it. But I am extremely not up for dealing with it. Honestly, I have no one to blame but myself this time because I’ve had a God-sent two weeks for review and practice before my professor began the new material yet I still have not taken advantage of the opportunity.

Why can’t I have all Biology and History courses for the rest of college? That’s another thing I’ve had on my mind -changing my minor. Only Allah knows why I chose a chemistry minor when I really don’t enjoy it, but alhamdulilah I’m really satisfied as a Bio major. Except with the stupid requirement of having to complete up to Calculus 3. I never use Cal 1 or 2 in any part of my life, why waste more time with Cal 3?!

As I was saying, I would really like to change my minor to History and be a happy camper with my two favorite subjects, but I think I would graduate a semester or two later, which I can’t afford to do. So I’ll see what happens by the end of this semester.

Back to you, you filthy dreaded O’Chem. I’ve got something to say to you. I despise the way you haunt me day in and day out. You are like a dark cloud that will not allow the sun shine once more. I loath walking into the room and picking up our daily quiz only to feel confused, irritated, and queasy by a single formula and a blank page to fill in.

The worse part is that when you think “Whewh, no more steps to that reaction”, it was actually like a “pre-step” to the actual series of steps. Ugh! I’m already annoyed and we haven’t even began the new material.

But it is just an ugly bump in the way of my bigger dream, so I will overcome this hurdle. InshaAllah.

No, Organic. You will not get the best of me. You will not.

bring it on,
amira

Have a seat and a treat as you read along this post of mine. It entails a quick summary of my “evolution” since I met the hubmister.

-We, women, are extremely complicated. In fact so complicated that I understand, but I don’t understand womanhood (growing-up-amirahood) at the same time.

-It’s better to boost his ego (although you’re right) and have him realize your humility and patience when he’s wrong than to shove your point across. Voice your opinion, but ultimately he’s in head of the family.

-No, guys never ever want to hear about your period issues and definitely not any details. Have some class, goodness.

-Don’t eat immediately before bed. I’ll leave it at that.

-Sometimes there’s “me” and and other times there’s “you”, but they always equal “we.” Look at the big picture.

-There’s no shame in pooping. When you get married and you’re living together, it dawns on you that “Oh my goodness, he’s going to smell my poop sooner or later!” And no, having more than one bathroom doesn’t help because it’ll catch up to you. (hah!) I tried to avoid this for as long as possible because my husband said something like “I can’t imagine you or females to be as nasty as guys.” And I don’t know why I thought I had to be the ultimate lady-like figure around him (or something). But really there’s nothing to be embarrassed about -everyone does it!

-Even a simple milk n’ cookies snack together can change your day.

-Sharing a drink, using same spoon, licking same ice cream cone = cool germs
Have a cold/flu, hot cheeto breath, just wiped baby’s poop = not so cool germs
(Yeah I have really young cousins okay? So I do wipe some baby butts. There’s no need to remind me about my I-want-a-baby obsession okay!?)

-There no such thing as unconditional love (maybe with children). Yeap, things are conditional. That’s something I realized after a dear friend told me about a marriage lecture she listened to. It true and it doesn’t mean “Hey buddy you better have a million bucks in the bank everytime I want to shop.” It’s in the sense that if you’re not fulfilling one another’s needs, your feelings towards each other do change. So it’s conditional.

-Never compare your spouse with someone else or actually just never compare anything -period. It causes more harm than good.

-Learn to cook ladies. Learn. To. Cook. Mac N’ Cheese is only cute once, I repeat that: Once.

This is all I can think of right now, but there are plenty more.
To be continued I guess.

-amira

Here’s a neat-o snippet of what we learned in the Heavenly Hues Al Maghrib course taught by Sheik Yasir Birjas.

Hosna presents: Hosna’s Heavenly Hues Gem Reel

What’s a Gem? A gem is something that touches your heart or gives you a jolt of realization. It’s something you never contemplated or heard of before. Something that stays with you, comforts you, and at times makes you tear up. Simply put its an amazingly powerful “SubhanhAllah” moment that leaves you breathless and craving for more.

Enjoy.

You know the people that you just love for the sake of Allah? The people, friends, family, person, or just plain fellow human being that you find yourself wanting to hug the life out of because they just impose this strong and sometimes sudden lovey-dovey impulse to on you?

It’s a beautiful feeling and guess when I feel that the most? When I feel a lightness in my heart, meaning when I’m trying to strengthen my eman and am surrounded by wonderful sisters.

If you saw me as recently as two years ago, I was the girl that got along with everyone. I could sit at any table in the high school cafeteria and blend right in -a perfect chameleon if you will. But I didn’t feel wholesome although I had so many friends. In fact most were either friends or good friends and there was only one or two that was a “friend” in every sense of the word. Plainly put, this cowgirl (me) had plenty of quantity, but not as much quality.

Then I got married and was introduced to this new set of people that I had no idea existed and wouldn’t have met if it wasn’t for Allah, then my husband, then Al Maghrib (my husband introduced me to Al Maghrib where I met the majority of the sisters I know now). Boy oh boy, did my eyes really open up. There’s a real community of Muslims here? That actually attend halaqas and hold events? Are you serious about this city based organization for the youth? Get outta here…

Where the Jahannam have I been?

So the more time I spend with this new set of amigos, the more I realized that I was hanging with the wrong crowd. But then again, I didn’t have a choice since I was one of two hijaabis at school. So I slowly but surely began to isolate myself from the “secular” friends and became almost obsessed with the “religious” batch of friends. It was a new era, a new world, and a new experience for me to be surrounded with so many sisters that were involved in things I didn’t even know about. SubhanAllah, what a small and unique world because it was all happening in my very own backyard!

So almost three years later I’ve developed friendships with sisters from all over the city, state, and even some outside of this cowboy land of mine. So what I’ve made you read through an entire post is to say alhamdulilah for the split second change in my life (Islamically and spiritually) through new smiling-hijab-wearing (and some niqab sporting)-salam-greeting-faces I’ve encountered.

your friend,
amira

Wow. SubhanAllah.

I honestly don’t even know where to begin. It’s been such a crazy roller coaster of internal and external events that I’m sick to my stomach. I don’t know what it is, but every time I attend some sort of Islamic event or class I discover and/or (try to) improve a part of me and alhamdulilah for that. I feel like events and my emotions have occurred over the span of a couple of days, but it’s really been concentrated in the last two days.

The Al Maghrib class I’m taking is wonderful and I’m enjoying the time I have with sisters. In fact do you know what happened today? There have always been these two or three sisters that I never spoke to, but I’ve always seen at events or whatnots. And not just recently either, I believe for about two or three years now. Normally I introduce myself or somehow I end up befriending someone I continuously run into, but I always got a strange vibe from the two I’m speaking about so I never wanted to introduce myself or get to know them purely based on the “vibe” I felt. And so as my sister (the blood related one) and I were leaving I ending up have a conversation with the two sisters that I’ve always seen but never spoke to. It turns out that we all have so much in common that it’s almost spooky! For one thing we all got engaged on the EXACT same day except one year apart from one sister and two years apart from the other, but all three of us we engaged on June 11. One of the sisters and I have a birthday in the same month and both of our husbands have a birthday in the same month (only two days apart to be exact). It was really nice to finally break the stone-cold ice between them and myself.

Moving on to other things I don’t want to say this, well actually there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. Anyhow I’ve noticed that I am so…so…emotional (UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I hate to admit that although I know it’s a part of being a woman in general and it’s just how I am made, but goodness, to really admit it to myself realy annoys me. Why?

Because I don’t want to be, but I am!

And it’s such a burden when you think about it. I don’t mean that cry-at-everything type of “emotional”, but more in the sense that I really get involved, and to extremes sometimes, at what I’m feeling, wanting, needing, hoping for, or just plain enjoying. I think it’s this type of “emotional” that will be my end because I don’t like investing so much energy or time only for me to be more tangled in myself than I already am.

It’s really annoying. I’m annoying myself. Tell me how I’m supposed to stop annoying myself?

-amira

I feel inspired in some way or another. I don’t know where this wave of inspiration came from, but I like it. So you are welcome to stay inspirational feeling, you are welcome to stay. It’s like wanting to write a beautiful song or deeply motivational poem. The tragedy is that I’m not one for poems, meaning I have to be on the verge of explosion from a momentous feeling to produce a “WOW” set of verses.

I have a friend, mashaAllah, she spits out poetry (impromptu I might add) and I feel moved when I read them in her tagline and all I think is that I can act out her poetry (thank you Ms. Carter for all the years in Theater), but writing one makes me feel a little awkward.

Last night I couldn’t fall asleep because I was bombarded with too many thoughts and “to do” things that it was like a waste of time to sleep. More notable is that I wanted to write a message, like a really long “exposing” message, about myself. I don’t know how that sounds, but I really felt like writing down everything I’ve never had the guts to verbally admit to myself or those who needed to hear my thoughts and put the message in a bottle to let the sea take care of it. Whomever finds it can do what they will with it, but I just want to get the load off of my chest.

You know what? Why not do that? Put a message in a bottle. It’s such a cliche thing in movies or books, but why not really do it in real life? InshaAllah I want to try that -write down everything I’ve always felt, feared, wanted, couldn’t live with or without, loved, admit things, and spill my heart out in paper (and not have any indication of who I am of course) and then let it drift away in the sea. Whether it ends up in the belly of a shark or ashore the island of Madagascar (or even the ugly waters of Galveston) at least it has drifted away from my chest.

I think it’s crucial to just have an outlet and maybe sometimes it has to be completely exposing and leave you vulnerable, but I think the relief is worth the cost -at least for me. I would literally explode if I had to contain all of my thoughts within the realm of my head and never speak or write about them.

Don’t make me explode. It would not be pretty.

-amira

In my infinite amount of spare time here on campus (an hour and a half) I visited a long time favorite yet forgotten magazine of mine -Scientific American. Golly gee, I love this magazine. I came across an article that struck me as a possible solution to one of our “going green” solutions.

The article was about how astronauts sustain their thirst through recycled urine. Yes, that’s right, I said recycled urine which really doesn’t seem that grotesque when compared to the straight-from-your-bladder-urine that some individuals drink (I know you’ve seen things like that on the Discovery Channel). It’s a really interesting and expensive process that is outlined in the following except.

“The first step involves filtering solid particles such as skin cells and hair out of the liquid. After that, contaminants are chemically dissolved and oxygen is added to the liquid to oxidize trace organics so that they, too, can be removed. Next, the liquid is “polished,” meaning chemicals left over from the cleaning process are removed. Finally, iodine is added for microbial control, much the way municipal water authorities add chlorine to city drinking water. The resulting liquid is sent to a large storage tank, which can be tapped for drinking.” (Scientific American)

Now this, to me, seems to be one of those things when you wouldn’t even notice the difference if given a cup of “regular” water and one of recycled urine, just like when you think you’re eating beef but it’s really goat. But then again I’ve never tried recycled urine and if I were to it would, of course, have to be my urine because it’s only fair to feel safer with your own urine than a stranger’s. Am I giving this too much thought?

Anyhow it occured to me that some parts of the world don’t have adequate drinking water and since it doesn’t seem like we’re doing anything about it, why not recycle their urine? Because we all pee.

I’m sure it’s more expensive (and messy) to recycle an entire country’s supply of urine but what if there was a way to do this globally if by some chance we ran out of drinking water. After all, the vast majority of the earth is covered in non-consumable H2O.

It’s just a thought, certainly not as plausible, but imaginative nonetheless.

Who knows, maybe in a couple of years or decades “I’m thirsty” could have a whole new meaning.

regards,
amira

The temperature is ridiculous this morning; it’s freezing, the wind is howling, and the sky is continuously spiting on us (rain folks, I’m talking about rain). And guess who isn’t adequately dressed?

Little ol’ me.

But tell me oh weather in my city, how can I ever predict your violent bi-polar mood swings when even our own forecasters can’t? One moment you cast your fury in sleet, wind, and temperature unholy for our part of the country and then the next you completely relax and let the stupid sun shine out of nowhere. Goodness, I can’t wear 14323432 layers in the morning and then strip down by noon everyday to accommodate your insane mood swings.

When I came to school on Tuesday it was moderately cold in the morning and then it was warm by the afternoon which is normal. But suddenly today it’s cold enough to make my snot freeze in my nose and I’m hardly wearing enough to keep frostbite at bay. It was too late to go back to get extra clothing by the time I realized the weather wasn’t going to let up and the warmest -WARMEST- it’s going to be today is 46 F (and that’s our “below zero” temperature). That’s not cool man. That’s not cool. Well actually it is, get it? Because it really is cool like “cold.” I crack myself up? Heh.

Anyhow I will swallow as many hot liquids as my body can bare until classes are over with today. You will not defeat me schizoprenic weather, you will not defeat me.

reporting live from school,
amira

Disclaimer: this post may not be of sound mind.

I have a blistering headache for some reason and worst part is that I can manage through it but when I think about it, it intensifies like there’s no tomorrow. It’s been teasing me all day really and now it’s on the verge of graduating into a migraine. I know all I need is Advil and total darkness -yes darkness because light is evil when I have a headache. I think I literally go blind for a split second and then it takes a whole minutes for my eyes to readjust to normal vision all the while my head pounds with fury.

And somebody for the love of Allah get that pile of laundry folded! Oh wait, that would be my job. It’s been sitting on the bed all day -in fact I think for two days now. It’s clean (because I don’t know about you, but I don’t fold dirty laundry), but I wish the clothes could find their own way to the hangers and drawers. Why can’t you clothes be independent?

But there is one thing to motivate me to get it done (folding). There’s a CD lecture I want to listen to and I always forget to take it to the car with me or pop it in while I’m doing something so I will take a short break to pop in the CD

__________(short break)______________

and now I’m going to get down to business while listening to whomever is going to give this lecture on “Companionship Between Spouses.”

foldin’ fool,
amira

I am finally attending an Al Maghrib class after two and a half years and I couldn’t be more excited and grateful to be a part of the class alhamdulilah. It’s called Thematic Tafsir taught by Sheik Yasir Birjas and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. On the same token I am in deep poop with the rest of my secular work because Al Maghrib is from 10-7 and when I get home the last thing my eyes want to rest on is Organic Chemistry, but I don’t have a choice. Well I could blow it off, but it’ll come back and bite me in the butt big time and I want to keep my butt.

Anyhow other news include an engagement and a growing belly -no not for me, for a friend. One of my friends is newly engaged (woooohoooo!) and another is kind of newly pregnant (three months -awwwwwwh! right?) and one of my friend’s father passed away (Inna lillahi wa inna lillahi raji’oon -subhanaAllah). Can you believe I received all three within a couple of hours of each? And that’s that as far as amigos go.

I’m also feeling a little down in the dumps, the stinky ol’ dumps. I don’t know why but I woke up really sad and it’s been stuck with me all day. You wouldn’t be able to tell but I’ve wanted to secretly go and cry in the bathroom stalls or really just talk to someone over some tapioca. Yeah, a nice chat over tapioca sounds refreshing. And I know exactly who I want or need to talk to but she’s in Arizona and I don’t think they have tapioca in Arizona. Well maybe they do, but I don’t care right now I just need Dr. Aneesa to tell me I’m not crazy!

You know what I haven’t heard from the huz all day today -no that’s a lie. He called around 6 and I was so excited because he left early in the morning and I know he’s busy at work so I wait for his calls and do you know what he calls me for? The keys to the van. Yeah, not to see if I’m okay or engage in some real dialogue, that booger calls me for keys! It was literally a one minute and 23 seconds conversation. Ah, whatever it’s alright I’ll get him later.

Oh something that I’m really excited about is Jiet Zsu (I know I’m most likely misspelling that but it’s a form of Karate). During the break from class at Al Maghrib a brother was demonstrating some moves and “hee-yaas” and whatnots. WOW. I want to be able to “hee-yaa” and “punch-punch-kick” any that try to get in my way. Some self defence wouldn’t hurt anyone -except the punk that dares to try something. Bring it on. So anyway I signed my husband and I up for the class. Finally I’ll have a chance in head to head wrestling with him.

I don’t know how but it’s already 9 and I need to look at some reactions for Organic Chem (or T.V.) before I fall asleep.

-amira