Mirth and Melancholy

My blog right now is probably in its worst state. I have three drafts which aren't making it to publication, and I haven't been posting any life stories despite everything that's been happening. But now that I'm officially on winter break, I hopefully can throw out more stories here. Where to start...? Breakfast of the day: Two half-sandwiches with hazelnut spread Current outfit: Pink T-shirt and fluffy gray pants with white hearts Current time: 10:11 AM Also please listen to this song: https://youtu.be/ags3ycwl_Sc Let's see where we left off. In my last post, I said I'd come back "tomorrow" but guess what? I never did. I must not have said InshaAllah. Wow, it's been nearly a month since I posted that. Well, let's jot down the summaries of what I need to talk about. The SD Card Fiasco Professor Byron's Card ICNA highlights Mistress of Ceremony   Let's begin with the story of Professor Byron's card. TUE, DEC 5 ...

I think I sat here for a good few hours just thinking of something deep to write. But nothing really came to mind. The plan was to do NaNoWriMo this year. And I did, I tried. I tried to revamp an old idea, I tried to take an entirely new idea, I tried again to revamp an idea, I tried to execute an idea I created, and then I resorted to writing about myself. None of it is sticking with me, and we're already halfway through November. And I feel awful because I need to write. I need to write everyday. Because it's part of my future and I need to be good. My stomach is hurting right now. It's probably due to some spicy stuff my mom made. I like to think I'm allergic to chili just because I can't handle spice. You know a girl is hot when she can't take any more heat! *wink* Kidding. But it's 10:30 PM right now, and I need a sleep. Hopefully I will be back to continue this intentional rant tomorrow. Ciao! Until next time! :)

TIPS ON LEADING A HAPPIER LIFE :) "At Least" I've been using this method for as long as I can remember before I realized it. Whenever something bad happened, I always found myself "looking at the bright side" of the situation. If we were stuck in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire on the van, I would think of something like, "At least we're all alive and nobody's hurt." If I'd gotten in a disagreement with a family member or friend, I would tell myself, "At least so-and-so isn't mad at me." Over time, the positivity tactic was embedded in me, so much so that I  can even recall my sister getting mad at me for always coming up with "at least" statements. Perhaps it can be a bit much, but this technique has definitely done tons for me in coping.  Second Person I read this somewhere and have not forgotten it since. Self-deprecating comments to oneself can be pretty depressing, but even more so when you hear ...

I noticed that I haven't posted, and I keep wondering if I should let it go and not post or just keep posting regardless of what needs to be posted was weeks ago. But then I remember how much a memory remains with me if I write about it. So I'm just going to keep writing about my life. Let's talk about t he [ongoing] ID search. I lost it on September 11, and I'm just about done asking  around looking for it. So I'm going to get a new one, but first, I need 10 dollars. I have no money. So I'll just wait till I have money. And I don't know when that'll be.  Let's talk about drills, the club fair, and the one time I stay home. I don't remember the exact date, but on either a Monday or Wednesday, there was a drill in class and we had to sit in the darkness for about 8 minutes. After that, we pretty much worked on our projects. I think on that same day there was a club fair in the student life breakroom. I stopped at one of the tables and they tal...

A soft round face framed by short straight hair flashes a radiant smile at me. Her eyes, crinkled at the corners, shine in the ruddy light. Her chubby cheeks and bright smile seem to illuminate her face. Every time I look at her, she greets me with her uplifting expression. I always turn to her after a difficult day so she can cast her aura of endless euphoria upon me. The funny thing is, that little girl is me. Was me. Now, I don’t know who I am, or how I’ve become what I am. I find myself these days constantly asking: When was the last time I felt genuinely happy? But I receive no response, because I ask only myself and I don’t have the answer. Will I ever have the answer? I sigh and set the photo down. As much as I want to be that happy little girl again, I can’t. So many things have changed for me. People left, people came. I was hurried into a brand-new atmosphere, to which of yet I haven’t acclimated. Everything I once loved and enjoyed now seems like an aspect of the past; the ...

Alright lubbly people, today I will be talking about what the title says. Let's just get right into it. Tuesday, September 19 Project 1 in Digital Imaging class was due for critique today. Mr. Photoshop Teacher (let's just call him BB because he teaches other things too) divided us into six groups of three. He walked around the room touching everyone's shoulders and saying, "Remember your numbers. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2..." If I remember correctly, I was 6. After dividing us, BB decided where we all should sit. "Uhh, let's have all the sixes meet over here with Nura." Matt rolled his chair over to me. "What's up, Nura?" "Actually, let's meet over here with Matthew, so it doesn't get too crowded over there," BB said. Matt rolled his chair back to his original table. I was actually hoping we could meet at my table because my computer was being a turd and I was trying to upload my assignment to the homework f...

Zeyd just walked into my room and asked me why I get second place or third place. I'm assuming he saw the trophies set up on one of my windowsills. On my sister's side, there are all 1st place trophies. I just have 2nd place trophies. I just told him, "Because I'm a loser." First of all, placing first or second or third never fazes me. It doesn't matter that much to me; I don't care. If I place anywhere other than first in anything, I tell myself to look on the bright side and say, hey, at least you won something! To add to that, I'm not that competitive either. I'm not the best person to play games with, because I'll always play for the educational factor and not the winning factor. Anyway, I've kind of felt like a loser my whole life. This insecurity is separate from that huuuge phase of depression I went through after my move. I think this insecurity was all due to being the middle child for 8 years and 7 months, and having two sibli...

I wanted to talk about things that have happened at school before I forget everything. Lemme just make a brief table of contents so that I can make sure I don't leave anything out. The [Ongoing] ID search Crossing Cults Club #1 Social-Antisocial Monday Critiques and Tripods/Anxiety Attack This Is A Drill/Club Fair/Crossing Cults Club/The ONE TIME I STAY HOME This Is A Drill II/Polka-Dotted Balloons? Visits from Sunshine Crossing Cults Club #2 Stress Attack/Lindsey Pls QT Ice Cream/Burnt Floor *cracks knuckles* Let's get started.  Let's begin with the Crossing Cults Club #1, which happened Wednesday, September 13.  So, on Wednesday, I was walking through the A building when my friend Alexis caught me and asked me to come to the weekly Crossing Cultures Club meeting. I agreed, because who could turn down free pizza, you know? I took a slice of pizza and basically said nothing during the entire meeting. It was my first time there, so I didn't want t...

You know, if my blog could be turned into a book after I die, it would be next Anne Frank diary. Except... stupid. But quirky. And intriguing. Kinda like me. Anyway, let's get back to where we left off. The last thing I talked about was my meeting with Sunshine. I last saw him on Friday where he was teaching karate class in the masjid. He let me be timekeeper at the end of class when they were sparring. It meant kind of a lot to me. Thanks Sunshine! One of the reasons I love this blog is that despite being public, no one reads it until I share the link, and even then, no one reads it regularly. (Mostly because I don't update regularly lolol) And because of that, I feel comfortable to post all my secrets here. One of my current secrets is... I lost my college ID yesterday. Losing your college ID is a pretty big problem. The fee for replacement is $10. And even if I get it replaced, I'll need to also get a new bus pass decal. And I'm not sure if they do that, fee or...

[MONDAY, AUGUST 28] Someone sing the Jeopardy song. *annoying warbling* Thank you. Alright, where was I? Haaa, wait. I didn't actually start. So, it's 12:43, and I'm on my break until 1:30, when my next class starts. I decided to pass the good amount of time by writing. I was so ready to start off the fall semester as a new college student with big smiles and positive vibes, but, as you discovered from my post about the first day, things went somewhat hectic. In fact, the entire week was hectic. MON: I freaked about the eclipse while waiting in a long line for my ID. TUE: I walked into my DI class late. WED: I tripped at school while holding cotton candy (a story I hid from y'all because it was just too embarrassing. And no I'm not gonna tell y'all about it.) THUR: I got mauled in karate class. (Thanks Yasmeen) FRI: I got up early and visited FinAid at school, underwent an emotional wave, and rushed out to buy cookies at Tom Thumb. SAT: I got up...

What happened since I last posted? I know I need to talk about Eid, and my crazy weekend post-Eid. I've got less than twenty minutes until my last class of the day, so this needs to be brief. On Thursday, I came home early to make cookies for a bake sale at the VRIC Eid Bazaar. I won't mention what happened at the bazaar -  it was pretty uneventful. On Friday, Eid day, we went to a convention center for the Eid prayer, and after that we went to someone's house for a nice brunch. I had a nice soft bagel with cream cheese inside. After that, we went home and relaxed for a bit, and then prepared to go to the next house. After having some food at that house, we went home and then went to a park. After the park party, which was pretty boring, we went home, and that was the end of the day. On Saturday, I went to NLC at 10am to try and get my photoshop homework done. Alright, this is actually a really long and wild story that I'll elaborate more on in the next post. On...

Should I hire somebody to give me ideas for better post titles? Nah. This thing's a one-man job. I mean, a one-lady job. Y'all, by definition, feminism is the idea that women are equal to men. And that's stupid, y'all. It isn't true. The truth is, women are better than men. I don't mean to put men down, I mean, men are great too. But what did they do to make the internet talk trash about them? Anyway, that's another story for another post. Allow me to continue talking about this wacky day that is finally over. After I published the prequel to this post, respectively titled, "Nothing," I heaved on my backpack and sauntered out of the library. I made it to building A and took the elevator down to level 2. It was then that I wondered why there isn't a ground floor. And if 2 is the ground floor, why is it called 2 and not 1? It made me imagine that the NLC faculty and staff probably punch in a secret elevator code to get to the hidden g...

Aaahhhh today is wacky. Not as wacky as last week, but wacky nevertheless! First of all, my friend Abr picked me up. As she was driving, I saw her touch her ID, and then I realized I wasn't wearing my own. It's okay, I reassured myself.  Not everyone on campus has one yet. And it's not like I'm going to need it today. To give myself an illusion of productivity, I opened my phone and viewed my to-do list on Google Keep. What next? I forgot to bring my sketchbook to class, and we were gonna do some in-class sketchbook assignments. We didn't have to do it in class, but it was a good idea if we just wanted to get some of it out of the way. But I didn't have my sketchbook, so I just told myself I'd do everything when I got home. Mr. Art Teacher said that if we didn't have our sketchbooks, we could instead use some scrap paper. I decided, well, I have no choice, so as I was looking through my file folder for some scrap paper, I found an assignment from ...

My only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are gray... I don't actually know this song. But it's a cute one. I like to think I'm a ray of happy annoying optimistic sunshine for other people. But I realize that the same treatment is never reciprocated. Perhaps part of my hidden yet ongoing depression is due to lack of that reciprocation. I don't have a ray of sunshine in my life. I am my own ray. But when I'm down, that's it. All of me goes down. I also like to think I'm a strong independent woman who can do everything by herself with no help. So I don't like to accept any emotional or physical help unless I really need it. And once I accept it, I realize how much I really do need it. Before Ramadan this year, I visited a therapist with my mom and my sister, and I broke down crying in front of the therapist and my mom and my sister, as much as I didn't want to. I never usually display my emotions in front of anyone, not even my own family. ...

Lately I've been thinking a lot to myself, as introverts usually do, right? The conversations in their minds are always more meticulous and fluent than the ones that leave their mouths. Most of the silent conversations I have with myself are about useless things, like questioning why in children's books, the animal characters are named after their species. Franklin Turtle, for example. He is the only character with a normal name, while his friends, like Bear and Beaver, are named after their species. What about Bear's parents, or Beaver's siblings? What are they named? Bear and Beaver #2? Did the author ever think about that? Just today I looked up Piggley Winks, because I still remember this theme song from all those years ago. I never watched the show, but I remember playing the computer games. I was curious and wondered if it was real because I don't actually remember watching the show. So I looked it up and found the theme song. And it brought back all the nos...

Tuesday was the first day of digital imaging class. I was kind of late because Hamzah was taking forever to get ready. But all was good, the teacher hadn't gone into the class work yet and hadn't even called roll. I walked in there and he was like, "Hello!" I looked around. Everyone was sitting at a computer. It looked like they were all occupied. Am I supposed to sit at a computer? I thought. "Aaand we're out of computers," Mr. Black said, answering my question. I headed towards the table in the middle of the room and began pulling out a chair, but Mr. Black said, "Wait, let me hand you the syllabus." He gave me a white sheet of paper, which I accepted, and I then began to sit down. Then someone said there was an available computer, and sure enough there was one, right in the very corner of the room. Gratefully, I headed towards the corner computer and parked myself and my stuff right there. We went over the syllabus, and then we fin...

Okay, I'm not exactly sure what kind of mood I'm in right now. Immature? Deep? Sassy? I was literally just thinking of talking about how the first week of school went, but the bare thought of it made me stress out a little lol, like I'm not ready to think that hard and remember all those details. But I'll just go over it because I know you guys want to know and future me wants to know too. So, I registered for four classes: Drawing II, Design I, Digital Imaging I, and Photography I. Photography doesn't start until September, because apparently it's a flex course. Design and Drawing are taught by the same teacher on Mondays and Wednesdays. Digital Imaging is so far my only TR class, until September comes. So that's my schedule.  I really haven't been writing and I realize now as I go back into the season of academics that it made a huge difference.  My writing is trash. I read some of my old essays, my old books, and they're amazing, You wouldn...

Most of the time I feel like I am worth nothing. I don’t feel special in any way, except when people treat me differently from others. The joke is on me; I’m treated differently in the way that others have something against me. However, my “special treatment” does not affect me until a certain limit is reached. I am diligent in keeping myself optimistic and I like myself a lot; perhaps a little too much since I give myself extra attention because I don’t receive it from certain people. Optimism and self-love is only one of the ways I cope. My other haven is writing. Putting words to paper is the best way for me to channel my negative thoughts and feelings. Being a person of little words, I much prefer to discuss my feelings in silence than verbally. Additionally, there isn’t anyone I know who I can trust with my venting. Writing helps me find myself and discover my personality. I sometimes have no idea who I really am; I’m a certain person with my family, and another person with peers ...

You probably think this post is gonna be somehow related to Hawaii but really it's not. I don't have any travel plans for summer. Just a bunch of... well, wait, I don't actually have plans. Ramadan is almost over, and I feel like a hypocrite for writing this, but I have felt so unproductive this month it isn't even funny. I was so hopeful I would finish reading at least half of the Quran, but I'm literally still stuck at the beginning. Usually, I don't make one of my Ramadan goals to finish the Quran because every year I try, I don't succeed. Now as I write that out it seems so foolish. Yes, I can at least try, but what have I done to try? I mean, most of what I've done is read or listen to at least one page after Fajr, but that's basically it! In the beginning of Ramadan I was actually trying, but as the days progressed I lost the vibe and--you could say--gave up. I really don't know if this Ramadan made a difference on me. I'm still lazy,...

Classes are over for spring but now I'm taking a Maymester course. It's Art Appreciation. Our last meeting in next Wednesday. We were supposed to me on Thursday too, but that meeting is cancelled because my teacher has a meeting that same day around the time we meet. I'm glad because that day is the day we were supposed to give our final presentation. But now all we have to do is submit it to the website. Woohoo! Anyway, I just came here for a quick update. I have to go write my book. I can't let anything stop me from writing it. Toodle-oo! Until next time! :)

I guess I should make an update. The weekend has passed, and I am THROUGH with teaching art classes! #freedom Today, registration opens at my school, so I'm in the room right now waiting my turn. I hope I don't take too long because at 10 I need to get to the lake for the sidewalk chalk competition that I'm supposed to participate in for my drawing class. I hope this all goes well. It's a competition so if our sidewalk art is really good, we'll get prizes for it. My teacher said some of the prizes are cash, so I hope hope we win. By we I mean my group. I'm working with my friends Meg and Morg. Another person named Irv is supposed to join us too, but he's a little unsure about it. Last week we asked him to join us and he was like, "Ahh... I don't know..." "Do you work better alone?" I asked. "Yeah." "Okay then," said Morg. "Let us know by this weekend!" You had to be there. Morg is such a funny p...

Most of the events I've been stressing out about have passed, and my stress level is diminishing. The only art-related 'things,' for lack of a better word, that I have left to worry about are the art class I teach for kiddies, and the illustrations I'm doing for that children's book. The other children's book I was hired to illustrate for is postponed till May, when I finish school for this semester. And hopefully IN-SHAA-ALLAAH, I'm getting a drawing tablet for all these illustrations, so everything will be slightly easier on me from now on. And I only have two sessions left for my kiddie art class: April 15 and 16. I'm kinda scared because I don't have an idea of what we should draw buuuuut I'll figure it out. Finally, after all these art things are over, I can focus back on my writing. I've literally abandoned one of the books I was heavily working on for at least a month, and I'm afraid I'm going to let it slip into the past. Bu...

Hello guys! It's been a long time since I posted something worth reading. Know why? I've been super busy this past month. I was hired to make illustrations for two children's books, although I won't work on the second one until May because it isn't really a priority right now. I also signed up to perform at the upcoming art festival to be held at my local masjid. I've also been asked to teach little kids ages 5+ the basics of drawing with charcoal. To top it all off, the work for my drawing class has gotten a lot more difficult in terms of homework. Just a couple of weeks ago we started moving on from the "easy stuff" to the "more adult stuff." This basically means working with India ink, collaged rubbings, and perspective drawings. These techniques from my perspective are not exactly more difficult, but more boring. I can't wait for this unit to be over. I know you're probably really interested as to why I've been hired for so ...