where, oh where, has my spring break gone?
The daddy-o decided to drive my car to work this morning, so I’ve been using one of the SUVs while out and about on the town today. I’m sure you will be disappointed to hear that I refrained from running over any innocent pedestrians or fellow drivers during […]

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conversations with (and documented by) my brother the artist
post-its are the funniest way to document a conversation, really.
DISCLAIMER, AGAIN: Please note that I am not as shallow as this exchange makes me out to be. But, really, look at the heavy-duty bags under that first guy’s eyes. Workaholics or drug-addicts need not apply. It’s all […]

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There is an edge of panic that one usually feels when familiar surroundings have changed, when safe boundary lines have shifted and blurred. It is akin to the feeling I used to have growing up when, waking up during the middle of the night in yet another new home, I’d attempt to blindly navigate my […]

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like a good book, i can’t put this day back
The last term paper is due Monday afternoon and the last final exam is scheduled for sometime Tuesday (I really should figure out the exact time, shouldn’t I?), and then I’m free for a week. One week during which I’m going to do nothing but lie […]

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one year, and nothing’s changed
A young woman named Layla Kaiksow periodically sends out long, detailed emails to those of us who have asked her to stay in touch while she volunteers and does research in Palestine. It is fitting - in a bitter, ironic way - that her email received yesterday on the one year […]

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and it just never ends
“This is to show our rejection of violence and our solidarity with the families (of the dead)…”
[via AnneCentral]

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Muslim Film Festival
Saturday, March 13, 2004
UC Berkeley
2050 Valley Life Sciences Building
Go go go.

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it’s all in a state of mind
Yesterday afternoon, Somayya and I both groaned as usual when we came in sight of the parking garage and the four long flights of stairs we’d have to climb in order to reach her car, which was parked on the uppermost level.
We had just finished a cross-campus-and-back-again trek […]

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i’m free/free fallin’
Tonight I will be up the entire night, fighting sleep and the usual distractions (AIM, weblogs, and midnight snacks), and tomorrow I need to make sure I make it on time to my 8:30 a.m. class. Tomorrow I also need to go in to see one of my professors during her office hours. […]

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i swear like i’ve got hella extra time on my hands
This is the coolest link ever. Or maybe I’m just really, really easily amused - a condition that is already well-established, since it has been previously documented on this weblog a bajillion times.
Thanks for the link, Zainab. And for forgiving me for being so terrible […]

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an evening of recitation and praise
This is a short video clip of a recitation of Imam al-Busiri’s Burdah* (Poem of the Cloak) at Zaytuna Institute. Absolutely beautiful. The reciter is Shaykh Murtaza, who heads a masjid in San Francisco. I heard him recite the Burdah in person at Zaytuna’s Evening of Gratitude tribute dinner in […]

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Highlight from Tuesday: Spending two hours of our break between classes at the public park.
We sat on a dry patch of green grass, in the wan afternoon sunshine, discussing witticisms and woes, primarily academic-related, because, let’s face it, our life has been consumed by nothing but university courses for the last three-and-a-half years. Somayya […]

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i am -
Twenty-three days of sunshine and nights of rain and eyes that crinkle above wide smiles. Twenty-three picnics on the lawn, footraces, cart-wheels, twenty-three summersaults that go awry. Scraped knees and bandaged elbows, sticks and stones and rosebush thorns. Loud laughter and raised eyebrows, twenty-three dismissive glances and tears left unshed.
Twenty-three plans unmade […]

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