A New Center of Awesomeness

As salaam alaikum,

So, after several days of moodiness, I am now dedicated to finding for myself a new center of awesomeness! Awesome!

...I mean, what else can you say to that?

What is going to be the focus of this new center? My writing projects!

So, insha'Allah, I'm finishing RMD. I think for fun as well, I'm going to attempt this campy story idea that I had as a teenager renamed "The Misadventures of Nisa," about a girl, Anisa Taylor (heh) who grows up in the burbs, has this killer crush on a childhood friend who moves away when they're 12 years old to go to music school in the city, dedicates her life to moving to the city after that...but by the time she moves to the city at 22, she doesn't remember why she was so hot to move to the city. Anyway, Nisa has a series of misadventures in the city, ultimately leading to her being evicted from her apartment and having to defend her possessions with a concealed weapon. She then experiences what she at first perceives as random acts of charity from strangers, who later indicate that her benefactor is none other than...very predictable, I know.

I've had this story idea for a while. There's even a song that goes with it.

Oh yeah, and this story is based in the 80s. So the song was an 80s-sounding song. I like it!

I also wanted to write a comedy novel of sorts, called, "Desperate Blackwomen," a play on Desperate Housewives, but these would feature all single black women...desperate for various reasons.

My inspiration? The desperate black women of HSPH (public health school), no less...of which I am one, I guess, though I didn't come to Boston to find a man...just saying...

...now, running into one along the way...always preferred!

So I have ton of story ideas flowing, and I'm more excited to write them than ever...not because they're earth shattering, but because they sound like fun. These two ideas are definitely less serious than RMD. It almost makes me forget the fact that for some reason I've broken out into some kind of rash on my arms and elbows that I'm hoping is contact dermatitis vs. scabies. That's quite a wide differential, but I've never broken out into a rash like this before...it makes me miss my smooth skin! I'll never take smooth, non-itchy skin for granted again!

...well, that's a lie, I probably will, soon after this rash clears! Allah (swt) have mercy on we who forget!

But yeah, Glee has returned! Jane Lynch kills it as Sue Sylvester every week! Oh yeah, and Brittany is probably my favorite of the kids...her one liners are hilarious.

Stuff Invisible Muslimahs Like?

As salaam alaikum,

Before I make the rest of this post...I'd like to state a retraction. To all my brothers out there...Muslim brothers, that is, not race brothers. Black men, I've actually succeeded in not saying anything negative about you...well, nor have I really mentioned you here, come to think of it. Anyway. To the brothers...no, I do not believe that you are all doomed to be my downfall. I am my own downfall sometimes. And for the example I used...paradoxically, as he made me doubt my beauty, he did at one time make me really comfortable in my identity, more than I had been.

So I think the lesson in that is that...with any such relationship, there's the potential for goodness, and there's the potential for badness. I guess it was all part of a necessary learning process to make me who I am today.



But who am I today, and what's the merit in that? That's a question that lies somewhere at the base of my chest...rides on my diaphragm with each breath. [Wow, I need to go back to reading medical literature...I feel myself fast forgetting the world of medicine for the world of...dun dun dun! Public health. I need my med student jeito back!] I got into all six of the colleges I applied to and decided to go to my "safety" school instead of my favorite school, Wash U...or Yale, which had the second best package to Michigan...before I got the scholarship. I would have been a very different person if I'd gone to Yale...not in terms of academics, but people.

I live wondering what my life would have been if I'd never met MQ...I may still be shunning hip hop and R&B. What if there weren't as many black women on campus who went natural? Would I have not stopped straightening my hair? I probably wouldn't have started hijab, may have not become as practicing as I wanted to because of the presence/paucity of Muslims on campus...lots of things, dude!

I like my trajectory. Sometimes I wonder if coming to Harvard was a mistake, but it's too late, because it's part of who I am now and I'm indivisible from it.

But it makes me a very weird person.



So my roommate, who is mixed, just found out that she's exactly like the list of stuff white people like. She's angry because it says white people, when she thinks it's just college culture. But it's like, I hate to break it to you, but I went to college and while I did a few of the things on the list (frisbee), I always acknowledged those things to be...of someone else's culture.

Acutally, ultimate was more my Asian friends in high school. Stuff Asian people like that I ended up participating in...ultimate frisbee, DDR (c. 2002-03), Bubble Tea, math competitions...

Before college, I was a tag-along to the dominant culture amongst the brainiacs, I guess you could call us, in my high school, and we were mostly Asian. The black people were two half-Nigerians and one half-black, half-Asian dude. Very telling. So most of my friends were Asian, particularly Chinese and Korean. Where are we now? We're all engineers, in medical school, in computers or business. Hahaha, I love how those of us in medical school still are in school. I didn't feel the length until I've entered School of Public Health. Man, time has sloowwweeddd doowwwnnn...

So, I digress a lot.

So I don't fit in with stuff white people like. I looked at the various stuff black people like...while I agree with the list and I can identify it with people I know, that's not really me, either. Stuff educated black people like...that was my other roommate. Oh yeah, and it was really funny how characteristic the complaints that black people levered against it were...characteristic, predictable. I know my black people! Not meaning to channel the Dave Chappelle skit with that one...Chappelle, who I wouldn't have known about if MQ hadn't told me about him freshman year...

Stuff Muslim people like? Erm...I'm kind of scared to look that up, before I find something phobic with like, a drawing of the Prophet (saw) or something...

My culture is 100% unique, with various elements. To fit me, you'd have to have a list, like..."Stuff that Black Muslim Nigerian American Hispanophilic People Like."

It's easier to say the Invisible Muslimah, no?

Yep, and that would be me!

I actually have a classmate who has a lot of the same interests as I do...taste in movies, music, travel, languages...he fits the Black Hispanophilic People profile, so that's my closest proxy.

And you're like, oooh, similar interests, huh? And I'm like, ehh, been there, done that. Bought the shirt, bought the hat. My conclusion...he's muito chato.

So what are things that I like? I guess that this journal serves as an example of everything I like. Ramadan...I miss the nur of that month already! Umm...injecting words for multiple languages into my speech when no one understands them but me. I mean, for some reason, as a Muslim when talking about religious things, I feel the need to write/say it in Arabic...then I add Spanish and Portuguese to the mix...

I like going to Brazil. I like the African Diaspora. I like going to Brazil specifically because of the African Diaspora. I like talking about Nigerian men (something I think I avoid here?). I like foo foo and soup. I like Indian food. I like Brazilian music. I like writing. I like writing about black people. I like documentaries. I like documentaries on race and religion. I like history. I like the history of race relations...

I like giving Nollywood a chance.

I like telenovelas. I like being a telenovela snob.

I like Glee!

I like the Daily Show. I like the Boondocks. I like MST3K.

I like talking about how things were better when I was a kid in the late 80s and the 90s.

I like those countdown shows on VH1.

I like talking about marriage ad nauseum.

I like hating reality shows.

The like procrastinating!

The list goes on of things I like. Nothing quite captures my culture. I guess on the stuff white people like list, I fit with studying abroad, obscure films on Netflix and...having gay friends. On the stuff educated black people like, I'm the whole, natural hair, grown and sexy thing. All of the stuff black people like lists are gone...one of them was kind of black nationalist/militant! It took too long to read, and I was all like, calm down!

I like talking about my family's black nationalist history while not ever having been part of it.

So yeah, I'm glad to prove that, once again, I am not boxable.

I do, however, think I need to calm down...on several levels. I'll explain later.

Height of...Happiness

As salaam alaikum,

(I wrote this actually a few days ago, but am posting it now...)

If there's something else I don't often blog about, it's about happiness. I mean, in general, I think I talk plenty about the meaning of life, what's fulfilling to me, what's amused me...well, okay, that's a lie, I think I do talk about what makes me happy. Family medicine makes me happy, for example.

But there are just some times when my happiness goes above even that. This last week with my parents here vacationing over the river in Cambridge, I've had a few of those moments...not necessarily with them or because of them, but just in general.

One of them happened while I was...

- sailing out on the Massachusetts Bay, at Long Warf, seeing families enjoying the sunny day outside
- watching a clip of Glee and seeing how cute the Glee kids were and their excitement about seeing posters of themselves in New York
- biting into a plum, discovering that it was one of those that's purple inside, therefore sweet, then eating it

These moments inspire a level of happiness in me that I'm not quite able to explain. It's like...happiness at the cusp. It's like, it makes me so happy, I almost want to cry, but I don't...not because I'm holding back, but because I don't cross that threshold yet. And because crying is kind of a release of emotion, not crying sustains that happiness in my chest, and it makes my chest feel really light. It's a feeling that I can't exactly recreate, but the remembrance of the specific event or image does make me smile and I experience a similar lightness in my chest. It's pretty amazing.

So sometimes I get these feelings out of the blue, with nothing in particular happening, and I feel like it's a premonition. I had that feeling yesterday evening as my father dropped me off in front of my apartment. There were a bunch of guys crossing the street who must have just left the hospital because they had cups of coffee in their hands from coffee central. There was nothing quite that interesting about the guys except that as we passed them, I got that light feeling in my chest, though I wasn't smiling. And then I got this sudden premonition...something happy is going to happen to me in a few days time.

I had this feeling earlier, except the premonition was that it was going to happen "soon," which could be in a few months time...which is sooner than soon has ever been for me.

But now, it's a few days.

I don't know what to make of all of this happiness. I'm going to revel in it and take it to prayer. What better time do I have than this, smack dab in the middle of Ramadan!

Keep me in your du'as!

Get Ready for Me, Love, 'Cause I'm a Comer!

As salaam alaikum,

I encourage you to read my previous entry, "A Rose Much Desired," which is about the story I'm currently writing...A Rose Much Desired. Why? Because I'm shamelessly plugging, that's why. One of these days, I'll actually finish my first round of edits so I can actually finish this thing...

So, my roommate and I have finally found something to bond over...we've been watching "Glee" nightly. Last night, we watched at least three episodes back to back. We ended on the half-season finale, "Sectionals." Man, that show takes me back to my favorite part of high school (the only part I miss, actually)...band. I ended high school in the symphony band, having participated in both concert band and concert orchestra in my time in the band. I pretty much stopped improving after junior year, though, and I put my clarinet aside to pursue my pre-medical education.

...but I'm still absolutely in love with performance. There's nothing like getting on stage as part of an ensemble, hearing how your part interacts with someone else's, hearing an end result that's different every time, depending on how many parts you have in your head at once. It's amazing.

Anyway, "Glee" actually does remind me of my high school experience, having come up in the Midwest. They gave shout outs to pop and Cedar Point, which my roommate knows nothing about.

I went to Cedar Point's website and found out that they haven't constructed any new rides since I was last there 7 years ago. Amazing...for a while, they had a new ride every year.

Anyway, in the episode "Sectionals," Lea Michele (as Rachel Berry) sings "Rain on My Parade," which was originally performed by Barbara Streisand in the Broadway musical and film "Funny Girl." And I listened to the actual lyrics of the song, and I thought, hey, this is actually a really good song.

By the way...I like musicals, a lot. I think I'm going to spend my entire summer watching musicals.




I read about Omar Sharif after I watched this clip. He co-starred with Barbara Streisand. I didn't realize that he was born Catholic and converted to Islam in 1955! That's super cool! Converts rule, and I'm not saying that because I come from a family of converts...or maybe I am!

"Get ready for me, love, 'cause I'm a comer! I simply got to march, my heart's a drummer..."

That's cool. I'm going to start saying that whenever anyting gets me down. I'm just going to keep going, every day...

Haha, I know it's really corny, but it's true, at least for me...

Wasalaam.