Skip to main content

Professional Development

It's hard to believe that I have spent so much of my last days of Ramadan in a resume/coverletter stupor. A film now covers my eyes, and I suppose my heart too. I see only PT or FT, paid or unpaid, internship, search agents, and opportunities as catch phrases to my day. I have sent out 10 applications in total over the past week, but feel I am still lagging behind on follow-ups.

Looking for a part-time job is no joke, my friend.

I guess I always thought it would be. I imagined I would be a youth coordinator at SAYA! after I graduated, but now I guess I am designing my own intergenerational program in New Jersey. I have a lot of homework and research to do on my project actually. I want to get in touch with some possible mentors and that, too, seems difficult with all the pending work that lies before me. The mountain of applications is subsiding, but i am going to look into other opportunities for professional growth. Internships are simply one avenue.

This Ramadan has been the best one of my life. It is the first time in my life I am not working in a traditional office/school setting. I am in charge of my day, and chose to structure time according to salaat as much as possible as opposed to that arbitrary lunch that has been deemed so important in American culture. I have listened to Islamic CD's, have listened and read Quran every day alhamdullilah, have prepared iftaar for my family, have gone to tarawee often, have kept my home relatively clean and orderly, and have established a study/work schedule of sorts. I have avoided the usual time suckers that keep me from accomplishing anything: TV and NPR. I am accountable for my time to God alone.

I have reestablished ties with friends. I love them, but have struggled to keep those ties strong. But I think that once someone enters your heart, she remains there for as long as you have a memory.

I have forgotten how to write. How to well, anyway. I am working on reading now. Trying to improve my reading speed and comprehension by reading, learning words, writing flashcards. Oh the usual stuff I used to love in high school.

I am slowing returning to normal. Domesticity has a place but cannot be the excuse for laziness.

I've missed you, my reader. Welcome back.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And Today I was Called an Intellectual Whore

Today I was called a intellectual whore. I was told that all i want to do is intellectually screw people because what I like most about people are their ideas, experiences and thoughts. I have shown little regard for emotions, and sentimentality and for the UMPTH time this year, I find myself saddened by the loss of a friend. Here's his top 10 of most (im)memorable quotes: 1. "You're like Sex in the City, minus the sex." [Mindless stupidity is the implication] 2. "I am a warm person. You're not" 3. [paraphrase] I am a very sensitive person. I can't have you constantly hurting my feelings. 4. "I don't respect you" 5. "I am a generous person" 6. "We can't be friends, Sadia." 7. "You are emotionally crippled" 8. "What you need is a wall." 9. "I don't mean to hurt you." 10. "You're an intellectual whore." And the best question of today, and of the week perhaps, is when ...
3 comments
Read more

Why Not Friendship (Revised)- Repost

It is difficult to be merely a friend to a boy who seems more suitable as a husband than a friend. To reduce a potential life partner to a friend is immature and selfish. Friendship is the not the greatest type of relationship, but it is the safest. Friendship allows you to be intimate without the messiness of other things, like physical attraction, etc. Between friends, there is a warm permanence, a fuzziness that can be called appreciation and gratitude. There is also comfort and trust. Friendship is great if only for the possibility that one can know the beauty of another human being. The possibility of that is worth the difficulty of all else. But sometimes friendship is not enough. Sometimes, to reduce someone to friend when he should be much more is an affront to the opportunity God has presented before you. It is like saying to him, I know that we are amazing together, but we should be friends because I am a dumbass. To reduce him to friend also precludes the possibility of love...
7 comments
Read more

Amina Wadud and Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah: Gender, Quran, A reading

If you really are that ambitious, here is a 2660 word essay submitted late for your enjoyment. Gendering the Qu’ran: Analysis of Amina Wadud’s Qur’an and Women (A Draft) “How can ideas that transcend gender be expressed in gendered language?” In her Qur’an and Woman, Amina Wadud asks a hard but uniquely modern question of the timeless text of the Qur’an (xii). She contextualizes the language and ideas of the Qur’an with a model of hermeneutics that is characterized by standard notions to context, grammar, and Weltanschauung, or world view. Rather than simply extend medieval exegesis, Wadud returns to the original text of the Qur’an in order to derive the fundamentals concerning Muslim women, their roles, and responsibilities. She does this through an analysis that is critical of both the cultural context of revelation, as well as the context of classical tafsir, or interpretations of the Qur’an, given that the androcentrism of seventh-century Arabia still pervades society today. She pr...
4 comments
Read more