Letters to My Daughter

In three weeks, I will be 25 years old and a graduate student at an Ivy League University. I am shaping my education and building my career, my future, and taking steps to improve myself, and challenge myself. I want to expose myself to ideas again, to be filled with art, culture, and love. I am excited and I do not know yet if I am ready. 

On Sunday July 5th, I came back from Chicago to a burnt house. The house that is directly behind our house burned down, the blackened wood erect in the place of a home. I often saw the house from my kitchen window. I remember a mother walking with an infant son, children playing on a swing, the neatly landscaped backyard. I do not the names or faces of any of these people but I remember the perfect white picket fence. It's all gone now. My dad reminded me that these houses that we build with so much time and sweat are really just made from plastic and wood. Despite our best efforts to beautify and clean and organize our homes, the very construction is combustible. May God have mercy on the family that lived there.

Today I began reading Peter Han's Nobodies to Somebodies: How 100 Leaders in Business, Politics, Arts, Science, and Nonprofits Got Started . The book speaks to young people, born between 1975 and 1985, who yearn for making a difference in the world, but struggle with making the decisions that will build their careers. In many ways, this book is an intergenerational dialogue. Han believes that there is a great deal young people can learn from older generations, and that the best way to glean that guidance is to ask the right questions of the older generation. Specifically, Han asks leaders across sectors about their first experiences out of college, about the formidable experiences they've had before they became elite achievers. How did they manage themselves? How did they start out?  "Young people remain hungry for perspective on how to translate their aspirations to achievement," he writes. "And older people remain capable of offering that perspective" (i...

Given the changes to Blogger, a service I have used on and off for the past 7 years, I have decided to start with an introduction.  My name is Sadia. I am a Project Manager at a nonprofit consulting organization in New York City. We provide capacity building expertise and strategic consulting in 3 major areas: resource development, governance and special events. I am responsible for tracking outcomes, program support, marketing and communications, and new business development.    I have extensive marketing, program support and monitoring experience in the nonprofit and private sectors. I've basically grown up within the nurturing spaces of NYC nonprofits like South Asian Youth Action, where I served a Board member, and Sadie Nash Leadership Project , which helps NYC youth become life-long learners and leaders.  My greatest achievement was starting  Remembering Forward , an intergenerational community arts program for diverse young women (ages 14-...

A major theme in Democracy in America is Tocqueville's recurring evocation of Americans as ceaselessly active and restlessly striving. The American spirit is energetic and enterprising. Americans are never at rest or settled, but always in a hurry, in permanent agitation and constant motion, incessantly jostling one another. Nothing is fixed. Perpetually on the move, Americans change jobs and homes whenever opportunity calls. Tocqueville marvels at meeting men who have successively been lawyers, farmers, merchants, ministers of the Gospel and doctors. (xxxii) I promised myself that I would attempt to read this book, since I had first encountered this title in high school. I was surprised to learn that Tocqueville was only 25 years old when he makes the trip to America, and begins writing his intellectual opus. He arrives in America on the pretext of observing American prisons, but remains here for 9 months studying the culture, people, and way of life. His observations have become...

This shouldn't be so hard. It's not a trick question. The answer can't be googled It's not something I can read somewhere else and then memorize. But why does it feel impossible to answer? The question is simply: What is your dream job? What would it take for you to actually try to attain your dream?  Answers can be anything, you want to be a chef, pilot, designer, dancer,etc...  Do you feel that there is anything that would act as a barrier to you chasing after your dream? This was the question I got at a recent interview. I was supposed to do a writing sample on the above question and for some reason, I found it really hard to answer. So I'm back here on my blog, sorting through the various threads I could use to answer this question. Here is a draft of what I would write. Please feel free to comment-- My dream job is to write professionally. I dream of writing essays, reports, evaluations, and fiction as a full time job--perhaps multiple part-time jobs. I ...

Congress.org - News : Activist walks a lonely path

Columbia or Penn? It is June 8th, and I thought I would have made up my mind by now. In fact, when I tell people (all 3 of my friends), I'm going to Penn, it would seem that I have already made up my mind. Yet the fact that I still have options until June 15th is actually quite frustrating, but in the best way decisions are fought with tension. Columbia or Penn? Why not Princeton? I hadn't even considered Princeton. One look at their admissions numbers, and I felt like running, screaming, fleeing towards NYU. I've been to Princeton, for its graduation and some events on campus. What strikes me is the overall INTENSITY of the university, the level of commitment students have to their studies. Driving through the campus at 11PM, or 10AM, the campus is quite, and I imagine the entire campus is studying somewhere. I found it thoroughly inspiring but I could not muster the same enthusiasm during my years at NYU. I remember the days I was at Cornell for a summer honors progra...

From "Here is New York"* (1948) by E. B. White There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter--the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last--the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her ...

That's a totally generous free woman. She's fearless. She's not afraid of anything. She has very few material things. She has a little self-supporting skill that she performs. She doesn't run anybody's life. She's available for almost infinite love. If you need her--she'll deliver. And she has complete clarity about who she is. -- Toni Morrison The artist cannot and must not take anything for granted, but must drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides. We know, in the case of the person, that whoever cannot tell himself the truth about his past is trapped in it, immobilized in the prison of his undiscovered self. This is also true of nations." --"The Creative Process", Baldwin Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last scared but the integrity of your own mind. --"Se...

Last Friday night (5.22.2010) our family had its first halaqa. My cousins came and my brother read and explained several hadith. He read the following narration: The law is plain, and the unlawful is plain. Between them are doubtful matters that most people do not know about. He who avoids the doubtful has kept his religion and honor clear. But he who falls into the doubtful falls into the unlawful as the shepherd who grazes around a sanctuary, almost grazing therein. Verily there is a morsel of flesh in the body which, if sound, the whole body is sound, and which it ill, the whole body is ill. Verily, it is the heart. It seems that most of our concerns fall into the doubtful. Personally, I find myself largely preoccupied with job seeking. I've been trying to find something temporary for the summer so that I can gain some momentum before I start graduate school at UPenn in the fall. I've interviewed with some organizations, but I am not willing to do unpaid work at this critic...

Today my family and I threw Dad a surprise 60th party. We had 18-20 people, mostly Dad's closest friends. I cooked, cleaned, invited guests, prepared the house, bought all the decorations, organized all the details.. but my cousins were the real heros. One bhai (cousin)took me to Sam's Club before work. One cousin helped us change Wasim's flight, and ordered all the food. My husband paid for things, picked up the cake, and helped me plan the guest list. Mom cut mangos and tied the balloons for decorations. My cousins set up the dishes, and organized all the platters. I was the "architect." I woke up at 8AM after working until 2AM cleaning the house, cooking my rice pudding which took an hour, vacuuming, and confirming with the guests. I woke up to find a wonderful waffle cooked and waiting for me. I ate it happily, knowing Dad probably made waffles, got dressed and headed to Pathmark to buy groceries. I came back home at 10, showered, and got ready for the party. ...

"I have no special gift. I am only passionately curious." ---Albert Einstein Posted on the back wall of my desk at eye level, I keep a letter from my late best friend, Conor M. Moran. He wrote a one page letter our senior year at Stuyvesant. I had only known him 2 years at that point, and his letter feels like we already had a lifetime together. In the letter, he writes: "I can't really tell you how important you've been in my life over the past year and a half. You have said in the past that you don't think of yourself as a great friend, but I don't think you really understand. I have gotten so much out of knowing you, and I am absolutely certain that anyone else you know would say the same thing. I have never known anyone else nearly as insightful, introspective and genuinely honest as you are. I have tremendously appreciated your un-self-conscious interest in religious and moral issues; your ability to cherish the uniquely beautiful elements of your ow...

"Sometimes in life, the (limited) choices we have are blessings in disguise." -a friend I applied to one business school-Stern- and didn't get in. I appreciate the wisdom of the admissions office. I feel I am destined to learn business somehow, to be involved in something so long as I keep my eyes and ears open, and start learning practical skills. I must enroll in an accounting class. I really loved when my father showed me his software program. I liked how you can input numbers into a program, and the computer can help you make sense of those numbers. It is elegant. My father not only empowers people in the community with his accounting service (literally helps people get money from the government), he also advises and consults new businesses and nonprofits. He has over 3000 clients that he handles from all over the continental US. He does this as his solo practice. I marvel at my father and his entrepreneurial spirit. He was motivated by the dollar. He left the world h...

Tom Petty said it best: "I'm free, free fallin.'" He might have been describing heartbreak, but I think the joblessness of my state, and that of the United States, are one and the same. I feel that my mental state has gradually withered away as I've received rejection after rejection--sometimes multiple rejections in one day! "It's not you," friends console, "It's the economy." As much as I would like to blame the ECONOMY for all that's wrong in my world right now, to do so would be irresponsible. In fact, my joblessness has much more to do with my lack of confidence, lack of engagement, and my lack of aggressiveness. I have had 12 callbacks in the past 2 months. And not a single job offer. My interviews were great, some lasting over an hour because my recruiters felt like long lost friends. However, at the end of the day, I am still without a job. What could have gone wrong? Did I smell? Was my hijab too tight? Did I not provide su...

Procrastination. In a word, yes, that is the entire story of my life. May God forgive me for this.. Last night I went to a Islamic Finance event at Columbia University. I learned how many of my perceptions of the socioreligious movement/sector/industry were misinformed, ironically, by the last Islamic Finance event I attended at NYU Stern two years ago. At this particular moment in history, I can understand the necessity of welding ethics and financial institutions together. People have to believe in the institutions they adhere to. It is critical to understand capitalism as a global citizen and student. I am pretty sure Adam Smith would be furious with the excesses we've created in our free market system; yet understanding what currently exists is incredibly important. Last night, I was also reminded of how good it is to have friends! I'm sure that is a no brainer for most people with social lives, but I turn on and off my social activities depending on necessity and my schedu...

Today I received an email about a woman I have never met, a child I will never get to meet, and a family in despair. I learned of a woman with brain cancer, whose baby died. I have not met Fatima Qasim but I believe in the Mercy of God. That in this pain, grief and sadness, there is also mercy. I believe in the Mercy of God who allows good people to fall sick, to die. I believe in the Mercy of God who allows us to veer so terribly off the course that we can hardly recognize ourselves. I believe in the Mercy of God despite the harm we inflict on our selves, our bodies, and our families. I believe in the Mercy of God to purify our hearts, to remove the blackness that grows like mold. I believe in the Mercy of God who solves all problems, and creates so many more problems for us to solve. I cannot understand why I am crying for a woman I have never met, but I believe in the Mercy of God who reminds me of who I am. I believe in the Mercy of God who allows a young woman my age to survive tr...