Blogging about a camera

assalamu alaikum, So you may have notice that the photo above has been there for, oh, 5 years or so. I've changed a bit during that time. The photo itself was taken by one of my students when I took them to Capitol Hill as a reward for passing English Accent Reduction class. I didn't even take it. I currently don't own a camera. But! I can change that! One of the blogs I"ve been following for years, Yvonne at Joyunexpected, is hosting a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card. And the camera she's presenting, a Canon PowerShot ELPH 300HS, is pretty sweet. Just let me win that gift card! You know I'd put that toward a camera. So, do check out the links above, enter yourself... you never know. I'm beyond stressed right now over school, but for legal(!) reasons, it will wait until after semester grades are in the bag. Make dua'a please. Talk to you all soon! ~twenny

Too done. Through. Fed up.

assalamu alaikum I need your dua'a. I'm not doing so well in school. By which I mean that I'm failing. Graduate school is a different beast than undergrad; but for me the problem is truly my frustration with the graduate work. If I were working on a second bachelor's degree, I'd only have one more class after this semester. Because no one has switched from master's to bachelor's at this point, the school of nur.sing I'm in is unlikely to allow me to do it, according to an administrator. But because of the way nur.sing works, and a big part of my frustration is, when I graduate whether with a master's degree, a bachelor's degree, or an associate's degree, I start off making the same salary in most places. One exception is the federal government including the military. That's a tough place for me to work. The other thing is that I feel duped, because I still have to go to school for another two years in order to become a midwife. At least the goal is very very clear in my mind. I WANT TO BE A MIDWIFE. THAT IS THE POINT OF SCHOOL. Another part of my problem is that I'm isolated within the program, and am not getting the help or support I need no matter how much I ask for it. I ask for study groups, and people flake out or decline. And one thing about my alma mater was that I rolled in a crew that was DEEP. There was always someone at the library, no matter the hour, to sit at a table with. We didn't have to talk, but my thing is that I need people WITH me. The people in this program are so darned CLOSED and I feel isolated. I'm very unhappy about this. I'm done. ~twenny

Back...

assalamu alaikum, MashaAllah, I'm happy to see you, too! It's been a while, hasn't it? Today in class we're talking about the CN*L role. CNL means Clin!cal Nur$e Le@der; the program for which I'm studying grants a Master of Science in Nursing degree at the end (please, Lord!), but we also have the option which is pretty strongly pushed to go for the CNL certification. I was thinking this morning that I really (really) regret not blogging though the beginning of my nursing school career. This is why. I'd love to be able to look back and see how my thinking has changed. I decided ultimately not to blog, though; partly because I didnt have time, and partly because I didn't want this to become a recording of teh negatives I'm feeling. I really need to be able to look back and remember my 'alhamdulillah' moments. Next entry: CNM? CNL? MSN? OMG! GMOOH!

Thirty from TwennySicks

assalamu alaikum,

As I write this, I'm still 26.

Six and twenty years have passed in my life. And I'm still hoping for thirty.

Thirty, Mama said, is when "I was seriously grown.".
At thirty, according to some voices in Islam, youth has officially passed.

I don't know that maturity has necesarily skipped me, but I do know that I'm not done growing. And there are some years and times I want to call back and savor. Especially twenty four and twenty five. Lawd, 25 was hard from the beginning to the end, quite literally. Almost everyone forgot my 25th birthday; I worked all day and my boss got lost bringing me home in the DC heat. And then I went home and cried because no one loved me. And on my 26th birthday, I was at my grandmother's house... because she wasn't there. She was to be buried the next day.

*sigh*. SubHanAllah. Maybe by 30 I'll have finished sorting out the complex grief-guilt-relief mishmash I feel when I think about the mother of my mother.

Now I feel narcissistic.

That's not what I mean, though. I mean to be forward-thinking. Goal-oriented, even. And somewhere in me is still a little girl who dreams. At twenty-six.

I'm dreaming of a thirty-year old. Woman-me. Secure- more secure than today. Submitting, more than today. Loving- deeply. I dream of a tomorrow (or a not-quite-four-years) better than now. Nowhere near old. But certainly no child. Not even wanting to be, anymore.

Maybe I'll be mama? Wife? Proprietor? Prosperous? A singer. A nurse. A midwife. Professor, crafter. Rich and thin. Rich and fat. Certainly sexy, certainly all covered up.

Maybe I'll not have a dime to my name. Maybe I won't be writing here anymore. Maybe I'll have tasted the true bitterness of the tests we all face. Maybe I'll have become a bleak person. I don't know.

How wondrous and golden is the day I have yet to behold. It amazes me how delicious is something I have yet to taste!

One thing. If (and it won't happen) y'all catch me bemoaning the arrival of my third decade, whop me. Hard! AlHamdulIllah, what if I don't make it? Imette didn't make it. Gabriel didn't make it. Merlin didn't make it. Joy didn't make it. Not to thirty. How many deaths will I see before this day arrives? I am thankful and greatful for every beat of my heart, every action I can make, every wonder and even the atrocities I can see. Who knows? One day this post could be a missive from the grave.

All praise to ALlah for being able to speak, to even hint at His glory. Life is something I will never regret.

Even as I'm reaching for thirty.