To Be or Not To Be

Dare I say that Shakespeare is growing onto me? Reading his lethargic plays is actually becoming quite enjoyable. I never thought this day would come. I’m reading Hamlet right now, and I can legitimately say that I have fallen in love with the language. The Old English is just so…vintage. The characters speak so beautifully that even the simplest of statements become so magical and fluttery. Like Hamlet’s mother doesn’t just say to her son to calm down or take a chill pill or whatever hippies say these days (by the way, Hamlet's mother is not a hippie). No. Instead she says, “Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper, sprinkle cool patience.” Defenitely not a hippie thing to say. And even when the characters say that they’re going to be straight and to the point, they manage to create a whole monologue: “Why day is day, night night, and time is time, were nothing but to waste night, day, and time. Therefore, such brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.” The guy is trying to tell some dude’s parents that their son has gone insane when in fact he’s the one who sounds loony. How cool is that? Probably not cool at all, but I love it. I find it unfortunate that I wasn’t able to enjoy the language with the past Shakespeare plays that I have read. I guess I was just being an ignorant, egotistical adolescent who was too blind to see the exquisiteness in this articulate language. Oh well. At least I’m enjoying its splendor now. I sound retarded when I try to sound smart by talking in big words. I think I’ll leave Shakespeare to all of the immaculate speech. I’ll just go and talk about Pokémon on Twitter.

While I suffer from an extreme case of boredom in this SAT practice class, you guys get to enjoy some of my favorite Hamlet quotes so far.

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

“To be honest, as this world goes, is to
Be one man picked out of ten thousand.”

“We are oft to blame in this—
‘Tis too much proved—that with devotion’s visage
And pious action we do sugar o’er
The devil himself.”

“Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grainèd spots
As will not leave their tinct.”

“Be thou assured, if words made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.”

Well, that was fun. I’ll spam you guys with more quotes as soon as I find some good ones. I'm now trying to figure out what that discussion about Flava Flav and fried chicken had to do with the SAT. I guess I'll never know...

LET'S ALL GET WASTED

This is my Thursday morning coffee review. So sit down, grab a newspaper, and read the same column 20 times while pretending to listen to me. I'm a hyperactive child, but I don't down caffeine well. I know, it's hard to believe. But anything caffeinated has atrocious effects on my body and my puny brain. If have pop or coffee after 6 pm, then I'll be up until 6 the next morning. Literally. I think that's why my computer and I are best friends: neither of us, unlike humans, sleep. So today I thought I'd soar to new levels by having a good ol' cuppa Joe in the a.m. Bad idea. Granted, it did wake me up. Usually I'm sleeping in my first period, bu today I was bouncing up and down. Shaking. Slurring my speech. Saying whatever came to my head. Why does it sound like I was drunk? Maybe cause I was. I now hold the strong opinion that coffee is the absolute worst substance you can put in your body, after all that narcotic stuff and eggplant. Coffee is the root of all evils, but golly, is it good. I think it's most effective on the naive teenagers. It has them in a never-ending cycle: the aroma entices the kid. The first sip leaves them smacking their lips. The second sip puts them in a trance. The third sip to the last sip puts them in a haze, leaving them delusional. After they put the empty coffee cup down with a quivering hand, they are at their high. They should not be held accountable for what they do or say in this period of time, because even if you confront them later, they won't remember. Soon, their energy will die out and they'll come crashing down. Then they'll want some more, and by this time, it will be safe to proclaim them as an addict. Kids, don't underestimate the power of coffee. It's an evil, brain-cell killing mechanism in liquid form. Keep drinking it and you'll end up like Homer Simpson with your tongue lolling out of your mouth and continuously singing "Spider Pig." Unless you do that already. It's OK. I don't judge.

Decisions, Decisions

Humans’ lives are interesting. They’re just so…complicated. Humans love having choices, but they hate making them. They like variety, but they still want conformity. They always want options, even if they never use them. They like what’s different, but they can’t handle something that isn’t mainstream. It makes no sense. Basically, a human’s life revolves around confusion. It’s what they’re best at. Rather than simply having to choose between Option 1 and Option 2, they force themselves to dig until they come across Option 791 and Option 792. I, on the other hand, prefer to live a simple life, one that is fulfilled, content, and hectic-free. I have therefore taken it upon myself to water down my options so that I can concentrate on making the correct decisions throughout my life rather than having my brain explode, which I might possibly need in the days to come. Here’s an example of my day’s worth of choices:

Morning
Sleep in an extra 5 minutes OR 10 minutes
Have Frosted Flakes for breakfast OR Frosted Flakes for breakfast
Sleep during my classes OR actually pay attention
Eat pizza for lunch OR eat ice cream for lunch
Skip my 7th period and chill in the yearbook room OR go to class and sit around with some dweeby freshmen

Afternoon
Come home and tweet uncontrollably OR participate in binge-blogging
Eat a snack OR eat a snack
Take a nap OR do homework (naps seem to be the champion of this persistent battle)
Decide who’s a better rapper: Eminem OR Dr. Seuss

Evening
Eat dinner OR nachos (this is invalid because Mom makes me eat dinner, but I refuse to give up hope)
Drink tea OR hot chocolate
Annoy the crap out of my sisters OR my parents
Momentarily contemplate whether I want to become a journalist OR a teacher
Internet OR homework

Midnight
Internet OR homework
Sleep OR die

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Ode to the Garbage Can

My mother was telling me that at the time of the Prophet salallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, everybody praised and cursed each other through poetry. I guess that’s why all of the AlMaghribies make announcements in poetry, reply in poetry, and diss in poetry. It’s lovely. I’ve always thought that this method of conversing was so cool, and I’ve been wanting to try it out for a while now. Unfortunately, I haven’t been blessed with the same eloquence that these gifted geniuses have. But as I have learned from the poetry unit in my English class, you don’t need to be gifted or have eloquence to write poetry; you just need it to sound pretty, even if the poem is about a toad getting mangled by a lawn mower. No, seriously, I had to do a whole essay about the symbolism in this toad-guts-spilling-everywhere poem. It was mind wrenching. Anywhoo, I have decided to begin my own collection of bogus poetry so that one day I will become famous for my work. If have the poets in my English book did it, so can I.

Ode to the Garbage Can

Poor, disgruntled garbage can.
As I sit in my desk and look at you,
I realize there’s nothing you can do.
You bleakly stand there all alone
While passerbies give no care to the glory you have shone.
They insult you with looks of disgust
Without acknowledging the responsibilities you entrust.
Mockery aside, you are the chosen one.
Unlike these arrogant humans, you do what must be done.
You hold their trash, filth and all
As they give you their cold shoulder, standing so tall.

Please, garbage can, do not dismay.
For one day these people will say,
“Oh, how admirable and worthy you are.”
Praising you for the work you have done so far.
They will see how much pain you have gone through,
And they will be ashamed that they did not help you.

So dear garbage can, for you this is my ode
It’s definitely better than crying over some dead toad.

A Weekend of Awesomeness

I haven't had such a good weekend in ages. I did absolutely nothing productive. I've been so caught up with school that I forgot what it felt like to do nothing. I assure you, it's quite relaxing. I, along with the rest of my drugged family, spent Friday moping around the house until we ended up going ot the masjid. I don't remember anything from that day except for the pizza somebody got for us at the masjid. Now you know what my priorites in life are. I slept in on Saturday, wasted time on the internet, and received a card from the baby. She had spent the morning making cards for the whole family, bless her cotton socks.

This is my card. She knows that I love food so much that she decided to put it on my card. I'm keeping this forever.

She even made one for herself and called herself pretty. And she put a picture of a squirrel in it. Now that's called true love.

After getting these little tokens of love, the fam and I decided to take advantage of the gorgeous weather outside. In the morning before I had even looked outside the window, my friend had told me that it was 8 degrees outside. That got me depressed cause it meant that spring wasn't gonna come until June, and by them summer would have already gone on its vacation, so fall would never arrive, and then in winter it wouldn't snow. I don't get this logic either, but either way, I was bummed. But then I realized that this chick is Canadian, and they use Celcius waaay up there. Dumb Canadians. They think they're all cool cause they have free health care and they're hockey team just won. Whatever. My tangent is over. Can you tell that I miss that wonderfully cold place? I simply meant to say that I went to the masjid and rode my bike there. Why at the masjid? Because it's vast and free and desolate like the wild, wild West. My mom was chasing me on a scooter and my sister kept chucking the volleyball at me, but since my family has no hand-eye coordination, she kept missing. So when we tried to actually play volleyball, the ball kept going in the wrong direction, and we'd send the poor little baby to go and get it. Our family motto is now "Go get it." We got ice cream after that to get us on our sugar-high and talked in code while getting it. I was Aunt Sally, my dad was Grandpa Dave, sister 1 was George, and sister 2 was Joe. Mom and the baby were spared. I think we scared the guy who was getting our ice cream. Came home and watched Fantastic Mr. Fox. One of my friends had told me that it reminded her of me so I decided to watch it. It was hilarious. Just my type, too, complete with the perfect amount of sarcasm and blank emotion. So day 2 of the weekend is down. Gosh, I'm writing a lot. Eh. Sunday, which I think is today, got a bunch of love from my little Sunday School kids. I have grown so attached to them. They do stupid things that make me laugh. Like trying to stab my camera with a pencil. What more could a girl want?

Went to Panera with the chicas, went to a teachers' meeting where I got pizza, came home and wasted time on the internet. Perfect Sunday. And I wasn't even bombarded with homework pouring from the sky like little fireballs that try to burn you alive. I was actually spared. All praise the good Lord. Alhamdulillah. I'm still depressed that I have to go to school tomorrow, but atleast I'm having a chill day before I have to go back to that circus. Time to go waste more time to make up for all the lost time. Oh, and does anybody wanna go watch Alice in Wonderland with me? I really feel like getting high off of all the colors and high-pitched voices. Gotta love Tim Burton.

The Sunnah of Taking a Nap

This is simply to correct/justify my currently horrid sleeping habits...

Anas (may Allaah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Take a nap, for the shayaateen do not take naps.” (Reported by al-Tabaraani. Al-Saheehah, 2647).

Ishaaq ibn ‘Abd-Allaah said: “Taking a nap is one of the deeds of good people. It revitalizes the heart and helps one to pray qiyaam al-layl.”

Al-Hasan al-Basri passed by a group of people in the marketplace in the middle of the day, and heard the racket they were making. He said, “Do these people take a nap?” It was said to him, “No.” He said, “I think their nights must be bad.”

Fast forward 1400 years, and the New York Times reports, "New research has found that young adults who slept for 90 minutes after lunch raised their learning power, their memory apparently primed to absorb new facts."

From http://fatimai.tumblr.com/

My Philosophy on Life

There are two types of people in the world: ones who help you grow through their love and nurture, and ones who help you grow by testing your morals and your patience. Your family has the ability to be both. They especially have a knack at the "testing your patience" part. Particularly little sisters.