Making a thing of beauty without too much thought about what it means

~StoryPeople

Question of the Month/Year/Decade....

Question of the Month/Year/Decade...., originally uploaded by Rabujee.

Hi everyone.

Existence

Shriveled existence, originally uploaded by Rabujee.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

~Khalil Gibran
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Traditions

6:30 a.m.. Wake up, pray Fajr (early morning prayer), climb back into bed.
Doze off and start dreaming again.
Hear mom rushing in, moving here and there in a frenzy and in your sleep, catch her saying things like:

"Wake up!" ....
"...uff you're still asleep"....
"...its late...did you pray???
Are you listening to me?".....
"breakfast"...."hurry!!!"....
"....Eid"

wait...what was that??? OH Sh!* ...it is EID!!! Rush out of bed. Meet the family for breakfast. Shower. Get dressed. Go to the mosque for prayer. Listen to the Imam's lecture. Pray in the congregation. Yay prayer's done, time to meet and greet.

Hug*. "Eid Mubarak" Hug. "Happy Eid!!"Hug. "So nice to see you!!" Hug x 3. Hug again. Hug as many people around you as you can. Sigh, even the lady you usually run away from because she's been eye-ing you for her son. Fine, fine she's forgiven for the day. Pry yourself away when you realize she's held the hug for too long. Make some excuse..."Umm my friend is calling...I have to go meet her. She's right there, see!" *Point to any random girl*

Back away slowly, all the while praying she doesn't follow you to meet your friend (cause even though she eyes you, don't feel special, any single girl is a potential target...for the son of course). Whew, safe.

Resume the hug-fest.

OO food!! Oh crap, such a huge crowd around the food. Maybe I can just make my way through. "Excuse me... Pardon me... Coming through..."

Oh, I've moved just an inch. Fine, fine I give up!

Spend the rest of the time, watching people flock to the snack table, dive in like birds, and then just as quickly resume their mingling, leaving just a few crumbs behind...and maybe a particle of dust floating in the air.

Spend another half hour or so like this. Quite amusing.

Meet up with the family again outside the mosque. Spend the rest of the day with the extended, extended family. When I say extended, I mean extended (stretch limo style). Eat. Try to make conversation over a gajillion other conversations. Eat some more.

Thank Allah for the big, loud family you have. Begrudge the fact that you have to go to work tomorrow.

All in all, quite a nice Eid day in AL's family. =)

Happy Eid to all our Muslim followers!!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Hugging is the official greeting for Eid and saying "Happy Eid" or "Eid Mubarak." But I thought I should mention, there's no cross-mingling among the sexes, so when I say hug I mean ladies/girls hugging among themselves and likewise for the men. If we were to hug any men it would be of the family: father, grandfather, brother, husband, uncles and the like.

Tick Tock, goes the clock

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can read, originally uploaded by Rabujee.

Its that time of year again for us girls here at Symph-Discord AND for all Muslims around the world to celebrate =).

The phones have been ringing off the hook with Ramadan greetings, in fact I just had a 10 minute conversation, complete with the formal hellos and informal jokes, without even recognizing who I was talking to! (Sorry lady, if it makes you feel better, I thoroughly enjoyed our talk). But you know what? It doesn't matter! Stranger, friend, whoever you are, Happy Ramadan to you and yours!

And if you're not a Muslim and don't celebrate, well happy Ramadan to you too. Find a Muslim and have an "Iftar" (opening of the fast) with them, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

If you're wondering what the heck this Ram-a-dan thing is, then take a few minutes to read these great posts from a year ago. Yes, last year!!! I can't believe time has flown by so fast.

So in my preparation for this blessed month, I'd been thinking on the best strategy to tackle it and get the most out of it (as is everyone else I'm sure), when I had a good conversation with a wise friend from among these here bloggers. She gave me really good advice which, come to think of it, can be extended to just about anything in life!

Because a lot of Muslims set goals at the beginning of the month, I also go through this exercise each year. One of my goals, always always always, is to finish reading the Quran once from cover-to-cover during the month. (The Quran is 30 chapters). WELLLLLLLL, I'm going to be honest here, I have never gotten to completing that goal. EVER.

Sad as it is, its the truth because even though I take out extra time from my hectic life ESPECIALLY for that, I only get half-way through or 3/4's or somewhere in between.

Like CA mentioned in her recent post, the Quran is written in Arabic and it is highly recommended to be read that way if the reader is able. If not, then its his/her duty to try and learn the recitation in the best way possible. My native tongue is Urdu and as you probably noticed, I can read and write English too, thankuverymuch.

Arabic? Nada, zilch, zerooooo. Other than a few common words with Urdu, I can't really understand or form sentences enough to get what I recite. (I can read it fluently though which is lucky for me because there's no better feeling than to be able to read it in its true original words).

Luckily the Quran is translated in many languages so that's what I like to do, read the Arabic, along with the translation. THIS slows me down and at the end of the month I feel like a loser for not having completed my goal.

BUT, here's the thing, as someone said to me...FORGET THE NUMBERS!! Forget the 30 WHOLE chapters, forget how many verses you've done, forget the QUANTITY of what you read/do. Its all about the quality and the understanding and the meaning you EXTRACT from what you're reading. So there, my friends I can now set a new goal.

Which is.... hopefully hopefully hopefully to try to understand as much of what I can get through this month but never forget the bottom line: am I reading just to read? Or am I reading to grasp?

You know what else this makes me think? Excess. Get. Rid. of. IT!

We ALL have so many NUMBERS in our lives, too much of something but is it really beneficial to us?

Too many facebook friends (that you never talk to face to face, in this case maybe you SHOULD talk to them face to face, makes the world a friendlier place).

Too many distractions (texting, IM'ing, emailing).

Too much FOOD that isn't really good for you (fast food, junk food).

You get the point, right? Then there's just one thing left to say: What's the thing none of us can ever have too much of?

Time.

Yes, we're running out of time... With family. With friends. With ourselves. Running out of time to do good things.

So yea, keep the quality in your life, and don't worry about the quantity.

One of my coworkers told me today shes made the decision to go part-time because shes running out of time with her 3 year old daughter whose growing up way too fast. She doesn't want to miss out on all the cuteness and memories and bonding, so shes making this bold move which could effect her career, but its the more satisfactory decision in the long run. I was extremely happy for her.

Anyhoo I gotta go get started on my goal, don't you?

Disclaimer: I am in NO way endorsing procrastination or mediocrity. These will be harmful to you so try at your own risk.

Analogs and Anniversaries

, originally uploaded by Rabujee.

How computerized is your mind?

Ever spilled coffee and wanted to hit Ctrl+Alt+Z (Undo)?

I have.

Ever made a mistake while writing an exam, and wished there was a Select All > Delete option?

I have, especially after completing 3 page long calculations only to find a mistake in the 5th step.

Dropped the last bite of your delicious kabob...and now you're thinking

WHY ISN'T THERE A <---- BKSP??

mmm....can't say I've ever done that since my food disappears just as fast as it appeared on the plate.

And this should be everyone's favorite...

Have a blog post in mind? How easy would it be to just Ctrl+C (copy) straight to your desktop.

Oh, Microsoft, I curse thee and thy lazying ways.

I kid you not, as geeky as it sounds, my mind often automatically defaults to wanting to hit some computer command to undo/redo/take away/add on...etc etc...you get the point.

Where is the download-able App. that will allow me to make my oh so fast life...even FASTER? I mean iPhone can only set my expectations yay high when they put a freakin' GYROSCOPE inside their creation. So you can...you know...LEVEL things "on the go". Cause everyone needs to make sure the ground is even before they step out the door, right? Or perhaps you wanted to hang up a painting inside your car?? Who knows what creative ways you iPhone users will dazzle us with...

I'm sure most of you didn't even know there was a gyroscope in the phone.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At work there's a Monday morning group meeting (I KNOW. What a terrible time for a meeting), and this Monday I managed to hear my supervisor describe a building as "ghetto." He made sure to look around the room, give a long pause, and lower his voice before saying the word. I wonder why?

Then today I hear him greeting our co-worker with "Yo wattup wattup"

I don't know where he's been hanging out, but I want in!

Next week I'm expecting....."Ey Artistic Logic-dizzle.... get this calc done NOW ....ya heard?"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm just about done with my first year at this company. Can't believe it but time really flew by. I love my job. No sarcasm here. =)