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[ Thursday, November 13, 2003 ]

 

A Day in the Life of This Muslimah

It�s been a pretty long and tiring day�My short breaks between classes were taken up doing salah. Keeps me going through the day.

At Maghrib time, a different brother did the adhan�I was stunned by how beautifully he recited it. And this is the freshman bro who I used to always see sitting a couple of rows behind me in math lecture. The funny thing is that I thought he was Hispanic (maybe because of his darker skin and long, curly hair?) before I realized that he�s ethnically Asian and a Muslim. By chance I thought I saw him at an MSA meeting, so one day as I walked passed him on my usual way out of the lecture hall, I asked him if he�s a Muslim. I think he�s really shy though, so I only say salaam to him if I see him on campus. Before I realized that he�s a Muslim, I had laughed at him a few times when he had fallen asleep during the lectures�hehe, but that was before I did the same thing�by now more than a few times. I think he dropped the class though, because I don�t see him anymore�unless we both happen to be doing salah at the same time on the 4th floor of the MLK building. Anyway, I was pretty surprised because his adhan sounds nothing like his usual voice�the guy barely talks, but when he does the adhan�man, you can hear it everywhere! Alhamdulillah.

The iftar was great, alhamdulillah. The Afghan Student Association decided to host the iftar at Julie�s so we had some grubbin� Afghan food! Alhamdulillah, it was sooooo good! The best part is that because another sis and I had to run to take a midterm, one of the brothers saved us the trouble of standing in line, and got us platefuls of food to take with us to the midterm. Alhamdulillah, that was so nice of him�I had asked him if he could do that, but I wasn�t half serious myself because brothers usually aren�t that nice. Man, I was wrong�so later, the sis and I left the bro a message once again thanking him.

I spoke too soon in my last post, because yesterday we showed up at Julie�s totally surprised to see that the MSA board had made some changes for iftar. The sisters now had a separate line and reserved tables (The infamous brothers� tables), and if there wasn�t any room, the brothers had to sit on the ground. Yeeeeah! As one of the sisters said, it was �revolutionary!� I didn�t stay long for iftar today, but to my disappointment there weren�t separate lines this time�insha Allah they fixed that after I left. I remember when I went to the first iftar, there was also only one line and a few brothers were serving the food. I asked one of the brothers why there weren�t any sisters helping out with serving (as in, why weren�t there separate lines?) and he gave me this look and was like, �I don�t know. Don�t ask me; ask the sisters!� That shut me up�I would�ve volunteered to help but I don�t do iftar at Julies on a regular basis, and I usually take my time praying and get there later. Anyhoo�

Yesterday was Sis S�s 18th birthday (She�s a young one!). I knew that she was kind of sad because it was her first birthday at college and it was the day before today�s midterm. I wanted to cheer her up so the night before I decorated a tiny fudge cake, wrote her an essay on her funny birthday card, and got some chocolate candy together for her. Alhamdulillah, she was so happy when I handed her the bag! And at Maghrib time, a sis got her a present and another sis got her flowers. At Julies, we made sure she got served first. I put the big *1* *8* candles on her cake and one of the employees lighted them for me. All of the sisters sang her happy birthday, and although we totally embarrassed her, especially in front of the brothers, I know that she was happy because we didn�t forget it was her special day. Insha Allah once Ramadan is over, I can take her out to lunch or dinner and get her a real birthday gift.

As I was eating iftar yesterday, one of the MSA board member sisters asked to talk to me before I would leave for home. I had no idea why she wanted to talk to me so I was kind of nervous at her secrecy. Basically, she said that with the MSA West conference being hosted at Berkeley in February, the MSA board had a meeting to discuss possible delegates between our MSA and the MSA West boards�Apparently they saw �how I handled *the event*� and wanted me to take this position. My first reaction was to get really embarrassed and then to flat out say no. I told her that I had nothing to do with �the event� and that the brothers did all the work. She wasn�t buying it. I told her that these sorts of huge events tend to take over lives, and I�m concerned my academic performance would suffer as a result�She said that the whole MSA is here to help me, and I could delegate things to other MSAers. I told her that I�m only a freshman, this is my first semester at Berkeley, and I�m not very experienced�She said that there would be a dedicated, experienced 4th year brother to help me with everything. I told her that I�m not good at these sorts of things, and that I�m sure there are other older brothers and sisters more suitable for the job�She said that the MSA board specifically wanted me to take charge, and she was about to bring over the president to persuade me, but I stopped her from embarrassing me even further. Man, she had all the answers. I told her I�d sleep on it and let her know, but that I�m honestly not sure about it.

I really don�t know how I get myself into these things. It�s such a huge task and there�s no way that I can spend the amount of time and energy necessary for it to be pulled off successfully. Man, the annual MSA West conference is huge! And I know myself...I know that if I get involved in something, I�m going to pretty much put everything else on the back burner and focus only on that conference. But I�d feel so bad saying no�like I�ll be letting the MSA down. I know that they really do need a lot of help, and the fact that we�re hosting the conference adds so much pressure�after all, it�s Berkeley we�re talking about! We�re supposed to be the leaders for the other MSAs. On a smaller note, I�m not too sure about the whole working with another brother thing�I know in my last post, I had said that brothers and sisters need to learn to interact better, but ummmm�.well, I�m weak. I don�t want to work that closely with a brother again. �The event� got me attached enough as it is, and while those brothers seem to have moved on with their busy lives, I�m having a hard time detaching myself. So I don�t need any more confusion in my life. Plus, I�m much too worried about my academic performance to think about anything else. And another thing�People already seem to know me from all these events and things that I�m involved in�I kind of want to keep a low profile, because it�s creepy when someone you�ve just met already knows about you and calls you �famous.� I don�t want another leadership position; I need to work on my nafs instead. So, I don�t know what I�m going to do�I think before I make a final decision, I�ll ask that sister to send me a concrete, written description of the position�s responsibilities. I need to work on my resolve.

We had our first MSA halaqa after taraweeh. The MSA board split up all the brothers and sisters into separate, smaller groups in an effort to get rid of the cliques. These halaqas are actually funded by the MSA, so dinners are on the MSA! We�re supposed to learn about Islam and also have fun social activities. There are about six of us in our particular group, and today we discussed what we�re interested in doing together. Ice skating and The Chocolate Factory, here I come (insha Allah)!

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