Blogging is Cheaper Than Therapy

Lately I have been thinking about friendships with members of the opposite gender. Reflecting on the past, I have had a fairly good amount to different degrees. Some were intense, some were flirtatious, some were like family and others were meaningless. For almost as long as I could remember, I have gotten along with girls better than with guys. It was a bit of a problem in my younger years though as I had been infatuated with many many girls. When I think about it, almost all of the friendships that I've had with girls have dissipated and meant very little at the end. Can guys and girls really be good or close friends for a long period of time? What happens when one of them meets somebody they like, does it change that friendship at all? What about if the man or woman has feelings for the other but know that they will not be reciprocated? It's all strange to me. If there is one thing I hate, it's losing a friend; be it male or female. Especially in the last few years, I

I am sitting in my room with a light on and I just put a pair of socks in, in my room.. I rarely ever wear socks indoors. Do you know what that means? Fall is officially here. The weather here is quite dreary, I am happy that I did not go to New York City today like I had planned to. I wish I was drinking a warm beverage to keep me warm on this brisk Autumn afternoon. I have come to the realization that I am a hypocrite, for the most part that is. Anybody who knows me well knows how anti-development I am here in northern Virginia. I have been living in my house for twenty years now. My neighborhood is fairly large (I live in a part of Oak Hill called Franklin Farm, which I think was once owned by Benjamin Franklin.), there are probably 600-700 houses here and I remember a time when the community here made an effort to know one another. Back then, this was a middle class area and was a wonderfully enchanting place to live; it's not like that anymore. All of the sudden, this area s

Okay, I feel a little silly writing about this but it's my blog so I shall. I know there have to be other people like me out there who have to compartmentalize everything in their life. From clothes (dress, dress casual, casual, work-out, etc) or other things that don't necessarily need to be placed into a category but I do it anyways because I kind of see my brain as a desk and everything needs to be properly filed in its rightful place. I've been thinking a lot about friendships, past and present and how I am going to "file" them away. I wouldn't say that I am extremely social but I have met a lot of people and made a lot of friends in my life thus far. The challenge has been how do I properly sort out all of these friends? I used to have three categories; friends, good friends and best friends. I no longer categorize my friendships into three because those good friends can become just 'friends' or 'best friends' within one action or one t

It's the second week of September and we can already feel and smell Autumn in the air! I love this time of year; when we put away our shorts and bust out our sweaters/cardigans. I love this season, it always makes me feel so nostalgic for Autumns past. I remember every Fall season since 2003 so vividly. I remember all of the songs that made up those times, my different circles of friends I've had and all of the good memories. Autumn is such an interesting season; the changing of the colors is brilliant and beautiful. It's hard to classify a season as a "new beginning" but if I had to choose one to serve as that, it would definitely be this one. These are a few things I look forward to the most: caramel apple ciders, espresso beverages in general, plaid shirts, wearing boots again, long coats, cardigans and that char-like smell in the air. I look forward to a new start, a new beginning with the changing of the season!

Heeyyyy guys. I got back in last night from an amazing trip to south California. Where do I begin this? My flight there was awesome, Delta airplanes are great! Every seat had a personal screen where I could watch television, movies and listen to a wide variety of music (it had Death Cab, Fleet Foxes, Lupe Fiasco and a whole lot of other amazing stuff). I got to Orange County right after the khutbah ended which was a bummer, I really really like the Imam at the masjid that I used to go to. I got a rental car and upgraded to a Ford Fusion so I could have a car with built in Bluetooth and better gas mileage. This car was pretty nice actually, it had dual climate control, heated seats and a button that changed the internal mood lighting in the car; it was unnecessary but cool. I couldn't find a USB port anywhere to charge my phone/play my music so that was annoying. I had planned to have lunch with a group of my friends right after Friday prayer but our plans weren't well-coord

People want to be rich, it's a given fact. Even if you aren't materialistic or shallow, I am confident that every single person wants to be wealthy if for nothing else, so that they can life comfortably. The wealthy/rich people tend to have more fun in their lives; what does their life consist of? A lot of parties, alcohol, probably drugs and sex. They have disposable income so it's easy for them to attain all of these things. I am sure doing these things and having that lifestyle is fun but it's one of those things that you get tired of. I strongly believe that the rich have a social responsibility to be the 'good examples.' Now wealthy people are stereotyped, they are shown to have big and clean homes, listen to classical music, dress properly, etc., these are the good things that lifestyle brings. The problem arises when life is all about having fun with your money and living life like it's one big party. The more money you have, the more good you should

Today at ADAMS Center, the first salah had the distinct honor of having Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi as the guest khatib. For anybody that doesn't know who he is, Dr. Siddiqi holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Religion from Harvard University. Those who are members of the Islamic Society of Orange County are blessed to have him as their Imam. I always felt somewhat of a personal connection with him just because he is the uncle of a friend that I grew up with in Virginia. Having Dr. Siddiqi as the guest Khatib got me thinking about my first Jummah prayer that I went to when I lived in California. The first year that I lived in Orange County, I did not have a car. It was not an issue for many months because I would spend much of my free time in Newport Beach which was just a short bike ride away. I had a circle of friends who would come to my apartment every day so if I ever needed to go somewhere far away, I would go with them. I think the first 8-9 months that I was there, I did

I am sitting here watching the NBA playoffs. Professional sports, not something that I usually watch but post-season sports are much more enjoyable to view. Watching this game (game 2, Thunder vs. Mavericks) makes me feel like an average guy. I have really come to realize that the most interesting people are the ones who don't talk too much or are outcasts. I am a weird guy, I am well aware of that. I don't fit in with a whole lot of people and I don't connect well with most guys in general. This isn't something that bothers me all that much though because I have been blessed with meeting a few other people who I have commonalities with. I value my friendships and connections more than most people do, I think. It's not about how many friends you have but how strong of a friendship you have with those people. When I meet people that I feel a real connection with, I always hope that I never lose that person in my life. This is just something random that I was thin

I have been watching wrestling consistently every week for about 11 1/2 years now. I still remember the first show I watched in November of 1999. I saw Degeneration X beat up Test and break his nose. I saw The Rock but I don't remember what exactly he did but I was hooked from that first show. A friend of mine had asked me earlier that day about wrestling and I pretended like I watched it and just along with it. He kept on quoting The Rock and when I got home from school, I started quoting The Rock too. My brother said that I don't even watch WWF so I shouldn't be quoting the wrestlers so in an effort to validate myself, I started watching and have not stopped. Wrestling used to be so entertaining. The personalities were so defined and the storyline was enthralling. Around 2002, it started to get a little bit worse but overall, still entertaining. It was still fun to watch up until around 2009. Wrestling for me was more than a show. It's no secret that I was bulli

I have come to a point where I realize how temporary everything is. There have been things that I thought would be a permanent in my life but things can change within one instant. Is it a bad thing? For the most part, yes. You can have somebody is the closest to you, a person you speak with every day and within one day, you can lose them forever. When I moved to California, I thought that I was going to be living there indefinitely; I did not think that I would ever move back to Virginia but a little bit over two years later, I was back. I thought that I would always want to keep my house here in Oak Hill, VA but I am so okay with moving out of it. All of this scares me so much, how little control we have in our lives. We have to remember that Allah (swt) controls everything , there is not a thing out His control. This life is temporary, every moment that we have in one that we will never have again so make the most of it.

Last night I went to the Masjid to help be part of a youth program that links middle school kids to high schoolers to college kids. Then I met up with someone who was helping me land a job in the IT field. He was teaching me the basics of IT security that I need to know for interviews. Afterwards, we prayed Isha and I was about to head out buy saw a friend who is still in high school. I know his older brother and asked about him. He told me that his brother was at a halaqa and that I should go. I asked how he was getting home and he said he needed a ride so I happily offered one. I said that I was hungry so I was going to get some food on the way back. His brother then called me when I was nearing the drive through saying that there is food at the persons house he was at and that we should come by. We arrived and to my amazement, there were about 15 brothers barbecuing chicken, hot dogs, burgers and kabobs. I felt bad showing up like that but as soon as I walked in, I

What is the ego? It is our self-perception. Our egos determine our self-esteem and self-worth. Everybody has an ego to some extent and generally speaking, it's for the worse. People use it as a way to put themselves above others or separate themselves from another group of people. We use our experiences, monetary value, educational achievements and appearance as a way to determine our ego; this can be very dangerous. It is not up to us to determine our own value and how the rest of the world should value or care about us. People are not fit to determine how important they really are. We have to take a step back from ourselves to take a look at who we are. One may say that they have a PhD or another high level degree so they deserve a certain amount of respect. Another person may say that their bank account had x number of dollars in it so they deserve to be treated better than a person with less money. We have to realize that the things we have, whether education, money or any oth

Something that we all want, something that we all need . Yes, money is great. We need it to live a comfortable life and progress but it is one of the most dangerous things a person or people can get. It is very true what they say, money does change people. I used to be so into the lifestyle that comes from having a lot of money. By the grace and mercy of God, my family has been blessed financially. This is something I certainly take for granted. I have always wanted a lavish lifestyle. I wanted to live in a huge ocean-view mansion. There is nothing wrong with wanting a nice lifestyle, Islam doesn't discourage having this kind of life but I wanted it for the wrong reasons. I used to have a lot of arrogance and wanted to be a person with a lot of money who thought they were better than everybody else. I saw myself as somebody who would make a lot of money and then eventually get married. I am so happy that is not how things have turned out so far. I know that if I had made a lot o

I am sitting here with my father watching the big game and I must say, this is a disappointment. It seems as though every year, more people watch yet the game is less exciting and the commercials are not as creative as they once were. Now, I am a guy who doesn't even watch football. I used to watch a little bit when I was younger but I have never really enjoyed watching football. There are 60 minutes in a game, 58 of those are downtime. I can remember a time when the Super Bowl game was intense and a nail-biter but from what I remember of the last few years, it has been a blowout or one team having little chance of winning by the time the 4th quarter comes around. It got to the point where I would have to watch with a good group of friends or else I couldn't enjoy the game at all. Then it got to the point where I would only watch for the commercials. Last year, I spent the entire game talking to a friend on instant messenger, that is the only way I got through that whole thing.

Here we go. I used to blog a little bit on MySpace but stopped using that and Facebook 'Notes' counts as a simple blog but I wanted something independent from my other social networking sites. I thought about blogging if I moved back to California but living on the west coast is a distant thought, something that may never come to fruition and that's okay. So where do we begin? My life has been so unpredictable since I moved back home to Virginia in August of 2009. For several months, I was so angry and so frustrated at my failures. I moved to California hoping to start over new there but I made a lot of the same old mistakes which resulted in me not going to the colleges I had worked so hard to go to. Living there was a changing experience, one that really opened my eyes to a different world. I have many regrets there but I learned from my decisions. Just over one year ago at this time, things changed. I found a reason to genuinely be happy again. Actually, I was happier th