.:Tuesday, July 26, 2005:.
my life..
I was born in in the UCSF hospital where my mom was
studying.. at the time she was living with some
sisters, when I was born she moved out to the student
housing.. I spent two years there.. I dont remember
much about it though, and most of what i know is from
pictures. I do have some faint memories of those
times.. they were happy times alhamduliah, difficult
but happy.
My mom always says I was a handful to take care of,
started talking at 8months, walking at 9, and talking
in sentences at a year..She tried to continue
studying, but realized that she couldnt. Her
responsibilities had changed, and some things were of
more priority at that time. She took a couple years
off of school and figured she could finish writting
her thesis when I was a bit older.. But Allah swt had
other things planned for us..
When I was a little over two my mom re married and we
moved to Ashland, OR. She figured it would be best for
us. I'd have to older brothers and dad, and shed have
two sons and a husband. It took alot of getting used
to on my part.. everything changed suddenly and was
diffrent. My mom started working, nights if dad was
working days, and days if he was working nights...
There were muslims in Ashland but it wasnt a really
big community. Ashland is another college town and
people would come and go. 'Amu Shaykh Hassan was
usually there at least for half the year, I remember
sitting in his lap while he was giving lectures :$. At
first they had rented out a place to be the masjid,
then it was moved to 'amu Payruz's place where he had
set up the Quran Foundation, and later on after we had
moved away Al-Haramain bought a nice place for them..
its closed down now though :(.
The community was nice and close nit, but there was no
one my age. All the kids were either older or younger
than me, and I tended to hang around the older ones
mostly. That has been something in me from the start I
guess, even my kaafir friends around the neighborhood
were older, but I'll get to that later.. My two best
muslim friends were probably Fatima and Roshan (Shaykh
Hassans wifes daughter).. I remember going to Shasta
river with Roshan and Khala Rayyah and Mohammad lol,
that was fun.. Shasta is reallyyy pretty mashaallah
and they had a place there.. we'd always get bit by a
ton of mosqitos though..That was when I was 5+
I started preschool at 3 and a half.. I liked the
first half of the day, but we had a diffrent teacher
for the second half and I didnt like her. It was fun..
I learned spanish then, but I've forget it all now
except a few words :P. After a while they moved me to
the Kindergarden classes since it was a private school
so being young didnt matter. I started to learn how to
read and stuff then and the next year I was supposed
to start firstgrade.. The district sent some tester
guy to see if I could go to first grade since I was a
year to young, he said academicly I could but he was
going to put me in K again couse it would be hard
dealing with people older than me..
Kindergarden was aight. I went to a school close to
our house, Bellivue elementary. I dont remember much
about it, the teacher was nice but wasnt fun.. my best
friend was a girl in 4th grade that lived in our
neighborhood, her name was kelly. Everyday after
school we would hang out at a playground thing infront
of our houses.. she moved away the next year and I was
sad :(. I still have some things she gave me when she
moved.
First grade was alot better. I liked it alot. The
teachers name was Mrs. Roberts and she was a good
teacher. She started me on loving to read. My best
friend was a guy named Brian lol.. and two girls,
ashley and natalie we'd always jump rope. That was our
favorite thing to do at break time. We'd jump one
rope, double dutch, by ourselves, everything.
I moved away in the middle of first grade. The whole
class made me this card saying goodbye and signed it,
I still have it. My dad wanted to move to Yreka, CA
just accross the border from Ashland. Shaykh Hassan
lived there and stuff.. there really was no point to
that move.. we only stayed like three months. In Yreka
we lived on a farm.. my dad got sheep and chickens
and said he wanted to start a farm.. it was sort of
fun. My brothers lived with us for a while, but being
teens at the time couldnt stand it, thats mostly why
we moved away. I was homeschooled then.. Every week
I'd go to the school and my teacher would give me new
assignments to do till next week.. she was cool..
Robin O'Brien.. She gave me her address when we moved
away told me to write to her, but I never did.. yea, I
was always a teachers pet :P.
We moved to the mid-oregon Coast, an hour or so drive
from Corvallis. We lived in Waldport a town of like
2000 people, no joke... and my mom worked in Newport
about 20 min drive away.. I started second grade at
school, the teacher was really nice.. it was her last
year teaching, she retired after that. Shes the one
that really got me hooked on reading, every day she
would read to us at the end of class for like half
hour... she was reading the first boxcar children
book.. lol, I liked it alot and started on the series,
by the time we moved to corvallis I'd read them all.
My best friend there was a girl named Jessica, she
lived down the street.. There are no muslims in
Waldport or Newport, so we'd come to Corvallis for
Jumuaa' and stuff.
Second grade was easy for me. There was this girl
named Sonya, she was mexican, and me and her would
race each other through textbooks.. we finished both
second and third grade that year and got all the way
to fifth grade math.. Halfway through the school year
my parents pulled me out and I've been homeschooled
since. I didnt like not going to school, but I started
hijab at the time so I was happy. My mom would take me
and my sis with her to work everyday, and I'd sit in
the staff room watching tv or doing hw. Sometimes we
would go out and visit the patients.. there was this
one lady, her name was Delphine, she loved us to go
sit with her.. and we enjoyed making them happy.
At the end of that school year I took an exam to skip
3rd grade, and alhamdulilah passed. My mom knew
nothing about homeschooling and wasnt sure what to do
next, couse the oregon law at the time prohibited the
schools from helping homeschoolers. The principle at
Eddyvile, a city between newport and corvallis,
offered to teach me and I'd go to him once a week. My
sis had started kindergarden that year and I would go
to the school and volunteer in her class, I'd also
volunteer at the library. There was this kid in her
class, blake, he reminded me alot of Brian and we
became buddies. Whenever he'd have questions he'd ask
me and not the teacher, and when it was time to choose
a partner for something he'd always pick me :D. He was
a cute kid.. loved playing with blocks..
Towards the end of that year we decided to move to
Corvallis. My mom couldnt stand being away from
muslims and she didnt see any point in us staying
there.. my dad was tired of driving back and forth so
much so he agreed. It was the first time for me to
live amoung so many Muslims.. I had gone and visited
my aunt in Chicago and uncle in San Diego and would
always wish to be able to live in a place like that..
couse it was so much fun...
The first really good friend I made was the Imams
daughter, Khadija... we became best friends and stayed
that way for a couple of years. When fifth grade
started we homeschooled toghether.. my mom would teach
maths and sciences and khala Dalia would teach
English, arabi, deen and the such.. I learned so much
that year.. I remember the first day we had class at
khala Dalias I was so embaressed couse I didnt even
know half of Juzz 'amma while even her kids that were
younger than me knew more than that... I could barly
read and write arabi, and by the end of that year I
was doing 5th grade arabi books alhamdulilah.
We had alot of fun together... Their family became
like my own.. we used to argue like siblings and make
up like siblings.. I remember I got into a fight with
Abu Bakr(2 years younger than me) and he ended up
punching me LOL, I still sort of have a mark from it..
Mohammad(2 years older than me) got all mad at him it
was fun... Towards the end of the year the parents
decided to split Mohammad and Abu Bakr from us, couse
they were "getting to old to be around girls" we were
sad :(. Omar and Othman were still young so that was
good... We used to sit in the girls room, and the guy
in their bedroom during break and send paper notes
through a crack in the wall.. yea we were bad :P.
The begining of next year this new girl came,
Jameelah, I never liked her.. she did all she could to
break up me and khadija's friendship and she
succeeded.. The parents had some problems as well and
we ended up stopping the homeschooling buddy system
:(.. alhamdulilah 'ala kulli haal.. it took some time
to repair things between us but alhamdulilah now
things are normal..
The year of 7th grade was a pretty empty one.. I was
close to Dania at the time.. and Tassnym.. but Tassnym
spent a good portion of that year in saudia.. My
family and Dania went to this Islamic camp in
Portland, thats where I met Zaineb.. it was fun.. They
used to do them every year, I miss them camps.. Me and
Tassnym would always compete who was doing harder
textbooks in 7th grade, lol, now when we look back at
that we are just like wow we really had nothing to
do.. That was also the year I got really close to
Yasmeen Jambi, it was sad when she left :(.. even more
sad whats happened to her family since she left..
8th grade was a year of catching up.. I had sorta
slacked off in studies and spent alot of time doing
them that year. That summer was awesome, I've written
a whole long post in it before.. it was just amazing..
and then there was the past two years of highschool...
this blog has been going on for one of them, and the
other I've talked about before.. probably some of the
greatest years of my life.. They were filled with
challenges, new experiances, alot of memories and alot
of fun times... and now here I am, a confused 15 year
old thats not sure what she wants to do next in
life...
I'm not exactly sure why I've written all of this...
I've spent alot of my day laying down thinking about
my past, so I guess you could say its what was on my
mind.. ofcourse this isnt everything, nor would I be
able to write everything... its just little bits and
pieces that give a faint outline of the past... Alot
of the things I whent through as a kid have left marks
on me, some good and some not so good.. I guess you
could say from the good is the way I am able to
forgive and stuff.. and probably from the worst is my
lying.. as a kid I was always scared of doing
something wrong couse the punishment would be harsh,
so I developed a habit of lying.. alhamdulilah I've
worked on it alot and just about overcome it, but
nevertheless its a mark..
I'd have to say I'm really thankful for coming here to
Corvallis.. the past 7 or so years of living here have
been some of the most rich for me... It is only after
coming here that i really turned to the deen and took
it as my way of life.. my mom had always been
practising but after coming here she made it her
focus.. and had the support around her to do it.. I've
learned so much about life and stuf and it really is a
blessing to me and my family that we came here
alhamdulilah...
Like I said before I'm not sure why I've written this,
but I think that looking back into my life has given
me more insite about myself.. and in a way helped me..
so alhamdulilah..
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chotu-meyeh
@ 7/26/2005 08:41:00 PM
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