February 21, 2009

February 21, 2009.
Assalam Wa Aleikum.
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent and Merciful,

Hi? Where do I begin? I just bought a journal (not a dairy) and I have to write in it frequently for the next three months. It's a school assignment, trust me, I'm not into this, ’sharing your thoughts on paper' crap. It’s all a big waste of time. But, if have to do this for the next three months, I might as well make it fun.

Hi. My name is Amir and I'm a twenty-one year old double major in international relations and journalism at Harvard College. I am an American Muslim from Palestinian descent. I'm very out-going which gets me into a lot of trouble. I love to write and sound smart. I'm the Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Crimson. I hate, hate, arrogant people and ungrateful children.

Now that I have introduced myself, time to write an introduction for you. I will call you 'it' just because I'd rather not make you a 'she' or a 'he'; that's kind of creepy to me. So a little history of me and dairies, I've never kept one. Why? I've always been too cautious that someone might read my inner most secret thoughts and rambling, which could prove dangerous. But to be honest, I think it's kind of cool.

It’s interesting; no one will ever read this so I can write whatever I want. All that good stuff is for later. First of all, let me explain the assignment in detail. As journalism major, I have to take a creative writing class, Creative Writing 101, what a genius name for the class. I wonder what Professor 101 thought of that.

Anyway, so our nutty professor came up with the idea of us keeping a journal for the remaining three months of school. Can you believe it, the last three months my senior year, I'll be wasting it on writing in this crap. No offense to those who write in a dairy, but I'm a journalist, I like to write article, not dairy entries. So the requirements are that it has to have at least fifty entries, each entry must have been at least 1 page and have a title. It's not hard; it's actually a lot of fun.

Besides the quick introduction of myself, I should introduce my friends. My two good friends: Ahmad and Aminah. Ahmad is the best brother-like you could ask for. He's been my friend for more than a decade, ever since pre-school. The best thing about him is that he's also a strong practicing Muslim. Whenever I'm too lazy to wake up to pray fajr--the first of the five daily prayers in Islam--he will force my lazy ass to wake up. I think we all need someone like him to remind us to stay away from bad things, something a university campus is overwhelmingly filled with. As Muslims, we both lower my gaze in front of girls, we have a fist-length beard, and we pray five times a day.

Our third musketeer is Aminah. The three of us went to the same high school and ever since then, we've been good friends. Aminah wears hijab and a burqa, so I only see her face. Yet she's very pretty and has a great personality, but best of all she's also a great Muslim.

Being good friends with her, often at lunch it's awkward when some girls came to talk to her while me and Ahmad are sitting there; we have to look down while they talk. Sometimes a girl will walk by and Ahmad or I will be glimpsing at her without realizing; Aminah will ridicule us look down. She's a really good friend.

The three of us tend to get into a decent amount of argument, especially in terms of politics and religion. I'm very conservative and they're both liberal for both politics and religion. Religiously, we have similar basic fundamental beliefs, while the differences are subtle details. But, all in all, we've had a lot fun at out time here. Our more than three years at Harvard has been marked with academic excellence, organizing Islamic events, and lots Middle Eastern cuisine. (Every Friday night).

I'll write more about us and what we've done and what we plan to do. Actually, it's pretty important, Ahmad and I want to be lawyers and Aminah wants to be a cardiovascular surgeon. Ya-ambitious, but I think it's really important. The American Muslim Ummah (Ummah means the followers of Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) and the 'Peace be upon Him' after Muhammad is a sign of respect, I'll just abbreviate it for convenience purposes.) needs more lawyers and doctors but more importantly religiously-practicing lawyers and doctors.

Oh wow, its 11:23 PM, enough for today. You really need a name: for now I will just call you Kithab, it means book in Arabic, till I can decide a better name.


Kithab--Assalam Wa Aleikum.

-Amir Habib.