Sunday night yum yawn or Creating The Force

Last year August my friend went for a 3 week international camp in Palestine to help build a school. My world revolves a little slower whenever I say this because it was a dream we both shared yet she experienced sensually whereas my dream lives yet in my black fog. Today I realised that a frustrated dream can turn into a real appreciation of whatever fragments you are blessed with. As part of our empowerment project we helped make a prayer and sewing building look better today. Cleaned out rubble, sandpapered walls and did an undercoat of paint. I say the word love as often as pubescents but I love love loved it. There is something about manual work that “educated” careers miss out on. The common sense mixture of sand and cement, the amazing technology of a wheelbarrow, the sinewy feeling of lost arm muscles screeching while scraping and levelling plaster with a spade. I live my life for moments like Leonardo’s phonecall from the hill in Blood Diamond. I don’t know what to call that- metaphysical gratification perhaps?

I have a plan. It’s not great or voluminous and I have absolutely no conviction that it will turn out as I envisage. But that is not the point of a plan for idealists. We make plans to make a stand on what we want and to highlight what gives us meaning. This is related to the idea of synchronicity. Has someone ever said the exact same thing you wanted to and you feel like there’s some kind of connection between the two of you? Your meaning creates the connection which probably could be dismissed as coincidence. Like watching Definitely, Maybe and the book Jane Eyre features so prominently in it when I just started reading it for totally arb reasons. There is no meaning for me there so I did not create a connection.

I’ve removed the sneakers poll because my internal conflict has been mediated. June is the best time for reunions because it jolts you away from the beginning of the year feeling where you have to adjust to different circumstances, and moves you towards actually taking time to miss what the previous years of your life were about. And I wore pointed stilletto boots to the movies partly because I wanted to be a shocker at the reunion and partly because I have overcome an age of rebellion. Adjusting Biko’s phrase, I DO what I like and not because of rebellion or influence. The fantasy character bridal shower poll has also been removed because it was today and I missed it due to wanting to paint. The only entertaining part of Sex and the City for me was fighting the urge to shout Oxy-cute ‘em!! every time they did a close up on Carrie’s face and I saw her chin pimple. I want lots more reunions. I have not kept up my New Years' resoultion of only eating at Halaal places :( :( :( so got to have my pseudo birthday dinner at Ciao Baby Cucina instead of the traditional blegh barf rivet Ocean Basket. The fact that no Halaal places in Pretoria make canneloni is not justification enough and I must have the will to try with more vuma.

Results of polls:
81% Would wear sneakers to a function
18% Would not wear sneakers to a function

Fantasy character bridal shower:
28 %Would go as Viktor Krum
71% Would go as the Mad Hatter

Respect or Silent Volumes

I want to capture my random thoughts somewhere that I can be reminded of them all the time. So. It’s my blog and I’ll think on here if I want to.

I should have another stab at theatre. This time with a females-only performance. I wonder how theatre would evolve in an Islamic society.

Our bodies were not meant to spend 90% of their time in seated position. My vertebrae are a string of pearls.

Respect is the most appealing thing ever. I can’t define respect but the closest thing I’ve ever felt to it was when we took Al Kauthar speaker Kamal el Mekki to the airport. He did all the chivalrous things like offer to pull my bag and opened doors for me and stuff. AND he listened to my concerns for the Msa Camp and made me feel like what I said really mattered. Without looking into my eyes once. The Western idea that eye contact builds rapport was shattered in that meeting. I have never felt so warmly accepted by a male. And it goes back to the verse in Surah Noor that Nabs recited at the Fashion show “lower your gaze and guard your modesty”. Everyone has differing views of personal space and yet just imagining a radiation of the warmth you have towards someone can build rapport.

Humming and qiraat are like gym for your voice.

Where is my plan?

Isobel has the same syllables as my name OR I understand but it's still not right

Isn’t it weird how into fantasy we become? We know it’s not real yet it affects our moods and our actions. Especially characters in movies that change our lives when we fit them into our personalities and vice versa. That is one of the reasons I like the song Zammiloony. It portrays the Prophet (SAW) as someone we can all identify with. A social psychological principle says that in order for people to model a behaviour, they should be able to identify with the model. One of the justifications for the Ambiyaa (A.S). being humans and not angels. There is a fancy term for it but hey I’m not writing exams so I don’t have to remember arb facts:)

Currently there’s a grey’s anatomy person thing going on, mostly perpetrated by facebook. By the way I like facebook and see little wrong with it. How people use it is something else. Anyway fellow bloggers have called themselves Yang, Meredith and Alex. I call myself Izzy because she’s this hopeless optimist. She’s also emotional and an idealist and bakes late at night when there are no other solutions. I nearly stopped watching Greys when she slept with George.Her character does not fit in with her past though because she’s had a rough childhood and was a teenage mom and still wants words to be like rainbows. George was a mistake but I understand how lines become blurred like that. My favourite character is Bailey. I wish Meredith and Derek would get over themselves and just be happy at night and do surgery during the day. We watch Grey’s for the surgeries and not for the soap opera. At least I do. Surgery is an amazing metaphor for life because in an operating room every small decision has an impact. People should regard life the same way.

My favourite Izzy quote: “God got a virgin pregnant by magic. God isn't playing by the rules."

Also, I would like to have a daughter. A son would be cool too but a daughter came into my mind first. To quote Waseem, I’m not sexist I’m just old fashioned.

Bitchingess or Smilingment

This is the first winter in oh so many that I do not have the dementor of first semester exams sucking up my life force. I love the fact that I work at a university and can see the students’ brains rattling in their heads like little rats in a poorly funded psych experiment.

And this makes me realize how flucking much I have to be thankful for. For my entire university career I was like a Sandton kugel without her gps, not sure of which courses would take me where and where exactly I wanted to end up anyway. I think a lot of students are like that. I blame our sick schooling system. Ok, nooj breathe and then you can explain this without sounding like you need a large injection of lithium. I’m thankful that the stupidest spur of the synapse decisions I have made have brought me to a place where I smile often.

School is, like hospitals and prisons, one of the things that would be unrecognizable in noojville. Till this day, I get a shiver running down my spine when I enter a school. All the structure and teachers knowing everything you’re doing and all the scholars looking the same like freakoid robots in their identical uniforms. We all have Hogwarts stories of confounding teachers and nostalgic moments of pranks and fun but I think our whole schooling system needs a revamp if we’re serious about school being a transition into adulthood.

I think kids should graduate from school when they’re 14, be apprenticed into some kind of a career, learn what the world and money and inflation and maybe even having purpose is about. Then, once they have acquired skills and have a bit of a grip that life is not all about fashion and hormones and Hollywood they can choose what they want to study tertiararilly. Yes this sounds controversial even to an insane idealist who still dares to think long after so many of her thoughts have been pulverized by circumstance.

I think I’ll take a walk now and spy on some kids studying. That gives my world perspective:)

i don't know how to shorten this or try and read some of it

There was a girl who went seriously into Hijab at the age of 13. Her amazing group of Hafiza friends were all doing it and hey it just FELT right. It was such an easy, beautiful transition. Thirteen year olds of her pre-2000 generation were less conflicted and freer to take time to breathe before congealing into "Stupid Girls" mentality. It didn't stop her from playing soccer every morning after Fajr Hifz class, and going out with her friends and looking good at family weddings. Heck it didn't stop her when she moved to a Model C predominantly Christian school and went on a week long excursion to Knysna. She loved its comforting feel and reassuring beauty.

Then she hit campus life and suddenly skimpy was your new best friend. Teenie weenie tees with capped sleeves and skinny jeans and capri pants, stuff "everyone" was wearing. Shopping for guys tees just wasn't an option, they'd become kinda ribbed and skinny fit as well. Slowly it became OK to wear your hijab and show off your arms and a bit of ankle. She loved those suede boots that you could wear over narrow jeans. She still loves those but after today she thinks she has to rethink what kind of love that is.

Then came the 1st of June 2008 and she attended an Islamic Fashion Show (definitely not an oxymoron). And she remembered the beauty and the comfort of being at home in your modesty. It started with sweet-voiced Nabs Qiraat recital, particularly Surah Noor verses 30-31- . "Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty. That is purer for them. Verily, Allaah is All-Aware of what they do. Say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty...O you who believe! Turn you all together towards Allah that you may attain success".

The show itself was spectacular. She would love to own Leeya's Boutique for a day but her highlight was when she turned up the volume when playing these lyrics of Native Deen as the models strutted their stuff:

To all my sisters we see ya'll out there

And don't fret because the people like to gawk and stare

It seems unfair

But some times it's with sincerity

Shocking to their system to see so much purity

Demonstrated in your adab (good manners) and your hijab (hair cover)

Eyes staring but their souls there wishing that they had

Your place in timebeing righteously inclined

Purity of heart and mind

Guidance from the One,

who swore by the timethat patience and adherence bring sustenance

Provisions from Allah SWT which is heaven sent

But TV, magazines, how fair they make it seem for you to leave the Deen

be his lifelong dreamAnd don't be confused, Shaitan (satan) pulls double duty

He's doing all he can to have you display your beauty

She understands what people mean when they refer to "purdah" of the heart. Allah SWT is the best judge of all of us. Yet she feels we cannot justify disobeying a compulsory act on the grounds that outward modesty means little. It is, like one friend said, simply an "expression" of a value yet so important in contributing to the upholding of that value. This is the rationale behind asking all females attending the Msa national camp in July 2008 to adorn Hijab. Whether you do it on a daily basis or not, only goodness can be reaped from trying it out at the camp. Also, she feels that for her, Hijab does not stop at covering her hair. She needs to focus on wearing clothes that she chooses based on values, not flimsy norms and imposed modes. She also feels that if you want to try it out, for every second you wear it you get thawab, even of you take it off afterwards.