class has begun. Swahili 301 will be fun now that the genius grad student moved to 400. i know everyone in the class and Dr. Omar will be great. My Astronomy class was a snooze fest. 200+ students. I did the first homework in less than 10 minutes with the help of a few friends. We shall see how far that gets me.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are BRUTAL, in a good way. I start my day at 11:15 (that's early for me, get off my case) with Environmental Policy which should be okay. the professor is kind of a hippie... think of middle aged Bloomington resident and you know exactly what she looks like, how she talks and what she thinks about big government. The class is pretty big but meets in a smaller room in Ballentine Hall. Oh well. Then I go to Islam in the Balkins, which should be a great class. About 12 or 15 students and the professor seems great. She's a lot of fun and just got back from two years of research, so she's either really eager to get back in the classroom or just trying to make it fun so she doesn't realize "oh man, i'm back in the classroom instead of having fun and doing research NOT in America." The first night of reading was pretty slow though.
After that i move to Islam in and Out of Africa. It's a seminar in a conference room, but the room is too small. Not sure how the professor will be, but the readings seem pretty cool. She's a "younger" professor, and with that comes fun in the classroom but disorganization among other things. We're talking a lot about "gender in Africa" which is an important topic, but for the life of me in every class about Africa I take, all the women professors seem to ONLY want to talk about that. It's not that it's not important, I've talked about it SO much in the last three years. but the section where we talk about Islam OUT of Africa seems pretty okay. Stuff I've talked about ASIDE from Muslim communities in America. That should be cool. I know the class is Islam IN and out of Africa, but I'm just not a huge fan of Western Africa. I'm sure it's a great place, but my interest is not there. Hopefully I can still pull an A.
After that is Islamic Art and Architecture. It's through the Art School (YUCK) but oh well. A few NELC students, but the majority looked like art students. The class should be okay. The professor seems to know what she's talking about. She's younger but seems to know how to run a class.

my summer is over

i spent the majority of my summer with one person. once said person moved to Memphis in July, my life changed a lot. I went from spending every waking hour with one person for three months to them being 500 miles away. things couldn't really be worse, but they couldn't be better.
i know how this person feels about me and they know how i feel about them. nothing is going to change, but i have some time to myself again, like i used to love. but once that person left and i came back to bloomington, i realized that i didn't like the time alone, but i loved being depressed. i found some sort of satisfaction in pain, anguish and loneliness. i have since shook this funk, sort of. that one person makes everything great. every situation is bearable.
i don't think i saw any GREAT bands this summer. I saw Trial and 108 right before finals, but after that nothing sticks out. i sort of realized that my faith has blacklisted me from the culture i put everything into since i was 13 years old. sure it's hard to swallow, but times change, people change and i guess a lot of people have a problem with that.
i have class in roughly 10 hours and i'm actually nervous. Swahili 301 will probably be pretty rough, seeing that my Kiswahili is horrible. Then I have an Astronomy class in the early evening with two friends. Hopefully they know how math and science works so I'm not totally screwed. Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have Enviormental Policy, Islam in and Out of Africa and Islamic art and Architecture. Hopefully it goes well.
I'll try and actually update this on a somewhat regular basis.

those i chose to surround myself with lack respect-respect for themselves, friends, strangers and life. it's beyond frustrating that almost no matter where i go, there is somebody who is slowly ruining everything that matters.


this is an old one... but i remember watching it earlier this year and i just found it again.

so worse things have happened, but I am now 21. whatever. the world keep turning.

So I guess I'm not the only one who thinks/knows that Israel runs politics in the US.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/03/200931113340555177.html

sorry about the lack of posts in the last month or two or three.

last night i have the opportunity to dine with the legendary Dr. Cornel West.
Dr. West was in town to give a lecture on race in America, organized by Union Board Lectures committee (which I am on).
at dinner Dr. West and I had short discussion on the Bad Brains and their influence on back alternative music. we also discussed American's inability to take third party candidates serious, Russian invasion of Afghanistan in '79 (which is funny because I my lecture right before dinner was on this topic... and I didn't even bring it up) among other things.
I had awesome vegan ravioli with a weird sauce and a fruit cup (no homo) for dessert. Big ups!

The lecture was not filmed, but the biggest highly was probably "Don't be a prisoner of hope. Never confuse optimism with hope... Hope means you're part of the process."



Here is a clip of Dr. West on Tavis Simley's (Indiana University graduate!!!) show. Enjoy.

this video has been all over the nerd the last few weeks. if you haven't checked it out, invest a few.

Watch CBS Videos Online

my favorite commercial on TV right now


don't sleep on the last video i posted