Assalamu Alaikum
MashaAllah, It has been such a long time since I posted...
I am still alive, and well. I was happily posting at work, and the following week the Security department had blocked all access to blogspot.com as a porn site! So ended my posting at work again. Sigh.
Alhumdulillah, I am still working for a phone company, for almost 10 months now. I have moved into a more specialized area, which gives me more job security. To further divert myself, I am also still in the classroom teaching statistics. One night a week for 4 hours teaching isn't too bad, and I get the rest of the week as prep time. My heart is at school still, and I am starting to look for opportunities to go back and finish my degree. I am hoping this experience will help me get into a program with an teaching assistantship. InshaAllah...
YAY!!! I passed my next belt test. Having a soon to be teenager, and with a blackbelt... I decided I better learn to keep up! So I signed up with his instructor and have worked my way to a green belt now in jui jitsu. I am graciously allowed into the advanced classes, and am learning some judo, karate, Brazilian Ju Jitsu, Fathery Ju Jitsu, Aikiedo, boxing, and some hooking (a type of wrestling, unfortunately, people who practice this style have been crassly labeled hookers). Just enough to employ the best technique for the situation... Our instructor, in traditional American form, is combining techniques from several styles, drilling us in each technique, and having us practice flow drills until it is second nature. He is more of a self defense instructor than a martial artist of any particular style.
MashaAllah, my little one is growing to be a smart young man. (heh, he's only 18 months now, so InshaAllah he keeps on his straight path!). Sayang just called me over. She was brushing her teeth, and told him to stay out of the bathroom. When finished, somehow he had climbed into his crib and was tucking himself in! There are no nearby chairs, so we are both befuddled.
I wish I could promise to keep posting, but will have to take this a little at a time... babies are just too fun to play with, and he has taken priority. I continue to remember many of you fondly, and will keep you in my prayers.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Friday, April 09, 2004
Assalamu alaikum
Alhumdulilah, it is Friday!!
It has been a long week... I didn't get all my preparation done for class on the weekend, so I was squeezing in time where ever I could find it. It made for a couple of late nights studying the material, so I was sleepy while teaching class. Not a fun experience...
At my day job, a strike has been announced. All the employees will be reassigned to cover the work that the union employees usually do. Also, they will have to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week! I am sorta happy that I am a contractor. We get to man the offices, and pick up the workload of all the missing employees. InshaAllah, it will make my job more secure. I hope everything gets worked out, and back to business as usual quickly!
Nothing new at home, our baby is growing so quickly! It is amazing how fast they get bigger. He is taking his first steps without holding on to someone. He has also decided that walking is better than crawling. He would rather walk around the edges of a room to get somewhere, than to crawl across the center of it :) Still he is so cute! My older kids get really excited to see him doing new things and growing, it is up-lifting for all of the family.
Alhumdulilah, it is Friday!!
It has been a long week... I didn't get all my preparation done for class on the weekend, so I was squeezing in time where ever I could find it. It made for a couple of late nights studying the material, so I was sleepy while teaching class. Not a fun experience...
At my day job, a strike has been announced. All the employees will be reassigned to cover the work that the union employees usually do. Also, they will have to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week! I am sorta happy that I am a contractor. We get to man the offices, and pick up the workload of all the missing employees. InshaAllah, it will make my job more secure. I hope everything gets worked out, and back to business as usual quickly!
Nothing new at home, our baby is growing so quickly! It is amazing how fast they get bigger. He is taking his first steps without holding on to someone. He has also decided that walking is better than crawling. He would rather walk around the edges of a room to get somewhere, than to crawl across the center of it :) Still he is so cute! My older kids get really excited to see him doing new things and growing, it is up-lifting for all of the family.
Friday, April 02, 2004
Assalamu Alaikum
Alhumdulillah, I will get my poor little car back today with a nice new makeover! No more stinky dodge neon :) Also, my kids got back safely last night, and they had a good time. Class went well, even though I snowed a lot of people under, and finally it's FRIDAY!! (need I say more??)
Anyway, some elaboration...
My kids are on spring break, and so they spent 4 days in Chicago with their grandparents. They went to several museums, and were fascinated by the Museum of Natural History, along with the Science Museum. They got to stay in a hotel with a pool and go swimming every day. The hotel also had complimentary breakfast bar with a waffle machine. They loved adding stuff (nuts, chocolate or fruit) to their little portion of batter and making their own waffles. They had a good time and learned new things over spring break. My parents enjoyed their time running after two boys, and we enjoyed a quiet house with only baby to keep us busy. (which he does a very good job at!)
Wheee!!! Class was fun. I got to do Binomial Distribution, Poisson Distribution and Hypergeometric Distribution and elaborate on how and when they are used. They were comfortable with Binomail and Poisson distribution, but when we got to hypergeometric; Many students had a pained lost and confused look on their face! The formula has 3 combinations amounting to 9 factorials and fractions in both the numerator and denominator. So I got to review factorials, and shortcuts to simplify, someone asked why a zero exponent meant the answer was one and I got to talk about the mathematical side of this class, my favorite part. For some reason when I offer to derive these nice beautiful formulas they start whimpering and crawling under the table?!? When I was hired, I was advised that this is a business class, and not a graduate statistics class so I should simplify the math and focus on the uses of statistics to managers, and not the actual proofs of the theorems. We did three examples of Hypergeometric distribution using state lotteries and potential winning combinations. Some of them were surprised to see the results when we started discussing the chances of winning (somewhere around 1 in 25 million).
Woohoo! I got my book yesterday for teaching undergraduate statistics this summer! More books to read!
Alhumdulillah, I will get my poor little car back today with a nice new makeover! No more stinky dodge neon :) Also, my kids got back safely last night, and they had a good time. Class went well, even though I snowed a lot of people under, and finally it's FRIDAY!! (need I say more??)
Anyway, some elaboration...
My kids are on spring break, and so they spent 4 days in Chicago with their grandparents. They went to several museums, and were fascinated by the Museum of Natural History, along with the Science Museum. They got to stay in a hotel with a pool and go swimming every day. The hotel also had complimentary breakfast bar with a waffle machine. They loved adding stuff (nuts, chocolate or fruit) to their little portion of batter and making their own waffles. They had a good time and learned new things over spring break. My parents enjoyed their time running after two boys, and we enjoyed a quiet house with only baby to keep us busy. (which he does a very good job at!)
Wheee!!! Class was fun. I got to do Binomial Distribution, Poisson Distribution and Hypergeometric Distribution and elaborate on how and when they are used. They were comfortable with Binomail and Poisson distribution, but when we got to hypergeometric; Many students had a pained lost and confused look on their face! The formula has 3 combinations amounting to 9 factorials and fractions in both the numerator and denominator. So I got to review factorials, and shortcuts to simplify, someone asked why a zero exponent meant the answer was one and I got to talk about the mathematical side of this class, my favorite part. For some reason when I offer to derive these nice beautiful formulas they start whimpering and crawling under the table?!? When I was hired, I was advised that this is a business class, and not a graduate statistics class so I should simplify the math and focus on the uses of statistics to managers, and not the actual proofs of the theorems. We did three examples of Hypergeometric distribution using state lotteries and potential winning combinations. Some of them were surprised to see the results when we started discussing the chances of winning (somewhere around 1 in 25 million).
Woohoo! I got my book yesterday for teaching undergraduate statistics this summer! More books to read!
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Assalamu Alaikum Wr. Wb.
My car is finally in the shop being repaired after the accident. I made the appointment for Monday, and they arranged for me to have a rental car. I showed up 5 minutes early, and waited around for almost a half hour but no rental car! So I head to work and call them explaining that I need a rental car or I can't drop my car off. They straighten out the rental car company and tell me they will make sure there is a car for me the next day. Tuesday, a guy meets me at the auto body shop at 7:05 and takes me to the rental car place and they give me a 2002 Dodge Neon (the car that smiles at you). Bleh, it is stinky! The people who rented it before me must have smoked like 2 packs a day in the car with the windows rolled up! After about 5 miles driving it my eyes were itchy and watering, and I was getting really congested! So these past two days, I have had the windows down when driving, and when the car is parked at home. It is slowly getting better. I want my old car back!! They estimate 9 business days before it is fixed, so I am counting down days now.
YEA yesterday was Sayang's b'day, and I kept teasing her that she is the product of two consecutive primes years old. This may only happen 4 times in a person's lifetime if they are lucky! Aside from that, we didn't really do anything... We stopped celebrating birthdays after a Friday khutbah a few years ago. It was a fun Friday. Imam talked about how the Prophet (saw) didn't celebrate b'days and why we shouldn't do it now. Then right after prayer, I was talking to a couple of brothers, and some guy asked us to help him hang decorations on the walls. It room was starting to look festive and the buy pulls out this big "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" Sign! My friend and I look at each other and start laughing. We tried to gently tell him that today wasn't a good day to hang that sign up after the rousing sermon we just received. He looked confused, so we had to elaborate on the khutbah that was just given. I guess he wasn't paying too much attention, but he agreed not to hang up the sign.
One week has past!!! My class last Thursday was wonderful! We whizzed through three chapters relating to why managers should know statistics, graphical representations, and elementary probability... It was (hopefully) review for most of the students, as most of them didn't have many questions. Alhumdulillah, I lived through my first day of teaching a graduate level class, and now I am getting excited about it. My free time has disappeared! I spend about an hour a night preparing for the class, reading the material, making notes and working out the homework to make sure that I have a very good understanding of what the question is asking, and how to solve it... I bet I'm doing more work than the students!! By the end of the class, I will have a good understanding of business statistics!!
Well, work is going to get busier tomorrow, as the testing team will be testing 5 applications concurrently! It will be my first trial by fire! Hope everyone has a good day!
My car is finally in the shop being repaired after the accident. I made the appointment for Monday, and they arranged for me to have a rental car. I showed up 5 minutes early, and waited around for almost a half hour but no rental car! So I head to work and call them explaining that I need a rental car or I can't drop my car off. They straighten out the rental car company and tell me they will make sure there is a car for me the next day. Tuesday, a guy meets me at the auto body shop at 7:05 and takes me to the rental car place and they give me a 2002 Dodge Neon (the car that smiles at you). Bleh, it is stinky! The people who rented it before me must have smoked like 2 packs a day in the car with the windows rolled up! After about 5 miles driving it my eyes were itchy and watering, and I was getting really congested! So these past two days, I have had the windows down when driving, and when the car is parked at home. It is slowly getting better. I want my old car back!! They estimate 9 business days before it is fixed, so I am counting down days now.
YEA yesterday was Sayang's b'day, and I kept teasing her that she is the product of two consecutive primes years old. This may only happen 4 times in a person's lifetime if they are lucky! Aside from that, we didn't really do anything... We stopped celebrating birthdays after a Friday khutbah a few years ago. It was a fun Friday. Imam talked about how the Prophet (saw) didn't celebrate b'days and why we shouldn't do it now. Then right after prayer, I was talking to a couple of brothers, and some guy asked us to help him hang decorations on the walls. It room was starting to look festive and the buy pulls out this big "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" Sign! My friend and I look at each other and start laughing. We tried to gently tell him that today wasn't a good day to hang that sign up after the rousing sermon we just received. He looked confused, so we had to elaborate on the khutbah that was just given. I guess he wasn't paying too much attention, but he agreed not to hang up the sign.
One week has past!!! My class last Thursday was wonderful! We whizzed through three chapters relating to why managers should know statistics, graphical representations, and elementary probability... It was (hopefully) review for most of the students, as most of them didn't have many questions. Alhumdulillah, I lived through my first day of teaching a graduate level class, and now I am getting excited about it. My free time has disappeared! I spend about an hour a night preparing for the class, reading the material, making notes and working out the homework to make sure that I have a very good understanding of what the question is asking, and how to solve it... I bet I'm doing more work than the students!! By the end of the class, I will have a good understanding of business statistics!!
Well, work is going to get busier tomorrow, as the testing team will be testing 5 applications concurrently! It will be my first trial by fire! Hope everyone has a good day!
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Assalamu alaikum
Alhumdulillah, we bought a "new" car last Saturday. It is actually a used car but it is new to us... Now poor sayang will not be stranded at home while I'm at work. She can take the kids out, go shopping, and all that wonderful stuff. Since I am about an hour away, we decided that it is safer for her to have transportation in-case something serious happens, like me having to leave work to pick up a sick kid at school... Ha, now she gets that job :-)
Argh, what have I done to myself. I start teaching tomorrow evening, and am nervous! I haven't taught people older than me before! InshaAllah, all will go well, and I can do a good job. I will be a graduate Business Statistics professor!?! It is still a scary thought...
Tomorrow I get a day off! Take the car in to get repaired after the accident, take care of all the legal stuff in getting a new car such as license, insurance, safety inspections... Bleh, just give money away to get the governments permission to drive, how rude! Then, any extra time will be spent preparing for my lecture tomorrow.
Sob, I got a ticket yesterday for driving too fast... I wasn't really driving too fast, but it is a weird story. I take my kids to school, and there is this short cut through a rich neighborhood that a lot of people take. The speed limit has always been posted as 30mph. To discourage people from using the short-cut, the limit has been reduced to 20mph. I didn't see the new sign, and happily drove my usual 35mph, so I got stopped by a Mr. Police officer who told me the new speed limit, and gave me a speeding ticket. My beautiful perfect, mostly clean record is tarnished again! My last ticket was five years ago, when I was younger and more impulsive. Sigh
Alhumdulillah, we bought a "new" car last Saturday. It is actually a used car but it is new to us... Now poor sayang will not be stranded at home while I'm at work. She can take the kids out, go shopping, and all that wonderful stuff. Since I am about an hour away, we decided that it is safer for her to have transportation in-case something serious happens, like me having to leave work to pick up a sick kid at school... Ha, now she gets that job :-)
Argh, what have I done to myself. I start teaching tomorrow evening, and am nervous! I haven't taught people older than me before! InshaAllah, all will go well, and I can do a good job. I will be a graduate Business Statistics professor!?! It is still a scary thought...
Tomorrow I get a day off! Take the car in to get repaired after the accident, take care of all the legal stuff in getting a new car such as license, insurance, safety inspections... Bleh, just give money away to get the governments permission to drive, how rude! Then, any extra time will be spent preparing for my lecture tomorrow.
Sob, I got a ticket yesterday for driving too fast... I wasn't really driving too fast, but it is a weird story. I take my kids to school, and there is this short cut through a rich neighborhood that a lot of people take. The speed limit has always been posted as 30mph. To discourage people from using the short-cut, the limit has been reduced to 20mph. I didn't see the new sign, and happily drove my usual 35mph, so I got stopped by a Mr. Police officer who told me the new speed limit, and gave me a speeding ticket. My beautiful perfect, mostly clean record is tarnished again! My last ticket was five years ago, when I was younger and more impulsive. Sigh
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Assalamu Alaikum
Argh, I was ran over this morning! I was driving to work during rush hour, and had to come to a complete stop in the highway. Unfortunately, the guy behind me didn't stop fast enough. He hit me, and pushed me into the car in front of me also, so my poor car is damaged in both front and back. Alhamdulillah, no one was hurt, and even more so, that this occurred after I dropped the kids off at school! When I had to stop, I looked in the rear view mirror, and no-one was immediately behind me, so I thought I was safe. I heard screeching tires, and looked in the mirror again to see this white blur coming at me rapidly. I closed my eyes, rested my head against the headrest, and tried to relax before being hit.
At work, there is a large population of Muslims, and we offer congregational prayer for Zuhur and Asr in an exercise room. During Zuhur, I was thinking about the accident. My thoughts right before the accident were "Oh God, this might hurt". I saw the car coming fast, heard the squealing of tires, took a deep breath closed my eyes and relaxed. I keep thinking my thoughts should have been La illaha il Allah and I worry. My faith has weakened while teaching at an Islamic school, the environment was wonderful, and I was always surrounded by Islam so I became complacent. At the same time, I saw the worst side of the community, the petty arguments and feuds, and it was depressing, and I became weaker.Alhamdulillah , everyone is well and though Allah t'ala could have easily called me home, I am still on this world. InshaAllah I can come out of this as a better person, and rekindle the fading passion to learn and grow in deen. I hope this new fear of God is the first step to a long journey.
Argh, I was ran over this morning! I was driving to work during rush hour, and had to come to a complete stop in the highway. Unfortunately, the guy behind me didn't stop fast enough. He hit me, and pushed me into the car in front of me also, so my poor car is damaged in both front and back. Alhamdulillah, no one was hurt, and even more so, that this occurred after I dropped the kids off at school! When I had to stop, I looked in the rear view mirror, and no-one was immediately behind me, so I thought I was safe. I heard screeching tires, and looked in the mirror again to see this white blur coming at me rapidly. I closed my eyes, rested my head against the headrest, and tried to relax before being hit.
At work, there is a large population of Muslims, and we offer congregational prayer for Zuhur and Asr in an exercise room. During Zuhur, I was thinking about the accident. My thoughts right before the accident were "Oh God, this might hurt". I saw the car coming fast, heard the squealing of tires, took a deep breath closed my eyes and relaxed. I keep thinking my thoughts should have been La illaha il Allah and I worry. My faith has weakened while teaching at an Islamic school, the environment was wonderful, and I was always surrounded by Islam so I became complacent. At the same time, I saw the worst side of the community, the petty arguments and feuds, and it was depressing, and I became weaker.Alhamdulillah , everyone is well and though Allah t'ala could have easily called me home, I am still on this world. InshaAllah I can come out of this as a better person, and rekindle the fading passion to learn and grow in deen. I hope this new fear of God is the first step to a long journey.
Friday, March 05, 2004
Assalamu alaikum
It is time for me to update, and re-open this blog... Alas, I am out of teaching, and back into IT. As much as I resisted having to change back, finances were too tight to live on a private school salary. I really miss my students, and "having" to go to prayer at the masjid as part of my scheduled day...
Now, I am a software tester for a big company. I am in "training mode" so my day is pretty dull. My normal day right now is spent reading software manuals, to learn the environment. When testing starts, then I will have to support the testers, make sure their environment is ready and correct any day-to-day problems that come up... It is similar to what I was doing last year, just a different company.
Alhamdulillahit is Friday! I am so looking forward to Friday Prayer! There are about half dozen Muslims on my team, and we usually go to pray together.
MashaAllah, my baby is growing so fast! he is just 8.5 months old and so enjoyable. When he hears me come in the door, he starts crawling toward me as fast as he can go and he has a big smile on his face. When he gets close enough, he holds up his arms waiting for me to scoop him up and hug him. It just melts my heart, and it one of my favorite times of the day!
Off to prayer, Insha Allah, I will become more active in keeping this blog updated...
It is time for me to update, and re-open this blog... Alas, I am out of teaching, and back into IT. As much as I resisted having to change back, finances were too tight to live on a private school salary. I really miss my students, and "having" to go to prayer at the masjid as part of my scheduled day...
Now, I am a software tester for a big company. I am in "training mode" so my day is pretty dull. My normal day right now is spent reading software manuals, to learn the environment. When testing starts, then I will have to support the testers, make sure their environment is ready and correct any day-to-day problems that come up... It is similar to what I was doing last year, just a different company.
Alhamdulillahit is Friday! I am so looking forward to Friday Prayer! There are about half dozen Muslims on my team, and we usually go to pray together.
MashaAllah, my baby is growing so fast! he is just 8.5 months old and so enjoyable. When he hears me come in the door, he starts crawling toward me as fast as he can go and he has a big smile on his face. When he gets close enough, he holds up his arms waiting for me to scoop him up and hug him. It just melts my heart, and it one of my favorite times of the day!
Off to prayer, Insha Allah, I will become more active in keeping this blog updated...
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