Journal

Oh, where to begin.

Imagine a city defined by paradox. A city so ripe that it’s sweetness stings your mouth and throat, yet so raw that nothing is hidden; it’s history is like oil stains on carpet. A city who can suffocate with it’s never ending metro and millions of people going to and fro, yet every breath is of real sustenance for your body and soul. A city that is the melting pot of melting pots, welcoming different cultures and ethnicity on every street and alley, yet it demands they all bleed the same limestone grey, digesting their histories and traditions into a single French monoculture. Paris can be described by many many more paradoxes, but it is these paradoxes that drew me so close to Paris, and I think are defining reasons as to why it may be the best city in the world. Upon first landing and exiting apartment, I was hit with waves upon waves of familiarity. I walked past the highest density of Algerian shops and people ever outside of Algeria itself, and it was one of the most refreshing things to see, especially having just set foot in the city. The sun was beaming down, causing me to break a sweat even after having changed into shorts and a short sleeved shirt. We just walked and walk, and all of a sudden the Eiffel Tower came out of hiding. I always assumed that you would be able to see the Eiffel Tower all around Paris, but that is far from reality. It hides and reveals itself almost at will. The metro was humid, with people going in and out of stations like an artery pumping blood to other parts of the body. People stood on every train we took. It was a real people mover.

I had always been accustomed to cities that have an “old district” or a “downtown” where people go to sight-see, eat, shop, and otherwise enjoy themsevles. Paris has no downtown, or “centreville”. Sites of interest are all separated from each other, and every neighborhood has shopping of it’s own. There are many districts which all attract large crowds, all of which separated by at least of 20 minutes of travel, whether that be train or bike. Speaking of biking, every road in the city had a bike lane, of which sometimes had more traffic than the cars on the road. Packs of bikers fly past you as you try to merge into the biking lane yourself, and once you finally do, you are subject to God’s will for your well being.

Every neighborhood has it’s own unqiue signature to it, and neighborhoods separated by just one or two streets live a completely different lifestyle. You will bike towards Montmartre, a charming hilltop village where artists and creators used to live and spend time in, such as Picasso and Camus, and just one block away sits Barbes, the home of North Africa in Paris. It’s known as the 49th wilaya of Algeria, and if you didn’t know you were in France, you would believe it for yourself. It’s definitely a rougher part of town, but to be meters from an incredibly popular tourist destination shows that the city doesn’t care to put makeup or to hide it’s blemishes. Life is life here. The good, the bad, and my favorite, the ugly.

I’ve since made it to Toulouse, where my aunt lives. Expect to see more writings on Paris, or whatever comes to mind.

Paris almost felt too much. To submerse yourself for a week, even two, is almost disrespectful to the city. It’s like scoffing at it and saying “I can see all I need to see in this time”. You most certainly can’t. Even for a summer, and I’m unsure I would be able to complete Paris. Every time we left the apartment, we managed to find ourself in some new area that looked vaguely familiar, filled with the same amount of people running around like a chicken without its head. You pass a myriad of museums, historic buildings, and sites of interest with one 30 minute bike ride along the Siene. Every time you reach an intersection, there is a building of interest to your left, and your right just across the Siene.

And to the popular cliche that Paris is the city of love, it entrenches the city far more than one can imagine. It’s easy to imagine yourself there, watching videos on TikTok and Youtube showing cute spots to eat at, or the best places to watch the sunset or the Eiffel Tower sparkle, yet that doesn’t prepare you for what you actually see. Couples line the sides of the Seine, sit together at restaurants, accompany each other to museums or shopping. Every activity that someone can possibly do in the city has a majority population of couples partaking in it. What a beautiful sight to see. I hope I can soon join that population myself.

I’ve held this belief for a good period of time, and considering it is something I used to ridicule and write off makes it all the more important that I’ve changed that. It is the idea that “hair holds trauma”. I first saw this propogated on social media, with women using it to justify jurastic changes to their hair because cutting it “freed” the trauma that was held with it. I first took this directly at face value and dismissed it as silly and attention-seeking. I mean, how can such an inanimate part of your body contain any sort of emotional weight? I can see now how short-sighted and flawed I was in my thinking, however. It was never meant to be taken in a literal sense. Changeable differences in one’s physical appearance, when self-directed, genuinley bring about a new perspective for yourself. It was never about the hair physically holding trauma, but that the change in appearance from cutting significant portions of your hair can signify and actualize changes you’ve made internally, psychologically, outside of the immediately observable realm. This can be true for not just hair, but hair has the highest effect in physical differences that are immediately noticeable to yourself and others. I just found it very interesting how my thoughts have changed as I’ve grown, and that I myself am looking to lighten up in lieu of my own changes.

It was hard for me to go to sleep last night. I was in a state of complete exhaustion, I finished praying, and I was as comfortable as one could be in my bed. Yet I sat there with my eyes closed and my bonnet over my head wide awake. My mind was flying at 2 million miles an hour. This was something I had always struggled with since I was a kid. It’s hard for me to turn my mind off when it’s time to go to sleep. I run through ridiculous scenarios in my head that will never happen in real life, I have imaginary converastions, calculate potential interactions. I do it all and for some reason my mind picks the dead of the night to go through these motions, instead of my lovely shower time or when I’m chilling doing nothing throughout the day. Sometimes I wish I could put a switch behind my ear or something to power off when I’m trying to sleep.

On the other side of sleep, it’s borderline impossible to get up after even 7 to 8 hours of sleep. It feels like I’m catching up on generational sleep debt every single night. I don’t think it’s possible for me to fully catch up if that ever were to be possible. Regardless, I pull myself up in the morning so I can fully enjoy a quiet unrestricted breakfast and still be hungry by the time lunch rolls around. Besides the slight sickenss I picked up upon moving back into my parents house, I’ve largely enjoyed myself and the slowness of life that comes with not being in school anymore, amplified with no job to attend to on a daily basis. The main drawback of that is the money, but I’ll thug it out until I start full time in the fall. All I do is talk to Claude, study up on my French, and chill on my phone. It’s truly a beautiful life that I live, AlhamdiAllah.

I also just remembered as I was finding a picture to upload to this entry that I finally built the E-Bike that’s been sitting since the end of March. I applied for the free e-bike program in Colorado thinking it was a scam, and a little more than a year later I actually came in possession of it, which is so cool. I tested it around my neighborhood, and I’m glad to say that I will be utilizing it when I go to my neighborhood pool when it finally opens up.

THe day is May 5th, the first real day of the conference. It took us a while to leave the hotel, but we decided to grab something sweet for breakfast before heading to the actual conference. I got a churro and a latte, which was honestly really good. Upon entering the Convention Center, we saw lines of unbelievable magnitude, in all directions. We went to the help desk, hoping that the academia/developer pass line was shorter and separate, and we were actually told that there was a separate line for it, which brought us to elation. We went to the banner representing the start of the line, but as we were trying to find the end of the line, we realized that it was this line that was the longest. We swore we weren’t going to wait at the end, so we started scoping out potential people to strike up a conversation with, and subsequently enter the line right behind them. We decided on this random guy who was standing in front of students, and opened the conversation asking where they were from and what they were building. He did not reciprocate any energy of wanting to get to know us, and eventually after a bit of chit chat he asked us “Did you come talk to me just to cut the line?” I had to stifly my laugh and replied “In all honesty we were a little shocked that we can’t find many people that look like us, so we just wanted to find those people.” He replied, “How about those guys in front of me, will you talk to them too?” I said hesitantly “Yes, we will probably talk to them too.” I conceded converastion at that point, and the other guy continued to talk to him. We were still able to slot into line behind him, and I put that interaction behind us.

We finally made it to the check in desk, where we got our badge and bracelet, and entered the conference. People running around, massive boothes and speaking stages, it was unlike any other conference I’ve been to. We went to the hackathon section to get settled in, and we went ahead and worked on breaking ground with the project. Unbeknownst to us, they were giving out free Solana Seeker phones right behind us, and we didn’t know until the line had collected to a considerable size. We missed out on that opportunity, unfortunately, but after we got our work done, we went “shopping” (collecting swag from company boothes). There was another crypto event happening in a separate room in the convention center, and our sponsor took us over there as there was apparently free food. We were starving and trying to get any sort of free food. Unfortunately we had come too late, and the food station was shut down, but we were able to shop up there. I ended up getting two airtags, a small bag, and a couple of shirts. We went back to the main area, and thanks to our sponsor they scavenged together some leftover meal vouchers for the food there which we took advantage of. We got food and talked for a bit, and finally left the convention for that day. We took a Lyft home, quickly changed, and hit the beach before the sun set on us. The water wasn’t cold at all, and the all too familiar scent and taste of salt-water held me hostage. After the sun disappeared over the horion, we headed back to the hotel to shower and head back out for some more food. The first place we went to was closed, possibly out of business, so we fell back on this doner kebab place. It was really good, and we were satiated, only to search for ice cream near our hotel first. We found out that at 9am the next day, they would give out another 20 of the Seeker phones we missed out on, and we devised a plan to be there before 8:30am so we would be among the ones to win the phone.

I think the trip was best defined by the hackathon, the sand, and food.

My reintroduction into the life of Miami was just about what you would expect. After I left the airport I got an Uber and thought nothing of it. The ETA was around 30 minutes or so, and I was excited to still have time to hit the beach before the sun went down. As we got on the highway to cross into Miami Beach, a sea of red lights befell us. I was curious if Uber was taking this traffic into account for it’s ETA, and to my unfortunate surprise, Google Maps had it at an hour. Good to know Uber doesn’t use any sort of traffic data to calculate their times of arrivals. As we we were sitting, bumper to bumper in the right-most lane, my Uber started going on his phone to pass the time. Not too much of a problem, but he was so absorbed in whatever he was going that multiple times the car in front of us had pulled forward two to three cars clear, and we were still at a standstill. As a result, the car behind us, a white SUV, honked at us to move forward with the rest of the traffic. My Uber would then put his hands up in a protest, and reluctantly pull forward. This happened twice more. The fourth time, the same white SUV honking at us from behind blasted past us on the shoulder, and passed a couple more cars before finding a small window to shove their nose into. I was definitely amused, until my Uber pulled out into the shoulder as well and tried to do the same thing. The white SUV saw us coming up on the shoulder and pulled out halfway to prevent us from moving any further. We then slotted back into traffic at the expense of the drivers we passed, and when my Uber found the opportunity to, he went back onto the shoulder to pass the white SUV before they could react and stop us. We continued on for 20 more seconds until he found another hole in the traffic and slotted back into the right lane. He pulled out into the shoulder one last time and we saw the accident that closed the two left lanes, and we managed to get through with relative ease before continuing to my hotel. I was completely shocked. Did this guy just forget that he was working, and that I could very easily get him fired for his conduct on the road? Is this such a normality here that even “professional” drivers drive with a lack of worry for their passenger? I don’t know.

I wasn’t able to get to the hotel until after 7pm, so I figured I would go to the beach the next day and instead got some things ready for the hackathon. The two other guys were waiting for me there, and it was good to see him. We got some small things out of the way, and decided to go get food (I was starving). The second we exited the hotel we were locked into a really funny Miami-esque NPC conversation. This guy saw us walking out and asked us immediately “Are you guys looking for some …”? (term referring to women) I jokingly said back “Let us know man”. He told us to go to this club and ask for “Wit” to serve us, and to tell them that “Jon Jon” sent us. We said thank you and walked in that direction until we were out of his line of sight, and turned around to go to the place that we found. We found this inexpensive sandwich shop which was a 20 minute walk from our place, and set out on foot. We got to the spot, and while we were in line a homeless guy offered us some weed, which we laughingly denied. The sandwiches we got were of good size and tasted pretty good, so we left satisfied. We walked back in search of an ice cream spot, and after securing that we walked along the beach until we made it back home, and called it a night.

I figured that to pass time on this lengthy flight that I should write another entry in my nabilinc journal. I brought my laptop out, not a single word entered my head in which I could start this entry of mine. So I pulled out my personal journal, and read my old entries. It’s grown to be one of my favorite past-times, and I wish others could read these entries without knowing it came from me. My writing genuinely makes me laugh, and my diction and tone are that of an intense thriller, without the actual context being that of any real substance. I like to pretend the things that I’ve been through in the past are that of some insane one off things, but in honest comparisons it can be likened to Tubi movies where you just scream at the TV because the character is so awful at decision making and driving their life forward. Regardless, I may take some lines that I’ve written and throw them in the quote page, or use them to inspire new entries, subject to sterilization. I’m excited to see palm trees again, excited to not have to use any lip balm or consistent applications of lotion to keep my dry body chugging throughout the day. I’m headed to Consensus, a large large blockchain conference for mainly industry professionals. I’ve only been to student-led blockchain conferences, so this will definitely be a step up, and I wonder if I will step up when the lights are bright, or if I will regress into my shy shell that I’ve always been familiar and comfortable with. It seems that drinks are on their way out, so I will put away my laptop for a time while I ponder on what else I want to write about.

I’ve since returned from my snack break, indulging in oreos, pistachios, and… cranberry juice!! You guessed it. I’m not sure where my infatuation with cranberry juice came from, but wow is it a treat. I could really drink cups and cups of it. I’ve thought more about the conference, and I have to say I’m also a little excited to be competing in the hacakthon as well. I love competing in hackathons, as it allows you to work on a cool project, with tight deadlines and a clear direction that you should head in with tracks and bounties. If you are a CS student and are struggling to put projects on your resume, you should seriously consider joining hackathons in your area, and trying your best to compete. You don’t need to win or put together something super fancy, but so long as you try, you will most definitely collect the projects that your resume is so desperately asking for. We are looking to build an on-chain solution to data manipulation from sensors/transactions. Another reason why I’m looking forward to building this is because its a blockchain solution to an issue that exists outside of blockchain, and it doesn’t involve DeFi. I’m all for the DeFi revolution, but it’s a little disheartening to see every new blockchain product be some obscure slight improvement to some problem that isn’t looking to make the lives of millions of people on traditional finance better. The skills of this generation of blockchain creators and developers should be applied across a wide variety of industries, as the technology is incredibly interesting and has the potential to revolutionalize those specific industries. I will say, as it’s clearly written on my home page, I’ve been working on a DeFi solution myself which is slightly hypocritical in DiasporaRemit, but I liken it more to me combining my passions and interests with serving my community 😜.

In other news, my summer has officially begun after grad season ended yesterday. I am definitely a summer merchant, but if you ask me to name personal accomplishments of mine in the last 3 summers or so, I would look away from you and pretend I didn’t hear you ask. Will this summer be any different? I can only say In Shaa Allah, God Willing. I want it to be, and out of any summer before, I have the most powerful tools at my disposal to further my own interests and extracirriculars. I was definitely more than able to do so at the expense of my school responsibilities, so now that those no longer exist, I expect great progress to be made. I imagine myself as those dogs that bark and growl heniously at each other, separated by a gate, but when the barrier is removed between them, both act sheepish and ignore the fact that their barking was only for show.

I crave the heat of the day bleeding into the night, the festivities of the night bleeding into the day.

My friend asked me, while sitting outside in our backyard, if birds whistling and chirping away knew how nice they sounded to us. That got me thinking. Birds communicate to each other each and every day, from the first rays of the sun piercing the horizon, to when the sun returns to its cave for the night. It comes from a place of neccessity for them, but for us it is largely attributed as a peaceful and calming ambient noise, a sign of the peace and tranquility that nature fosters. The birds have no knowledge of this, they merely go about their day as they usually do, but for us it can be incredibly impactful and mind opening. This got me thinking about how people’s daily action’s, things that aren’t out of the ordinary, can potentially mean more than the world to someone else. My other friend had asked me this question the other day, of which I was supposed to answer in a blog post here. The question was “What was someone’s miniscule action that meant nothing to them that impacted you in an incredible manner?” I didn’t end up answering this because I genuinely struggle with answering questions that require me to think of specifc scenarios over the course of my life. I will likely still not answer that question as I still haven’t thought of something, not because people haven’t impacted me in such magnificent ways, but maybe because it’s happened so many times that I cannot identify, and would not be just to name a single time.

I’m typing this while my eyes are closing themselves. I’m laying in a bed that’s not my own. There are ocean sounds playing at almost full volume with three others in the room with me.

I’ve graduated. Moved my tassel from right to left, walked across the stage, tried to grab my name card back from the person reading it for some reason, and received my diploma cover. Wow. I felt a good range of emotion today. I felt largely relieved, from my duties and pressures that come with the life of a university student. I also had random isolated terrors from sudden realizations while sitting in the chair on stage. Strange collections of water droplets appeared in my eyes as I embraced my family, and recollected on beautiful writings from some of those dear to me. I’ve only truly started my life, but reaching this stage in my opinion would bring the same feeling as if I was sitting in the south of France fully retired, listening to the ocean smack againt the sand with a coffee in my hand.

I want to see new things, and feel fresh and fly. Feel fresh.

Approximately 30 minutes ago I was in almost complete disarray at my Quantum Computing exam coming up. I had not studied, reviewed, or even so much as glanced at class material since the middle of Ramadan (over 1 month ago). Looking at the practice final exam today truly humbled me, and with over half of our assignments left ungraded since Februray, I was in more than just a pickle. My anxiety was steadily building, like sediment on the bank of a busy river, and I was unable to curve it through traditional techniques of calculating what one needs on the final to maintain a minimum grade. I took my worries to Claude to try to get as close as an estimation as I could get, and there wasn’t a better thing I could’ve done to renew hope in myself than that, not even actually studying. I was given the conclusion that “Basically you just need to show up and write your name down. Good luck tomorrow!”. Pure respite. With that single statement, I’ve written off the final actions of my undergradaute career.

What a weird thing endings are. Some of my friends have made comments about things we were doing as being “the last” this, “the last time” that, and I hated it. Why force such an arbitrary label on that certain hang out, coffee, etc? Do we truly know when the last of something has passed us? Unfortunately I’ve been guilty of doing the same exact thing in relation to my family’s trip to Long Beach coming up. I was slightly frustrated as it had originally collided with a camping trip I was excited about, but I had a sudden epiphany that family vacations with everyone present have become harder and harder to plan, making this one potentially one of the “last”. I’m ashamed to admit it, but it was an incredibly motivating factor which made me prioritize that trip over other arrangements. Still, I don’t fully believe that to be “the last” as only Allah has the power to make such a commandment. I’m fully open to what the future has to offer, and one can think of me as a cottonwood seed that’s final destination is purely in the hands of it’s creator, blowing about until it one day settles and turns into something beautiful over a long period of time. Or it may just land somewhere infertile and desolate. Allahu Alim :)

What beauty our lives hold.

Experiencing the lowest of the lows is, for obvious reasons, no fun venture. I argue, however, that for someone to consider themselves resilient in the many obstacles that are thrown their way in a life of unexplainable complexity that they must indeed face that same lowest point in order to come to an understanding of how to deal with one’s self in times of crises, and how to rebuild to a more comfortable baseline where you can learn and grow from. I just remembered this funny tweet that came across my TL a while back: “My life is a sequence of illogical trials meticulously selected by Allah…”. This made me laugh and got an instant retweet from me. But on a more serious note, had I borne these later trials at an earlier stage of my life I believe with a full certainty that I would’ve internally combusted and been reduced to an unrecognizable, fearful little human. But would I have really? What about the trials that brought me to my knees in a helpless state, where even the acquainted settings of my home and my place in Boulder were suddenly pitched into a void of unfamiliarity? That period of my life was most certainly scary and unpredictable, but knowing that I managed to come out the other side alive, even in tatters, meant that future tribulations that I face no longer feel unfamiliar. I’m not numb to the situation, in fact quite the opposite, but I haven’t had that same sensation of helplessness for the only reason being that I’ve felt it before. I know now the support systems that play as a metaphysical foundation for my mental well being in times of need, and I can rely on those as I dig myself out of pits that I seem to fall in (good to know that I dug them myself).

I’ve been through 7 finals seasons. I’ve had seasons where I’ve been completely locked in, seasons where I study modestly and do fine in, but I don’t think any season compares to this final one. All my homework and pending assigments are done, which leaves only studying left on my to-do lists, but I genuinely cannot bring myself to start. I will walk across the stage in five or so days from now, but I was that was today. I’ve grown to loathe taking exams for my classes. It’s just a buildup of stress over what could possibly be on the exam, a race to see if you’ve reviewed enough of the mind churning content before the exam time starts. I would much rather have presentations for all of my classes than take exams for any of them. For one of my classes which I am slightly worried about, the teacher hasn’t graded a single assignment since February, and just got around to grading our midterm results. I can’t even calculate what I need to get on the final to pass if I wanted to. This mindset comes to poison me at random parts of the semester when it’s most beneficial for me to focus on my studies, but all I want to do is read, work on nabilinc, and explore other projects that I’ve been meaning to commit time to.

I’ll admit that I’ve been indulging in a lot of rai recently. It brings me both an intense sense of nostalgia for being in Algeria, and a feeling that I belong amongst the people of my homeland. The question comes up in casual conversation if I’d ever go back to Algeria full-time. I tell them yes, and I do genuinely want to. I’m stuck in a paralysis though, of wanting something so badly but at the same time fearing if I have the capability of living that life. Visiting Algiers for the first time definitely semented my desire of moving there. As Algerian as I am and feel though, I’m incredibly worried that it’s not enough to live in a state of comfort. I’m easily influenced by the perception of people towards me, and it’s exacerbated to extreme lengths with how fellow country men/women perceive me. It’s been a struggle since I was young, and it involves my level of Arabic, knowledge of certain cultural aspects, among other things. It’s hard for me to put this into words, because I don’t want to just reiterate the same ideas that a young person from the diaspora can’t feel that full connection with their people and land of origin due to distance and extenuating circumstances. It is exactly that, though. I love going back home to see family, yet I don’t really know what I would do if my parents weren’t around to chauffer me to different family members across towns, going siteseeing, helping with negotiating on the street. Basically all the functions that are required of me if I were to live alone there with my family. It’s almost embarassing the fear that I hold with such regard, because at the end of the day, who cares? The same Algerian that may judge me for my broken Arabic is the one that has their own fears of societal judgement. I will meet people similar to me, and I may share the same daily cultural activties that I so desparately desire to partake in without judgement. I know that I would be able to. I just fear putting myself in that scenario to begin with.

My friend always mentions that getting comfortable in a setting is incredibly dangerous, and it will prevent you from finding experiences and meeting people that you otherwise never would’ve been exposed to. He’s completely right, but once your comfortable, its so hard to remove yourself from that. What stopped me from studying abroad? What stopped me from expressing how I feel and how I want to be treated to others? What stopped me from being friends with who I please? What stopped me from hanging out with who I want to hang out?

What’s stopping me from moving to Algeria in the future?

“And to live is not to resign oneself” - Albert Camus, Summer in Algiers

I just finished this wonderful and awful essay by Camus on Algiers in the summer. I love his writing, from an objective standpoint he writes incredibly well and it is recognized as such, but a man complicit in the occupation and massacares of my own people shouldn’t even get a glance from me. I still read nonetheless. In this essay he writes about how the people of Algiers live life extravagantly, not in a material sense, but spiritually and through their action due to the impending fear of dying and being buried a land that promotes lavish living. “Everything here suggests the horror of dying in a country that invites one to live” - This prevents the people of Algiers from living passively, not allowing the wind of society to push and pull them in any direction. Most people would say this is not a life they want to live, me included, but there is a difference in what you want for yourself and what your current situation and actions actually show. You want to paint a nice sunny day on the beach, and the first color you dip your paintbrush into is a dark grey. Why is it so hard? It looks effortless when observing others go about their daily lives in a manner that is respectful to both themselves (firstly), and others. I have this inside joke based on the book “Stoner” written by John Williams. Without trying to spoil it, the character is defined by the word “inacton”. I start to fear that I liked this book so much because it has fragments of a mirror scattered across the pages.

At the beginning of the event I had described the day and myself as being sun-kissed. It is my favorite descriptor of a nice sunny day combined with some sort of outside activity. However, as the length of time in the sun seemed to drag on forever, as I told others, I felt more assaulted by the sun more than anything else. Even the breaks in the gazeebo, the wonderful food that was brought by others, the company that I was with, none of that seemed to shade me from the everlasting sun and heat. It doesn’t seem to matter where you stay or how much of a break you can take, because if the sun is there, the sun is there. Nothing can stop it or lessen the severity of the slow roasting it does on your skin and your mental. It isn’t too noticeable at first, its like a moth that you wave away. But imagine that moth slowly progressing, first into a fly so it may be more of a nuisance to you, then a mosquito which brings you and annoyance and slight discomfort, and finally a wasp that inflicts pain. You become so scared of the wasp that you attempt to avoid it in every potential interaction it may be present in, yet somehow you find yourself down the same cycle of ingoring the moth, shooing away the fly, smacking the mosquito against your body, and finally having to remove the stinger pumping poisonous substance into your veins. Although as far as I know that poisonous substance gets cleared from your blood stream eventually, I like to believe that it accumulates in your heart, similar to sediment that washes up along the side of a river. It’s more than what I believe, it’s what I feel.

I imagine a field wide but of corners tight. Clasping your soul but also giving it breath. It gives a vast space to grow, a space that stretches. In the middle a mahogany shed built of bare logs leans. The entrance a carved hole exposes the interior of the wood. They are ageless. No ridges, a red smooth. Almost a red marble. The suns light reflects, painting the dirt surrounding with an ocean red. The light on the dirt wades in and out in ripples. Constricting or flowing outwards. The sun grants the wood its age. The dirt is an ally, with waves shaped by wind. Wind that whistles in between the logs. Playing an instrument it has long grown bored of. There are only as many notes as there are logs. It is the same wind. It recycles itself as there is no where else to go. Harmony is remiss, following its same patterns. There is no resumption. The logs lean on each other but do not lean on dirt. The sun shows a light but doesn’t produce. Something lies

As the days inch closer to summer, the days seem to lengthen exponentially. Boulder has seen more than it’s fair share of the sun its supposed to see up to this point, and the trees seemingly blossomed and revived their vibrant color overnight. A different scene enveloped Boulder today though, as just before 11am snowflakes the size of coins made its way down in a flurry. I was up long before this though, as I awoke at 6:30am with nothing to do but wait until 8am to check in for the senior engineering expo. I went to my teammates apartment to pick up the poster board we managed to get printed (after he pressed the fedex worker), and I headed to the practice field to get everything sorted. The sensation I felt walking in with my poster was indescribable. Just a little freshman Nabil was here not too long ago, eyes oggling the many innovative and complex projects that seniors in that time were showing off, and yet it was my turn to do the same to the very freshmen that strolled around the expo imagining what their future might look like. After making a stroll around the stadium looking at other projects, I left and made my way to C4 to try to eat some breakfast. I didn’t consume much, as external factors maintained their tyrannical rule over my appetite. Alen came to join me, after he finished setting up his booth with his teammates, and enjoyed usual chats and banter over C4 breakfast. Long overdue if you ask either of us. I then ventured back home, snow falling plentifully at this point, to shower before Jummah at the masjid. I scowered pinterest after to try to put together a new fit for the expo, and I was happy with how I left the house. I made the trek to the masjid, and sat in for the khutbah and salat. Afterwards I said Salam to all the guys and made my way back to campus to stand by my team’s booth, and make sure the demo was working okay. This was the start of almost 4 hours of nonstop talking, either going to other booths, seeing friends, or pitching my team’s project to random passerbys or a friend thats glad to see me there. By the end, it had left me in tatters. I sheepishly made my way out as the awards ceremony was going on. Our team was definitely not in the running for any sort of prize so it was a well missed occasion. I dropped another friend off at their car parked not too far and I went to get coffee. I just wanted to try to depress from the entire day’s events. Unfortunately the books that I had in my backpack at the time were of no use in helping me unwind, and so I had left to return home. The familiar chill of winter cut through me as I trudged to my car, and once arriving at the house, from my car to the front door. It’s a chill that lingers in your body, and sticks with you even upon entering establishments that are sufficiently heated. The guys had gone to get food and were since back and on the couch, and with my appetite continously betraying me, it was not a venture I pursued with them. I promptly changed into my macawis for additional comfort and sank into the all to comfortable and familiar couch, my home for the entirety of the first semseter. The group migrated from the couch to the rec center, where we split into hooping and working out, eventually reconvening on the court to play all together. The run was good, a lot better than when it was just the two of us while the others were working out.

My consistency with this journal is already stuttering, so I must push myself to write. Why haven’t I filled in this day? Only me and Allah knows. Regardless, today was one of them ones. Went to the cafe in the morning as usual, had half a brownie and most of my coffee, and went to campus to take the surpise practice exam for linux system admin (it had been in canvas for weeks but I also haven’t been to class in weeks). Dropped a stinker there, getting 53/100 on it, which I was honeslty happy with as I had stumbled through every solution that I figured out, which gave me hope if I actually study for the final. After that, I delayed going to my capstone class, so I stopped by in Bold to chat for a bit and then I hauled to get to my capstone teammates. We had our poster in line to be printed for expo the next day, we were worried that fedex wouldn’t print it in time, leaving us to just throw a logo and some pictures up (embarassing!!!). We also recorded our example pitch for our final demo day, and got to class to present our current MVP. I was given a slide that I didn’t even write up and wasn’t familar with, so I was really scared to go up and present. I had my phone the whole time trying to memorize the lines but when it was my turn, I dropped a stinker, something that is starting to become a habit. It wasn’t that serious though, and after we presented I was able to relax. After my capstone class, I went to move my car to a different lot that I paid for the rest of the day, and got myself ready for a really cool event. ****** was in town and a good friend of mine managed to squeeze two tickets for themselves and I, and so we got in line and were among the first to get in. We got in, and wasted an hour sitting in our seats until finally, ****** came out. It was surreal seeing her, regardless of if I agree with what she stands for or not. I am now struggling to put anymore onto this virtual piece of paper.

Today was a long long day. From the cafe in the morning to champions league (Bayern vs. Madrid 4-3) to a presentation to dinner to a birthday celebration, I’ve done it all. Somehow I’ve managed to squeeze a nap in there for good measure as well. It was fun and exhilerating, especially the champions league match, as it was one of those all time classics you just had to be there to see. The presentation was also exhilerating, but in the more negative way. One of my teammates for this capstone class wasn’t able to make it, so I picked up the slides they usually go through for our weekly presentation, on top of what I already had. I thought I could wing it, but it proved to be a lot harder then I thought. I stumbled through her slides, and managed to regain my composure once it came back around to mine. We have our final presentation next week, pitching in front of judges, and I really want to knock it out of the park. If we do the best out of the rest of the teams in the class, then we move on to competing with the best teams in the other classes. The group that wins the overall competiton gets something (hopefully money??!) . We definitely have the idea, the team, and the work so far to do it, and it just requires a bit of execution on our end to get it done. We just have to meet beforehand and put our heads together. In other news, I have a presentation for my major’s capstone class tomorrow, but we aren’t too sure what the slide split looks like yet. We also have our engineering expo on friday, with not a single poster printed, or designed. It looks like we might just have some basic stuff printed with our logo and what we do, and that will be the crux of our presentation during expo. Unfortunatey boring and mundane, but with the amount of time we have left in the year, that’s honestly all I need. It’s been a hectic final semester, and my trip to Miami (for a conference 😜 hehe) is calling. I’m picking up the phone.

I’ve always been tempted to build some cool and techy portfolio page to show off random projects that I’ve been working on, and what I’ve been up to professionally. I realized though that I would’ve just been building my LinkedIn page on a separate website that I actually have to pay for, and that doesn’t sound very cool or fun. So instead I want this to be personal and raw, at least as personal and raw a public space can be. I want to talk and write about anything, from industry news to what kind of coffee and pastry I got that day. I want to make people laugh, think, and maybe learn a thing or two, if anything can be learned from a premature life like mine. So cheers to doing something that you put off for just a little too long, and welcome to my little internet abode :)