The Ocean of My Being

Alhamdulillah. Praise be to God. I am now in Bangkok, Thailand for a 5-day Young Asian Muslim Women Leadership Training Workshop. I got here last night and it feels good to be back here after all these years. I am excited about the Workshop, especially after meeting some of the participants (some haven't arrived yet). It's always nice and interesting to meet young Muslim women who are, in their own way, empowered. We are all so different, yet so much the same. So far, there are 10 (2 from Iran, 2 from Burma, 2 from Thailand, 1 from Pakistan, 1 from Bangladesh, 1 from Cambodia, and myself) of us who are now here. We are still expecting more. At breakfast, we casually discussed some issues concerning some Asian countries and the West. It was nice and I could see that we are all united in wanting the region to prosper and reach its full potential. There were some sensitive issues that were mentioned and made two of our co-participants a little emotional. I could feel how much bot...

The new semester officially starts on Monday. Just this afternoon, I had my class masterlists printed. I'm ready to roll!!! :) I'm hoping my classes will be as interesting, if not more interesting, both for me and my students as the previous semesters. I am handling a major subject for the first time and, while I am a little bit nervous, I can't wait to start. English 150 , whose course description is Survey of World Literature , was one of my favorite subjects back in my undergraduate years. I remember how exciting it was for me. We discussed Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey , Virgil's Aeneid , Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy (I remember our reporter almost fainting when she found out that we were to discuss all three books: Paradiso , Purgatorio , and Inferno !), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust , Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote and some other famous literary classics of world renown. And, of course, how can I forget my report-- One Thousand...