About a month ago things became really hectic.  I stopped writing and disappeared from the Stanford community. This became kind of cloudy and I had to reassess a lot. I was exhausted and had to get some priorities in line. I was definitely on the grind, hustling to make things happen. At the same time, I was still reading some dense and difficult theoretical works and thinking about my research. I have stacks of works to review, about 30 books from the library. I’m going to plow through them before August, I promise myself.  Right now, I’m juggling two jobs: temping at various sites and my research assistant position at Stanford.  I’m still saving and raising money for my trip. I’m focusing on spending time with my family and real friends, because I won’t see them for a year when I go to Egypt.

 After the storm had passed, I attended a few events that reminded me of the reason why I am taking this path. One was a conference on the Islamic library and the other an awards dinner for Muslim scholars and entreprenuers. Over the past three years, I have felt like I paid a huge cost. I worked myself into exhaustion. Grad school is trying, and my trade is an isolating field. I didn’t want to write some woe is me blogs. Instead, I focused on commenting on blogs. Sometimes what I read was depressing, other times they present me with challenges that are motivating. But overall, I guess I am aware of the obstacles that  I face and I have to have faith that it is worth all the efforts of trying to overcome them. In doing so, maybe we can encourage each other to face our struggles and be better by doing better.