An old friend

Assalamu ‘alaikum,

Last night I went to my first Dar-ul-Qur’an class in over a year. It’s been months since I opened the Qur’an. At first I was a bit leery, but then as I looked over the familiar surahs and began to read and run the words over my tongue and lips, I was filled with comfort and familiarity, as if greeting an old friend I haven’t seen in a while. I can hardly describe the way it made me feel. SubhanAllah, how can one feel this way about a book and in an unfamiliar language? The Qur’an is no ordinary book, and indeed I think I’ve read somewhere that it can have this effect on people, perhaps within its very pages. I guess I didn’t believe enough, or didn’t think that it was meant to be taken literally. SubhanAllah.

Wassalam,
Callista

Has it really been two years?

Assalamu ‘alaikum,

Wow, I just realized that my post revealing the chapters of the book was posted 2 years ago. I have been promising this book for that long, and have posted no real content since. I guess that means I have to get off my duff (i.e., stop watching Lost and hanging out on facebook) and do something!

Wassalam,
Callista

Changes…

Assalamu ‘alaikum,
I have not logged into WordPress for a while and wow, everything is different!

You’ll also notice that I’ve changed my name. “Maha Abdo” was a pseudonym for several reasons and now it is no longer necessary, and I’ve gone with my given name “Callista” in a quest to reclaim my identity and figure out who I am again.

I have a new life now, and a new career involved in international development and ultimately trying to eradicate world hunger alhamdullillah.

I’m sorry if my absence was missed but insha’Allah but as I’ve finally logged back in I’ll take this as a good sign. I’m starting to regain my interest in things that used to interest me, which is also a good sign. Insha’Allah I’ll also feel the urge to begin blogging again.

Wassalam,
Callista

Hiatus

Assalamu alaikum,

Please excuse my recent hiatus. I had to put this project on hold while I dealt with a major life change and I’m still trying to get my life and act back together. I’m well on my way though insha’Allah and hopefully I’ll soon be ready to write again.

Thanks everyone for your patience.

Wassalam,
Maha

Ready to begin

Assalamu alaikum,

Alhamdullillah I have completed my Ph.D. (only by the Grace of Allah) and can now begin a new chapter of life. That means I can begin working again on this book. I’ll also be catching up on comments and things that I’ve let go by the wayside, insha’Allah. So please stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by, and for your patience!

Wassalam,
Callista

Alhamdullillah.

Assalamu alaikum,

22 pages. 5,496 words. And done to my satisfaction. Finally. Alhamdullillah.

Wassalam,
Callista

I can’t believe it…

Assalamu alaikum,

Well, I just took a look… 2 rough days later and almost no sleep (but plenty of caffeine), but I’m almost there. 4800 words, 20 pages, and the lit review is finally almost done! Yay, alhamdullillah. This was the major roadblock standing in my way of completing the first draft of the dissertation. I have a couple sections that need tweaking or something added to them, then it’s done.

What’s next? Well, I have to add the mini intro and finish the chapter for the independent study to send off to the professor for his report. I have to update the materials and methods and results sections, then I have to (gulp!) write the discussion. Then the main body will be done. I’m hoping this first draft is more like an almost ready draft so I don’t have a ton of corrections and I can just be done with it. After that, it’s on to the appendices. They’re nearly done and really a quick thing. I hope.

Yeah, I guess I have a good couple more days before it’s DONE done. But I feel like the biggest obstacle is finally almost out of the way. So I guess I can go to bed now and get a luxurious 6 hours of sleep!

Wassalam,
Callista

Oh, whoops. There’s fajr in like 2 hours.

Is it possible?

Assalamu alaikum,

So I have to write this book chapter as my introduction and literature review for my dissertation. I stayed up until 6 am, got up at 10:30 am and now it’s 5:30 pm and I’ve been working most of the time, and I’m still only at 2500 words! I need at least 5000 and up to 10,000 or more. Aaargh, what am I going to do? This dissertation only grew by 6 pages in all that time! I. am. going. to. go. insane. I just want this to be over, over, OVER!!!!!

Wassalam,
Callista

A Zotero problem solved

Assalamu alaikum,

[My Zotero icon: inspired by the one here:
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/downloads/browsers-browser-companions.aspx/5
(http://backoffice.ajb.com.au/images/downloads/zotero-research-tool-for-firefox-small.jpg)]

A while ago I posted on portable cross-platform Zotero, how happy I was about it, and then how it wasn’t going to work out for me after all. I had a semi-solution of using the flash drive profile on the Mac side. Problem is, sometimes my Windows VM doesn’t recognize my flash drive. Grr.

I’ve found an even better solution. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before? So, I have my profile set up with my Zotero database in my profile folder on the Mac side (not on the flash drive, on the computer hard drive). I also have Firefox installed on the VM. However, the profile that Firefox uses on the VM is the same profile as on the Mac OS. I configured the profile through the profile manager to point to my Zotero profile. Now I don’t need to use the flash drive at all. Since the only reason I’d need to use Firefox on the VM is to access my Zotero information, this works beautifully. I don’t need to install any plugins, extensions, themes, bookmarks–they’re already there, in the profile. Plus, only one database to update and keep track of. So much easier.

As far as being portable; well, since I do all my writing on the laptop and I don’t really use the work computer, and as usually my baby is constantly by my side (she goes everywhere with me), I’d say I’m portable enough. If I ever did need to use Zotero on my lab computer, I could always copy my profile to my flash drive temporarily (it’s already there but any updates or changes won’t be there).

Okay, back to writing the dissertation. We’re up to 73 pages so far.

Wassalam,
Callista

Weird search term…

Assalamu alaikum,

So I was looking at the search terms people used to find my blog, and one of them was “NASTY MUSLIMA” ! (Yes, in all CAPS.) Ummm. I don’t think this is what they were looking for. I don’t even want to know. I didn’t know anyone would want to search for that, and I don’t know why. I just can’t wrap my head around this one. All I can do is make du’a that whoever it was be guided to the Straight Path. And that Allah protect us all from the Shaytan, ya Rabb. Ameen.

Wassalam,
Callista