Sometimes I really can't take all of the ungliness in the world. There is just so much hate and strife. My friends' brother was staying at the Taj hotel at the time of the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Thankfully, he was out at a theatre when all of that hell went down, but they are waiting for him to be able to get his passport and things from the hotel so he can come home. I cannot understand what motivates people to kill like that. It sickens me. I was just reading about this 5-year-old girl in Canada named Phoenix Sinclair. Her step-father and mother killed her, after subjecting her to cruel, stomach-churning abuse. And my dear aunt is waiting for a visa so she can fly to Iraq to hopefully see her dad before he dies. I am so heart-broken for her. Her father is such a good, kind-hearted man. And I am worried for her health and safety, being in Iraq and mouring her dad when she is four months pregnant. Sometimes it's just too much.

Some days, I think love is really the only redeeming quality of this world. My dear friend Angelica got engaged yesterday. Her fiance Eddie is serving in Iraq right now, but he had our friend Lacy hide the ring under Angelica's pillow, and then he called her and led her on a search around her apartment. It was so sweet.

I think I need a hug.

I need to read about a billion books and journal articles and get to writing my three term papers. I really would just love to fast-forward to winter break. The next three weeks or so are going to suck. But then I will have one semester until I have to decide what to do with my life, which is definitely scarier than writing papers.

I am not happy about the cold weather. Though I do love sweaters. There is a small chance of snow/rain showers next Sunday night, so maybe those two papers I have due December 2nd will get delayed. Not.

Babies are so cute. I miss my nephew. Little precious punkin.

I haven't written in here in ages.

I feel so lost, like one of the foundations of my life has just crumbled away. I hate feeling like I have let everyone down, including myself.

I don't know what to do.

I had a good day today.  I have decided that I want to learn Portuguese- I was at Maggie's graduation party and she has many Brazilian friends, so I was surrounded by a medley of languages (Spanish, English, and Portuguese). Maybe I should change my major to Linguistics, you know, now that I am five classes away fom graduating. Seven languages seems like a good number; I have three down pretty well. It would probably be easy to learn Italian and Portuguese, knowing Spanish. And maybe I could learn Farsi. And for the seventh, Elvish.

I was highly amused today by a young man of color who asked me where I was from. I told him I was half-Arab. His reply was, "Ya'll all covered up, but ya'll still be hot!!!" The last guy who told me something to that effect was white. So it's officially universal- girls in hijab are hot.

I had a nice cuddle session with Annie earlier. She jumped up onto me when I was on my bed and snoozed for a bit. It was sweet. She tries to pretend she doesn't love me when other people are around, but she can't fool me.

Four finals this week. None of them should be overly difficult, inshaAllah. As long as I study and don't waste an entire day like I did today. Well, it wasn't exactly a complete waste- I went looking for apartments with the roommates, we decided on a place. And then I went to the gym and had a really good workout for the first time in a while. I plan on waking up early-ish (before noon...) and getting a few hours of studying down for my Monday final. Then I should be good.

I'm really looking forward to not having a fourth roommate who is rude, loud, and lazy.