Dear Fatima...

Hello, Fatima of the future, it's past-you again.

I know, I know, I just wrote to you less than a year ago, but since I haven't received any signs that you time traveled to the year 2012 to communicate with me and give me some answers, the questions and confusion just keep increasing.

So here's another letter to you.

I'm almost nineteen, and I'm finally in college. I know that last time I wrote to you, I seriously had issues with high school, and just wanted to be done so that I could start college. Come November of my freshman year, I'm not so sure I like this better. The adults that I interact with will insist that these college years are the best years of my life! and I'm sure they are! It's just that right now...everything seems confusing and I just want answers.

I went to this networking event yesterday, where alumni came to the U to talk with students, give advice, and serve as connections for us in the future. All of them talked about how they came to be in the professions that they were currently in, and a majority of them followed random paths that they said had a lot to do with luck and being in the right place at the right time.

This. Drives. Me. Crazy.

I'm a planner. It's true. No matter how fun and carefree and free spirited all those "go with the flow" people are, I've always been one that loves to have every detail planned out. I think being in college has intensified this.

Being a planner and wanting a solid foundation makes this "oh you'll figure out a way" mentality seriously overwhelms me. For everyone that I've talked to about being stressed out about picking a major has always responded with "well, you're a freshman! You have a lot of time!" No! I don't think I do. I like thinking of my future career as a destination, and I can't follow the map and take the shortest route if I have no idea where I'm supposed to end up.

Future Fatima...I really hope you found something that you were passionate about to pursue as a career, something that makes you happy but also supports you. I really hope that I stumble across this passion soon.

Love,

Fatima

The curse of the coffee maker.

Coffee makers are a really simple way to make yourself a nice cup of coffee in the morning, right? All you have to do is fill the water reservoir with the correct amount of water, add some coffee grounds to the filter, and turn it on. In about 5 minutes you should have a nice, steaming cup of coffee.

Right?

Um, no.

For some reason, since the beginning of September, I've had some serious issues with making coffee.

First off, there was the problem of me not having the correct coffee maker. When I had been shopping for my dorm things over the summer, my dad said that he had a coffee maker which he hadn't even taken out of the box yet. I said that was fine, I'm not a fan of unnecessary spending. It turns out, that was a 5-cup coffee maker, which is kind of large due to the fact that it was to sit on my desk. I still took it to school, and struggled with figuring out how to work it. Seriously? Who struggles with using a simple coffee maker? Clearly, the answer is "Fatima."

Anyway, my mom decided to get me a single cup coffee maker, which was nice. We returned the other one, even though we had used it, because Target is awesome.

With my new single cup coffee maker that I knew how to use, I had severe issues with the coffee grounds that I had brought to make my coffee with. I had gone shopping with my mom and gone shopping with my dad on separate occasions, and they had both bought me some. Turns out, the ones my dad got me were whole beans, which we didn't realize  while we were shopping. The ones my mom got me were light roast, and I quickly came to realize that my taste buds were not a fan of them.

So, the weekend after that, I grabbed the hazelnut coffee grounds I use at home, so that I could make myself tasty coffee when I actually needed it: at 8:00am on a weekday.

After those problems had been solved and coffee was being made really easily, it just tasted downright awful. Honestly, I don't even know why. It would taste fine when I made coffee at home. It could be the difference in water, or maybe I was adding wrong proportions of milk and sugar, but somehow it would be too bitter and too watery at the same time.

My most recent problem, made apparent on Friday, was that the water wouldn't go through the reservoir. I'm sure it's something I'm doing incorrectly again, but it was pretty frustrating to be running late for class and finding that my coffee maker only made me 1/4 a cup of coffee.

The most logical conclusion is that my coffee maker is cursed.

Reality check.

On Friday, I hit a low point in my thus far short career of being a college student.

Good grief, you should have seen me.
Now, let me begin this story by informing you that I had decided to skip my 9 am class that day. I know, I know, bad Fatima! But what you don't understand is that I live on the St. Paul Campus, and my classes are all in Minneapolis. Yes I can take the campus connector to Minneapolis from St. Paul and it's really useful! It runs every five minutes! as I was told a million times during orientation, but it takes half an hour to get from my dorm to Minneapolis, not counting any walking time.

Which means that for my 9 am class, which I have everyday, I have to wake up at 7.

Awful.

So I hope you will forgive me just this once.

Let's continue the story.
I had decided to skip because 1) I was really tired. and 2) I had to work on an essay outline that had to be turned in for my second class of the day, one at 12:20. See? Even when I skip it's for good reasons...

but. I woke up at 10:30. Which meant I had to come up with a thesis statement and quickly write the essay outline, get all my stuff together for my class, eat something, change my clothes, make my face look decent, yada yada yada, all in an hour and 20 minutes.

This was one of the profund moments which helped me realize how cushy home life is. If I had been at home, I wouldn't have had to mulitask by trying to change my clothes, crack open my first container of easy mac, make coffee, and run upstairs to the computer lab to print out the essay outline, all while trying to make sure I got on the bus on time. My mom would have done some of that stuff for me. Sigh.

You should have seen me...I wore the same yoga pants that I slept in to class...I had my lanyard around my neck...I ate easy mac on the bus.

Hot mess.

Oh well... as the kids say nowadays.... yolo?

I'm sure that I'll get better with time management as I get more used to living "on my own-ish", and that this episode of my struggling will be amusing to me when I think about it as a senior in college. Heck, it's amusing now, too.

It's just a weird change, because most of us are so excited about living semi on our own that we forget we have to take care of a lot of things ourselves and manage our own time, because no one will take that responsibility for us anymore.

What a reality check.

"Fall has always been my favorite season...

...The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale." - Lauren DeStefano.

I'm currently sitting in one of the many student lounges of my residence hall. I'm surrounded by Intro to Film stuff (because I have an essay due tomorrow) and chocolate milk (because it's delicious), and I can't stop thinking about what a perfect fall day it was today (side note...Sarah Sham just walked by....awkward...).

Minnesota usually has this problem where it's hot as hell in September, then we have one week of nice fall weather at the beginning of October, and then suddenly, it's snowing. That is always so upsetting to me because autumn is clearly the best season out of the four. I know I mentioned my love for fall in like one line at the end of my last blog post, but I thought why not just make you feel uncomfortable with how much I like this season?

I would just like to take a second to extend a thank you to the weather, a wonderful 68° today! Can you believe that? I heard it was pretty cold and rain-y at the game on Saturday, but the weather has been great today.

Fall is, in a word, perfect. Look at this picture I took today on campus. How gorgeous is that? I know it's cliche to talk about the colors of the leaves during autumn, but they're too pretty to not do so. Like the quote at the beginning of this post said, it's like nature had been saving up for this moment to shine, a last hurrah before everything gets covered in fluffy white snow (which is, of course, beautiful in its own way).

Onto more superficial things.

I've recently become obsessed with sweaters, because they're like a cuter, more stylish version of sweatshirts. Think about it. For me at least, after I put on a sweater, I just add jeans and some footwear (I love my new riding boots. or my combat boots) and done. It always gives the impression that you put more thought into your outfit than you actually did. I want a cute cable knit sweater, because I've seen some girls wearing them with button down shirts underneath and ohmygosh. So cute.

Another clothing item: scarves. I have way too many, and this season is the perfect time to throw on a different one every day of the week. 

During this season, you also have a great variety of choices when it comes to beverages. In the summer or spring time, there's iced tea. There's lemonade. There's soda (but who wants to drink that all the time?). Fall (and winter, I suppose...) are the prime time for warm beverages. When I get up in the morning I drink some coffee. Later, I might have some Pakistani chai. Then I could drink hot chocolate or the awesome chai tea latte stuff Kira gave me. It's so nice to just grab one of these beverages, cuddle up in a cozy sweater, grab a soft blanket and sit on a comfy chair and read. Ugh.

So basically, yes. I have a huge crush on this season, okay?!

~ Fatima

Oh My God.

The post I made before this one talked about how I wouldn't stop writing on this blog.

Posted on June 27, 2012. That's embarrassing.

It is officially 108 days since I made a blog post and I now know better than to say "it's different this time, I'll regularly post to my blog." I think by doing that, I put a lot of pressure on myself to make the blog post, even though there is probably no one that is reading it anymore.

It's also kind of awkward, because coming to this blank template is like seeing a friend you used to be really close with. It used to be so easy to talk to them and tell them what you're thinking, but after so much has changed, you don't even know where to begin.

It's funny because even though I'm the closest to home, I'm the one that has been the least successful in adjusting to college life. I think there's many reasons for that; one, I've never really been away from home before. I never really slept over at friends' houses (it wasn't allowed), and I never wen't to sleep away camp. Another reason is that I wasn't really expecting to live in a dorm, so I never mentally prepared myself for it. Lastly, the compromise I had with my parents on living in a dorm was that I would come home on the weekends. It's a good cure to homesickness but a kick in the face to making friends, because the weekends are when everyone hangs out and gets to know each other.

So yeah it's been kind of slow and tough, but I've also been really awkward with making friends. My first couple of weeks at Wayzata were torturous until I became friends with Haley. I'm sure the same things is happening now.

Sorry to whine, but hey, like I said. I'm sure no one is reading this.

On a happier note, I'm so happy it's fall! I hope Minnesota lets us have more than a week or so before it starts snowing. I'm really excited because fall means sweaters and scarves and boots and mittens and hot drinks and blankets and pretty leaves and ❤.

~ Fatima

I Won't Give Up

I know what you're thinking.

That Fatima. She always promises she'll do certain blog posts but she never follows through.

I totally admit that is very true for me in the past (I'm sorry I never did that assignment that I assigned, Kira...). But, the project that I introduced a couple weeks ago? I am working on it.

I have found through this writing project I assigned for myself that it is incredibly hard to write about yourself, the experiences you've had, things you've done, everything. I don't know how authors can write full autobiographies. It's even harder when you're trying to write about your experiences when they are ones that you can't even remember yourself. I know writing the "high school" chapter will be way easier because it just passed. The one from when I'm a baby? Not so much.

It is cool to get to hear my mom tell me stuff I didn't know I did when I was younger, and I have learned that I was a very quirky child.

So...I shall post the "first chapter" eventually. I haven't given up on it.

Till then, you can look forward to hearing stories about me being obsessed with clothes, hair made out of scarves, and eating a ton of Nutella.

Love,

Fatima

PS. Did you like the title to this blog post? I was just listening to that song. It's great.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

So this movie is finally coming out!
I had read the book by Stephen Chbosky in eleventh grade Upper Level Comp during reading time. I had not had a book with me, so I had borrowed this one off of Mrs. Cardona's shelf.
It was a fantastic book, and the movie looks like it will be a good one too.

And I just adore Emma Watson.

Also, sidenote: the top comment said that Emma Watson would make a really terrific Alaska Young. What do you think about that, Kira? Do you agree? Just wondering haha.

Project idea?

You know when you're about to hang out with/see someone that you have not interacted with in a long time? And even though you used to be really close to them, you're suddenly self conscious of every part of your existence?

That's how I feel right now writing on this blog.

Okay enough about how I feel like a failure with my blog. Seriously, Fatima, get over yourself.

So, I guess high school is over. How crazy is that? I remember a couple of months ago I made a really dramatic blog post (which, despite being dramatic, was pretty true for how I feel about the situation) about how everything will be different at this time next year, and there's nothing we can do about it. It's just something that's got to happen to everyone at some time, even though it may seem like we're the first people to feel the way that we do about the situation.

Another chapter in our lives has just ended, and we're about to start a new one titled College (ahhh!).

I just kind of had what could be a cool idea for a project for my blog.

What if for the next couple of days/weeks I posted about my experiences thus far from each of the chapters of my life? It could either go poorly or be kind of fun to look at. I think I shall.

Fatima's Life (So Far) by Fatima Fareed
Index:
Chapter One - Birth, Baby and Toddler years
Chapter Two - Elementary School Experiences
Chapter Three - Middle School Experiences (that are usually ignored but for the purpose of this activity I guess we can revisit them...)
Chapter Four - High School Experiences
Chapter Five - College Experiences (Coming Soon...)

Ehh? Eh?