This past week, I was at the Asian American Journalist Convention in Houston, TX; my hometown. I was privileged to meet some wonderful people and hopefully, future employers. I also was invited to attend NBC University, a day long workshop, sponsored by NBC (obviously). We were asked to produce a script on a particular story and we would get critiqued…
Around the end of June, I was able to go to Seattle with my fiance. I hadn’t flown in a plane since I was about 11 or 12, so this was an exciting time for me. Also, because the last time I “travelled” was when I was 16 and went to Atlanta. The lights from the downtown skyscrapers illuminated the…
Mash’Allah I ran into my former boss today from when I was 18 years old. I worked at an Indo-Paki restaurant but we also had pizza, burgers and Mediterranean food. It was my first job and I loved it so much that I would often come during my off days and help out cause I was bored and had nothing…
This is a late post and is pretty irrelevant. It’s just shameless self-promotion of my work as a scholar. This was a reaction paper for my Theories & Methods class I took in the Fall Semester of 2017. My professor praised the paper so much and I think it was also a pretty good start to a successful semester (shukarAllah)…
I did an essay a year or so ago for my Senior Seminar History class and I decided to revise, edit and post it here. This is my contribution to the History of Emotions. Determining the ethics of actions taken by humans is a challenge and narrowing it down to intentions, helps it seem less complex. Judging the intentions of…
This essay was inspired by my beautiful and supportive fiancé, Emily. A couple days ago, my lady was in town and she told me she heard this quote on NPR and was curious what my response on it would be. In all honesty, I tried looking for the quote albeit not very vigorously so you’ll have to bear with the…
Pakistan Zindabad! Jai Hind! Azad Kashmir! (Pakistan Live Long! India Live Long! Free Kashmir!) Today marks the 70th anniversary of Pakistan’s Independence from India. And tomorrow, will be the 70th Anniversary of India’s Independence from Britain. Strangely, we cannot celebrate the two events together. Just ask bollywood playback singer, Mika Singh. Poor guy had the purest intentions to have Pakistanis…
This is such a broad question to ask, of whether or not loyalty to something signifies that one is subservient in the ideological sense. If I am going to swear my allegiance to my country, does this mean I am forbidden from criticizing it? If I were to do so, does that mean my status as a “loyal citizen” is…
My sincere apologies for the delay in writing this. I was supposed to publish this after the end of Ramadan, but I got caught up with other things. Please excuse me and Eid Mubarak! The fact that I have to explain why I believe what I believe is really annoying. This is an issue that plagues Muslims worldwide, where we…
The following essay was written for a scholarship that I applied to. The prompt was to write on a book that inspired and/or has impacted my interest in studying History. This was not a difficult question because, though there have been many books, essays, and lectures from professors that have been positively influential to me, the foundation of what inspired…