I WANTED IN!!! Almaghrib Institute is hosting an awesome, but exclusive, two week retreat in August called “Ilm Summit” and I didn’t want to miss it. I was especially excited about it when I saw some of the topics that were going to be discussed. The only problem was that there was an application and admissions process.

I am not normally fond of admissions processes because you in effect subordinate yourself to another’s judgment and validation. Every time you apply for something like this you are saying “please let me in” and open yourself to a an arbitrary “hell no.”

I also had another problem. Based on the criteria for admission posted on the AlMaghrib Forums and the questions in the application, I didn’t stand a good chance of getting in.

What to do, what to do.

Well, I figured if my chances of being accepted were low anyway and I didn’t like humiliating myself via the application process, I would turn to my old friend “unorthodoxy.” Let it be known that unorthodox methods are a crap shoot. You are banking on being unique and original enough to attract attention to your application and hoping that the guy on the other side doesn’t have the tightwad reaction where his chin retracts into his neck and says “I am not impressed.”

Anyway, I decided to do what I do best. I wrote a mediocre poem about how they would miss out big if they don’t invite me. Now I will share that poem with you: Enjoy.

What is a Poem Worth?

What is a poem worth?
Can it as an application serve?
If it inspires in you mirth
a shot it surely does deserve.

Without being too uncouth
I’ll bluntly tell you the truth …

Your gathering is in poverty
without my linguistic harmony,
and so i offer quite candidly,
by declaring my interest openly
an opportunity to avoid a calamity
in excluding me and my poetry,

This is my vanity
which I admit wholeheartedly.
The choice is yours, but in all sincerity
excluding me would be a gross catastrophe.

the Man Of Few Words

I guess I wasn’t clear about this but I did get accepted with this poem in my application. Several people asked me if I got in or not. I thought the title of this post was self explanatory but apparently not.

Sometime while in class working as a substitute teacher, I have just had enough and so this is how I deal with it. (more…)

“I hate this class!” Jessica* said frowning while looking down at her assignment. Those were the words that sparked the first grade mutiny. Like any good leader I had to deal with this quickly and decisively. I was a student teacher and this was my first grade ESL (English as a second language) class. I already had experience teaching so the cooperating teacher split the class in two and left me in charge of seven students all of whom had their attention now intently fixed on me. My next step was crucial, my every word and facial expression was being meticulously studied by those young but misleadingly sharp minds. What is he going to do now? How is he going to handle this? Is this teacher just a chump? I knew these questions were all running through their minds.

(more…)