Rukhsana Khan's Blog, page 2

The Art of Over Preparing…

I remember the incident well!

I’d come back from an overseas tour and was attending a family literacy night at a school that had booked me.

I was tired.

When your schedule fills up, and it’s busy season, it comes with a level of exhaustion that doesn’t get satisfied with just a good night’s sleep.

Anyway, it was some school about an hour away. I thought piece of cake. Went there, thought of what I would say, got up and said it, and then called to the principal that I was done. She seemed surprised, and I realized I’d made the mistake of not asking how long they wanted me to speak.

I made the assumption that like in most cases, they’d want a brief fifteen minute presentation.

That look on the principal’s face gave me a jolt and ever since then I’ve always tended towards over preparation rather than under.

There’s no worse feeling than standing in front of a group of people and your mind going blank because you ran out of things to say.

I firmly believe in leaving them wanting more!

And so now, as I prepare for a zoom seminar, I find myself creating a presentation I likely won’t be able to completely finish. Not unless I talk very fast! Which I tend to do anyway.

But I want to give them a bang for every buck, so I over prepare!

It makes me feel a lot better! It’s the consideration I would want if I was booking my services!

A Reason Why Young People aren’t Taking Covid seriously…

Have you heard of the coronavirus parties in Alabama, where young people get together in packed venues and whoever catches it first gets a cash prize?

At first this might seem ridiculous and counter intuitive and it is. But I keep thinking of that scene in School of Rock when the principal of the school is being confronted by all the parents. She’s trying to speak to them and they’re all in her face screaming. So she goes outside and the teacher runs up to her telling her that the kids are gone. (They’ve left for a field trip.)

The smile on her face is funny. It too seems counter intuitive.

But when things are so off track, when they’re so awful horrible, the instinct is actually to laugh.

I think that’s what’s happening with the young people.

They’ve been under so much strain for so very long that with all this doom and gloom they’re just throw it out the window, I’m going to party.

It’s kind of understandable.

But very very sad.

With the death of Nick Cordero, a youngish actor who caught covid 19, and the fact that it’s a very dangerous disease and many of them may well die from it…it’s very sad.

It’s a sign of dysfunction in society. It’s a sign when they’ve got tons of debt from a school degree that shouldn’t have cost them that much, that they’re willing to just be reckless because life is just too much…

May God help us all.

A Reason Why Young People aren’t Taking Covid seriously…

Have you heard of the coronavirus parties in Alabama, where young people get together in packed venues and whoever catches it first gets a cash prize?

At first this might seem ridiculous and counter intuitive and it is. But I keep thinking of that scene in School of Rock when the principal of the school is being confronted by all the parents. She’s trying to speak to them and they’re all in her face screaming. So she goes outside and the teacher runs up to her telling her that the kids are gone. (They’ve left for a field trip.)

The smile on her face is funny. It too seems counter intuitive.

But when things are so off track, when they’re so awful horrible, the instinct is actually to laugh.

I think that’s what’s happening with the young people.

They’ve been under so much strain for so very long that with all this doom and gloom they’re just throw it out the window, I’m going to party.

It’s kind of understandable.

But very very sad.

With the death of Nick Cordero, a youngish actor who caught covid 19, and the fact that it’s a very dangerous disease and many of them may well die from it…it’s very sad.

It’s a sign of dysfunction in society. It’s a sign when they’ve got tons of debt from a school degree that shouldn’t have cost them that much, that they’re willing to just be reckless because life is just too much…

May God help us all.

Why is online stuff so hard???

I’m not that old! Really, I’m not!

And I’ve been doing this stuff for a while, but sometimes just buying a pair of socks can turn into a nightmare!

Whoever heard of creating a password for an online sock account?

And then there’s organizations like Kiva, where you’re really just trying to do some good but again it turns into a nightmare!

And don’t get me started on all those passwords that have to have a symbol an upper case and a lower case and a number and have to be at least 8 digits!

I really like Kiva, as an idea. It’s basically an online charitable donation organization that operates all over the world.

You can read people’s stories and decide to contribute towards giving them an interest free loan. Sounds great right?

But… what happened is that my mom wanted to get in on it, so she gave me a lump of money to manage. Basically I look over people’s stories and donate. Again, no problem. The mistake I made was creating a separate account. Now there’s two passwords to memorize, two accounts to manage from two different emails.

And then trying to coordinate between them, AAAArrrrghh!

And now all the zoom stuff to figure out.

Last night I had a wonderful idea!

I’ve always thought of creating an after school group for disadvantaged kids, where I read them stories and developed their English skills.

I really do think that reading and English skills is the key to unlock all kinds of learning.

If parents simply read to their kids–I know it sounds simplistic but honestly the exposure to language makes ALL the difference!

If they just read to their kids and talked to their kids and engaged with them in terms of what the stories mean, what they’re getting from them, the kids’ thinking would be stimulated, their cognitive processes would benefit and all aspects of learning would be helped out!

But in disadvantaged homes with parents trying hard enough to just survive, there’s hardly any time for that.

There are all kinds of programs for kids in terms of athletics but that’s not what they all need. Not all of them will go on to become star athletes!

Anyway, why I’m talking about this, it occurs to me that this could happen through zoom. Most kids have access to a phone and could engage with me where I could teach them what could benefit them and give them advantages that other children take for granted.

But that means navigating zoom! AAAArrrrggghhh! God help me!

I have good intentions but the frustrations are trying.

But I will see what I can do.

The next few years are going to be tough, I’m afraid, and I want to do what I can to give kids hope.

If you want to be involved in anyway, let me know. I’m reaching out. The technology is a pain but at the same time there’s so much potential!

Why is online stuff so hard???

I’m not that old! Really, I’m not!

And I’ve been doing this stuff for a while, but sometimes just buying a pair of socks can turn into a nightmare!

Whoever heard of creating a password for an online sock account?

And then there’s organizations like Kiva, where you’re really just trying to do some good but again it turns into a nightmare!

And don’t get me started on all those passwords that have to have a symbol an upper case and a lower case and a number and have to be at least 8 digits!

I really like Kiva, as an idea. It’s basically an online charitable donation organization that operates all over the world.

You can read people’s stories and decide to contribute towards giving them an interest free loan. Sounds great right?

But… what happened is that my mom wanted to get in on it, so she gave me a lump of money to manage. Basically I look over people’s stories and donate. Again, no problem. The mistake I made was creating a separate account. Now there’s two passwords to memorize, two accounts to manage from two different emails.

And then trying to coordinate between them, AAAArrrrghh!

And now all the zoom stuff to figure out.

Last night I had a wonderful idea!

I’ve always thought of creating an after school group for disadvantaged kids, where I read them stories and developed their English skills.

I really do think that reading and English skills is the key to unlock all kinds of learning.

If parents simply read to their kids–I know it sounds simplistic but honestly the exposure to language makes ALL the difference!

If they just read to their kids and talked to their kids and engaged with them in terms of what the stories mean, what they’re getting from them, the kids’ thinking would be stimulated, their cognitive processes would benefit and all aspects of learning would be helped out!

But in disadvantaged homes with parents trying hard enough to just survive, there’s hardly any time for that.

There are all kinds of programs for kids in terms of athletics but that’s not what they all need. Not all of them will go on to become star athletes!

Anyway, why I’m talking about this, it occurs to me that this could happen through zoom. Most kids have access to a phone and could engage with me where I could teach them what could benefit them and give them advantages that other children take for granted.

But that means navigating zoom! AAAArrrrggghhh! God help me!

I have good intentions but the frustrations are trying.

But I will see what I can do.

The next few years are going to be tough, I’m afraid, and I want to do what I can to give kids hope.

If you want to be involved in anyway, let me know. I’m reaching out. The technology is a pain but at the same time there’s so much potential!

Ramadan on lockdown

It’s been an interesting Ramadan.

I find that no matter what kind of upheaval is going on in the world, and over the last few years upheaval has been inevitable, as soon as Ramadan arrives a feeling of peace and calm descends on me like a misty spring shower.

This year is no different.

I have so much to be thankful for, and Ramadan always heightens that feeling of gratitude in me.

Yesterday was the tenth fast.

10 fasts out of 29 or 30 already done!

Ramadan always goes so fast!!! I can’t believe a third of it is already over.

I’ve been praying! A lot!

This Ramadan I hope to pray taraweeh, that’s the extra night prayers, every night.

Last night I was so exhausted I wanted to skip, but I still managed to pray two extra. Usually it’s eight.

Makes me feel so happy!

And afterwards I pray for all those who are suffering. There are so many! And I’ve been increasing the amount of sadaqa (charity).

Many charities especially Muslim charities bump up the requests during Ramadan because most Muslims choose Ramadan to pay their zakat.

Zakat literally means ‘purification’ and it has to do with wealth. If a Muslim has more than a certain amount of providence above their daily needs, then they’re required to donate 2 1/2 % to the poor. That’s a must. It’s an act of worship that helps ‘purify’ our wealth. Thanking God for all His bounty by giving to those less fortunate because but for the grace of God that could be us.

Then there’s extra charity you can do above and beyond that which is called sadaqa.

When I give sadaqa I look for the neglected causes.

I am definitely not a bandwagon jumper. If I see everyone flocking to a cause, I will deliberately look for other underfunded entities.

In these difficult times, it’s so important to up our charitable giving.

People are suffering, but if we are kind to each other, we can and will get through this, insha Allah.

Take care everyone!

Ramadan on lockdown

It’s been an interesting Ramadan.

I find that no matter what kind of upheaval is going on in the world, and over the last few years upheaval has been inevitable, as soon as Ramadan arrives a feeling of peace and calm descends on me like a misty spring shower.

This year is no different.

I have so much to be thankful for, and Ramadan always heightens that feeling of gratitude in me.

Yesterday was the tenth fast.

10 fasts out of 29 or 30 already done!

Ramadan always goes so fast!!! I can’t believe a third of it is already over.

I’ve been praying! A lot!

This Ramadan I hope to pray taraweeh, that’s the extra night prayers, every night.

Last night I was so exhausted I wanted to skip, but I still managed to pray two extra. Usually it’s eight.

Makes me feel so happy!

And afterwards I pray for all those who are suffering. There are so many! And I’ve been increasing the amount of sadaqa (charity).

Many charities especially Muslim charities bump up the requests during Ramadan because most Muslims choose Ramadan to pay their zakat.

Zakat literally means ‘purification’ and it has to do with wealth. If a Muslim has more than a certain amount of providence above their daily needs, then they’re required to donate 2 1/2 % to the poor. That’s a must. It’s an act of worship that helps ‘purify’ our wealth. Thanking God for all His bounty by giving to those less fortunate because but for the grace of God that could be us.

Then there’s extra charity you can do above and beyond that which is called sadaqa.

When I give sadaqa I look for the neglected causes.

I am definitely not a bandwagon jumper. If I see everyone flocking to a cause, I will deliberately look for other underfunded entities.

In these difficult times, it’s so important to up our charitable giving.

People are suffering, but if we are kind to each other, we can and will get through this, insha Allah.

Take care everyone!

The Coronavirus lockdown…

What else?

Is there anything else to be talking about right now?

I remember vividly the moment, a few weeks ago, when the enormity of this crisis really hit me. I was sitting on the sofa across from my husband, we were still planning my son’s wedding party and the numbers had started going up here at home, and I looked at my husband and said in a matter of fact tone, “This is a disaster.”

Four words. This-is-a-disaster.

All this time, we in the west have been living a charmed life. When the tsunami happened in Indonesia, we mobilized to help. When the earthquakes in Iran and Turkey and other catastrophes, they were things that happened far away.

More and more, that spirit of generosity has been fading.

It’s because people right here in North America have been having a harder time surviving. When you have less, you give less, right?

That’s to be expected, I guess. And then Syria and the Rohingya and Uighurs, and then Trump began locking up kids in cages and people were more excited about the feuds between stupid celebrities.

But all this time I’ve been nursing a feeling of dread. I think it comes through in some of my posts. I’ve been looking at the statistics that no one is talking about, like the fact that between the years 2000 and 2017 the rate of children five years old to seventeen years old committing suicide or trying to has doubled. And in adults, it’s gone up 300%. And I’ve been following psychiatrists who predicted a catastrophe under Trump and given his narcissistic personality disorder, that he would do everything he could to make it worse.

Why does Trump keep talking about how many more will kill themselves??? Apparently, he gets off on suffering. (Other people’s suffering that is.)

Isn’t it awful that for years, while we’ve lived our lives in an oblivious manner, while kids are locked up in cages, Uighurs are imprisoned in concentration camps, Rohingya, Palestinians, people all over the world are suffering, isn’t it awful now that this disease which we cannot even see with our naked eye, is imprisoning all of us?

God help us all.

Recently some online newsletter claimed that some physical brawl between two celebrity siblings that was shown on some reality was actually worse than it appeared. What I found encouraging was that I wasn’t the only person who thought, “Who the heck cares?”

People trying to snag the spotlight, that’s all. These useless celebrities know that if they don’t make headlines they risk becoming irrelevant and that would provide the death knell for their ‘influencer’ status. It’s about time.

I’ve scaled back. I take care of what is within my family circle, especially my aged parents. Now more than ever, we need to focus on what’s real.

And if it’s of any comfort, I keep thinking of this very old fable from Afghanistan, and I will leave it here for you in case you also find it soothing. There was a very good wise king, and his people wanted to thank him for his service so they got together to make him a ring but wondered what to inscribe on it. Eventually they found the perfect inscription: This too shall pass.

When he received the gift from his people he asked them what it meant. And the people answered, “When you’re in the midst of good times, when everything is going well, we hope you look down at the ring and remind yourself that ‘this too shall pass’. And plan for when things take a turn. And when you’re in the worst of times, we want you to look down and remind yourself, ‘this too shall pass’ because nothing stays bad forever.

Everything is transient, and our life is transient, so make plan for what will come ahead.

Don’t take for granted the life that God has given you. Plan for your life like you will live forever but live your life like you will die tomorrow for one day, you surely shall.

God bless everyone. Stay safe and remember, this too shall pass.

In a time of pandemic…community!

Everyone is dealing with an upended new reality what with the pandemic and all.

I’ve lost gigs and income but on the whole, I count myself fortunate.

And in the grand scheme of things I’ve decided to give back, do what I can to make life a bit more bearable.

What can I give back? Knowledge and learning! And author workshops.

I still have to ensure that I don’t give out my bread and butter. Those are the presentations I’ve honed and refined over twenty years of storytelling that feature my books. They form a significant percentage of my income and I can’t give those away for free.

But this is an opportunity to explore things that I don’t have time to talk about in those presentations.

And in this time of community I thought what better book to showcase than Many Windows: Six Kids, Five Faiths, One Community!

It’s all about community!

It’s a collection of seven connected stories about six kids (on the cover) who are friends despite their religious differences.

So I’ve created a series of author workshops that parents can watch with their children, highlighting each story and what kids can learn from them in a workshop format.

What I suggest is that parents watch the videos (each video is about 15 minutes long) with their children, and then discuss the points I make in the video. Each story is part of a larger story arc, and I talk about how the whole is building from each character’s story.

A librarian friend of mine told me he teared up by the end of it! And this guy is big and strong!!! It really is a good book, but unfortunately people didn’t quite get what myself and my fellow authors were trying to accomplish. So….sometimes you got a explain it. And I do.

Here’s the first workshop I uploaded on my Youtube channel MsRukhsanaKhan.

If you retweet the links I will add your name to a draw that I will do at the end of the last story, for a draw for a free copy of the book!

It’s not too late to retweet!

We’re all in this together!

The Beauty of Perseverance

I keep thinking of people I met along the way who were incredibly talented.

They could tap into a child’s perspective with ease, writing from an innocent yet knowing angle that never talked down to the child reader. They could express a child’s deepest concerns in a beautiful way that was accessible to the child and adult who had once been a child.

But they lacked the ability to take rejection, and so they eventually fizzled. They went back to their day jobs and grew a little bitter thinking that the world didn’t understand them.

No, it was because their brilliance was raw.

There was something there but they hadn’t refined it yet. They hadn’t smoothed the rough edges off the concepts they were trying to convey so that the end result was just a titch clumsy.

Instead of persevering, learning the skills that they lacked, they gave up.

I’m particularly I’m thinking of this person I met who was extremely funny! Her pitches were to die for, but…her writing was weak. It was clunky, flabby. It needed judicious editing. Pretty much all manuscripts get edited but if you’ve got too many rookie mistakes, the editor or agent can’t get past them and they’ll just put it to the side.

In this day and age there is way too much competition for diminishing returns, so it happens a lot.

And I keep thinking of the people I’ve met more recently whose own emotional baggage seems to get in their way.

Recently, on Netflix I watched a fascinating documentary on Toni Morrison. I had bought one of her books a long time ago as part of Oprah’s book club or something, called Paradise. Maybe it’s not her best or something, but when I started reading it, I found my mind confused. She kind of repeated herself and I had to go back and reread the passage.

Then I remember a quote from the documentary. Oprah had said the same thing to her. She said that she often got confused and had to go back and reread what she’d just read. And Toni answered, “That’s called reading.”

It sounded incredibly pretentious to me. The kind of answer that a fixture in the upper echelons of LITERATURE would say. Give me a break.

That is not good writing.

Good writing is simple writing. Simple but deep, and that is incredibly hard to achieve.

Never should you confuse the reader in terms of what you just said.

Now much of Toni Morrison’s language was quite lyrical and beautiful, don’t get me wrong, there were things to admire, but the fact that I constantly have to go back and reread passages is darn frustrating. Some readers will put up with it, but I’m afraid I have a hard time.

I’m sure she’s leading up to something worthwhile she’s trying to say but darn if she didn’t sprinkle a whole bunch of tacks along her literary path so that it makes the journey harder.

And I don’t think you ever want to make the journey harder.

The biggest problem I have with the literati is that they think obfuscation makes the work deeper.

Nah. I don’t buy that.

Authors like Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and Mark Twain were successful because they did not rely on obfuscation, but rather character to tell their stories.

Well what happened after I made a critical statement about Toni Morrison’s writing online was that I ended up offending another author who really looks up to her.

And my criticism was seen as racist.

It made me sad.

To think this person saw me as racist just because I dared criticize someone who admired and aspired to.

Up till then I’d really respected this person, but that kind of defensiveness is hard to defend. And I realized I’d better keep my distance. I might be wrong but with my experience in the field and seeing talent come and go, I find it hard to believe such a person can have the thickness of hide required to succeed in this business.

Thin-skins don’t cut it.

As an author you will be criticized from every angle, you can’t assume that the person doing the criticizing is being racist. Sure, sometimes they are, but not always.

And in my case, definitely not. I was trying very hard to like Toni Morrison’s writing.

Whenever this kind of thing happens though, I retreat and examine what I can learn from it. I question, am I projecting in any way? Am I guilty of being prickly and defensive too?

And I try to be as honest as possible because I have found it’s the best way forward.

Oh…and perseverance. You need oodles of perseverance if you want to make it, and I still feel like, after 20+ years as a published author, I’m still only getting started on all the things I want to say!