January.

My mom's cousin dropped by today to take her out for dinner. We chatted for a little bit, and she remarked on how quickly the past several years of my university education had gone by. I replied by saying it was, in fact, the contrary - it felt like it had gone by pretty slowly to me.

Of course, that wasn't entirely true. I've written about this before: time doesn't really seem to me to be going by quickly or slowly. It just goes at the exactly the pace that it does. Seconds are seconds, hours are hours, and yes, years are years. I obviously kept this to myself as it didn't really seem like the kind of conversation to be dropping this sort of observation in.

Anyway, it has been several years - six, to be precise - since I started my undergraduate studies at Manipal in January 2013. It's January 2019 now, and I'm rushing to submit my thesis. I say I'm rushing, but I use that word rather loosely here. In any case, I'm confident of being able to finalize it by next week, insyaAllah.

I've already been thinking about what I'm going to do next. That PhD scholarship option seems the way to go at the moment, assuming the terms and conditions are satisfactory. The monthly allowance could be supplemented with a part-time job at (preferably) a bookstore somewhere, leading to a fairly healthy income.

The other option, of course, is to not further my studies and get started with my career. What that career will be, I honestly don't know yet - the thought of having to deal with office politics makes me never want to work with other people, ever.

But enough about that. There's still so much uncertainty with regards to my future that I find it tedious to talk about. At this point I've more or less given up on coming up with concrete, detailed plans for my future because they've never worked out. I've come to accept that the path Allah wants for me is better than anything I could ever come up with myself. It's sufficient to just know where I want to go and make my way there; how I get there is up to Him.

One of Those Nights.

I'm in the final stages of my Master's degree. All that's left now is to make some corrections to my thesis, submit it, and then go for and pass the viva. I'm thankful that I've somehow made it this far. This seemed a long, long way off at this point last year.

Naturally, once you see the end of a chapter in sight, you start to think about what's coming next. To be honest, it's something I've thought about for a while now, but day by day, the need to make a decision becomes more and more pertinent. People ask what I'm going to do once I graduate, and, as often as that happens, it's still not as much as I ask myself that same question.

At the moment, there are only two things that I definitely want to commit to in 2019. The first is my role as Sponsorship Officer in the latest entity I've volunteered for, the Charisma Movement. The other is my journey into the world of the Deaf, as I will resume sign language classes in February.

The big question that still needs answering, of course, is of whether I'll be studying, working or both next year. I'm currently leaning towards going straight into a PhD, but only if the terms and conditions (particularly how much I'll be paid) of the scholarship that I'll supposedly be offered are right. Even if they are, I'm thinking I should probably get a part-time job somewhere to make a little extra and get some experience, probably at a bookstore somewhere.

I don't have big ambitions for my career. There was a point several years ago when I wanted to be rich, but then somewhere along the way I realized that money alone was not enough of a driver for me. It would be nice to have enough money to never worry about finances again, but that in itself couldn't give me enough of a push. There are other things that I value more in my life, namely my relationships with the people I care about.

To not be stuck in a job that keeps me away from home all day, every day means that I get to spend time with my friends and family. I get to watch my siblings grow, spend time with my grandmother, and be a calm, listening comfort to my overly stressed friends. The way I see it, you can always go out and get money, but time that has gone can never be replaced.

How long will this last? God only knows. He has put me into these circumstances for reasons only He is privy to, and I can only trust His plan. There are pros and cons, sure, but there's no such thing as a completely perfect situation. All we can do is be thankful for the good stuff and be patient in facing the bad.

I don't know what's compelled me to write this: yet another poorly-structured collection of thoughts that will barely benefit anyone who isn't interested in my life. I'm gonna read this back months, maybe years, from now, and wonder what on earth I was going through at the time. Well, future Ammar, the answer is simply that it was one of those nights. It wasn't too much of a dark time, but not much of a bright one either. It was in that area in between, where your thoughts and emotions are all mixed together like an experimental soup, and there's no one available at the moment to express them to. You'll probably remember that those nights were quite frequent, and the number of messy blog posts you've gotten out of them is only a tiny taste of how much actually went on.

Well, future Ammar, hopefully you're in a good place. Maybe you've finally figured out what you want to do with your life. Maybe you've finally found that person you want to spend the rest of your days with. Or maybe you've achieved something you've always wanted to do. Whatever it is, hopefully you're happier. And hopefully, 'one of those nights' is now a thing of the past.

Postcards.

A friend of mine recently went to Turkey for a post-graduation trip. I half-jokingly asked for a postcard, not expecting I would actually receive one, but receive one I (eventually) did. I was grateful for it, and it got me thinking about just how great postcards really are as souvenirs.

When someone sends you a postcard, especially in this day and age, it says a lot. A postcard says "Hey, here's a personalized message I wrote just for you, while thinking about you. I'm out here enjoying myself in this faraway land, but I took the time to pick out this postcard in a design I think you'd appreciate, pay money for it, think about what to write to you, write (as opposed to typing) it out in my hopefully legible handwriting, and then locate and make my way to a local post office to then pay more money to get it posted all the way to where you are. Also, I know where you live."

Unless, of course, the message on the postcard is something boring and generic like "Wish you were here!" Something like that indicates that the sender obviously doesn't actually wish you were there with them, because if they really cared enough about you to want you to be there they would have been bothered to write a little bit more than what sounds like something a bunch of marketing executives hurriedly and indifferently came up with during a 5.15 pm meeting. The postcard sender would still know where you live, though.

A regular souvenir, on the other hand - like, say, a keychain - is thus pretty dull in comparison. Someone will come home after a week away on vacation and come back with a bag full of keychains. "Here you go, take one," they'll say. "I just bought these in a rush on my last day so that people won't get all bitter about me not bringing anything back for them. And by 'people' I mean all of you in general; I wasn't thinking about each of your individual tastes and preferences when I got these because I was too busy enjoying myself to cater to each and every one of you," is what they'll think, but won't say.

I'm only joking, of course. I appreciate any sort of souvenir, but I just wanted to highlight just how superior postcards are in that particular gift category. And it's kinda sad how postcards are dying out (this is based on actual statistics as well as common sense).

When I went to France in 2016, I sent postcards to three of my friends back home. The first friend had asked for one, just because of that one song by The Band Perry. The second friend knew nothing about hers until it reached her mailbox - she'd never traveled in her life and I thought it would be a nice surprise that might possibly inspire her to go on a trip of her own someday. And the third friend, well, I don't really remember if I'd offered to send it or if it had been asked for.

So after having sent out postcards of my own, it was nice to receive one (even if it wasn't from one of the friends I'd previously sent a postcard to). I have to admit, though, I probably like sending them more than I do receiving them. I suppose that could just be because I have my own idea of what a good postcard looks like, and it's a different idea from what other people have. Regardless, I want to send more postcards in the future. How many I end up sending is obviously dependent on how much traveling I end up doing, so I guess I should save up.

Upon reflection, saving up money to travel just so I can send postcards to people does sound like something I would do. Which means that I want to do it even more now.