It’s been close to nine months since I graduated from GSU and I’m so glad that I did. Some people love college, but for a budget tight person like me, it was a nightmare. Everyone knows college is expensive but GSU does everything in it’s power to get money out of the students.

The prices of books for one semester of classes are close to the amount of a rent of an apartment. And teachers are required to change their book editions every semester so students cannot pass the books along to their peers.

The laboratory classes are a joke, on top of the tuition, lab fees, which are around $30-$40, are required to be paid in order for students to enter the lab. That’s not all the students are required to buy lab manuals from the GSU print shop. That print shop sells the lab manuals for like $15, and you have to pay since the manuals have the worksheets to turn in to report lab results.

The HOPE scholarship no longer pays for full tuition. The HOPE scholarship was started by former Georgia governor Zell Miller over 5 years ago, and it provided full tuition for public colleges for all high school students of Georgia with a 3.0 or above GPA. GSU raises their tuition about a hundred dollars each semester and it gotten so high that the HOPE scholarship administration don’t have enough funding to pay full for every student. FAFSA or any other Federal aid was not available to me because of my family’s income.

GSU does not have an official parking lot. They have to use Turner Field’s parking lot for their students, but that’s when it’s free. Whenever there is a game at Turner Field, students are prohibited from parking there, or they face having their car towed so, students have to go else where to pay for parking. There are other parking lots in GSU but they charge students $5-$7 each day they park.

Students were able to pay their tuition and fees online via GoSolar, which is the computer system for student services. We were able to pay directly to GSU with a VISA credit/debit card; however a while back GSU stopped using VISA; their excuse was VISA charged GSU too much for each transaction. Instead, GSU students now have to pay through a third-party service (not a GSU service) and they charge 2% transaction fee. That 2% is a lot for students; 2% of $2800 is around $58. Basically students have to pay extra to pay for their tuition.

I made a mistake of going to GSU, I had to travel 21 miles every day to go to Downtown Atlanta, and 21 miles back. Some days it took me over an hour to go back and forth and it tired me out. If you are thinking of going to GSU, choose something else like Kennesaw State, UGA, or GGC, or any other school that saves you time and money because attending GSU is not worth it.

MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) is considered to be the hardest test in entry of a post-grad school. In requires the test taker to apply his or her knowledge of the pre-medical sciences: Organic Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Biology, and Physics. On top of the sciences, the AAMC board (the people who administers the test) currently added the verbal and writing sections. Since most physicians in the past cannot write jack, they only know science, the two non-science sections were added to test the user in his or her writing and reading comprehension skills.

I recently bought the Examkrackers books as a package; the US Postal Service screwed up on my order, it was supposed to come in three weeks ago but it just came in. Before the books came in I reviewed the material from my text books and got a good grip on some of it, but it was overwhelming since not all of the materials from the text books will be on the MCAT.

I looked over the Examkrackers books and most of the content looked familiar; I just need to refresh on the material. I have until March or April to get familiarized with the material and so I created a schedule to get organized.

Job
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 9 AM – 6 PM
Wednesday: 8 AM – 5 PM.

School
Organic Chemistry Lab II: 7:30 PM – 10:15 PM

MCAT Studying Time
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 7 PM – 11 PM
Weekends: All day Saturday and Sunday

Obviously I have to study for my Organic Chemistry II Lab, but that’s usually nothing. It just takes about 30 minutes to read the lab procedures and do a pre-lab write up. In and between some breaks I can study for the lab final which should be next to nothing.

Right now is October 7, 2008 and I plan to take the MCAT around March ‘09 or April ’09 so, it gives around 5-6 months of studying time which should be more than enough if I stay on schedule. I have to cover the biology section the most since that’s what I need to work on. As for the chemistry sections and physics, it’s all about if you know the concepts, in which I just need a review on.

I’ll blog on my free time, usually when I have a break at work, but for the most part I won’t blog when I’m at home since I’ll be studying.

So, let’s see how it goes, wish me luck.

It’s appalling to see that there are not that many Bangladeshi origin doctors in America. It’s not that they don’t have the opportunities, it’s just they are lazy. I’ve noticed that a lot of Bangladeshis are too worried about the time that it’ll take to finish their medical education. A lot of Bangladeshis along with other Desis, who went to college with me, dropped the path to do masters, or go into a business related field. I say you struggle now and reap the benefits later; being a doctor has its benefits. Such benefits include: gaining tremendous amount of blessings for helping people cure from the Islamic perspective, sending a lot of remittances back home, in this case, to Bangladesh to start businesses and help relatives, and also gaining respect among a lot of people in the community.

Bangladeshis have contributed a lot from abroad but I still think they can do better if they enter the medical field.

What do you guys think?

Pohela Boishak, a 1300-year-old celebration of Bengal, is celebrated with pride and colors in a park in Atlanta. The event seemed very colorful, with young girls and women wearing red and white sarees and salwr kameez, and the guys wearing white dress shirts and blue jeans or white paijama with red churni. A paijama is an outfit similar to a salwar kameez but the males wear it and the churni or the orna is a long scarf that wraps around the guy’s neck and hangs down in the front to their knees.

Sultana and I planned out what we’ll wear before the day of the program so we’ll notice each other at the Pohela Boishak celebration. She told me she was going to wear a saree and I’ll wear blues and a clear white dress shirt. With a lot of people coming to the program, we had to coordinate with each other so, we’ll know exactly where to go in order to find each other.

I was walking around the park, I was anxious to get a phone call from her. My family arrived early; however Sultana’s family had to wait since her uncle came from work a little later. Sultana’s family took their time to get ready and come. I saw them from a near distance and as Sultana came towards the people everyone notice her. She stood out like Cinderella at her ball. Sultana’s fair skin made her shine tremendously in front of the sun. Her beauty resonated well in front of the crowd. My mom even seemed to notice her and usually my mom looks down on most Desi girls. She walked out from the parking lot with her baby cousin slowly while doing so she noticed where I was standing and she made eye contact. She couldn’t smile or say hi because there were uncles all around and to my surprise they were looking at her too. She was wearing a red and white saree and because she was tall, she stood out well.

For most the time in the program, me and Sultana stood from a distance making eye contact and checking each other out. I was wearing shades so others can’t notice me staring at her; however, Sultana’s eyes can be noticed so she would take slight peaks at me.

Out of nowhere this little FOB came out of nowhere and introduced himself to me. His name was Manik and he was a lot shorter than me. He knew my name and he knew significant information about me. I was surprised since I don’t know that many people in the Bengali community in Atlanta, and this guy knew who I was while I didn’t know who he was. I found out he was from a village in the Noakali district of Bangladesh and he was older than me. I didn’t like him at all, and I wanted to get away from him. I had nothing against him; it was just that he was plain boring. He kept on talking to me in a slang Bengali dialect and I could hardly understand him. He would also bring up topics which I don’t care about. Not only that he would compliment me like the girls; he would emphasize on my looks and it made me feel uncomfortable. I didn’t know if he was gay or not but I didn’t want to find out.

Sultana was walking around with another girl. I later found out that other girl was Manik’s younger sister. I know it’s selfish but I was thinking about using Manik and his little sister to my advantage, to talk to Sultanta. I didn’t feel guilty since I didn’t know them, all I wanted to do was talk to Sultana.
All the staring and checking each other out really got boring. I wanted to talk to her in person but it’s getting impossible as more aunties and uncles are showing up to the program. One of my friends Mahtab came to the program and he would walk around and talk to different people in the program. He noticed that whenever I go somewhere Sultana moves towards there, and whenever Sultana goes somewhere I move towards there.

“Oy, what’s going with you and that girl?” Mahtab asked with suspicion.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, while acting clueless.

“You do know everyone can notice something, she’s staring at you often and I can tell you’re staring at her,” Mahtab replied.

“Dude, we’re just friends and nothing more.”

“Stop lying asshole, I know what’s going on, who is she?”

“Dude, relax, there’s nothing going on,” I assured him.

“I don’t know, but by looking at how you two are acting, it’s as if you’re going out with her.”

“Oh don’t talk nonsense,” I said to Mahtab before he left to say hi to other people. I couldn’t believe it I was going out with her. I didn’t even know what it meant. I haven’t even asked her out on a date. I always refrained from dating any girl because of my Islamic faith, but I was confused on what it really meant.

I messaged Sultana:

Hey gorgeous, meet me somewhere

Sultana replied

Hey handsome, I cant at the moment, everyone is watching

I replied

So what, what r these pplz going to do, I came today just to see u

Sultana replied:

ok ok, how about this, meet me in front of the bathroom

I walked towards the bathroom and she came out with Manik’s teenage sister.

“Hey, wassup,” I greeted Sultanta.

“How’s it going?” She replied back. I looked straight at her and she looked down and if this shiver was going straight down her body.

“All this standing and staring is boring,” I said.

“Yeah, well what can you do, this is a Bengali function,” she replied. I agreed with her, in a Bengali program or a function, in USA, nothing exciting really goes on. It’s all about who can look good and who knows who. After a while of talking, her uncle called; he saw us talking to each other from a distance and told her to return to the where the ladies were. I wasn’t surprised, that’s common attitude among the Bengali adults; to them, it’s a pain when they see a young guy and girl talking, even if it’s nothing sexual.

After Sultanta went back to where the ladies were sitting, I went around the park and said hi to other guys my age. I wasn’t friends with them but I knew them so, to be polite I greeted them and asked how they were doing.

I tried looking for Sultana, and I know it wouldn’t be hard since, she was the most elegant girl at the function in my eyes; however, that kid Manik popped out right in front of me at that moment.

“So, you’re in college?” Manik asked.

“Yes, I am,” I replied.

“What are your hobbies?” He asked with great curiosity; I look at him and I’m thinking, what is wrong with this kid. He wouldn’t leave me alone; whenever I walk away he would follow me and keep on asking his annoying questions.

“Yes I am,” I said, and I quickly walked away from the kid. I walked towards Sultana and I didn’t care what he uncles and aunties thought.

“So, what do you think of all this, are you enjoying yourself?” I asked her.

“Yeah, it’s nice,” she answered kindly. I looked around as I was talking to her and I saw my mom peeking at me and Sultana while she was peeling some mangoes at one of the food benches. I was wondering what my mom was thinking so I decided to go up to her.

“Is that the girl you like?” She asked.

“Umm, yeah, how’d you know?” I asked her, curious to know.
“She seems like you’re type and I can see the smile from both you,” she said. It was just a shock to hear that out of a Bengali adult; my mom seemed to be very cool about this.

“So what do you think?” I asked.

“She seems nice, I suspected that you had interest in her. I even told your dad while you two were talking. But you know, we don’t know her family and you’re in a Bengali function so be careful otherwise people will talk.” She advised me. Apparently, she’s right, people do spread gossips when they see a guy and a girl, who aren’t married, talk.

Sultana came towards one of my family members and asked to hold one of my baby nieces, Ani. Sultana loves kids and she held Ani for a while and played with her, I could see Ani’s mom inspecting Sultana top to bottom. I kept my laughter in when I saw that and just looked the other way.

After three to four hours everyone started to leave. I saw a group of cricket players, who played at the park, all dressed up like the Bangladesh’s national cricket team, passing by and peeking at Sultana. I didn’t get mad nor did I care since Sultana’s full attention was on me. I didn’t know what was going on with my mind, I felt sort of possessive with her, perhaps it’s because I was a guy.

As she walked away from the park with her baby cousin she looked at me and I gave her the signal with my hands down on the side of my pants. I first showed my index finger as ‘1’ and then 4 other fingers as ‘4’ and finally three fingers as ‘3’; I showed 143 which is, an indirect way of saying ‘I love you’ since ‘I’ has one letter, ‘love’ has four letters, and ‘you’ has three letters. Sultana and I agreed to use it whenever we can’t express it in real words; it’s kind of old and corny but we had no choice.

I went home that day with my family, thinking about her. I could feel the happy feeling resonating through my mind and there was a firm, strong, long-lasting smile on my face.

In America and else where in the Western World, Muslims have a hard time establishing a house of worship at times. Muslims are not that rich so, they can’t build gorgeous masjids or mosques out of the blue like the Christians or the Jews do in building churches and synagogues. It usually takes a decade or so for a Muslim community to come together and fund the building of a descent mosque. In USA I saw a trend where a group of noble Muslims will band together and buy an average looking house and make that as their community mosque; over time they will gain funding and expand the size of their mosque.

In North Atlanta, many mosques are in the stage of getting funding to expand their mosque into a beautiful building. However, in Downtown Atlanta, a very old mosque, Al-Farooq Masjid, expanded from 2500 square feet to 46,000 square feet; the mosque is massive, mash’Allah!

I went there last night for Khatam-ul-Quran, it was my first time in the new built mosque and I was just awed by the view of the building. Someone told me the mosque’s construction’s cost was around $80 million and an imam announced that it takes about $30,000 every month for maintenance in paying for the electricity bill, water bill, paying for security, paying the imam, and other employees of the mosque.

The mosque is more than just a place of worship, in other areas it has a conference hall and a school.

When I went there I was so amazed by it’s view that I got out my iPhone and took pictures, check them out below.

This is from the parking lot from the parking deck.

Just because it’s a mosque doesn’t mean it has to deny technology; there is a big flat screen TV in the lobby that outputs a feed from a camera from the brothers’ praying chamber.

The cabinet, in the lobby, hold books about Islam and Qur’ans; the cabinet stands behind the flat screen TV.

This is just decorations under a glass counter in the lobby.

This is a about 6-7 feet in height of a drawing of the new mosque standing in the lobby.

This is a picture of the brothers’ wudu area. As you can see this chamber is only for wudu and it is built nicely and it’s maintained well. The faucets are automatic and water turns on by itself when someone places their hands in front of the sensor.

These are doors to the entrance of the brothers’ praying chamber.

As you can see the brothers’ chamber is magnificent. There’s a lot of space so I’m sure everyone can fit in the chamber.

This is the the view of the larger dome out of the two domes. As you can see it’s decorated in detail to glorify Allah (SWT).

Another view of the brothers’ praying chamber.

If you look closely at the walls you see that it’s made out of marble. Inside the walls are marble all around.

Another view of the brothers’ praying chamber.

This is the view of the sisters’ praying chamber which looks down on the brothers’ chamber. The sisters’ chamber is on the second floor. I couldn’t go in there but I know they have a dome in their area as well.

This is where the imam stands when lecturing and leading the prayer.

You can see brothers reading the Al-Qur’an before tarawee prayer.

This is the backside of the brothers’ chamber right next to the entrance.

This is another view of the sisters’ chamber. As you can see the walls are decorated with Islamic architecture from the time of the Mongols and Turks.

For more information on this, you can check out the mosque’s website here.

The mosque’s address is:
442 14th Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30318

As most of you know this month, from September 1st to September 30th, is the holy month of Ramadan. Due to the fasting I am unable to blog often this month. I was surfing through YouTube and I found this Muslim band from Europe, CoTU (Companions of True Unity), who sang this beautiful song about the holy month. The language of the song seems to be in English, Arabic, and in Dutch. Watch and enjoy.

I remember when gas was $0.99 per gallon in 1999, the good old times are gone and the Arabs are just getting greedier. Gas prices are hiking up and American consumers like us are being hurt financially. I stayed in line in a BP gas station for 30 minutes to fill up my tank with $3.65/gallon before the prices jumped to $4.50/gallon or even more. The following are picture I took while I was waiting in line last night.

$46.96 total is what cost me to completely fill up my tank.

The hardest part of medical school is not the medical study, but applying and getting accepted. Prospective medical students have to get at least one recommendation letter from an academic or a medical professional to be considered to be accepted to medical school.

I’m currently taking Organic Lab II and I already discussed my request to get a letter of recommendation with my instructor. My instructor obliged but in order to get one, I have to come to class on time, be prepared, do all of my laboratory experiments, and get a good grade. I have no problem in doing all of them, but the last one, because in order to get the grade the results of the experiments should come out to the actual results. Unfortunately some of my results do not come out correctly even though I conduct the experiments correctly so my grade can be affected by that.

Volunteering and shadowing a doctor is my second option because it helps a lot in the application process of getting in medical school. However, I have to seek out a doctor and get to know him or her in order to do so and that’s the challenge.

I know it’s a little late but I like to wish to all of my Muslim readers Ramadan Mubarak. In Urdu/Bangla we say Ramazan instead of Ramadan; however I like sticking with the Arabic word. The following is a great Urdu song about the holy month called Ramazan Assalam by Dr. Aamir Liaquat Hussain. I suggest everyone to listen to it; it’s very soothing.

It was a Friday night and I finished all my homework. I called up Sultana to see what she was up to. She talked a bit strange, not in a normal tone like before. I asked her what was wrong but she denied anything was wrong and just asked about my day to change the subject. It’s been two months since I started talking to her and we’ve seen each other from time to time at functions. We were unable to meet up in public because of her aunty and uncle; since she is away from her mom and dad her aunty was very restrictive on her, she could only go to school by herself. I had no problems from my side since I was living at my apartment and my parents couldn’t keep up with where I went or who I meet up with.

“So, what’s your favorite color?” Sultana asked.

“Blue, what’s yours?” I answered and asked her back.

“Oh cool, my favorite color is blue too,” she replied.

“So tell me, what’s on your mind?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh c’mon Sultana, I’ve known you for two months, I know something is not right tonight. What’s on your mind? Did something happen at home?”

“Nothing is on my mind, and no nothing happened.”

“But you’re acting strange; your voice seems a bit strange.” I told her. In the back of my head I was thinking whether she was on her special time of the month. I know hormones in the body makes girls act abnormal and aggressive in those times.

“Nothing happened, don’t worry about a thing.”

“Ok, but you know if you have anything to say you can tell me openly.”

“Oh really? You don’t mind?” She asked, while being surprised.

“No, I don’t. Wait, did you have anything to tell me?”

“Um no, not at the moment. If I have anything to tell you I will definitely tell you.”

“Oh ok, good, because I’m open minded so, I’ll listen.”

“That’s good to hear, and to know. But anyways, you looked so good in the show.”

“Thanks, but you do know there were other guys looking at you. You looked gorgeous in your saree.”

“Oh really, Safa did tell me something like that, but I was looking for you. I was afraid of what you’ll say if I didn’t dress up.”

“Why would you be afraid?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I’m just saying,” she said while lowering her tone.

“You know what, hold that thought, my friend is calling me; hold on for a sec.”

“Sure, I’ll hold on,” Sultana replied. My friend Shaarek called, out of all the random times he had to call me at that time.

“Hello, Bappi,” Shaarek said on the phone.

“What’s up buddy? Please make it quick another person is on the other line,” I told Shaarek.

“Oh ok. I called to tell you that I found General Classroom Building today. Bro it was the building we were at the whole time yo; that’s what GCB stood for.”

“NO! Really? Jee how could that have slipped my mind,” I told him; I pretended to not know anything about the building and acted clueless. If I told him that I knew, then I’ll be in deep sludge with him; the guy was emotional and I didn’t want to upset him.

“Yeah man, I finally found it. Listen the next time you need help finding a building at college you can call me yo,” Shaarek said, advising me.

“Oh, I sure will bro, you’re really smart for finding it,” I complimented him.

“Thanks yo, I guess I got navigation skills like that,” he said while accepting my compliment.

I ended the conversation with him quickly since Sultana was on the other line. Shaarek wanted to be a lawyer but I didn’t know how he’ll do it since it took him over a month to find a building at college. But I hoped for his success and wished him luck, which he needs a lot of.

“Hey I’m back, sorry about that,” I said to Sultana while continuing with our conversation.

“It’s ok so, who called?” She asked.

“Oh just my friend Shaarek, he was just happy that he found something.”

“You’re friend calls you up for something little like that, interesting friends.”

“Yeah, trust me they are very interesting.”

“I have something to tell you but I don’t know how you’ll react.”

“So I was right, something is up.”

“You could say that, but I don’t know what you’ll think. There’s just something going in my mind.”

“Can you give me a hint?” I asked with great eagerness to know what it was.

“It’s something, but I can’t say directly,” she said while speaking carefully.

“Is it something bad?” I asked.

“Well not really, it depends on how you see it. If you find it wrong then you’ll find it bad otherwise you may find it good. I don’t know,” she said to me. I was trying hard to figure out what it could be. I don’t have a single clue about girls. Most of my friends said girls are confusing so now I found out why they said that. I wanted to know what she wanted to tell me, but Sultana still wouldn’t tell me directly. We were friends for a while and we talked for hours every single day. I didn’t know what possibly would be wrong with what she had to say, that would affect our friendship.

Our friendship was one of a kind. She and I took high priorities in taking to each other. She would check up on me often to see if I ate or did my homework or did my regular prayers. I was amazed by her caring personality. I had this weird feeling inside me but I couldn’t describe it in words because I just couldn’t.

We ended the call and eventually I went to bed but I didn’t fall asleep. She didn’t tell me what she had to say before we hung up but she did tell me that I will find out. I was eager to know but at the same time I was afraid her news would be bad. All through that hour I couldn’t help myself but to get up and walk around. I wanted call her back but I’m sure she was sleeping. When I was close to falling asleep I got a text message from her to my phone.

Sultana wrote:

‘listen…I’m really sorry that I kept this to myself and I didn’t tell you. I just think we have something good going on…you are a really good friends, but I don’t know what you’ll say if you knew what’s going on with me’

I had a hard time understanding why she was like that. I didn’t do anything bad to her and nor did she do anything bad to me. I didn’t know exactly what she had to say. So I replied to her text message.

I wrote:

‘Sultana , y r u acting like this? This is not the way you usually talk to me. You know Im a laid back person n u knw that I’m open minded. Just be open n tell me wat u hav 2 say’

I just hoped whatever she had to say was good news since she did say it could be good depending on how I looked at it. But on the other hand I was worried, if she wanted to break our friendship for any reason I would be really disappointed since I see her like a best friend. After waiting for almost 20 minutes I finally got a reply from her.

Sultana wrote:

‘I know ur innocent and ur a nice person so Ive gotten attached 2 u. I don’t want to scare u but its really important dat I tell u this now than later……I think I’m falling in love wit u.’

After reading her last sentence in the last message, my mind just stopped working. I was frozen, I was speechless, and I didn’t feel anything. Love is probably what I was feeling, but I wasn’t sure since I never fell in love before. So without much time to think I replied back.

‘I think I’m in love with you 2.’

I placed the phone down and tucked myself in my blanket and went to sleep.