February is Black History month, Love month, and of course my birthday month! I am not looking forward to my birthday because to me it means another year of realizing, I have done exactly nothing that I wanted to do. I blame my parents for making my birthday special every year. Last year my father forgot my birthday and the only person who remembered it was my best friend from childhood. As for my husband, I had to remind him but I can’t blame my husband for forgetting my birthday. He doesn’t come from a family that celebrates birthdays, so for him, it really is just another day. He is lucky that I don’t care about Valentines day, how can I care about the holiday of love when my birthday is just three days before? I am the holiday of love in this relationship! Lol

Some people hate this month, because for them they have dish out money for the holidays or are just tired of school already. I for one love this month and enjoy the long stretches of school…I like school. Yet this year I need some crutches to help me be me and not get depressed over my birthday. I am scared my family will forget my birthday like they forgot to include me on every holiday in 2019.

1. Black leggings

I love my black leggings lately. They are comfortable and pair well with all my tunic tops. What more can a girl ask for? I just haven’t been in the mood for jeans and jeans often make me feel like a whale, even when they fit like a glove. I hate clothing that makes me feel like I can’t move freely and while jeans can be loose, they are just too much for me at the moment. I want something that feels like sweatpants but more acceptable in public.

2. My bullet journal

This month I plan to force my self to keep up to date on my bullet journal and not let it slip away. I do enjoy keeping track of my salats, meditations, yoga, and etc because it pressures me to actually go through with salat and yoga. My journal also has a list of books I’ve read and keeping track of the amount I read is more of a personal curiosity than anything. It is slightly satisfying to check off that you did something that you wanted to do. I used to keep track of my language learning, but I learned that it caused me more stress when I didn’t memorize a word a day. Instead, I just list it in my monthly goals, stuff I would like to achieve that is manageable, like learn 10 new words of Bangla a month.

3. My Kindle

I use my Kindle all the time….it is not a replacement for my books and in 2020 It is about the same amount to buy a physical book as it is to buy an e-book. The thing about the Kindle is that I can get samples of books that I am interested in. I also use these samples as ways to keep books I’m interested in my memory. So, If I end up going to a library or bookstore, I can use my Kindle as a reference. It’s also nice to just read samples in the safety of your own home. My Kindle is also highly important in my research on politics, feminism, Islam, and etc. for class papers, my blog, my podcast, and my novel.

The fun trick with Kindle is you can download samples of textbooks for your research.  Many of these samples are big enough to include the introduction and first chapter, which may not sound a lot but for research purposes, the sample has enough information that I need for small projects. Many books for research purposes are either out of print or so obscure that it is hard to find them in libraries and order them at the local library. Many Universities will order the book for you by borrowing it from another University. Universities do have ebooks and this has helped my research. On rare occasions, if you get a free pdf of a book, you can download it on your Kindle and read it from there. Kindle’s are not expensive and I recommend just a medium model that works as tablet, so you can also download apps if you want. I use mine mainly for magazines and books but sometimes I do watch Amazon prime on it.