achievements – The Drawing Board

My dear friend, Morgana, and I were filling out the guarantor section on my new passport application when we realized that the expiration of her passport is for the year 2024. It had a futuristic ring to it that you find in sci-fi novels but we realized that it is a mere NINE (and a half) years away – something you won’t want to think about too hard. Immediately, we starting wondering about what we will be doing. How old will we be? Where will we be in the world? What will we have done?

Being overly certain about the future is something foreign to Muslims, but setting goals and having serious niyyah (intentions) is an obligation. It got me thinking about what I want to achieve in the next while (insha Allah!), especially considering how haphazardly I have gone through the last five years and, despite accomplishing an obscene amount in that short amount of time, I think more focus would be to my benefit. I’m thinking about these things and trying to be as realistic as possible given my past experiences and working capacity.

In 2024, I will turn 38 (!) and these are some of the things I hope I will have accomplished by then:

Complete my Masters and a PhD, possible Post-Doc depending on a number of variables including where I do the doctorate (pie in the sky that I am currently working towards = Oxford with Dr. Tariq Ramadan)
Publish several articles and present at academic conferences
Write and publish at least one book (academic)
Complete my family’s historical memoir (stuck at 78 pages)
First draft novel/creative non-fiction book
Attain fluency in French, Arabic, Darija (Moroccan Arabic) and Italian
Find a job (likely NOT in North America) in academics
Transform The Drawing Board into a publishing house to support up-and-coming writers, particularly in the genre of creative non-fiction and memoir
Complete Hajj with my husband
Have another kid (maybe haha – undecided on this one)
Live in another country again
Start a non-profit, NGO or charity organization that I can run my way
Have the school in Morocco (finally) in full operation (we are still waiting for upper level authorization!)
Very tempted to further my “non-secular” study of Islam at Zaytuna College under the guidance of Sheikh Hamza Yusuf (pie in the sky) OR go to culinary school (a huge secret dream of mine that only my stepdad ever hears about)

That feels like a lot but when I look back to what I have accomplished in the last ten years, it is completely possible with enough determination and will. I have never been one to be preoccupied with buying a house or things like that, though I completely understand why these things would be important to other people, so it doesn’t surprise me that more practical things did not make the list.

Remind me to check this blog post if we still have the internet in 2024 (or will we just have telepathic networks implanted in our brains from birth by then?) to see if I’ve kept on track or if the twists and turns of life lead me elsewhere.

What do you hope to do by 2024?

The Drawing Board has had a very busy year so far, and May has been the busiest month yet! The lead-in to May was an amazing ceremony in the Edmonton City Council Chambers on April 28, 2015 where Mayor Don Iveson and councillors honoured and recognized the Alberta Council for Global Cooperation’s 2015 Top 30 Under 30, including our very own, Nakita Valerio! The banter among the council was the highlight of the trip, including standing to have your name called on and being recognized for your hard work, achievements and continued perseverance in the realm of social justice endeavours.

council chamber view — The view from Nakita’s seat before Council was called to order .

Of particular interest was the incredible spoken word poem by Edmonton’s Poet Laureate, Mary Pinkoski, read an incredible piece testifying to the diversity and harsh beauty that is our province’s capital city, seamlessly weaving together current events with iconic images to create ” a body of Edmonton” that is, at once, recognizable and familiar, and at the same time, far more multivocal than any of us give it credit for. It was an incredible end to a beautiful ceremony that Nakita won’t soon forget!