Dear Shurah,
I’ve run for shurah every single year of undergrad. I served three years on the board – one as Faith Chair, two as Outreach. Now I’m watching elections roll around one more time, and it’s just starting to hit me that I’m not running again.
I’m not going to block out my Tuesday nights and head to the Union and see if we need to check in. I’m not going to dress up three hours early for MSA Live and Late Night and the Alumni Banquet cuz I gotta be there early and there’s a show to run. I’m not going to get to meet speakers backstage or volunteer to pick them up from the airport. I’m not going to know the ins and outs and ups and downs of every GBM, every halaqa, every social.
I’m not going to be a representative of UNC MSA anymore, and that’s sad, because I didn’t realize it had become such an ingrained part of my identity.
But even though it’s hard for me to move on, I also want to say thank you.
Thank you for late Tuesday nights where we passed around milk and cookies and popcorn and bags of Sour Patch Kids.
Thank you for MSA vlogs and goofing off in the corner and side conversations, because even if they weren’t relevant, they were what made my memories of meetings sparkle.
Thank you for making me wake up at 6 a.m. to get ready for Sportsfest and letting me photograph women’s football and teaching me how to keep score for a basketball game.
Thank you for teaching me how to reach out to big-shot speakers and get them to come to our events, and for exhaustingly long days that were so rewarding when they ended in a sold-out Late Night or MSA Live.
Thank you for the chance to MC onstage and be a Late Night host for the first (and hopefully not the last, hehe) time in my life.
Thank you for cookouts and field days and pizza picnics in the quad and marshmallows roasted illegally in the Union.
Thank you for Chai Chats and halaqaat and qiyams and, when it came down to it, the vigil we had for Christchurch.
Thank you for shurah pictures and shurah shoutouts and shurah spotlights.
Thank you allowing me to be one of you.
Thank you for making my four years at UNC so worthwhile.
Lots of love,
Safa