Katlover

why is everything i write about the ichky-ness of work??

2012-02-14T03:53:00.000-08:00

Its all well and good for the corporate higher ups to talk about work-life balance but in reality its a load of crap. The higher up you go, the more you have to sacrifice of your personal life to get ahead. and hey sometimes its not even about getting ahead, its just about staying afloat and keeping pace. and for that matter its not even the higher up you go, sometimes you are right where you started from, and whats more you get deeper and deeper in the hole.

that said. i refuse to dig myself deeper into this hole. therefore i will leave work early today (which is like normal time for most people) and not do the shit loads of work being piled on. i have no desire or ambition to move ahead, or even stay apace - in fact i want to fall behind and give a clear message to that other person's boss ( i refuse to acknowledge him as my boss) that there is more work than one (or even two) people can possible manage and still stay sane.

life with animals

2012-01-26T22:03:00.000-08:00

stormy learned to climb on top of the sofa all by himself. he was so pleased with himself. me not so much. his dad was rather amused.

calvin jumped from our terrace to the next door neighbors garage roof... a good five foot jump. he was soo pleased with himself. i was SO not pleased.

pixie wanted breakfast. she jumped ON me. while i was sleeping. she is always pleased with herself. meh. talk about rude awakening.

but on the other hand....

pixie snuggled under the quilt with me last night when i was feeling cold.

calvin purred so loudly when i picked him up this morning

stormy is a cutsey wootsey loving baby all the time (except when he eats my shoes!)

De-motivated

2012-01-24T22:24:00.000-08:00

No no not "demotivational" (fun site that btw!)... de-motivated. Feeling rather de-motivated at work nowadays. No matter what I try to do to get some value added from a job that has gone way past its expiration date in terms of career development, (or any sort of development for that matter) i get completely shot down from all ends.

A while back I applied for a mentoring program hoping to get some advise / direction / something from a senior person at work, looking for any avenue of guidance. Well today I got an email saying that I had been accepted into the program and I should be excited or please or at the very least be somewhat interested - nope. instead my first thought was more like, whats the point and annoyance that I would have to attend some sort of orientation session.

this job is going no-where. its so past its expiration date that its begining to stink up the place - yes i went with that metaphor. here's another mega dramatic metaphor - this job crushes your soul piece by piece while chuckling away like the soul torturing demon that it is. Yes its a great place to work, yes it has great opportunities, yes the prestige, great place to work, good money, yadda yadda yadda. All those benefits and opportunities? I don't get to have them. Not a single one. No travel to any place good. No more trainings. No opportunities to learn anything new. So the pay is good - other places pay better.

Why would i be interested in working well or putting any effort in doing work that I did the first year that i was here - learnt it, did that, over it already. it wasnt challenging or interesting the first time around but at least it was new and there was the hope of better things to come. not only are there no better things to come, there is no real value added of anything i do and no recognition. no wait, thats wrong, i do get recognition - but the recognition i get feels false and wrong because what am i getting praise for - good job making this review look good (and how do we do that? well by making sure that the table headings are nice and large, the text is colour coded and there is a graph in there somewhere.) anyone bother reading the content? i dont think so. besides what is the content - regurgitating what someone else said - hello ever heard of a parrot or a tape recorder?

anyways. back to the delight that is my work. been goofing off the past couple of days. really need to get cracking on copy pasting those tables and colour coding those rows and columns. oh and musnt forget - emailing a bunch of people and ruining their day - that is, if they even bother to open my email. (oh look its an email from her - DELETE!)

all this does wonders for my confidence btw. cant even make a bloody frakking table without getting it checked by someone and then getting comments about the colours.

gloom and doom

2011-12-21T01:04:00.000-08:00

three weeks away from work and it was all so clear. life made sense. there was a purpose. a reason. a goal.

five weeks back at work and nothing makes sense anymore. all clarity and sense of purpose and reason is gone in the daily exhaustion of mindless, numbing existence.

i know i had a reason and a justification for why this job was crushing my very soul (dramatic i know!) but i swear there was more than just the everyday whining of i dont like my job. it was all so clear when i had time to take a breath, to pause and actually think, to have time to actually feel. it seemed so obvious and right that nothing could erase the very clear notion of what i needed to do to improve my life.

and now the daily nothingness has so numbed my brain that all i know is that i want out. but dont even have the motivation to get that out, cant imagine the out. and all the reasons for wanting out are lost in the haze of memory. and all that remains is what is and why it should stay the way it is.

wow. i think i just depressed myself further. i hate winters. brings out all the gloom and doom in life.

the first choice

2011-07-12T03:04:00.001-07:00

I never thought much about adoption before now. At the back of my mind I knew that culturally there are some negative thoughts about adoption but never realized how overtly and vehemently negative people are about adoption. And why am I thinking about this now? Why not?

I have been thinking about it and I mentioned it to a few people and boy did I get a negative reaction. I just don’t understand how a baby mad nation can be so against adoption. Bringing a baby into your family is about building a family, so it really shouldn’t matter how the baby comes to be a part of your family. In fact giving a home to an otherwise unwanted baby, or a child that would otherwise not get the level of care that you can provide should be a good thing, that is applauded by people. Apparently not.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by the negative opinions of family and friends. But I was. Stupid me. I shouldn’t have expected educated, open minded liberal people to be… well open minded about something. There have been cases of adoption in my extended family so I thought that at least my family might have an open mind about adoption. I suppose the closer something is to home, the more real it is. And something that might be alright and even applaudable by some cousins wife’s sister is not acceptable for one’s immediate family.

Adoption is seen like pregnancy (babies are great but the process is shameful and something to be hidden and not mentioned out loud in polite company.) Adoption is seen as a necessary evil in some cases. It’s the last option, something to resort to when all else fails. Meaning if you can’t have your ‘own’ child then a poor second choice is adoption – implying that only a biological child can be your own child and that an adopted child is second best. Of course I would hope that once a child is adopted a couple would grow to love it as their ‘own’ and treat it as well as they would any biological child.

I suppose that it is the above view that makes the thought of adoption as a first choice extremely unpalatable. I mean if you can have a biological child, why would want to adopt? Even if, “God Forbid”, you are forced to adopt, you need to at least hide the adoption and pretend like its your ‘own’ baby.

I can accept that for the majority of couples, having a biological baby is a valid first choice – it is something that they truly want and strive to have. So why can’t someone believe or accept that adoption may be a valid first choice for someone.

Sure I can intellectually understand the appeal of having one’s own flesh and blood. As a friend who recently had a baby mention; looking at a tiny living being that you created, and seeing parts of you and your family being reflected in this living breathing soul is simply magical. She also said that she can’t imagine loving someone else’s child, and doesn’t understand why adoption would be the first choice for someone.

Her awe and love for her baby was inspiring and a little surprising. I am so happy for her and the joy she is finding in her baby. What I was a little more that surprised about and a little bit upset about was she almost complete closed off attitude when I mentioned adoption. In most things relating to family and life in Pakistan we have similar opinions – opinions which are often contrary to popular cultural views on things. We have super liberal view on such things whether we act on them or not is a different thing. So I was shocked that her initial opinion on adoption was negative. Through further discussion she did see my point of view and hopefully agrees with me to some extent.

I know there would be many others who would not understand my point of view. My answer to all those who say they don’t understand. You don’t have to understand – you just have to accept. Just as I accept your right to determine how you live your life; and how and when you choose to build a family. Just because I may have an opinion that is different from the mainstream doesn’t mean that it’s any less important or right.

I also know that there would be many out there who will try to change my mind. To all those who tell me that I just have to experience giving birth to a baby and I’ll realize how ‘wrong’ I am not to have my ‘own’ child – my answer to you is, maybe you should go experience adoption first and perhaps there is a child out there for you to fall in love with.

I don’t know if and when I would be ready to have a child. I may even go the biological route – I don’t know yet. But I do know that if I really want a baby, it doesn’t matter if I physically reproduce, I know that whatever baby I’m blessed to have, adopted or biological, it will be mine and I will love it. And no one can tell me otherwise.

My Five Year Plan

2011-05-25T02:32:00.000-07:00

FYI – I am making fun of myself. Feel free to defend me against me.
I work at a big development organization. I am quitting and starting an NGO. I will have a some high flying noble purpose for this NGO such as “eradication of the causes of poverty for the poor with a focus on women and children and the old and the disaster affected and the homeless and the sad and the poor”, which will shorten into the name ECPPFWCODAHSP, and super short it to PODS. I will set up an office in the front rooms of my parents house. We will have fancy shmancy board out front declaring our esteemed name and our mission. We will then create a board of directors and have directors from every relevant field that impacts development. To start with the people on the Board of Directors will include a retired high level bureaucrat (my dad), a serving bureaucrat (my brother), a women’s representative (my mother), a doctor (my cousin), an accountant (my second cousin’s wife’s brother’s son’s wife’s 3rd cousin once removed’s uncle) and a development expert (me).

We will get together and meet once a week to determine how we want to achieve our objectives and develop a proposal to get funding. After six months of filling numerous white boards with flow charts and diagrams and GREAT ideas, we finally pick the GREATEST idea. We then spend another six months writing a GREAT proposal for funding with lots of pretty tables and colourful diagrams and graphs. To supplement this super duper idea we pick a poverty filled slum with many women and children and old people and the sad and the poor, where we can implement our PROJECT. Our criteria for picking this site is that it is just close enough to the city so that we can easily travel there but far enough that no funder will want to go there and see what we are actually doing. We take some photos of this close yet far village to add impact to our proposal. Once our PROJECT proposal is ready we decide to put it forward for funding.

I use my contacts in the development world to show our proposal to all the big (and small) development funding organizations. We get two year funding for out great project. And what is this great project you ask? This project is for the “eradication of the poverty for the poor through the development of sustainable livelihood schemes that allow the poor to be self sustaining and enable them to remove themselves from the poverty.” We will call this project EPPTBSLSAPSSERTP for short, and BAT for super short.

The first thing we do with our funding is to hire a consultant to design a logo for our project and NGO. We then get business cards and stationery printed with our project name and logo and our NGO name and logo and the funder name and logo. We then buy lots of furniture and equipment for the office and hire a secretary. We then hire consultants to develop an implementation plan for the project. We then hire consultants to implement the implementation plan. The consultants are slow to start up so then we hire a project manager to manage the consultants to implement the implementation plan. The project manager’s wife’s cousin’s third wife’s daughter’s dog dies and the program manager quits and the project comes to a complete halt. (well actually the dog was an excuse. The project manager had a fight with one of the consultants and the consultant was the daughter in law of a politician so we had to fire the project manager or the politician’s driver’s gaurd would do something nasty to us like through dog poo through our window).

We then hire another project manager and work starts. The project manager then hires a consultant to make field visits and prepare weekly progress reports complete with pictures and diagrams and graphs and even wonderful testimonials from the villagers saying things like “aap idhar kya kar rahay hain?” “aap thasweerain kyon lay rahay hain?” (this was actually said in hindko but since my hindko doesn’t really exist this is being translated to urdu). Since no one in the development world can actually read the native language they think the villagers are singing high praises of them. We start sending regular progress reports to the development world with a really fancy front page and a GREAT executive summary and fill the rest of the report with the same thing being repeated with different illustrations and flow charts and graphs. Since the most important thing in a progress report is the colour charts, they are all impressed with our wonderful progress. (We bought a colour printer especially for this purpose).

The project is now winding up and we hire a consultant to do an evaluation of the project. The evaluation comes back and says that to be sustainable and achieve real results on the ground the project life needs to be extended by one year and additional funding will be needed. We put this proposal to the funding agency in a really fancy powerpoint presentation, cos lets face it power point presentations really show that you know what you are doing. Sadly the funders decline to fund any further since their own focus has changed. So we decide to wrap up the project and utilize the remaining funding by holding dissemination workshops in the hope of enlightening others to take up this cause. We invite all the fashion aunties and the politicians and the bureaucrats and journalists and host a big lunch in Serena.

With all the money used up we decide to become a volunteer organization. We gather all the fashion aunties from the neighbourhood and put them to work (i.e. attending all sorts of functions like boutique launches, fashion shows, art exhibitions and plays to raise awareness of our cause). After a while we run out of money to pay the secretary. With no one to make the phone calls and organize the social errr work calendar of the volunteers, we decide to wind up shop.

I need to earn some money now so I decide to use my valued development experience and become a high paid consultant for a big development organization. Wait, isn’t this where I started from??

pregnancy

2011-05-24T01:11:00.000-07:00

(no offense to anyone who has recently reproduced - i have absolutely no idea what im talking about)

It amazes me that, for a culture that is so obsessively compulsively baby mad, we are so ashamed of, and try our outmost to hide pregnancy itself. Pregnant women are hidden away as if pregnancy is a badge of shame - pregnancy is a result of s-e-x and we all know that THAT is a shameful deed, and we conveniently forget what pregnancy actually leads to a b-a-b-y. Oh wait a baby is not a shameful thing, no need to spell it out. Silly me.

Pregnancy anounces to the world that a woman has actually had s-e-x and god forbid that any self respecting married woman who has been harassed to death by society to reproduce to actually anounce that she had the s-e-x. After all if she were an honourable woman, her baby will magically appear from the stork (what's the muslim equivalent for the stork??). Since she is a shameful woman who had to have the s-e-x and therefore got p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t, she is honour bound to hide herself. If she cannot hide at home for a full nine months, then she absolutely must cover her tummy with the oh so respectable and ever protective duppatta. Wait does that actually hide anything or just emphasise it? She must be escorted everywhere by a chaperone lest she shame herself further by oh I dont know anouncing that she is p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t.

Once the magical steed (holy cat? flying mosque?) delivers the baby, we can feel free to anounce that oh by the miracle of god we have been delivered of a baby. Yes it is a miracle, but not a miracle delivered by the winged mullah, its a miracle of pregnancy. A miracle of two people joining together, of a woman carrying her baby, and the miracle of the pain of labour that eventually delivers the miracle of the baby.

I dont know if i ever want to have a baby. That is a personal choice (more on this later). But i'd like to think that if ever i do become pregnant, I'm not going to be hiding it. Given my general state of health i'll probably be puking my guts out and laying about and not wanting to get out of my bed anyways for the whole nine months. And when i do get out I shall expect to be catered to hand and foot. But still, I wont be ashamed that I had to have the s-e-x to become p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t and to have a b-a-b-y. Oops there i go again spelling the baby. Silly me.

die cockroach die

2010-08-24T05:18:00.000-07:00

talked to a few friends recently whom i hadnt spoken to in a while. they asked me what i've been up to and how things are going. in an effort to be more positive about life and everything, i tried not to complain about anything. i found that i had nothing to say. nothing new at least. my "busy with work etc." feels over-used and more like a brush off than anything real. you know when you dont really want to talk to someone so you give them a standard party line so that they leave you alone - my "busy" line feels much like that. only its not a brush off or a party line. it really is my life. if the description of my life has begun to feel unreal and overly repititive - well then that says a lot about life.

friend> so whats up
me> not much
friend> but really whats been happening?
me> same old
friend>come on what have you been doing?
me>working
friend>but other than work, whats going on in your life?
me>cockroaches
friend>eerrrmmm cockroaches?
me> yes my kitchen is infested. i killed a roach today with a pot. and its not the first time a pot has been my preferred choice of killing instrument. banging the pot on a marble counter multiple times while shouting DIE DIE DIE YOU BASTARD was the highlight of my day.
friend> your life is sad
me> yes i know

jealousy

2010-06-04T00:07:00.000-07:00

i never thought i was a jealous person. a common form of jealousy is feeling suspicious about your partners affection / fidelity etc. i'm not that kind of jealous. another common form of jealousy is wanting something that someone else has so much taht you wish you had it instead of them or wishing someone ill because they have what you want. i'm not that kind of jealous.

When i see certain people succeed in particular things, and see them live the life that i might have wanted to live, i feel sad. i am happy for the success of the those people. I know those people. they are my acquaintances. in a couple of instances i might even call them friends. i wish them all the best and am happy that they have achieved a measure of success in doing something they love. the fact that they have managed to do it when they are so young and have so many opportunities and they have no hesitation in going forward and grasping those opportunities makes them the best in what they do. but it makes me sad. that i didnt have those opportunities. that despite trying i couldnt do it. and that maybe now its too late.

i dont wish any of them ill. i applaud their success, even if it makes me sad. but eventually that sadness will transform into bitterness. and that bitterness will eat into me. and then i will wish them ill. and then i will be the jealous monster who will hate someone just because they achieved their dream.

dreams and reality

2010-05-07T03:42:00.000-07:00

as i sat outside on the bench at hotspot, waiting for my lunch, i felt at peace, more than i have in a very very long time. i also felt sad. the garden was beautiful. green and shady with a breeze. flowers scattered here and there and birds chirping. its been so long since i've heard birds chirping that i don't even remember when was the last time i heard birds outdoors. (those canaries the nieghbours have in a cage don't really count). the garden was empty and i sat and looked at the greenery and listen to the birds adn the wind rustling in the leaves and thought of nothing. it was good. peaceful. it was also sad. when was the last time i had a moment to myself in silence to just be.

if i close my eyes and dream i can almost imagine that i might be an artist. just sitting in a garden and studying nature. drawing. painting. creating. i can almost imagine it. almost. but not quite. i cant really imagine that it is a possibility. i can't picture my future to be anything but what it is now. so no i can't really imagine. all i see is the reality. i sit in the office. i look outside its a gorgeous view. blue skies, pretty fluffy white clouds, the green blue hills in the not so far distance. the green green trees swaying in the breeze. its a beautiful summer day with the sun shining and the breeze blowing and i'm sitting boxed in feeling cold in the artificially cool air with tubelights lighting my existence.

long rant on marriage

2010-05-05T23:31:00.001-07:00

married life is hard. a lot of my friends are married now. most have gotten married in the past couple of years. everyone has their ups and downs. all the ups are different. but somehow the downs are all the same. We all expected marriage to be an adjustment in life. we all expected to have problems. But did we really think it through and think about what it would really be like? did we really know what we were getting into? were we prepared? sure we thought about it. but did we actually talk about it to someone who has some insight into it. did someone who actually went through the experience sit us down and tell us what to expect? no. all of us go through similar experiences, but we are all stuck in our little bubbles thinking its just us. given that we all seem to experience the same problem to certain degree, its strange that no one warned us that this would happen.

why did our parents never sit us down and tell us... this is what marriage is really going to be like. i think that in our society parents and family is all so hell bent on getting us married that they think that if they have an honest discussion with us on what to really expect when we get married, that we'll probably run the other way. i think if we knew what to expect we would be better prepared and handle it all the better and be happier. for most big things in life one has to prove that you can actually do it before you are given a go at it. you need a drivers test and liscence to drive. you need to pass some sort of enterance exams / test to get into school college university. you need to give interviews to get a job. you get training to perform most jobs. why is it that the two most important things in life... marriage and having children.... no eligibility test required. no training period. nothing. we are thrown into it blind. figure it out on your own. and then if something goes wrong, everyone everyone's aunty jumps in to tell you what you are doing wrong.

another thing that really pissed me off about our society and their attitude towards marriage .... its all about the wedding and not about the marriage. it the wedding day and event that is such a huge deal and we focus entirely on that and forget that its just one day (or three or four). But what is one day compared to a lifetiem. We spend months and months of effort and thousands and lakhs of rupees on just one event. If we spent all that time and effort and money thinking about and preparing for real life for the ever after part, maybe we wouldnt have to face such a rude awakening. maybe if we used that time to educate and explain to the couple what marriage is really about, just maybe this generation would be better prepared to face and live the reality of marraige and survive it. and if we just use all those lakhs of rupees on investments for the couple to build their future instead of absurd numbers of glittery clothes that will be worn once and discarded, and for all the trappings of a glitzy weddign just to show off to the world who will forget the next day; you build a life for your children. and after all, isn't the wedding and marriage about your childrens life and future?

so you finally get through the months of preparations and all that planning and time and effort pays off. you are up on that stage. you get a gazillion and one pictures taken. you eat bad wedding food. yay. now you are married. you are treated like celebrities for a week or two by your family and relatives. and then real life comes crashing back in. what now. its a whole new world and you wake up one morning and have now idea where its going to go from here.

all the mundane things come crawling back. with a vengeance. because you dont jsut have to deal with yourself. there is another person on the other side of the bed. and thats where it starts.... your partner might hog the covers, they might snore, they might kick you in their sleep. you like to cuddle, they like their space. you like to sleep in pitch dark, they have nightlight. you like to fall asleep to the sound of the tv, they want complete silence. the list is endless. the upshot is.... sleeping is an adjustement.

another thing that no one ever clues you in about. sharing a bathroom. sure you may have shared a bathroom with your siblings. but that's different. you have grown up with your siblings and you are used to each others gross habits. its a whole different ballgame when you realise that this is not a movie, its not all kisses and cuddling.... its reality. and reality means caps off the toothpaste, pot lid up / down, wet floor, wet towels, the other person's hair.... whatever it is that ticks you off. there will be at least one teeny tiny little thing that will piss you off about the other person. and no matter how much you think you are reasonable adults who can overlook or compromise on these small insignificant things..... forget it. you will have a fight that will be centered on something in the bathroom.

so the mundane things are creeping in. and you think well here's to the honeymoon.... its going to be the most magical time of my life. but beware. you will fight during your honeymoon. whether its a week after you get married or months after. you will have a fight with your spouse. and that fight will be one of two things (or a combination of both - or if you are really super lucky, you'll have two seperate fights about both) one fight will be about about one person wanting to sit back and relax and just let things happen and the other person wanting to schedule and experience and explore. the other fight is one where one half of the couple is spending way too much time on the internet / phone and the other feels ignored. (lets not forget the pre-honeymoon fight where its all about where to go and how much money to spend and who is doing all the planning)

so the honeymoon is over. you are gettign used to the mundane things. time to now face the big issues. two of the biggest things in a marriage. 1. money. if you have it the problem is what you are spending it on. if you dont have it. well then the problem is what you are spending it on. 2. family. enough said. money and family are probably the two biggest issues in a new couples marriage. the first few years establishes the pattern that will probably exist for the rest of your life. the issues you have, the way you deal with these things, the relationships you have. you have to get it right in the first few years.

no one ever talks to couple about finances. for some reason finances is taboo topic. apparently all you need to know is how much the guy earns and thats it. everything else is implied. nothing is discussed or talked about and one fine day your realise that you not only married your spouse and gained a new home and clothes and furniture and what not, you also inherited their debt. joy. and of course one person will be the one who loves to spend and the other likes to save. ah the joys of shared finances.

another big thing in marriage. (well its huge if you are not married!). but once you are married the pressure is on. whether you want it or not. you gotta have children. i dont have any so i can't say from personal experience, but as i see from friends experiences once they come into your life they will take over. this can be an extremely positive thing or negative. depends on your perspective, whether you are ready for them and what you want from life. just be prepared.

i dont have any last words of wisdom. i'm learning as i go along. and i guess thats really the best you can do. learn. and try not to repeat the mistakes. and of course. don't let the downs get to you. enjoy the ups.

the answer is no

2010-03-07T23:49:00.000-08:00

consider this: during weekdays more than 60 % of your waking hours are spent at work, getting ready for work, getting to and from work. during the weekend 50% or more of your time might be spent catching up on household chores, grocery shopping, paying bills and all those pesky things that get left undone cos you are at work all the time. factor into this the time spent just plain exhausted sitting in front of the tv too exhausted to do anything else / mentally recovering from the shit that is your job / the hours spent catching up on sleep on the weekend and what does that leave of your life? guilt that you don't give enough time to family; a life spent feeling that you are constantly trying to catch up but never quite making it. a life exhausted and frustrated. weekend drinking and partying beacause thats the only mental release you get from what your life is turning into. waking up the next morning and wondering why has your life come to this? was this really how you imagined your life to be? is this really what you want your life to be? the answer is no. but is there a way out? again the answer is no.

work-a-holic??

2010-03-03T21:41:00.000-08:00

as i look over my blog, i see that august was the month that things started "unravelling". when the job became ugh. well its gotten worse. this job is making me a work-a-holic. hah. me. workaholic. not possible you say? i submit to the jury the following evidence:

1. i don't seem to have much work to do today.... and that worries me

2. on monday i sent my work for the day to the boss in the afternoon and he responded before i left for the day with comments and i stayed late to re-do it.

3. i took 3 days of annual leave last week... the first day of leave was spent at work

4. while on leave i still worked from home

5. a year ago a doctor advised me to take time off work and focus on my health. on tuesday i got pretty much the same advise... to not let the stress of work get to me and focus on my health. apparently i've become anaemic and stress caused extra side-effects to meds on which i previously did not have side-effects

6. my immunity has died... i've had flu / virus / infections everything under the sun these past 3-4 months and been sick enough to need anti-biotics at least 3 times this winter.

7. ALSO been so sick that apperently i've taken more sick leave than annual leave... real sick leave and not the dake don't want to go to work sick.

8. the bank has a "mandatory leave" policy. we get 26 days of annual leave of which we "have" to take at least 15 to maintain the "work-life" balance. i took only 10 of the mandatory leave days last year.... hence the three days i took off last week, of which one although spent at work was still counted towards my leave count. but that's ok. i still didnt reach the 15 day minimum so 2 days got cut out of my leave balance anyways.

9. i've started having work dreams. you know those school nightmares you get as a kid... well now i've regularly started dreaming about work and what all needs to be done.

10. i've been dragged into office intrigues and politics.

11. i'm contemplating keeping extra meds / make-up / and other sundry stuff in my desk drawer, cos lets face it... i spend more awake time at work than i do at home.

12. i used to go around office and talk to people. now i'm mostly just at my desk. working. all the time. monday felt like it was a week long. tuesday was worse.

13. i dread waking up in the morning because i have to get to work. driving to work is torture and i'm already pissed off and in a bad mood. i leave work exhausted and frustrated.

14. i forget to eat breakfast most days.

15. i'm depressed.

16. for a few minutes yesterday i actually contemplated the thought of havign a baby because that would give me a legitimate excuse to quit

ok. so the conclusion is that i'm not really a work-a-holic, i just really really hate my job. but i going towards the path in life where my life is mostly about my work.

bah children

2010-02-04T00:59:00.000-08:00

why is it necessary to have children? our society puts so much importance on marriage and having children. are children really necessary to fulfill you as a person? is your life incomplete if you don't have children? i'm not being sarcastic... i really want to know? what is it about our society that makes it imperitive in life to have children? maybe i'll feel different in the future but right now i have no desire to have children. my mother obviously will not understand when i tell her that i may not want to have children at all. so i give her logical arguements.

My arguement to my mother for not having children right now is..... dont have enough money - and the response is... paida to karo, paisay mil jaingay. seriously?? maybe i should go and find myself the biggest most expensive house in islamabad and say that i have chosen to live here, doesnt matter if i have the money or not, paisa to mil jaingay, ghar to lo pehlay. sheesh. the next arguement.... i don't have time in my life right now for children, i'm not settled into a married life with working and all.....life is just too busy and i would not be able to satisfactorily dedicate the time needed to raise a child. my mother's response.... ohooo... to hum kis leeyay hain, tum paida to karoo, mein sambhal loon gi. seriously???? why would i want to put my body through 9 months of hell only to hand over the damn thing to someone else to raise?? why don't i just make myself a house, spend time money and effort to make a house that is mine and then i'll just hand it over to someone else to live in?? why have a child and then not raise it yourself?

another thursday

2009-12-10T01:03:00.000-08:00

i have had zero motivation for work this week. i've also had insomnia this week....despite waking up in the morning on a regular schedule i still cant sleep at night. i havent dont any chores or cleaning up at home. its cold. life is dull and dreary. blah blah blah. even writing this is dull and boring. bah.

another tuesday

2009-08-18T01:59:00.000-07:00

you know those dreams you have when you are in school? you know those ones... the one where you are naked in front of class or its exam day and you forgot to study for it or its late at night and you are alone in a dark school (ok so the last one has to be inspired by watching too many horror movies - as i re-visit Buffy nowadays, i see that the dark late at night hallways are a classic theme in teen horror). my classic school nightmares were usually about an exam and not knowing where the exam room was or forgetting to study or the lost in the hallways at night business. All those nightmares are classic stress, dislike and sheer boredom and annoyance with school. So what happens when your work is stressful, you don't like it too much, and are pretty much annoyed with it all. Yep thats right - classic work nightmares start popping up. Something is due and it isnt finished on time. Need something done and can't find the person. Looking for something in dark hallways. The signs of a well balanced life - you work long hours and still no relief from work - you have to dream about it too.

Thats my ramble of the week. Thank you ladies and gentlemen for being a witness to the start of the unravelling. Stay tuned for further stress, mindless rantings and general insanity!

2009-05-24T22:03:00.000-07:00

I hate days like today at work when i have some free time (that happens so rarely) and i would really love to do some art but i cant cos im at work. it sucks. its a waste of time. and what i end up doing is browsing deviant art or some other site like that and i am JEALOUS. i hate this.

and then i wonder. what would life be like if i didnt have this job. what if i had a part time, less paying job. we would be in serious financial difficulties, and would have a very different lifestyle. we live in a very nice apartment(hefty rent due every month) , with a nice new car (car payments due every month), we have a couple of servants (pay due every month), we dont think twice about going out to eat or buying anything we want.

dayum.... i just got mithai at office.... someone just had a son! a guy my age just had a son! sheesh. its baby season... got news earlier this morning that another co-worker had a baby. 2 co-workers are pregnant... one is just on the verge of popping! working women and babies! how do they do it. and why? i understand if they need to do it, but if its by choice? working just after having a baby. yeah yeah i know... careers and gender equality and feminist soemthing crap. but if you want to be a career person... go ahead... just dont have a baby and then send it off to be raised by someone else. whats the point of having a child then? just so you can fulfill your role as a woman in life... sheesh talk about gender roles. feminist crap and all... lets face reality... you cant do both. i mean come on! if you are working 10 hours a day... what do you have left to give to your kids? (again women who have to and need to do both... my hats off to them for achieving what seems to be the impossible) but when you dont need to work - and its an option and you have a child and pass it on to some aya to raise. well thats just wrong. and if the career means so much well then just dont have the child! yeah yeah politically incorrect, feminstly incorrect opinion. but come on! who are you trying to fool here? in the end it doesnt matter who you convince that you are super mom and an exemplary feminist for achiveing that ace career and three kids... what matters in the end is what happens to those kids. are they alone at home all day? are they being raised by a stranger? do they know who you are? and when they grow up, are they going to be there for you?

bah mondays

political/social awareness (sort-of) post

2009-05-10T22:50:00.000-07:00

maybe im cynical (ok i know im cynical!) but when someone says something like "support jinnah's pakistan"... i wonder if jinnah is looking at this Pakistan and writhing in his personal hell when this pakistan is referred to as "his" pakistan. what exactly do people mean when they want to return to or support jinnah's pakistan? was this pakistan the one where democracy reined and put a crook like zardari in charge? was it a couple of years ago when we had a military dictator in charge? or was it a decade ago before musharaff's military rule - during the corrupt regimes of benazir and nawaz sharif? or any one of those numerous times that the military took control in flagarant disregard of the ideals of democracy? or perhaps it was during those golden times when pakistan was first created and we faced the atrocities committed by our own country men in the name of religion and patriotism where women were raped and people murdered all in the name of a free and independant nation. pray do tell - which of these pakistan's would jinnah like to call his own?

its hard to be patriotic and support "pakistan" when pakistan seems to be lost and doesnt have a clue as to what its identity is. the ideal of pakistan that people seem to be supporting never really existed except maybe inthe heads of a few leaders way back when this country was created. and its quite possible that even these leaders did not buy into this "ideal" and mearly used it as a tool to garner mass support to achieve whatever they wanted to achieve for whatever reasons. (p.s. it was all for money - really!) im not trying to be funny here - the motivation for starting a movement for an "independent country" was really a movement by minority middle-class muslims to gain political control over regions where they were a majority, just to gain economic control. from there it progressed to a movement for religious freedom (cos hey the downtrodden poor fellow doesnt give a rat's ass about the already prosperous getting more money). and from independant states within the indian nation, the movement went to an "independant nation". the leaders wanted one thing, they told the followers something else, and in the end got a bloodshed, with most people losing track of what exactly they are fighting for and maybe they never knew in the first place. hmmm the pakistan of then doesnt sound that much different from the pakistan of now.

this schizophrenia of ideology and identity remains to day. i went to a protest on saturday. it was supposed to be a protest against the "talibanisation of pakistan" but im not quite sure what exactly we ended up protesting or supporting. apparently the protest devolved into a support pak army cheer-a-thon. waht exactly did that achieve. was that the message that was intended? if i had know it was going to be a pak army cheer leading squad i wouldn't have bothered wasting my saturday (sorry hubby dear - nothing personal - i was all for supporting anti-talibanisation).
im all for supporting anti-talibanisation, not on religious grounds and not because they are "anti-pakistan", but on humanitarian grounds. and for probably the very same reasons i dont really support the pakistan army or the government or the american involvemnet in our country.

im a cynic. i dont believe that pakistan should have existed in the first place. not at the cost that it was created at. but we are here now. there is no changing the past. so we really need to stop looking at the past to support us. imagine jinnah never existed. what would your idea of pakistan be then?

BAH

2009-05-04T02:41:00.000-07:00

BAH

people i hate today

2009-04-23T22:25:00.000-07:00

people who make everything about themselves

people i hate today

2009-04-23T03:14:00.000-07:00

people who actually like their jobs!

people i hate today

2009-04-22T03:37:00.000-07:00

today i hate everyone who is doing something creative. i hate them because its not me. because im stuck in meetings. im stuck editing. im stuck emailing. stuck in a zero creativity job. i wish i had the space to do something creative. not just the physical space, but the mental, emotional, time, stress-free, pressure free space to do something creative. i need space for myself.

things i dont like about me.

2009-04-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

i hate to admit that for someone who is so self reliant and independant (or at least i like to think that i am self reliant and independant - maybe im wrong!) i am extremely emotionally dependant on other people. i grew up with very low self esteem, and as a result, what people think of me and what people say to me and how they behave around me makes a huge difference in my life, particualrly family and friends, and even people i work with. i hate it when anyone has a negative opinion of me or what i do, which is why i strive so hard to please people around me. i dont like being so emotionally dependant. it makes me feel weak and not in control.

im really stubborn. once i really decide on something its hard to change my mind no matter what. sometimes this can be a good thing. and sometimes not. changing my mind about something im dead set on feels like giving up. i hate giving up. it feels like losing.

i am generally a forgiving person. i dont like holding a grudge. but once in a while someone crosses the line and it is impossible for me to give up on that grudge. that usually happens when ive been repeatedly hurt by that person. i had a best friend once who repeatedly disappointed me, and even though i tried over and over to mend the relationship, it never made a difference - and now i never want to speak to her again. i have another friend who i've had some extremely bad fights, and i might have ended things with him completely, except that he usually tries and makes amends - i know we will always have fights and i will be hurt by them, but i dont hold grudges against him because at least he tries. Some things i can never forgive. i know i should. but i cant.

i wish i knew what would make me happy in life. i have a good job... not my ideal job. but still its ok.... that should be enough. but its not. i would like to say that i know what kind of job, or even not working would make me happy. but i dont know. maybe im just that person who can never be satisfied.

i think im obsessive compulsive. i cant let go. there are things that i obsess aboout and i cant let go. the particular way something should be cleaned. the particular way something should be organised. why someone said what they said. i will obsess for days on end.

i dwell on the bad.

i dont have the guts to pursue a career in art. i tried it once. i failed miserably. im scared to try again. what if its not the thing im running towards because i really want it but really its something im running towards because im running away from everything else.

the importance of eating and sleeping in my life - or in other words dreams about scrambelled eggs and toast!

2009-02-26T22:09:00.000-08:00

lets face it.... im a moody and tempramental person. im also prone to depression. its an inbuilt defect - hardwired to my system. i cant change that anymore than i can change the colour of my hair (ok wait thats wrong.... i change my hair colour every month!). let me re-phrase, i cant change my depressive and tempremental tendencies any more than i can change my eye colour. and yes i have changed my eye colour, but we all know that was a fake - a cover up. the real colour still lay beneath the surface.

another analogy would be inherited diseases.... more like reality. depression is inherited. its like diabetes. its in your blood / hormones what not. your body betrays you. but with sufficient outside controls your body cannot defeat you. you can control your body. its simple - you cannot control what you body will inevitably do to you, but you can mitigate the effects by controlling your environment.

Your diet for example. Diabetics need to control sweet stuff intake to maintain their blood sugar levels - cant have the wrong foods but have to have the right amount of the right foods. I need to control my food intake too - i need to be well fed all the time. I'm picky about what i eat therefore i need to eat what suits me. If a diabetic doesnt eat correctly or enough their blood sugar levels go down and energy levels fall and at extremes they can collapse. If i dont eat (and must eat what i like cos otherwise i wont eat), my energy levels go down and that leads to low moods. leave me hungry long enough and i will be cranky. stretch that a bit more and i have been known to cry over it. dammit yes me cry. Now people who know me migh laugh at how much importance i give to food given how thin i am and how little i eat - but thats exactly the point - i dont have fat stores to sustain me so i need to eat when i need to eat. and i cant have large meals in one go - i need to eat in increments all day. also i need to eat healthy. i hate oily food and not a huge fan of random sweet stuff- other than chocolate that is and even that i cant have huge amounts in one go. i love fruit. im not a big fan of processed junk food either - other than bakery chips and i dont think those qualify as processed junk food. so of course im not gonna me gaining any weight ever. but thats off the track. the point is food is important. without the environmental control of food intake, my body betrays me and my emotional control goes out the window.

Next - sleep. Studies show that sleep deprivation makes a person more likely to catch a cold and basically reduces their resistance to bacteria / viruses / infection etc. Sleep is necessary to recover from illnesses. Sleep deficiency causes concentration and memory issues. Sleep is a basic human requirement. There are debates on how much sleep does a human really need. 8 hours is the standard quotated, but some say adults need as little as 4 to 6 hours, whereas adolescents may need upto 10 hours of sleep. Every human is different. they have a different physiology, hormonal make-up and what not. So it makes sense that each person would have a different sleep requirement. Its not laziness - just a basic fact about myself - I need more than 8 hours of sleep. Its a different thing that I've trained myself to accept less, but the impact of that manifests itself in horrible ways. Fatigue, crankiness, moodiness. But hey I survive - 8 hours is minimum, 9 is better. 9.5 to 10 is my optimum. but i survive on 8. but when it gets less than 8, its a problem. Getting less than minimum is a problem for anyone. For me it effects my emotional balance. As sleep deprivation accumulates, i progressively get cranky, moody, irritable, easily annoyed, angry, prone to angry outbursts, and of course depression and complete mental breakdown.

When i was a teenager i had a chronic sleep problem. it felt like i hadnt slept in years. i dont remember ever getting a complete nights continuous sleep. i'd always be tossing and turning, waking up in the middle of the night, have problems falling asleep. overall i'd get not more than 4 hours of good sleep. i also remember being a severly moody and depressed teenager. it never occured to me then that my insomnia had anything to do with it. insomnia just was the way i was, that was what normal sleep was. then at some point in my twenties i started sleeping. (lots of factors on how i actually managed to overcome insomnia) i started getting a full nights sleep. (for me a full nights sleep still means getting up at least once in the middle of the night, but still manage to go straight back to sleep). i think i can count on my fingers the number of times i've actaully slept straight for more than 4 or 5 hours at a stretch. For the past 4 or 5 years i've been rejoicing the fact that i can sleep. and now its gone. i cant sleep anymore.

the past 4 or 5 years I've started paying more attention to my environment and the things that impact my moods. this is not self indulgence. this is survival. i try and avoid conflict. i try and avoid people who are mean. i hate when someone disapproves of me... it bothers me to no end, so i strive to please people. i avoid thinking about whats wrong in the world. i dont think about the past, i adapt to the situation around me so that i have no longings / regrets about what is lost or what cant be. living in the moment and being happy in that moment. thats not to say that i havent learnt from my past or i dont think about the future. or that i care only about myself. i cant have people around me be unhappy because that makes me unhappy. so i try and make them happy.

i finally had some measure of control in my life and over my depression. i've lost that control. eating is fine most of the time. god bless asif and his cooking skills. god bless my parents for getting me a huge fridge and a microwave. sleep is a problem. i've stopped sleeping - and by that i mean my sleeping pattern is mostly sleep for an hour or two, wake up, sometimes manage to go back to sleep, sometimes not. cant sleep for more than 2 hours at a stretch now. have to take a pill to sleep - and even with that at the most i sleep for 4 hours at a stretch. im in a situation where i cant avoid dissaproval - no matter how much i try to ignore it, it still effects me.

i digress - we were talking about eating and sleeping. not eating = crankiness. not sleeping = depression. mix that up and include a throat infection and medicine with horrible side effects that make my body hurt all over, and makes me nauseous and makes my mouth taste like crap and hence not eating much. sigh well you can just imagine.

im hungry - i think i'll go eat something. damn gotta take the damn medicine. damn damn damn.

you know sometimes in the middle of the night when i cant sleep for a while, and i start feeling hungry - i then start dreaming of eggs and toast.

random married musings

2009-01-30T09:35:00.000-08:00

so all this month i've been wanting to write about being married.... but i've been either too busy with setting everything up or with being sick and sleepy... that i havent really been able to get myself to write. and right now im too sleepy to actually put it down... but it would have been really amusing! it could have been an entire series of stories called the adventures of the crazy temporary housewife.... sigh. the first episode could have been about the bathroom wiper. belgh... cant even write a decent sentence right now... must sleep... oh yeah the recurrent theme would be the snoring husband

2008-11-06T03:12:00.000-08:00

why does everything make so much sense at 3:45 in the morning? and why does all that clarity disappear in in the day? why am i so awake at 3.45? and so crazy sleepy and not able to be wake up in the morning even after half an hour of the alarm ringing. why is my life so topsy turvy right now?

where did summers go?

2008-11-06T03:04:00.000-08:00

summer has gone by in a flash. its winters already. when did this happen? i didnt even notice summers go by. mentally im still in august or something. i feel like i missed out on summer comletely. i suppose this was the first time in life when i didnt have a summer vacation. maybe it was because i hardly got to see and feel the summer. indoors all day away from any natural light, no exercise, no fun summer stuff.

i feel like my life is passing me by and im wasting my time sitting at my desk browsing random crap because thats what kind of job this is. whether or not you have any work, have to put in the hours. what a total and complete waste. maybe im tired, maybe i had a nice long weekend, maybe work these days is total shit.... but despite the fact that my boss is not here to bother us, im still hating this job, this place, this office with no windows, no light... facing a computer screen all day, wasting my time when i can use it to do so many other things.

2008-10-23T23:10:00.000-07:00

my blogs are mostly ususally about negative things... i hate my job, life sucks, yadda yadda yadda. but life is not all bad. the gaps between the blogs are when life is good and happy and there is no need to vent.

its depressing to me that the frequency of my blogs is increasing

it is also depressing that when i am depressed i lose my appetite... that really sucks especially at a time when i am conciously tryign to increase my weight. cos lets face it... i am seriously underweight and am facing serious health probems which are not helped by this.

usually when i am upset and blog, words flow... the venting takes place. occasionally life is disturbing and confusing enough that i lose the words to express what i feel. that too is depressing.

blegh

i hate this helpless feeling. i hate the lack of control. i hate that you dont get what im going through. you know who you are.

2008-10-06T02:16:00.000-07:00

my motivation level for my job is now at zero. its hard to believe that it could go down further than it was before, but its true. previously at least there was work being done, some dragging and moaning across a field of broken glass, but still work was getting done. now there is no longer even a pretense of any work being done. i sit and waste my time playing online games all day long. and its pretty painful playing online games with a computer from the dark ages. The frequency of these bouts of hating my job and wanting to quit is increasing exponentially. The time is coming where i will quit.

I feel a certain amount of guilt when i think of quitting. first there is this need to defeat societal perceptions of women, i.e. working for a while and then quitting just cos they are getting married. deep down i feel this need to prove to world that i am a liberal working woman who can have a career. after all i fought for so long for that right; it feels criminal to give that up when i finally achieved it. along those lines is the guilt imposed on me by my family - if i've studied so my towards a particular goal, well then i need to stick it out.

The other part of the guilt is the practical part - getting married; need income. running a household on a one person income is not possible. I get told that often enough in various ways by various people. I need to earn a certain level of income to help maintain my new home. I suppose i could put up the first kind of guilt. this is something i cant really avoid.

random musings

2008-07-13T21:19:00.000-07:00

this job is draining me... emotionally and mentally. not to be overally dramatic here, but its true. its literally true. I have gotten advice from different people in different ways for various reasons which pretty much says the same thing - suck it up and live with it. What most people dont understand is how unhappy i am with this job and with the idea of this as my life. It has reached the stage where i think i will implode. it will destroy me.

I am a person who has suffered from major depression and there was a time when i could not control it in the slightest. events would happen leaving me sinking in a hole, falling deeper and deeper without a way to pull me out. I was stuck in such a precarious situation that it took drugs to actually pull me out. Since then i have learnt a lot about how i function. I am an extremely moody and sensitive person. there is nothing i can do to change it. but there are ways to handle it that make life a little calmer and less of a chaotic drowning falling out of control sensation. I know it may seem that there is nothing calm about my life and it is still totally chaotic. but its not. life still has its ups and downs, but now the downs are a little less extreme and the ups are so much higher and much longer lasting. perhaps the downs are more noticible now because there is always an up. previously it was always falling further and further down with barely an up.

"Jobs are hard. You have to suck it up. There is no magic perfect life out there." I know all that. I know that everyone tells me to just put up with it.... everyone else does. Its all well and good for everyone else. but not for me. i dont want to sound like a princess who has to have everythign better than everyone else for her. however it may seem to the outside world, i know myself. i know how to keep my sanity. i know how to prevent myself from falling over the edge. For the past few years, my life strategy is to keep myself content and happy. if somethign doestn feel good, or if somethign feels wrong, dont do it. do what makes me feel good. that may seem extremely self indulgent and self absorbed. but it honestly isnt. its just survival. I've been as down as one can go... and it is nearly impossible to get out of that hole. i did it once. i dont know if i would ever be able to do it again. so my strategy is not to ever let it get to that point.

I dont know what made me depressed in the first place.... i was depressed for as long as i can remember. maybe it was just genetics. what i do know is things taht made it worse - lack of control, not being happy with the situation i was in, being forced to do something, not getting what i want. im not talkign about petty little things. im talking about life altering matter - where to live, where to study, who to marry, when to get married. a lot of variables are in my control now. its the job thats getting to me. i shouldnt be saying job - its this career. if it was a job that was a means to an end, well thats all well and good. but this job, this career - this is not what i want.

Sometimes i get scared that im never working towards anything - im always running away. Is that because i never found the real passion in my life? or is it because thats just the way i am? am i really the person who cant be happy and im always looking for something new and excitign because for a while the new thing distracts you from the reality of my life? i really hope that is not the way i am. but im scared. im scared that if i pursue that illusive dream of being an artist... even that will not make me happy and i will want to run away. But i know i need to try. i will never know if i dont try.

The time to try is now. i can feel it. maybe its because i feel the need to run away yet again from an impossible situation. maybe ive just reached the boiling point. nothing else makes sense anymore. all that i know is that i cant survive long like this. i can feel it taking hold of my life and twisting it in a pattern that i dont like. i can feel myself becoming something that i dont want to be. its affecting not only my life but my most important relationship. when im in a hole, i dont want to be around anyone, i dont want to talk.... i just feel like being completely isolated. if im not happy, nothing in my life goes right.

All that is well and good. but the reality is that i cant do it. lets be practical here for a minute. I need to have a stable job that pays reasonably well. because running a household on a one person income really isnt possible at this time right now. so im stuck without a way out.

i had a near miss on friday. i could have had a really bad accident. it really really shook me up. more than anything that has happened to me before - ive been in car accidents before. but never has anything shaken me up this badly. am i supposed to take it as a sign? isnt that what happens to people, they face a near miss and it shakes them into changing their life? what was this supposed to mean? that life is not in your control, something totally out of the blue can smash into your life and you just have to take it as it comes and deal with it the best way that you can?

blegh

2008-07-10T02:10:00.000-07:00

this job is sucking the life out of me. i need to leave. the only problem is i dont know where to go. im pretty sure now that another similar job is not the way to go. this career path is not for me. the question is where to go from here though?

2008-07-09T03:26:00.000-07:00

i recently went through an experience, which although was very mundane nevertheless had the feeling and importance of a right (rite??... write??) of passage. I went shopping with my Mom-in Law (or as N refers to as MIL). This wasn't just any shopping trip. This was an excursion that consisted of only me and her (and one of the little monsters... who was surprisingly well-behaved!). Never before in my relationship with her have we been just the two of us interacting one on one. Its always been a family situation.

It was a good experience in that it gave both of us an opportuinty to really size each other up. No more second hand information and experience. This was the real thing upfront. It helped me see what her taste in clothes is - which to me is very important because she is making a lot of clothes for me. It also enabled me to talk to her about my preferences in clothes - also important because of the mentioned reason. It also brought about the occasion to actually see certain clothes - also very important.

But much more than the girly issue of clothing, it was in a way the building block of a very grown-up relationship. I've known parents friends and interacted with them, interacted with older relatives, professors and various other interactions with "adults". But those interactions have always been girl / child with adult / grown-up. My relationships with my husband to be, and my friends are more of relationships with equals, not adults. (Deep down in our hearts - or in some cases not so deep down - we are all still kids playing at being grown-up). My relationship with my MIL is an adult to adult relationship. It is a woman to woman relationship. And the first unchaperoned / non-surrounded by family meeting was very significant for us to see that. For me it was a chance to really know her. And for her im hoping it was a chance to see me as my own person... not as her daughter's friend, not as her friends daughter, not as her sons chosen... but as a woman in her own right.

conversation

2008-06-10T23:45:00.000-07:00

i had the most random conversation with someone yesterday.... well actaully less of a conversation and more of the person giving me advice. i have met this person twice... both times for work. the first time was day before yesterday and the second time was yesterday. a couple of hours both times discussing work. this is someone that i will be working with on and off for some time. at the end of yesterday's meeting, he asked if he could take 5 minutes of my time. it was scary how someone who i'd known for just a little over 24 hours could so accurately pinpoint what was wrong with my life and what it was doing to me.

he spent about 15 minutes talking to me. asked a few very seemingly random questions, and proceeded to tell me that this job was draining the life out of me and that i needed take certain measures (which he pointed out) to deal with this job otherwise it would have an even worse impact on my life and relationships. he also pointed out certain things about me as a person which were scarily accurate. he wasnt patronising or offensive in any way. he was direct without overstepping his boundaries. he asked questions without probing in my personal life. and he was totally proper and no hint of hitting on or any other ulterior motive.

some of the things he said ive heard before... but coming from a stranger they were more hard hitting. i cant get the conversation out of my head. and i feel the need to talk to talk to him again... ask him why he talked to me about this, how he knew all those things... and just for the sake of talking to him. hearing an acknowledgment of my fears and validation of my feelings from an outsider was somewhat soothing. and for someone to be interested in my tensions and problems... that was like a healing balm on a burn.

pointless-ness

2008-06-10T23:35:00.001-07:00

every time i get some stupid random task at work.... i think... this has got to be the most pointless boring piece of work ever, it couldn't possibly get any worse. but wait... this wonderful organisation rises to the occasion and lo and behold... yet more pointless work!

2008-04-28T04:30:00.000-07:00

the next person to ask me when im getting married is gonna get a slap. i swear. just try it.

2008-04-17T04:19:00.000-07:00

life is in a free fall these days... everything is up in the air and life needs decisions. life was supposed to be falling in place... instead a pandora's box of uncertainties has opened up in life. i feel like my life is on provisional status.

a friend said to me that i should not worry about my job and career... since i am a "rich" person i shouldnt care whether i have a job or not. well not everything in life is about money. some things are about peace of mind and satisfaction with life. i spend the majority of my time at work.... part of it is about money... and a larger part of it will be about money once im married. but a big part of it is about making a career and using my brain and more so.... making something of my life. i would never be satisfied with living at home. so yeah... im concerned when i almost lose my job. a little support would be nice.

another friend asked why am i so concerned about uncertainty at work... i have a man in my life.
knowing and loving abbas and having him in my life is the best thing in my life. but i have a mind and a life of my own. i have a family, and a career and other things in my life. i spend a significant amount of my life at work... if there is tension and pressure and at work... of course im going to be stressed about it. i live with my family and even if i didnt... i love my family. and if there are family issues... of course im going to be concerned. and through it all i have abbas to support me. and i love him for understanding my concerns and stresses and being there for me through all of it.

i love abbas for sitting with me in the hospital all morning. i love him for driving me home. i love him for grilling me for job interviews. i love him for waiting outside in the car. i love him for listening to all my complaints. i love him for being patient with all my issues and dramas. i love him for being such a strong believer in my talents. i even love him for his paranoia!

happy post

2008-02-14T23:33:00.000-08:00

in the eyes of the one who loves me

17 October

2007-10-17T03:20:00.000-07:00

it is 17th october. you know im very fond of numbers. these many days, weeks, months, years, words. 2 more weeks till i turn 27. i think ive gotten over the freak out abt that. the past few years i spent the weeks preceding my birthday with periodic freak outs abt approaching the quarter century, abt hitting the quarter century, of going past the quarter century. this time around i spent all year freaking out abt entering my late twenties. and now that its approaching, i havent had the time to freak out abt it. ive had bigger issues to freak abt. or maybe i just filled my freak quota for this year.

just got a call from my mom. she is at my khala's and other relatives are there as well and i have been told to go there after work. brilliant. there goes my plans for shopping and getting rid of the 'i have no clothes' crisis. and also the winter approaching crisis was to be averted by therapeutic shopping for dvds (which was going to help deal with my 'one month after' crisis by giving me somehting to watch on tv at home and hence distrating me.) [please see previous posts for reference to all my crises]

ah well back to 17 october. im also very fond of time and dates. its this time of year. its this date. that date is approaching and htat time of year is approaching. its mid october. my birthday is approaching. eid just passed by. winter is almost here. december is coming closer. the year is ending. and for those of you who care abt such things... halloween is coming up!

random - as always

2007-10-17T03:09:00.000-07:00

i think im having my mid year career crisis. or is it my 'one month after starting something new' crisis. or perhaps its the winter starting crisis. lack of exercise and fresh air crisis? wait... it might be the 'dont have enough clothes' crisis. jeeeezzzzzus sheesh kebab. somebody shoot me. and btw it is NOT pms. well maybe it is. but thats besides the point.

random babblings

2007-10-01T22:42:00.000-07:00

its been a while since ive posted anything... last post was the day i graduated... the last post of my old life and now the first post of my new life.... uff how melodramatic.

its funny how life can change so profoundly in just a day.. less than a day... in the space it takes someone to say a few words. and you know that your life has totally and irrevocably changed, but this change is so big that you can't wrap your mind around it. you have to live the change... live and breathe every minute of it to appreciate the beauty of it.

you know how when you dont understand something and you've been trying so hard to get it.... but you get a mind block. (you know those damn math equations!) and then all of a sudden something clicks and you go 'AAH' so thats what it means! and after that moment you cant imagine why you didnt get it before. this new state of the world where you understand is so different from the previous one that its hard to imagine the previous reality... its hard to imagine a world where you didnt understand.

so im sitting at work and totally wasting time! the best most mind twisting (and what you think are profound, but usually just random babblings) pieces of writing happen either at 3 in the morning or when you are sitting at work trying your best to look busy but actually too sleepy to do any real work. no points for guessing which state im in right now :P

summer is over. im looking forward to wearing desi winter clothes... havent done that in a couple of years. sheesh two years. doesnt feel that long.... feels like a dream.... a very vivid dream recurring that is sometimes more real that reality. but these days reality is pretty real!

alright enough philosophical babbling.... let me tell you about this amazing dream i had! im sitting in my room reading a book. this really hot guy walks in (no no no... dont stop reading! this is a perfectly universal rating ramzan acceptable dream!) so this really hot guy walks in and hands me a peach ice tea snapple.... aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. thats it... that was my dream... i could actually taste the snapple. sigh.

time to go back to pretending to be working.

2007-05-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

ladies and gentlemen..... presenting a berkeley graduate :)

holy cow.... two years!

final word count

2007-04-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

Fifteen thousand one hundred and thirty-eight

WOAH

2007-04-28T22:42:00.000-07:00

main paper exactly 10,000 words!!!

total word count now at 14,003 .... 14 THOUSAND words!!

woah! i mean like WOAH!!!

12,729

2007-04-28T12:44:00.000-07:00

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

* me pulling my hair out *

44 pages of main paper
18 pages of appendices
12,729 words.... thats 12 THOUSAND 7 Hundred and 29 words

2007-02-13T17:32:00.000-08:00

a job
a car
a guy
family
friends
art classes
swimming
shalwar kameez
pedicure
manicure
facial
horse riding
more than one room to live in
people who speak urdu
hot summer
non rainy winter
someone to make me breakfast
someone to clean
someone to wash the dishes
freshl homemade parathas
fresh homemade rotis
washing machine at home
not having to pay for laundry
wearing high heels
a cat
two cats
carpet
a sofa
wall clocks
a landline phone
a closet with a door

rain rain rain

2007-02-09T22:50:00.000-08:00

i love the fresh smell of rain. i also like the fact that its less cold when it rains. im trying to see the upside of rain in winters. of non-stop rain in winters.

the answer is yes!!!

2007-01-25T22:13:00.000-08:00

yes i plan on going back to pakistan after i graduate. yes i WANT to go back. yes i plan on working when i go back. yes i will be getting married when i go back. yes i want to get married. yes im ok with an arranged married. and yes i plan to work after i am married.

every week someone new discovers that im from pakistan and then the whole list of questions starts. and i find that yet again i am explaining myself to a very surprised american who finds it so hard to accept that i want to go back to pakistan. its one thing for pakistani's to be asking me if i want to go back (which btw is also getting bloody annoying... whats with all you pakis? whats so bloody wrong with pakistan that you cant imagine going back... DONT ANSWER THAT!!! but seriously why do all pakistanis living here and a lot living in pakistan find it hard to understand that i want to go back to pakistan??) but well its one thing for pakistanis to assume that it is inevitable that one would want to live in the US. but its another thing entirely for americans to naturally assume that anyone coming from another country would want to stay in their oh so wonderful country and never go back home. the arrogance of it all!!

there are some wonderful things about living in the US, and there are obvious drawbacks to living in Pakistan, but honestly... its home! come to think about it... maybe its worse when the desis are all surprised when i say i want to go back to pakistan. all you desis who look at me funny as if there is something wrong with me wanting to go back to pakistan... please re-evaluate your your thought processes. consider the possibility that there is nothing wrong with my wanting to go home. how can there be something wrong with wanting to go home? nomatter how much i enjoy myself here, this place is not my home. Pakistan is my home. for good or bad it is home. and in the immortal words of dorothy "there is no place like home!"

2007-01-20T23:45:00.000-08:00

i hate this damn (insert swear words) country and i want to go home!!!

translation: i had to walk home late at night in the cold after waiting for the damn bus for 20 minutes and then the damn bus driver refused to stop!!

breathtaking!

2006-12-16T23:41:00.000-08:00

ocean view

2006-12-16T23:34:00.000-08:00

views of THE bridge

2006-12-16T23:25:00.000-08:00

for the unenlightened THE bridge is the Golden Gate Bridge

Muir Woods

2006-12-16T23:18:00.000-08:00

this is not us standing between two trees... this is us standing in the hollow of one tree!!

2006-12-11T17:40:00.000-08:00

gilmore girls is really begining to piss me off (yes yes it is finals time...the time when my brain starts thinking up these randomly strange thoughts!!) but back to gilmore girls. lorelie is portrayed as the independant woman who has done great in life without help from anyone.... the highest ideal of the american dream... anyone can succeed through their hard work and they dont need help from anyone. she is so independant that she refuses to accept help even when she is in trouble. its all well and good to be independant when you have to be, to be able to do things on your own when there is no one to help you....but what is so bloody wrong with taking help from your family and friends when you need it? what is so bloody great about refusing help freely offered by your own family and friends? what is wrong with this society .... a society that celebrates a stubborn, woman who is so full of pride that she constantly disrespects her mother who wants to help her out in her time of need, and makes the mom to be the evil person who is stifling her daughters freedom and independant spirit. granted that lorelie and her family have issues and problems... but that is family and you have to let family help you... and you help family. ok im going to stop before this gets any sappier.

2006-11-20T10:47:00.000-08:00

strangely i am wide awake at 10:40 on a monday morning. now this is strange enough on any given monday morning, since it is well... monday morning. but it is really really strange this particular morning, cos i have been awake all night, and not because i wanted or because i had to... it just happened. around 7 in the morning i gave up all hopes of sleep and got up and made myself breakfast... a weekend breakfast and then proceeded to wash dishes! eventually got dressed and went to class at 10 (had to submit an assignment) and debated on whether or not to torture myself and attend class for two hours. decided against it and have now come home in the hope that i will be able to sleep. even if i wasnt wide awake (feeling sleepier as i type this) i think i would be prevented from sleeping cos of the music playing above my head... quite literally above my head... the damn people living in the apt above me!!!!!!!!!!

birthday pics

2006-11-05T23:22:00.000-08:00

birthday pics

2006-11-05T23:20:00.000-08:00

halloween

2006-11-05T23:16:00.000-08:00

its love!!!

2006-11-05T23:08:00.000-08:00

a sunny day in san francisco

note to body from self

2006-11-02T18:37:00.000-08:00

note to body from self: you have my full permission to fall ill on 4th november. you do not have permission to fall ill before that. once you do fall ill you may remain ill for 2 or at the most 3 days. you cannot be so ill that you cannot do the dishes or the laundry or cleaning the apartment. you do not have permission to fall ill after the weekend. so if you have the desire to fall ill, please take the opportunity to do so on this weekend. (weekend being saturday onwards). alternatively you also have the option to fall ill next weekend. and if you fall ill next weekend you have the opportunity to fall ill for an extra day.

1st October - San Francisco

2006-10-23T18:44:00.000-07:00

2006-10-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

somebody please make me some breakfast. and while you are at it... please please please wash my dishes.

americans are just obsessed with food. all i see is tv commercials about diet and health food. (maybe its just california) i should pay more attention to tv commercials when im watching tv in virginia.

BORED

2006-10-11T20:37:00.000-07:00

im bored. not bored as in nothing to do bored. more like bored with my life, bored with my routine and bored with everything in it. i need something new and exciting and entertaining in life. something to break the daily routine of classes, readings, tv and sleep.

2006-10-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

dammit... this didnt happen to me last year when i came from pakistan. its very very annoying. you know how you unconsciously reach for something you just expect to be there and then at the last minute realise... oh no that isnt here.... that belongs in a world a million miles away (exactly how far is pakistan from california?). what the hell am i talking about.... frikkin muslim shower :P damn these americans.... all this modernisation and they cant figure out something like that!

2006-09-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

they say that the media portrays the society, and by extension the tv shows of a society represents the culture (i have no idea who says that but it goes well with what im about to say :)) so there are a lot of tv shows about cheating and adultary in western tv shows.(yeah yeah ive been watching a lot of tv!) not only are the stories about cheating, but also about how to get a relationship over that particular mistake... how to move beyond and go on with life as a couple. as if it was just another ordiniary mistake that is made. that cheating was an accident, as if the person who committed the act was not responsible for their actions. and the person who is cheated on when they dont forgive the other person, they are the ones who are unyielding, unforgiving or just plain mean.

this society brings with it freedom and independence... but also brings a lot of disturbing moral implications. not that im going to cheat... or that im even in a position to cheat :P but its not just this, there are so many other things.... this is not someplace where i think i would want to live the rest of my life.

more about this later... gotta go right now

an inconvenient truth

2006-09-19T21:41:00.000-07:00

its a documentary about global warming. i had to watch it for a class. i fully expected to go in there and be thoroughly bored. to my surprise was i not only not bored, i was fascinated by it. what it said (what he said) was not anything new or anything i was not aware of before, but it was presented in a way that was unexpectedly eye opening and moving. i highly recommend that everyone watch it.

San Francisco Pier 39 - 3rd September

2006-09-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

san francisco skyline in the background

alcatraz island in the background

err... water in hte background :)

on my way to work...

2006-08-06T23:01:00.000-07:00

on my way to work today i saw two car broken down on the same road. and at both cars there were police men in police cars offering to help. or so it seemed. i was thoroughly impressed for all of two minutes... untill further along the road i saw police men.... you know the police men standing along the edge of the road indicating VIP movement. well there you go... the policemen in the police car were not concerned about the common citizens of their country... the citizens that it is their duty to protect adn serve.... rather they were checking the cars as a possible security threat... well to be fair they were performing their duty.... they were protecting the citizens of this country.... although some citizens command more service adn protection than others.

rain rain rain

2006-08-03T03:44:00.000-07:00

i love rain. it puts me in such a good mood. i know that the rain is creating havoc in karachi. and aparently it is also causing some problems in islamabad / pindi.... as i was informed by a co-worker who gets stuck in the same place on his way to work every time it rains.

waking up in the middle of the night to the sounds of the rain on the roof always seemed magical to me. i look out from the back of the house, which overlooks a playground. there is a small road there. a single street light shines on the rain soaked road in a way that you would imagine a stream in a magical wood would shine, winding its way through the trees shining with the light of a blue moon.

tuesday yucks

2006-08-01T04:04:00.000-07:00

what are the yucks... its blechs squared multiplied by dammits and bloody hells and a massive headache :P

deep philosophical thoughts... ???

2006-07-31T02:36:00.000-07:00

talking about the blechs i feel a deep philosophical self examination coming on.... something about the nature of life and work and questioning the path that ones life is taking and the choices one makes and is forced to make, and questions of whether one can ever enjoy their jobs or is work by its very nature not likeable.

then again maybe not.... maybe its just the need for a nap overtaking me on this especially blechy afternoon :P

monday afternoon blechs...

2006-07-31T02:22:00.000-07:00

i didnt have monday morning blechs cos i was barely awake and in office in the morning. got to office a little before 11... meeting with big boss at 11. since measly little intern needs very little attention and talking to... esp when she is leaving soon, measly little intern just sat doodling while most of the researchers got chewed out. so no real work till 11.45. worked for a bit and then it was lunch time. lunch over and now i have time to get the monday morning blechs a little late... hence the monday afternoon blechs

let me explain to you exactly what are the blechs. monday blechs have usually got to do with the fact that you slept a lot on the weekend, waking up at 1 pm sunday afternoon. and then of course couldnt sleep early sunday night and that means not being able to wake up monday morning. and so you are tired and sooo not wanting to go to work after such a nice lazy weekend. hence the monday morning blechs.

then there are tuesday blechs... the week has just started and the thought of the next four days of work... blech :P

thursday blechs.... the week has gone horribly and you need a weekend NOW, and the thought of waiting till saturday for the weekend.... blech

wednesday blechs.... well that is neither here nor there.... stuck in the middle of a work week.... blech

friday.... friday is still safe... i have yet to experience a friday blech.... but that is probably because i havent been workign long enough. gimme some time and i will come up with a friday blech :P and im sure those of you who work on saturdays have experienced the friday blech which i am sure is very similar to the thursday blech.

trying to live life and avoiding the blechs.... now that is philosophy to live by!

valima favourites

2006-07-27T04:09:00.000-07:00

valima at serena, islamabad on 17th july

tanya and me

me, tanya, silal, mannan, asif and saad

xainab, naima, noori, n me

me and xainab in all our sari-ed glory :D

saad in his suit and chapal!!! its a new trend... he didnt forget his shoes in lahore!

shaadi favourite pics

2006-07-27T03:45:00.000-07:00

silal and tanya's wedding at PC, lahore on 15th july

the gang on stage

the ayeshas

me, salar, mannan n ayeshaamina

me n saad

hanging around after most people had left. waiting for the rukhsati to happen... perfect time to take group pictures :)
left to right front: amina, sydra, zahra, amina, mannan, me, asif, urooj,
left to right back: shero, vex, xainab, bam, hena, salar, ali, saad.

right to left: amina, me, zahra, xainab, faiza, noori, maliha, hena, sydra n urooj

salar and me. at zouk after the wedding all of us (including silal and tanya) went out for dinner at 2 am.

mehndi favourite pics

2006-07-27T03:30:00.000-07:00

me and naima

me and salar

mannan is giving silal some advice and check out silal's expression. very cool lighting effect.

xainab and me

silal and tanya

me and mannan. again very cool lighting!

Latest pictures

2006-07-11T23:19:00.000-07:00

well maybe not so latest... these are from my last trip to lahore... and since im going to lahore this comin weekend i figure i should put these up before i take and put up the next batch of pictures :)

sobia and me

me and the boys

me, hananah, irtifa and mr. irtifa :D

me... arent i cute :)

2006-07-10T03:43:00.000-07:00

if i do have to give up on the idea of love, and marry someone that i choose on an objective basis... someone who i only like and not love, someone who i have known only a very short while.... well why not marry someone who i already know, a friend, someone i am comfortable around, someone who knows and likes me for myself, someone i do care about and know. that is the safe route. the only problem with that is, no one who fits the above description would want to marry me :P

best response

2006-07-10T03:27:00.000-07:00

best response ever to my complaints about who i might end up marrying

me > i am destined to marry a bald fat old man
him> Don't pick a bald AND fat one - try for just one or the other - preferably just bald because you can always stick a wig on him or something.

wednesday morning blechs

2006-07-05T00:07:00.000-07:00

when will this week end. i want a weekend. i want an anti-social weekend. i need to sit around with friends but not have to talk. i need to be around people, but not have to interact.

i hate being pushed into a corner. i hate having to accept the inevitable. when i feel pressured into doing something that i dont want... but i know that this something i have to do... i will do it.... but it creates no end of inner turmoil in me.

pulled and pushed in different directions, convincing myself that the direction im being pushed into is for the best, i feel like im losing my hold onto what i really want.

i am discovering how liberal i really am. scary. i dont know how to strike a balance anymore.

the only way to cope is to become indifferent. but the situation calls for extreme involvement. phases of trying to be involved and not letting it get to me..... oscillation between extremes. driving me insane

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

who is putting this pressure on me?

i feel the need to yell STOP. just pause in what im doing... flip a page, find a rift in reality and walk out of this situation.

ufff the dramatics.

monday morning blechs

2006-07-02T22:12:00.000-07:00

one of those days...

arranged marriages

2006-06-22T02:38:00.000-07:00

as i enter the zone of arranged marriages, i once again wonder about the nature of love. what is it and is it really that important? how do you know you are in love? when does that moment of inspiration hit when you realise that htis is the person you want to spend the rest of your life? is it a moment of realisation or is a slow gradual awareness? is there something called a soulmate? is there something such as love at first sight? can you fall out of love... or does that mean you were never really in love? can you be in love more than once? can you fool yourself about being in love? how do you know you are in love... and is it true that if you have to question it its not really love? i invite all those people who are in love or have ever been in love to answer these questions.

when one is young you believe in fairy tales and love at first sight and your knight in shining armour. girls read all those bs romance novels where the girl and guy meet and one week later they decide to get married. experience and reality teach you that all that is crap and its about love at first sight (or within a week) but it happens when you really get to know someone. and over time you figure out if you want to spend your life with someone. you spend your late teens and early twenties through a lot of hard lesson, unlearning all this romance novel/ movie nonsense about love. and then you hit 25 (and 7 months) and you are expected to through out all those hard earned lessons and swallow that "you should know within meeting a few times if you want to spend the rest of your life with someone". that is essentially what arranged marriage asks you to do. see, meet, talk, decide. geez.... i take more time to decide what shoes i want and that committement only lasts a year, two at the most! and here one is expected to make a life time committement based on talking on the phone (4 times) , meeting a few times (3 to be exact), and a short 2 weeks! 4... 3... 2.... 1 person all your life!

2006-06-16T02:34:00.000-07:00

we are taught not to give into peer pressure. to think for ourselves and make the right choice. what about society pressures? or family pressures? are we no longer meant to think for ourselves in these situations? think for ourselves and make a decision which is meant to be right for us?

habits

2006-06-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

american good/bad habits that i must unlearn:
thank you, please, excuse me, sorry, sorry, sorry, thank you, excuse me, sorry
crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing and actually expecting cars to stop
excuse me
voicemail
thank you
77 tv channels
chocalate chip cookies
snapple peach iced tea
barnes and noble
cold stone creamery
THANK YOU
the weather
the weather
the weather
san francisco
please

alternate reality

2006-05-05T01:14:00.000-07:00

i dont go back to pakistan in the summers. i find an internship in california. i dont visit the other side of the continent in summers or winter break. i stay in cal all of next year. i find a guy in california. i get married and get settled on this side of the world. i get an extension on the fulbright to stay for another year (or find a loophole that gets me out of going to pak after i finish uni).

how easy all that would be. the first step almost happened. the others still could. i am at a crossroads. i am at the periphery of my old world. at the edge of the new one. one small push and i can completely slip into this new life and this new world. the question is do i want to?

here comes the sun

2006-05-04T23:30:00.000-07:00

ive got this song stuck in my head... well one line from a song and ive downloaded 5 versions of it by different singers and none of them sound right.

here comes the sun little darlin
here comes the sun na na na

spring break in cornell

2006-04-30T18:21:00.000-07:00

Danish and me in front of a lake in ithyca

sheesha :D

chicago - fulbright seminar march '06

2006-04-30T18:17:00.000-07:00

At the Chicago natural history museum with other fulbrighters

pakistani fulbrighters attending the chicago seminar

sana, yasmeen and me in Chicago

2006-04-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

so aparently the area of berkeley that i live in is the one where there are the highest incidents of drug and alcohol use! this is the south side of berkeley near the campus where all the undergrads live.... figures :)

sick of gora land

2006-04-18T20:38:00.000-07:00

im finally sick of it! im sick of washing dishes, im sick of cleaning, im sick of doing laundry, im sick of wearing these clothes, im sick of the studies, im sick of the goras, and im so bloody sick of this weather. i need it to be HOT! 10 months of non-stop gora land is just too much. im glad im going to be paid to go home to pak cos thats the only way i can manage to do it (and thats what happened to my 2 year no return policy!) im sick of the studies.

i need someone to cook me breakfast, lunch and dinner. i need not to eat my own cooking. i need someone to clean my room. i need to have a bedroom seperate from a tv room. i need a home that is full of people. i need brick walls :P i need someone to wash my clothes. i need someone to wash the dishes. i need someone to cater to my every need. i need a facial, manicure, pedicure, haircut, hair colour - the works! i need to spend money without thinking (well no actually i do that :) ) well money wise i need to get a haircut without thinking no bloody way am i going to spend that much money! I NEED A CAR!!!!!!!

i admit it.... i would love to be a spoiled pampered pakistani princess! (thats what a gora friend said i was when i said i missed having my servant make breakfast for me!)

coming attractions!

2006-04-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

i know i havent posted for the longest time.... life has been busy and hectic. was away for spring break and hten catching up on work :S

pictures of spring break coming soon!

oh yeah.... coming soon to a town near you...... ME!!! :D

answer the damn phone

2006-03-05T22:31:00.000-08:00

dammit what is wrong with everyone.... cant anyone answer the bloody phone!!!! (well saad answered :)) one of the good / bad habits that i will have to get rid of (amongst many which i will relate at another time) is the use of voice mails..... someone doesnt pick up the phone, you leave them a voice message.

more fun

2006-02-21T23:33:00.000-08:00

wohahahahaha .... laptop :D

fun

2006-02-21T23:26:00.000-08:00

i am such a child... i just stuck a bunch of very colourful footstep stickers on my desk :D and now im thinking where else can i put the rest of the stickers i have :D

think

2006-02-21T18:13:00.000-08:00

for the first time in a while im interested in something im studying. im fascinated with my ethics class. it makes me think about things that i take for granted and for assumptions that all of us make about certain things, that when you really think about them... well it really makes you think.

today i read this article written by a disabled person, about the value of life and assisted suicide. (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9401EFDC113BF935A25751C0A9659C8B63)
disabled people arent something i have ever really thought about and unless people personally know someone who is disabled, it is not something we would normally think about at length and we inherently have certain assumptions and stereotypes about them.

its stuff like this and other moral question that really make you introspect about what is right and wrong and why you believe in certain things. questions like the morality of killing terrorists. acceptability of civilian casualties in the war against terrorists. the market in kidneys. what kind of ethics apply to spys.

2006-02-15T22:35:00.000-08:00

lots and lots of swearwords

brain where art thou?

2006-02-14T20:59:00.000-08:00

have to write paper. brain not working. woke up at 530 in the morning for some stupid reason and couldnt go back to sleep. took a nap in hte afternoon which just didnt help and now im totally zonked and my brain has gone for a hike :P

funny how everytime i have to write a paper or do some assignment or something... i have to write a blog :S.... must avoid work as much as possible.

i hate studying. what idiot decided that i deserved a scholarship? i must be a brilliant actress to have convinced god knows how many people to give me a scholarship. what am i doing here? honestly how did i end up doing my masters in university of california at berkeley. i so dont belong here.

just thoughts

2006-02-12T22:35:00.000-08:00

its funny how big a barrier language can be. even though all of us generally talk in english, all our studies are in english, im writing this blog in english. and we may not realise it but everyday conversation in english with an urdu speaker is so different with an everyday conversation in english with an english speaker. the english that we speak is filled with urdu-english (urlish? englu?) slang that we so unconsciously use that when you can no longer use them, normal conversation suddenly feels very very formal. when you are comfortable around soemone you automatically want to use informal language... which is a combo of english and urdu adn english slang which makes sense in our context, and when you consciously have to make an effort not to speak anything other than english... you end up not being entirely comfortable. it becomes formal. and thats a huge barrier to get past to become really close with someone.

and when someone asks me if i might end up with a gora... its hard to explain the barriers that you would have to overcome to be friends with them first and not to mention all the cultural differences that exist that would make it so impossible to even imagine wanting to be with a gora. you can talk to them, spend time with them, have a good time even.... but being close... even as friends.... i feel as if there exists no common ground whatsoever on which to bond. that doesnt mean that i cant be friends with these people. its just that it would make it all that harder to make really close friends. and maybe that will never happen given that im here for only a short time and not putting down roots. and maybe thats my own personal barrier. knowing that i wont be here for very long prevents me from wanting to become too close to anyone here. i guess i have to settle for having casual friends while im here. and besides i have so many great friends already, and those are the friends that will stay friends forever.

cell phones antennas and cancer

2006-02-09T00:22:00.000-08:00

i now know lots of useless information about cell phone antenna.... not the antenna that are on the cell phone, but the main signal transmitting antenna and towers. i know the level of permissible radiation levels (0.57 mW/cm-sq at 900 MHz and 1.0mW/cm-sq at 1800-2000 MHz.) the safe distance from an antenna ( 8 horizontal meters) the acceptable height of a base station on which an antenna is mounted ( i actaully dont know that yet.... thats the part im coming to now!)

oh and all you cell phone users out there the studies linking cell phone usage and genetic damage and cancer are inconclusive, but the consensus amongst scientific community is that it is highly unlikely that cancer and any radiation from cell phones (by the way it is radio frequency radiation) are causaly linked. for furhter information about such studies please DO NOT contact me!. sigh. back to work.

no comments please

2006-02-04T00:13:00.000-08:00

unable to sleep, i went outside hoping that the cool night air would clear my head. as i sat on the sidewalk i was reminded of the countless times i have sat on a pavement. the only thing missing was the person next to me. for all of you who sat next to me on the pavements of lums, at all times of day or night (or early early morning after staying up all night!), in all sorts of weather, i miss you. and i miss you more knowing that we can never go back to the way that it was.

how your remind me

2006-01-29T23:04:00.000-08:00

a song thats been running around in my head...

How you remind - Nickleback

Never made it as a wise man
I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealin'
Tired of livin' like a blind man
I'm sick of sight without a sense of feeling
This is how you remind me
This is how you remind me of what I really am

It's not like you to say sorry, I was waiting on a different story
This time I'm mistaken for handing you a heart worth breakingI've been wrong,
I've been down, been to the bottom of every bottle
These five words in my head scream "are we havin' fun yet?"

It's not like you didn't know thatI said
I love you and I swear I still do
And it must have been so bad
Cause livin' with me must have damn near killed you

This is how you remind me of what I really am
This is how you remind me of what I really am

It's not like you to say sorry, I was waiting on a different story
This time I'm mistaken for handing you a heart worth breaking
I've been wrong, I've been down, been to the bottom of every bottle
These five words in my head scream "are we havin' fun yet?"

Never made it as a wise manI couldn't cut it as a poor man stealin'
This is how you remind me
This is how you remind me of what I really am
It's not like you to say sorry, I was waiting on a different story

winter '06, virginia

2006-01-26T20:27:00.000-08:00

me in front of river potomac in virginia