And so it happened...

I just came out of an event I'd been waiting for for the last year, maybe a little more :) AIESEC Lahore's 2008/2009 LCP elections. Here's why:

In September 2005, we recruited some great kids into AIESEC. We recruited a couple of freshmen, and some of these went on to become EB members that December. One of them, Hasan, sat down with me at a national conference, and we planned what he was going to do in AIESEC for the next 4 years. We realized that in order to run for MCP, he'd need to stay fully involved in the LC till he graduated, thus making it logical that he apply for LCP at some stage. The best time to do this was his last year - 2008/2009.

Later that year, at a mid-year recruitment, we recruited another freshman (one of many), who, we quickly realized, was able to get along with anyone, and ended up becoming someone the EB would turn to when trying to work out LC problems. That was Adeel. Somewhere in the middle of 2006, he too realized he wanted to to apply for the EB, and then maybe later, LCP. in the 2008/2009 term :)

(This is turning into an Indian movie, sorry!)

Anyway - today was those elections. Two people we'd recruited, seen take on various positions, with various results were running against each other (plus Bubloo, but this story is not about him, sorry again!). They were both equally good, both had been trained equally well. The difference was their approach on what the LC needed to do next year, and how they were going to get it done.

People have asked me, who would you rather win. I can't choose, it's not a fair question. Since 2006, I'd known one of these guys would be LCP 2008/2009 - but over the years I had varied opinions on who would do a better job, depending on their recent successes and failures. For me, they were both ideal candidates, unfortunately, there's only one LCP :)

Anyway, I just came out of elections, and we have the answer - the LCP for AIESEC Lahore 2008/2009 is Adeel Hasan. I couldn't be happier, I couldn't be sadder. It's so odd.

Congrats Adeel - you're going to do a great job! And Hasan, MCP elections 2009/2010 are next year :)

2007...

*I admit I've been horrible with the whole blog update thing, but for the last three years, I answer these questions at the start of the new year. I promise there will be a more detailed update on life, sometime soon*

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Lived alone. In Karachi. Learnt to make sheesha. Got addicted to sheesha!

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I never make NY resolutions.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No

5. What countries did you visit?
Egypt, Turkey, UAE, India

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
Well, at the start of 2006 I lacked a laptop. I got it around February, but as of very recently I don't have a laptop again, so I'll have to say a laptop!

7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
November 29 - December 4. I not only lost my laptop, cell phone and money during these dates, but I also lived on an airport for close to 48 hours (Terminal-like) yet had one of my best trips to India (which should be an indicator of how my previous India trips have been)

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I managed to make a lot of time for family.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I didn't make so much time for my high school/college friends

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My laptop :(

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
The inhabitants of 104, Moon Apartments :) + Yao

13.Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
No one as such...

14.Where did most of your money go?
Coffee

15.What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The twenty20 world cup final!

16.What song will always remind you of 2007?
Get Low, closely followed by Tokyo Drift and Laaree Chootee. The amount of times we listened to these...aaaa!!

17.Compared to this time last year,
I. are you happier or sadder?
Happier

II. thinner or fatter?
Thinner

III. richer or poorer?
Poorer

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Eat healthy food

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Sheesha - I can actually feel my lung capacity decreasing

20. Did you fall in love in 2007?
No

21. How many one-night stands?
Experiencing short term memory loss..

22. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No

23. What was the best book you read?
Ice-candy man. And I just finished reading it.

24. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Mika

25. What did you want and get?
Laptop, cell phone, very cool travel bag

26. What did you want and not get?
Can't think of anything.

27. What was your favorite film of this year?
The worse one was "Goal" (the Indian version), closely followed by "Pirates 3".

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 24, and went to spend the day at my brother's house. My roommates also took me out for dinner, but that was a day or so before the big day.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?


30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Same as 2006 - although I wore a lot more of traditional stuff.

31. What kept you sane?
My fellow MCPs - mwa!!

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
No one, didn't watch that much TV. However, I did see Lion King again, and Mufasa is hot!

33. What political issue stirred you the most?
Haha, there's enough here to write a novel. In brief, Musharraf's weird behaviour.

34. Who did you miss?
Ammar Z, Kirmani, Naureen, Marina. And that list isn't in any order.

35. Who was the best new person you met?
Marina Ran!

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
If you can't do anything to change it, then learn to live with it.

What City Should I live in?

What City Should You Live In?
	You should live in New York City. America's largest city will ensure that you will blend into the crowd. You are the brooding type--introspective, creative, and eccentric--and NYC's cutting-edge, individualistic culture and ambience will appeal to you.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

I'm *still* alive

Nope, this isn't the mega post I've been promising people, but I see some free time in the horizon so it will happen, sometime within this month :D

Anyway, here's what you can expect an update on in that post:

1. Transition *yes, my last post was that long ago* :D
2. MC life, Interns, MC CEEDs (Marina, I miss you!), Mads (Mads, I miss you too, but not as much as I miss Marina!), and Karachi (Lahore, I miss you too!!)
3. IC '07, and the craziness that was...
4. Current stuff and future stuff

Cool?!? I promise to post in under 2 weeks...

Ciao

Day 3...

KLepo and Taha are here - Yay! I'm not the only new/slighlt confused person in the apartment anymore!

 

We all went and picked KLepo up at the airport (his flight was 40 minutes early, but thankfully he was still in the terminal when we got there), then we came back to the apartment, hung out on the roof (which we might lose soon, courtesy DHA), went out for dinner to Karachi Broast (which is a pretty good local version of Nando's), and then proceeded to come back home and do some further hanging out on the roof - with some AIESEC dance lessons thrown in.

 

Now the new MC is blogging/checking emails/updating facebook while the old MC is passed out after a hard night of partying...but it's 4:30 am and tomorrow will involve spring cleaning the apartment, so I should log off and get some sleep.

 

Pictures soon...I just need to get them from all the people who own cameras :D

Day 1

Thought I'd update the blog now that I've finally moved into the MC Mansion. It's been a while since I did anything AIESEC related - took a one month break from everything but emails, and had a blast. Am now in Karachi - the city of lights, and more importantly AIESEC in Pakistan's HQ - and moved into the apartment last night. Very soon the entire place is going to be crawling with incoming and outgoing MCs, CEEDs and interns, so the next few weeks should definitely be interesting.

Sohaib's getting here on the 7th, KLepo get's here tomorrow, and Taha will be moving in soon too - so by next weekend we'll have the whole 07/08 team in the house - really psyched!

More updates after Klepo arrives.

Experience Pakistan!

VisualDNA

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A worthy cause...

Arto, the guy who made the IC '06 video is making a movie, and he needs your support.

You can become a coproducer of my film 'Wszystko' (eng. 'Everything') and help me to make it as well. All you need to do is to support this film with a sum of at least 10 euros / 10 dollars / 5 pounds (higher amounts are very welcome). In exchange I will mention your name in the credits and moreover I will send you a DVD with the film to the adress given by you.

He's collected $2500 so far, so if you're up for it, log on to the film's website and donate!

Updates...

For all those wondering, I'm in Lahore right now, not Karachi/Islamabad/or another country. My cell phone is broken, so email me instead :D

Lotsa stuff's happened...and I didn't have the time to post (read: too lazy), so here's a quick update...

- IPM 07: An amazing conference to be a part of. Best thing about it: meeting all the crazy elects!!

- Post IPM: Had a great post-stay with Salman Suhail and his great roommates!! Thanks guys! Got to see the Pyramids, Sphinx...2 down, 5 to go :D  

- NPM: Spent a relaxing week in Karachi, and participated in the best 2 day conference EVER! Here's to next year and the coolest NLT ever!!

Here's something that I've had opened for the last couple of days, but wasn't sure if I had the guts to put out there. My nohari window (an inversion of the johari window) can be accessed here. For those of you who haven't contributed to my johari window yet, that's over here.

That's all for right now...I think my first post in a few months should be short :D

We're in Egypt!

Yep, we reached here safe and sound - but it was an extremely interesting trip (when aren't they?). Our flight from Khi-Abu Dhabi was eventless, but we were delayed at that airport for 2 extra hours (on top of our 4 hour transit!) but we managed to meet the Sri Lankan delegation, and a guy from the UK - all AIESECer - so we managed to pass the time with considerable ease (although Costa did tell us to stop hogging the sofa after two hours!).

The fun actually started after we reached Cairo airport, because when we got off the plane and came towards immigration, there was a huge group of people screaming and shouting - which we later found out were people wuiting to be given their passports. Since the online passport scanning network in the airport had collapsed a few hours ago, everything was being done manually, which meant that after you had submitted your passport to the control booth, they would manually enter your data and then after about three hours they'd send a bunch of passports to these gaurds who were screaming out the names of the people who the passport belonged to! Lucky for us, since we were delayed by two hours, we missed most of this commotion, and only saw the ending, as after about 10 minutes of being in line to hand over our passport, we were told that the system had been restored and we could do the whole thing digitally - meaning we got done in 15 minutes!!

Have just reached the pre-meeting venue after a very harrowing drive through Cairo streets, but that's normal supposedly, and are now getting some stuff done and re-charging before heading out for dinner.

201

as this is post#201, i have to say something profound...so here it goes,

i won, i won, i won, i won, i won! (repeat until exhausted!)

sorry about that, but it's about the only thing that comes to mind :D anyway...smarter posts coming up soon...keep reading.

while out for dinner with some old friends, the question of "what's the one thing you want to do before you die?" came up. having never thought about it before, i was stumped. the answer that i gave shocked even me. i'd never thought i was a romantic...

2006...

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?
Lived alone in a foreign country for two months :D

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't make New Year's resolutions, it's like waving a red flag to a bull.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Nope

5. What countries did you visit?
Poland

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
Same old story - a laptop!!

7. What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Dec 31 - best NYE ever!!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I prioritized, my way :)

9. What was your biggest failure?
I wasn't always around for people.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nope

11. What was the best thing you bought?
I actually didn't buy anything significant, I did mooch a jacket off of Rob's back :D

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My brother's - he finally took the plunge got married!!

13.Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
No one - to be appalled and depressed, you need to have high expectations of people and I don't believe in those

14.Where did most of your money go?
Travelling - although technically that's my dad's money

15.What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Poland - it was by far the most insane experience of my entire life!

16.What song will always remind you of 2006?
"My humps", and Laura dancing to it in the SGGW dorm room! The whole incident was hilarious and I can't get that song out of my head now. Followed closely by "Signal" from some cheesy Indian movie, as my sister made me listen to a million times for the wedding!!

17.Compared to this time last year,

I. are you happier or sadder? Happier
II. thinner or fatter? Same, maybe fatter - ouch!
III. richer or poorer? Richer, till I buy my laptop.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Spend time with family...

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Sleep :D

20. Did you fall in love in 2006?
Nope...aww..sad!

21. How many one-night stands?
none...good girl!

22. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Nope - I dislike some people a bit more.

23. What was the best book you read?
My sister's, can't say the name or anything else as it hasn't been published yet :D

24. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I rediscovered some old stuff I had liked when I was younger.

25. What did you want and get?
I wanted a laptop, and I got the money for it :D

26. What did you want and not get?
I wanted a new phone, and although I might just get that, I haven't gotten it yet.

27. What was your favorite film of this year?
Aahh...the worse film was "pirates of the caribbean: dead man's chest". I loved "Hooligan's", though it's not a recent release.

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
This is a sad story - turned 23, was home alone, no one around me, on Eid! Very, very sad story.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A better b'day :P

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
same old, same old...jeans and t-shirts

31. What kept you sane?
who said i was sane?

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
The "supernatural" boys.

33. What political issue stirred you the most?
Nothing can faze me anymore.

34. Who did you miss?
Ammar Zaki - the idiot moved to the US :) We're meeting tomorrow though

35. Who was the best new person you met?
Mostly everyone on the IC '06 CC - but David Pollay, the chair for the conference, was truly phenomenal.

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006:
You have to have courage to admit to and learn from mistakes

shoe-shopping

I bought four pairs of shoes today. But that's just the ending :)

Last week my mom had made me promise I'd use my time in Lahore effectively - meaning I'd buy the shoes I need for my brother's wedding (5 pairs of shoes, mind you, all color coordinated with my clothes!) Lahore is, apparently, the place to buy shoes, probably because of all the Lahori aunties that have nothing better to do than making new clothes and then getting shoes to match. Anyway, Lahore's where ECS and Stylo reign supreme (both are shoe shops, for the non-Lahori's) and that's where my mom wanted me to go.

The past few days, I'd been lazy. It's cold out, I'd rather check my email, I'm not in the mood. But Sunday's getting closer, and I needed to buy the shoes before then if I had any hopes of setting foot in my parents house, so today - my third day back in Lahore - my roommate turned to me and said, "wanna go shoe shopping?"

We set off from LUMS, walked to a coffee shop, got a couple of things to eat (we're both the no-breakfast type of people, and had even skipped lunch today) and finally got on the bus. 15 minutes later, we were at the shop itself - ECS.

ECS DHA is a landmark. The shop originally started from Liberty Market - your average shoe shop, except the salesmen seemed like they were jacked up on caffiene. Hyper active, throwing shoe boxes at the speed of light. Their shoes were great, and they pretty much dominated the market, with people coming from other cities to buy their shoes. The first shop was a little more than a hole-in-the-wall. Very cramped and constantly filled with people, which meant there was barely enough oxygen for all those in it. They soon realized the error of their ways, and moved to DHA and into a huge store with sofa's and enough space for a wedding party. Business boomed.

Anyway - that's besides the point - I'm just trying to explain why I first went into ECS. It's a landmark. I had to. Going into any other shop first would be unacceptable. I can just imagine my mom going, "You went to Stylo?", had I gone into Stylo first.  

However, the salesmen in the DHA branch are apparently not as enthusiastic as the ones in Liberty - or maybe the coffee here is worse - since no one came to bug me, ask me what I needed, or show the slightest concern. After about 10 minutes of just wandering around, I came to the realization that I didn't like anything but unfortunately, one of the salesmen had by now spotted me, and so, thinking, "this is ECS!" I started around the shop with him following me and yelling out orders. Three shoes later (one I hated, two I loved but had too big feet for), he figured me for a lost cause and left. That's when I turned to my roommate and said, let's go to Stylo.

So off we went - it's right next door to ECS - kinda like comparing Jammin Java to Hobnob (Hobno is hugely successful, Jammin Java not so much).

The salesmen here were apparently taking lessons from the ECS Liberty guys - 20 minutes later, the entire stock room was at our feet. Everything in pink that is (I have tea pink clothes, go figure!) - I'm sure the guy in the stock room thought Barbie had landed in the building.

Needless to say, I walked out with four pairs of shoes.

MC applications '07-'08 just opened up. From saying at NLDS '04 that I'd be MCP Pakistan one day to actually filling out the application! The wait has been unbearable.

reconnecting...

i'd thought that when my friends graduated, i'd lose touch with them - we'd never been the emailing each other kind. (un?)fortunately, they've all suddenly turned into the emailing kind, and since most of them are now in the UK, we get weekly updates of what's going on in their *new* lives. from cleaning schedules, to eid celebrations, to who's up-to-no good type gossip. it's fun, but we all had very varying groups of friends - kind of like those ven diagrams - with overlaps here and there, and although we knew everyone, we were never *close* friends with a lot of each other's friends. which means that if X sends a weekly update, all her friends are on the list, and since everyone *loves* "replying all" on gmail, we end up having to listen to all the comments her friends have to throw into the mix. not fun. especially if you don't really like all those friends. *snicker*

it gets even more interesting.

if i have a comment to make, which i don't particularly want to share with everyone, i'll just remove all the random people from the list, and send the email to *my* close knit group of friends (possibly a subgroup of the much larger group that received the originaly email), and thus a second *internal* email begins, but again, because of gmail, this is in the same thread as the previous, much more public mail. and yes, you guessed it, sooner or later, someone will send a response that had to be sent to the much smaller group to the much larger group causing confusion, and sometimes problems.

so, not only have i *not* lost touch with my old friends, we're still creating messes for each other...

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...

I turned 23. First birthday in the last four years I didn’t spend in LUMS with friends. Actually, yesterday was Ammar’s birthday, and since our birthday’s are so close together we usually celebrate them together. This year was supposed to be a BBQ, or something, but he moved to Little Rock, Arkansas in the summers and so I really didn’t want to be in LUMS today anyway.

Anyway, it’s Eid, and it’s vacations and I was supposed to spend this birthday with my family. But that’s not happening either.

My parents and brother have gone to spend Eid in Faisalabad – the town I was born and raised in. But I couldn’t go; too much work to catch up on, plus I have to study for the upcoming exams since the mid-terms didn’t exactly go great. But they didn’t really get it, so they left pissed at me since I refused to join them on the trip.

Why am I writing all this? I just noticed a birthday cake in the fridge that my parent’s must’ve gotten for me, but we had no time to cut. It’s the most depressing thing in the world to have a birthday cake in the house, but have no one to watch as you cut it :)

Human choice

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: "When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?"

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. "I believe  that when a child like Shay, physically and mentally handicapped comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child."

Then he told the following story:

Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, "Do you think they'll let me play?"  Shay's father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, "We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning."

Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. His Father watched with a small tear in his eye and warmth in his heart. The boys saw the father's joy at his son being accepted.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat  properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, "Shay, run to first! Run to first!" Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second!" Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball ... the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's
intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of
him circled the bases toward home.

All were screaming, "Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay"

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, "Run to third! Shay, run to third!"

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on
their feet screaming, "Shay, run home! Run home!" Shay ran to home, stepped
on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the
game for his team.

"That day", said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, "the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world". 

Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making his father so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

30 hours and counting...

LUMS used to have this really weird way of scheduling mid-terms. (Explanation to everyone not familiar with LUMS - my university: We have 10 week quarters, and every quarter has mid-terms. So roughly we have exams every 5 weeks.) What they used to do was schedule mid-terms very randomly between the 4rth and 7th week. So there was a good three weeks of, "I can't do this, I have mid-terms going one." Anyway, someone in the administration must have had a light bulb go on in their mind, as from this year, all mid terms happen in the same week - to be specific, the first class of the 5th week (or is it 6th?). Basically, it means that there's these four days when 95% of mid-terms are held, and unlike last year, where we had a break from all the mid-terms and actually managed to get some sleep during the three weeks, we now have 4 days where no one (except the really nerdy people) sleeps.

I've been awake 30 hours - which is nothing for LUMS standards. I had an exam this morning, so I was awake last night studying. And I have three (yes - one, two, three!!) exams tomorrow. Which basically means I can't sleep till tomorrow evening. But wait - we have an LC social tomorrow - and there's no way I'm missing that! Which means I won't get to sleep till tomorrow night - midnight would be a good guess. Another 24 hours...

Now - as interesting as Augustine's Confessions is, it really cannot stop me from thinking about the fact that I cannot sleep for another 24 hours, or stop me from ooking at my bed every ten minutes. Unfortunately for me, I'm not being tested on the colors of my bedspread tomorrow, so I definitely need to get back to Augustine.

Note: I just realized that when I finally sleep, I'll have been awake for 54 hours. My previous record is 46 hours, at the end of which I vaguely remember getting on a bus, but have no recollection of what happened between then and when the bus stopped 5 hours later.