the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. vacations, SDC, new office, the jig, influx of international guests, christmas and ofcourse, the upcoming LCP elections.

the one week i got at home was fun - got to meet up with some old friends, made some new ones. it's always weird when someone who's been a rock for you has his life turned upside down, and its even more difficult when they don't realize that they don't always have to be the rock.

came back, had one day in LUMS and then off to karachi. SDC was another rollercoaster of emotions - right from watching the potential eb 2006-2007 change in a span of 4 days to aqeels "thingys". sohaib's never ending discussions about tony, to hassan trying really hard not to fall into the abyss. my relationship with every one of these guys has changed for life - they'll never just be members, or even vps to me - they'll always be the guys i spent 32 hours in the train with - talking about random crap, and trying to explain to hassan how AI functions. more important then us, though, were the karachites (who just wouldn't tell us who the chair was!!) . i'll never forget saba's "i won't get sick if i don't sleep" and dodi's "i'll be with you in 5 minutes". sharmeen and i had a crazy time trying to figure out exactly WHAT was going on and of course the new members are gems - the impromptu lunch at amirs house, the crazy driving, the harassed OC, and of course...the unmentionable incident! everytime lahore and karachi meet - we form a complete whole...corny...i know. but so true. can't wait for NLC now :)

but the people who won't be there at NLC will be the faci's...what a bunch of people. from amaan's being voted "sexiest faci" to nicole's "superstar", nic's "basically's" to eva's confessions. and finally, dandi and his "arre great yaar"...i don't think anyone in @ pakistan is EVER going to forget that expression - including the people who don't even understand what it means.

i don't think i'll ever forget SDC - it was an amazing conference, one of the best i've been to - and the food kicked ass!!

came back from SDC, had barely enough time to breathe and got thrown into the music society's first concert of the year "the jig". a full 2 days of running around, pissing people off (my team was managing the tickets), missing the ENTIRE concert, and ending up at KFC yet again! an awesome two days i must say. i always do a full round up of the concerts i attend..but since i didnt get to attend this one, i can't do that. i do think, however, that this was one concert for which every contingency had been planned out, except for bad singers (you can never really do anything about that can you?)...so - a few songs aside...everything i was able to hear was great - some people were exceptional...but they always are. notable mentions to ehsan's "stayin' alive", zahra's "star" and the 2 songs the lower staff sang. thanks again to the entire roadies team - you guys rocked!!

and finally - on to the current happenings...the following people are in town: nicole, nic, delia, tori. to be joined tomorrow by ellen, and two other german trainees from DI. then on saturday, delia and tori leave and on sunday the germans leave. and in the middle of all this we have LCP elections...which is a completely different type of story itself...

so - next time...updates on how christmas went (so far, we have ALL the decorations and food, no alcohol, and no time to decorate the tree in) and also pictures from the touristy things the visitors did. and maybe updates on the LCP elections...

i'm back

i moved back - yes, yes...i know i'm stupid and only lasted 36 hours on myaiesec.net - laugh all you want. :P

address change

i've taken the plunge and moved my blog to aiesec.net - the new url is nida.myaiesec.net :)

The Jig

The Jig
Originally uploaded by monday_bluez.

Saturday - 17th December 2005!
Be there - or be very very square!

also, the entire music society support staff, including yours truly, are getting ID badges for free entry into concerts - WOoHoO!!

tagged..

tagged by pierre.

Ten years ago
- i was 12, and i thought i was in love with one of my brothers friends
- i thought my family was "dysfunctional"
- i thought boy bands were cool, life could not go on without "channel V"
- i didn't know what my goals in life were
- i realized i wanted to visit india
- i lived in faisalabad, and was the only girl in the city who wore jeans everywhere

5 years ago
- i had moved to islamabad and still wore jeans everywhere, as did 70% of the female student population at my school
- i was still thinking about my brothers friend
- my family was still "dysfunctional"
- boy bands were just lame, MTV was in and replaced Channel V as " the channel"
- i still wanted to go to india
- i was thinking about my future
- i lost one of my best friends because of one stupid arguement.

Last one year
- i know where i want to be 20 years from now, and no - i don't want to be "rich"!
- my brothers friend is a thing of the past, he's also just not as cool anymore!
- i realized that i have an amazingly cool family
- i joined AIESEC
- i've been to india thrice
- the best friend i'd had a fight with finally talked to me.
- i now live in lahore, still wear jeans everywhere.

Yesterday (Monday)
- i was in karachi, and wearing jeans :)
- lunched at an @ers house with 15 other people
- i said goodbye to the most amazing people i've ever known
- me and sharmeen "discovered" something!
- i realized we took a few hundred pictures while at SDC.

Five Yummy things
- chocolate (toblerone, maltesers, bounty and mars)
- anything at subway!
- chicken karachi, handi, and other pakistani food thats spicy :)
- new york cheese cake
- my moms cooking!

Five songs I know by heart
- you're beautiful, james blunt
- she will be loved, maroon 5
- it's a wild, wild world, mr. big
- hallelujah, rufus wainwright
- saahil ki talaash, saaya

Five things I'd do if I had money
- visit new zealand
- go to disney world - yes yes, i'm a kid!!
- pay back my student loan
- buy a laptop, don't care which one as long as it has massive amounts of disk space and lets me play AoE
- get a 4 gb nomad

Five places I escape to
- my room, both at home and in LUMS
- naureen's room
- the park next to LUMS
- the tv lounge
- the supermarket

Five TV shows
- that 70s show
- house
- lost
- friends
- the apprentice

Five things I enjoy doing
- playing AoE
- travelling
- talking
- reading
- playing with animals

Favorite toys
- my nomad, though its not working too well now
- my movie camera, though its not working too well nowadays (maybe i should use some of that money to buy new stuff!!)
- duke, a stuffed dog so big he rivals the travel smurf in size!
- emad's camera
- madiha's PC

I tag
- nic
- nicole
- dhanur
- ali
- pani

just came back from one of the most amazing conferences ever! and for the first time EVER, i had GOOD food at a conference!! more updates soon...

you know you're living in 2005 when...

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

and now you're laughing at yourself...

randomness

it's weird, i haven't "blogged" in ages..but as soon as i see a major exam heading my way (philosophy paper in another 2.5 hours) all i can think about it the hundred things i wanna post about...

had the weirdest conversation with one of the LUMS drivers today. i'll start from the top - went to then bank to deposit a check - sara offered to drive me off but had to go on home so couldn't drop me back to LUMS, but just as i got out of the car i met one of the LUMS drivers paying some bills. LUMS gaurds/drivers are something of an institution - you can always converse with them about anything from cricket to bad weather to cats to banks. anyway - sweet man that he is, he said he'd wait till i was done and then drive me back to LUMS.

so on the way back we talked about the earthquake, the effect it had had on his family (they're living in 2 tents), about the LUMS students who went with all the relief goods and stayed at his place, about the convocation and how zainab k won't be around to arrange it this year and finally about LUMS - more importantly - about how it isolates the "LUMS society" (which includes everyone who lives on campus, including the gaurds, drivers and even faculty) and how we're so caught up in our own lives that living in LUMS is like living in a bubble. weird.

anyway, come monday and i'm outta this place till the 4rth! will be back for one WHOLE day before i leave for SDC in karachi on the 6th and return on the 13th! I BELIEVE! or so the conference theme states! should be loads of fun (and serious work!) - so many ppl to catch up with!

Seven Things

Seven Things I Plan To Do
1. graduate!
2. learn spanish
3. go on a backpacking trip with friends (preferably europe)
4. go on a trekking trip to the north of pakistan
5. see as much of india as physically possible
6. go to the north of pakistan to help with the reconstruction work
7. visit new zealand, mauritius, russia, spain, poland, kenya and as much of south america as possible

Seven Things I Can Do
1. understand french and gujrati (mostly) besides the usual trio of english, urdu and punjabi
2. get an indian visa in 2 hours (conditions apply)
3. do stupid things without getting embarrased
4. eat unlimited supplies of maltesers, pickles and olives
5. play age of empires for 12 hours straight
6. sleep for 24 hours straight (lol!)
7. not unpack for 2 months after coming back from summer vacations (i just finished!)

Seven Things I Can't Do
1. control my impatience
2. sing
3. console someone when they cry
4. put up with crap from anyone
5. use HTML! someone teach me!!
6. play the drums
7. eat yogurt

Seven Things I Say Most Often
1. f**k that shit (thanks emad!)
2. damnit
3. dude
4. wazzup
5. i'm-a-like-a-yo!
6. relax
7. chill out

...22...

Ammar's Bday002
Originally uploaded by monday_bluez.

there's one friend who will always understand why i get depressed on my birthday...

on the 23rd, he turned 22.

this is a picture from 1 of the four or so parts of his birthday (or should i say birth-week!)

ammar's the guy holding the chair...

...

i'm a VERY mean person! more details after Monday :-)

browsing the LAN i found a collection of music i made on another friends pc last year which she'd shared. obviously i had to download it to see what i'd been listening too - mostly stuff i'm still listening too :) some songs had me smiling though. amazing stuff i'd forgotten about and is definitely going onto my nomad. i love doing this, putting songs, thoughts away and then looking at them a year or so later. never fails to put a smile on my face. i have a couple of cartons (one in lums, one at home) which hold all the things i've saved - from school, university. every year when i have time i open them up and go through everything. old pictures, cards, ticket stubs, signed napkins, sugar cubes - and now i guess this blog serves much the same purpose.

so, after putting some good music on i just lounged around, thinking about last year and the year before that. thinking about all i've done while at lums. looking out the window i could barely feel the light breeze. winters on its way. eid is almost here. get to go home for one week. can't wait to meet the family...and hopefully catch up with the school gang :)

LUMS has reached its minimum target of Rs. 10 million.

Of this 10 million, 1 million was from donations to LVS through the fund boxes placed around campus has been:

Days Rupees

Sunday (2 hours of collection) : 36,700
Monday, Oct 10 2005: 212,600
Tuesday, Oct 11 2005: 405,020
Wedneday, Oct 12 2005: 227,455
Thursday, Oct 13 2005: 237,696
Friday, Oct 14 2005: 88,388

Total 1,147,859

taken from tree-elfs blog

In Vino, Veritas

this has been taken off nomadlife:

LA Times writes a short article about how guys form opinion on their date based on the drinks they order

"Beer: It doesn't matter what kind you drink, most guys approve and it shows you are laid-back and comfortable in your surroundings, not trying to impress anyone.But they advise that if it is a first date and you're going for drinks somewhere other than a sports bar, it's probably not the best choice.

Wine (red or white): A bit refined, or at least pretending to be.

Margarita: A fun-loving girl with lots of personality.

Gin and tonic: Guys are split on this one. Some say it signifies a sophisticated woman; others say it is someone looking to get drunk.Either way, it signals that youmay have hit your grandma's liquor cabinet early on. Use sparingly.

Martini: Somewhat classy ? or you just like the fun glass.

Cosmopolitan: A bit trendy, and some guys view it as snobby. Also, it shows someone with expensive taste. So if the guy's paying the bill, steer clear of this one, especially if the date's going badly. He doesn't want to have to take out a loan to buy you drinks.

Long Island iced tea: He knows how much alcohol is in it ? and that you might end up spending the night feeling very, very ill.

Rum and Coke: This is a basic, and fairly safe, drink choice. Someone who likes to have fun but can keep herself in check.

Whiskey and Coke: Borderline alcoholic. Someone who is a bit sassy, will speak her mind and won't care what anyone thinks.

Vodka cranberry: Someone not familiar with many drinks, but who still likes to have fun and knows that vodka will do the trick without tasting too bad.

Red Bull and vodka: An absolute party girl. Save this one for the club.

Smirnoff Ice/Mike's Hard Lemonade/wine cooler: He probably won't appreciate this drink choice; unless your date is at the 7-Eleven, get a real drink.

Mudslide/white Russian: Any drink with milk in it scares guys.

Sea breeze/Midori sour/amaretto sour: A bit of a good girl. Someone who likes to drink but doesn't like the taste of alcohol.

Tequila: Guys dig a tequila drinker, but some claim "she is a keeper ? just for the night though." Avoid at all costs if you don't want to end up seeing his sheets. Otherwise, bottoms up."

and in the comments of the same post, this shocking record!

dody g.

...speaking of drinking, I wonder whether my record in Oriental Express and Nordic Highway still hold.

nida

whats the record?!?

dody g.

Disclaimer: I was young and foolish back then.

I remember (there are pictures somewhere to confirm it)

11 seconds for 13 shots in Nordic Highway and 9 seconds for 11 shots for Oriental Express. And they were all clean; no spilling nor passing out afterwards :) (dody g.)

:-O !!

i've always thought of LUMS as the kind of place where you have all sorts of people. i've always been proud of that. you have those who will study for a 5% quiz a week before it takes place and those who will miss it because they were up all night hanging out at the khokha; there's those who are religious and those who define what "not religious" means and finally, there's your quiet, shy types who hang out with the same people for four years and those who happen to know the entire campus. i've also always divided people into another category, those who donate (no matter for what cause, no matter in what way) and those who say they have an exam, are tired, have a party to go to...

i've recently realised i was wrong about that last category. i stepped into the sports complex (a huge building where LUMS is currently collecting cloths, medicines, bedding for those in the northern areas) and saw people i never thought would manage to make it to one of these events. the same people who always told me before a blood donation drive, that they didn't think it was worth it, the same people who study for exams two weeks in advance (and we're in the middle of exams right now), the same people who didn't have time to do anything besides hang out at the khokha/hotspot!

i'm proud of LUMS, since sunday, 6 lacs has been collected - 600,000 Rs - just by students alone. 2 trucks full of relief materials have been sent to various cities in the north, and along with it some LUMS students (hats off to the LUMS adventure society!) people have been showing up before and after iftari to make sure everything's packed for when the trucks show up, some have even stayed back during iftari. the whole process has been co-ordinated to the point of looking like a military exercise. open the bags of clothes being donated, sort, place in cartons, seal, tag and load. the batches of 2008/2009 has been amazing in doing everything and anything thats asked of them, they must have assembled hundreds of cartons by now, sorted clothes enough for a whole village. so many people have volunteered to go collecting donations throughout lahore that bilal tanweer said he had so many he was going to have to turn some away...

it took something this huge to bring everyone together, but i'm proud of the way everyones working at it. they're all taking it one bag of donations at a time, one truck at a time, one lac at a time...but they're making steady progress into making sure LUMS does its bit for the people who're suffering...

Aid agencies working in the quake zone

International aid organizations are accepting donations to help victims of the devastating earthquake in South and Central Asia. A list of these groups can be found on the CNN website.

"LUMS is having a week-long charity drive (longer, if necessary) starting tomorrow to collect supplies for the Kashmir districts.

While money is welcome, what is needed more urgently are dry goods- atta, sugar, daal and other foodstuffs, bottled water, blankets, clothes, medicines, anything you can think of. There will be a stall open on campus from 12 noon to 3 p.m.

If anyone has contacts with pharmaceuticals, food companies or anyone else that can help, please e-mail the LUMS Volunteer Society at lvs@lums.edu.pk ASAP.

Everything is going through a reliable channel and people will be receiving these supplies either directly through the LVS or an organisation like Edhi or Oxfam. Please donate freely."

Relief Drive

"One in the bus. As I boarded the bus for Islamabad at about 8 PM last night, I hardly had any clue to what comes next. Everyone here and abroad was calling up to ask if everything's okay. Just I was having these thoughts, the guy sitting beside me was anxiously calling up people in panic. It came to me that he belonged to Azad Kashmir, a district named Bagh. He told that 4 of his family's houses collapsed in the quake and killed 7 family members including his grand-mother, one relative grand-father and many others. "

Islamabad's Diary: Experience life

and the government officials release more information on the collapsed building, "the Government department which runs the affairs and manages things in capital territory of Islamabad had not issued a completion certificate to Margalla Towers yet."

Islamabad's Diary: Havoc

however, the most irritating thing about this earthquake is this:

"No evidence suggests that the deadly earthquake that rocked Pakistan on Saturday injured or killed the world's top terror leader, Osama bin Laden"

i mean 20,000 people died in pakistan. although i sincerely hope he's trapped in a cave due to this quake, i do feel that there are more relavent things that can be reported.

two towers of margallah apartments holding 16 apartments and about 150 people collapsed. for a long time nothing could be done about the people inside since the rescue workers were afraid of using cranes as there is a basement underneath the building and they weren't sure whether it would hold the weight of the crane or not.

82 people were pulled out alive from the rubble. but a government official said that rescuers also found the bodies of 10 people - seven Pakistanis, an Egyptian and two Japanese, one of whom was a two year old child.

apparently, by the time the second tremor hit, the building had already started to collapse.

president pervez musharraf's spokesman said "deaths could be running in the thousands" nationwide, and rescue teams have been airlifted into the worst-affected areas where roads had been cut off by landslides.

some 400 children were killed at two schools in nwfp, where around 1,000 people were feared dead. on pakistan's side of kashmir the toll would be worse.

the first quake was followed by 18 aftershocks which had magnitudes of between 4.6 and 6.3 over the next 10 hours. they were felt across the subcontinent, shaking buildings in the afghan, indian and bangladeshi capitals. we felt one while we were in our exam, though most of the class didn't realize it was an aftershock until after it had finished.

the U.S. geologicalsSurvey described the quake as major, saying it took place at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles). the pakistan metrological department, said it was the strongest earthquake in the subcontinent since the 1905 kangra earthquake that killed 20,000 people in india's madhya pradesh state.

the phone lines have been clogged with people calling family all over the country. it's been impossible to get through to anyone.

update...

the earthquake measured 7.6 on the scale, not 6.7. also an apartment building just collapsed in islamabad. apparently the top two florrs collapsed first, and at this point two of the four towers are down. i don't know how many, but there were people in there - this is one of the well-known apartment blocks, so i'm guessing families. also these are right next to a main market and main road so i wonder exactly how much damage has happened.

its much worse up north where landslides have also taken place. i've been told all this is being aired right now so i'm going to go get updated...

so i'm sitting on my roommate's pc, going through some last minute prep for my exam today when suddenly the monitor started shaking lightly. my first thoughts we, "oh god! there really is a ghost living in this hostel" (details about this later). a few seconds later i realized that i was indeed feeling a - by now - pretty strong earthquake. by this time my roommate had woken up so the two of us stood up and stood right under the door, as taught to us by our parents (i just found out thats NOT what you're supposed to do) and pretty soon the entire corridor was filled with people. a few minutes passed, and everything was quite again so we all came back to our rooms and i decided to look up tips on earthquake safety on the internet. random? read on!

so another five minutes pass, and then i feel more shocks. much lighter than the first time but still worrying. so me and salma (who lives across from me) decide we should all vacate the hostel. we start waking people up, and can you imagine that people had actually fallen in just five minutes! and to make things weirder, they refused to leave the building, saying they'd felt much worse! so i grabbed my exam notes, keys and cell and went outside and talked to some other hostelites who had decided to leave the rooms as well. after about fifteen minutes of "where were you when it happened?" and "what did you do?" i decided to come back to the room.

then i went to the common room, where we have the hostel tv, and put on the news. amazingly, the local news had already picked up on the story and were getting interviews of people who had come out on the streets. it's being said the earthquake measured 6.7 on the richter scale which is pretty bad. apparently the epicentre is somewhere near gilgit in the north and the shocks travelled all the way to karachi in the south and then came back, which is why we had a five minute gap between shocks. there have been reports of houses falling down but i haven't heard any confirmed news yet.

anyway, that was my saturday morning. wonder what the rest of the weekends going to be like.