Post Back: PROCOM.net 2008

It all started in our point. I had come back after volunteering at our second PROCOM. My friend, Nazia, asked me to give her the problem set and after going through it she was confident that she could have solved some of the problems. And she wanted me to make a team with her for the next PROCOM. Though I wasn't confident myself that I would be able to do anything good, but I still had no good reason to say no to her, so just for the sake of it I said Yes. And this turned out to be a very good decision, as the next year as PROCOM's internal programming competition was near Nazia asked me again, as I had already said no and, therefore, she was relying on me I couldn't say no to her now, and I thought "How worse can it be. Let's sign up, practice and then sit in the competition". After I agreed we had to look for a third member and I chose Sundus, Nazia agreed to it too. We only got a little time for practice, but still we did practice. We would sit together and solve the questions of past competitions.
Let me tell what actually happens in a programming competition. In such competitions you are given a problem set that may contain around 8 questions, and you have a time limit during which you are supposed to solve maximum questions possible. You solve it of course by making computer programs. The winners are decided on which team submitted the most questions and the time of submission. Plus, there is a penalty thing, if you first submitted a question and it was wrong then you submit it again, you are penalized for it.
So we practiced all we could. Nazia and I would sit in the point, where we wouldn't have a computer to check our solutions but we'll still come up with a logic together. The most important thing in such competitions, besides your ability to program and come up with logics, is how good you are as a team. Only one computer and one problem set is given to each team. And the victory depends on how well you utilize the scarce resources. It would all be too easy with three computers, but what makes it challenge able is how you deal with it using only one computer. If two of the group members get a logic at the same time, who would use the computer, and what would the other member do in the meantime. It all depends on the strategy you design. Ours has always been split the questions, each person would start with one question, ask for help from other members if needed, and then when she comes up with a solution, she can start using the computer.
So it all started with that PROCOM internal programming competition. All of us signed up for the competition as well as for volunteers.
And when I was in the internal competition, it felt so good, that after that all three of us longed for a programming competition to participate in. It felt sooooo good participating in a programming competition, being there, doing it... aahhh!
Khair anyways, as I said it all depends upon the strategy you design and also on the decisions you make on spot. Like in this internal competition, Nazia and I had come up with a logic together. As the computer wasn't free I started writing the program on paper, when I got the computer and finally wrote the program I got some errors, while I was trying to solve them Sundus said I am done with one more questions. And Nazia and I asked her "See we have very little time, are you confident that you'll do it, you'll write the program and it would run perfectly" and somehow, she got the guts and confidence to say "Yes" and we gave her the computer, which turned out to be a very good competition. As she sat there typing the program, Nazia and I helped her but only a little, teeny weeny bit, and it worked, we submitted the program. And then after the competition we were confident that we have lost, that we won't be able to participate in the external PROCOM as the first two teams from the internal are the ones which go to the external.
The results were to be announced in the auditorium, I was a bit down knowing we wouldn't win but still I thought we should make the most of it and so I told Nazia that we'll hoot for every team no matter if we do or don't know them and that's what we did. And then the time came for the announcement of winners of internal programming competition, the first was a team from our batch but section b the second was a seniors team the third was a team from our section, we hooted for all the teams and so I hooted for the team that came fourth as well and after a second I reaized "Wait a minute, she said Synergy, isn't that our team" and that was a great great feeling. Although we were fourth but still yaar it was our first competition and we came fourth.
And that competition got us rolling, after that we tried to participate in any programming competition we could.

This was all a lot of history.
Let's get the point now: PROCOM 2008
So this was our last PROCOM, we had to win it. But before we could win the external we had to win the internal competition. And it wasn't just Programming competition only, we wanted to submit our Final Year Project Blog Digger as well. We got selected for the software competition, our FYP Coordinator evaluated our project which had no interface, none at all, all the modules were running separately, but they were running fine, so she just ordered us to integrate them make a good interface and we are in!
But for the programming competition we had to win the internal. I had collected a lot of programming questions from the internet for practice. But we didn't get time to practice either individually or as a team. Of course, you don't have much time on your hands with FYP going on.
So we just practiced a bit, only one or two questions. Sundus and I stayed back on a Friday to practice. And then we set in the internal competition. After the competition we were in HRM's class, discussing whether we would loose or win, we didn't have our hopes high, and not really concentrating on what was being taught. In the HRM break, we went off to find Farooq, programming competition department's co-head. We found him at schon, and we shouted from above, asked him the results, he said "You people are third, a freshie team beat you yaar" I guess he was trying to embarrass us but we continued "so we are third, how many teams are going in the external" I knew universities other than ours were allowed three teams so how many from ours? and he said "Three teams"
Us: "So we are going?"
Him: "Yes. But a freshmen team beat you....."
Oh we weren't interested in that, we were just happy we won. That was another good day. I half ran, half-walked back to the class room and shouted "Sundus..... hum jeet gaye". Never mind the teacher, never mind the other students just saying "hum jeet gaye" I also dropped my teacher's papers on the way and reluctantly stopped to pick them up before I could go to Sundus.
The days passed.... without us practicing.
And finally the day came when on the next day we had PROCOM, but still we were celebrating Cheap Day and a company had come for taking Job Hiring Test. I dressed up as cheap, bunked the job hiring test so that we can make our software ready for the competition.
And then it was PROCOM Day 1.
That day we were also getting our promised scholarships. The parents of the students getting the scholarships were also invited. My parents came along with my sister. And what were we doing before the ceremony started, Sundus and I were in the lab, completely engrossed in her laptop, because the software that worked perfectly before (at least it was perfect by our standards) stopped working, errors were sprouting up every now and then and we were sorting them out, also waiting for the ceremony to start. Any ways, we got the scholarships finally. And as our software wasn't working as it should Sundus and I decided that as the programming competition's first day is just the practice session we should not attend that and be at the software competition. When I told this to Nazia I could tell by her face that she was really angry on us but she still agreed.
In the software competition too we both were trying to make the software work, people came up to us so that we can give them a presentation and we would say "Can you come later". And then though we haven't really gotten rid of all the errors we were forced to give the presentation, how long can the judges be asked to wait anyways? We gave our presentation one after the other. We got comments like "A very good idea, but the work is only initial". We tried to convince them that we have done everything possible. We got some good hints, tips and tricks like "Sell your product...."
The day ended, it started with a feeling of despair (with the software not working) and ended with a feeling that "we did okay in the software competition but what would we do in the programming competition tomorrow?"
The next day, PROCOM Day 2, I was relieved to find out that all the judgments for the software competition had been tomorrow, the software competition head had the results in his hands when he told me about the judges thing but of course he wasn't allowed to tell me the results. Now we can go for the programming competition without worry about the software competition.
HMMM.... sitting in that programming competition finally, sitting in external PROCOM Programming Competition for the first time. It started..... and then it ended, without us doing anything productive. We knew as soon as the competition ended that we have lost it, that we have missed our first and last chance to win PROCOM Programming Competition.
With long faces we left the lab and went towards the software competition lab to find out that amazingly the rest of our team wasn't there, Sundus's laptop had vanished with them. And we were worried and angry at the same time "yeh loog kahan chalay gaye?" And when we found one of them she said "Rafi bhai ne aa ke kaha hai yeh project hatao yeh laiq hee nahi hai software competition ke liye". And Sundus and I just stood there, trying to contemplate the possibility of her just trying to scare or her telling us what really happened.
Finally she said herself "I am just kidding.... We are third...." *Wide Wide smiles*
So it was a mixed feeling.... relief and joy at winning software competition, and disappointment at loosing the programming competition, the competition we had been trying to win for a long time.
I commanded my software team not to go before the results were announced. I wanted the entire team to go up there on the stage when our names were announced..... that turned out to be the wishful thinking of the century... Third positions weren't announced for any competition.
The anchor started with the software competition results... but started with the second position. Another disappointment.
Another reason to have long faces.
Any ways the day ended.
At least we came third, though even nobody at our university knew about it besides us and the people who had direct access to the results and those were few.
So we had some unknown, anonymous victory (can third position be called victory? :P)
The day ended, another chance lost, another experience gained.
We had TechElite to look forward to. Which happened to be on the very next day.

Memories I'll cherish

14 of June 2008, my last day of bachelors..... finally, done with the Open House, finally done with Blog Digger..... Four years of bachelors done, 16 years of education completed. 16 years seems a very very long time.
All these four years of bachelors, it was like "kab khatam hoon gein yeh 4 saal" In the fourth year the thoughts were "yaar buhat parh liya... 4 saal buhat hotay hain 3 saal ka bachelors hee theek tha".
And now when it has finally ended, I know there are a lot of memories I have made, a lot of things I'll miss, a lot of things I'll think about whenever I think about my university. A lot of things I'll remember... no, a lot of memories I'll cherish.

• The time when we used to bargain with the teachers while setting marks distribution. Talking like it was something we are buying rather than discussing the distribution. Saying things like "Munasib kar dein, Sir".
• Celebrating Color days in our last year. We celebrated Red day, Black day, White day... ahhh just a few days yaar we missed so many colors. Any ways, it was great, I participated in Black day, even though I HATE Black.
• The day we celebrated cheap day.... and even I got in the mood, and became cheap.. which was pretty unexpected, one of my friends Nazia stood there looking at me with her mouth agape, wondering what had gotten into me. Ahhh, celebrating cheap day, that was something :)
• When Ambreen and I used to chat just to decide what should be our next nick. Both of us would listen to English songs, choose lines from the songs and ask each other "would this be fine?" :P
• The get together at Midhat's place. We had loads and loads of fun, taking photos with funny poses :D
• The picture day. When all of us gathered at schon and took pictures, when we had our individuals pictures taken, when the entire batch gathered for the batch pic and started singing songs. Go to my previous post on picture day. :)
• When we used to sit in E1 in the seventh semester and talked as we always had the first slots free, discussing FYP, at first it was "yaar banayein to banayein kya sab kuch to phele se hee bana hua hai?" and then, when we finally got what to make it was "kaisay banaye ga itna sab kuch?" and of course there were the PMs to discuss about, and we had many other things to discuss completely irrelevant to studies. Planning the next day to celebrate, the next place to gather at, the next restaurant to hit (though we only got to hit Pizza Next and Karachi Food Centre) and many many things. The room changed to E4 in the 8th semester but the stuff was the same.
• The time we all played 'Bingo'. I didn't even know how to play Bingo, Ashba taught, it was like a class coz she used the white board to explain and believe me when I say it was the most interesting class :) And then we all played bingo. Bari mushkilon se mein aik hee game jeeti thi :P But it was a lot of fun. I also came to know that day that a couple of my friends used to play "Name Place Animal Thing" back in the initial semesters before papers as in, they had a paper in the evening and they would play Name Place in the morning instead of studying. I wanted to do the same thing, and so we decided that we too would play the game in one of the papers. In the last semester whenever one of us remembered this plan and voiced it, others would say, "nahi yaar aaj to nahi, Media mein khilein gain". But we didn't even play it in Media. But the Bingo day was fabulous. That day too has a post dedicated to it. :)
• The one hour long ride in Point. Some days were spent sleeping, some times we used the time reading books (most of the times novels rather than course books), some times the solace was used in thinking... and most of the times it was spend talking, talking continuously for one complete hour. I would remember the time when we talked only about food.
• The time when we finally got the opportunity to cross the "Quaidabad Bridge". The took a long time completing it and when it was finally done and our point crossed it all the students hooted. :D
• The time when I listened to my MP3 player in IPT lab and the next day the teacher said, looking specifically at me, "I know what was going on in the lab". I still don't know how she got to know I was listening to MP3 player, or maybe she just looked at me and as I was guilty I assumed that she was talking about me.
  
• My first and last Picnic. Definitely memorable.
• My first and last Annual Dinner, and that play.....
  

It's a long long list and I know I'll be coming back to it adding more bullets. For most of you, all these things won't sound as fun, but it was, all those days were fun. For me at least, I know my friends would relate to it. :)

Finals, finally done!!!

26th May, 2008 was my last final paper of Bachelors, my very last paper of Bachelors. :D
It was "Media and Advertising" paper.
As I have said before, I haven't studied a lot during these finals. The was I used to spend my gaps, it didn't feel like I had a paper next day, watching movies, tv series, everything except studying. Well, I was studying of course, but not like I used to. I was always like "Yaar akhri semester hai"
I even said they shouldn't take papers in the final semester, they should let us all graduate with a 4.0 GPA in every course. When I told this to my friend Ashba, she stopped studying too and now she blames me saying "Jab se is ne yeh kaha hai na ke akhri semester mein finals nahi honay chayein mera bhi jee nahi chahta parhnay ka".

And this was the case during the gap I had for Media.
It has always been my record that somehow the first two or three chapters are left. And I always go through them in the point.
But nowadays I don't even count how many of the chapters are left.
And in Media we had to study from two books, I don't think it has ever happened that I bought a book and simply didn't read it or even touched it the entire semester. But this time I have done it all.
Till the end I didn't read one line from the Advertising book and now I regret wasting more than 400 rupees on a book I didn't study from, I could have bought a Stephen King novel from that money and that would have been money put to a good use. At least I would have read the entire book.
Anyways, there we were all sitting together in E1, studying Media, or at least trying to study with a more than 10 minutes break after every 5 minutes of studying. :P
And we also got our photographs that were taken on the picture day, the individual photographs.
At first, everyone was saying "yaar achi pic aaye hai". And then after a while we looked closely and went on with the problems...... Another half an hour waste. After the paper when we had a lot of time to discuss our photographs, they never came up. :P

My friends used to play "Name place" before their mid terms in the first semester. When I got to know this I planned that we'll do the same in the last semester. But we never got a chance. Before we every paper we said "Yaar name place phir reh gaya..... chalo Media ke paper mein khel lein gain"
But didn't go ahead with it then either.

Now let's talk about what happened during the paper.
I was thinking "Yehhh this is the last paper :D"
I spent the paper sneezing.
Every now and then I just sat looking here and there, pretending to think what to write, when I didn't have a clue about the question.
My friend Ashba, I guess, was suffering from the same symptoms, as she too was looking here and there, and twice our looking here and there was synchronized and we got a chance to pass smiles at each other. Notice our condition, that we didn't even think of asking something from the other person and just settled on a simple smile. :) May be that was because I was in the middle of the room (which happened to be Seminar 1) and she was sitting besides a wall. So, it was like one at the middle one at the end. What good would have happened even if I asked her something. :)

Back in school, one my teachers Miss Shamim gave us a lecture before our first Board Examination. She gave her tips for the papers. Like don't worry, etc etc. She also said, sit through the 3 hours, even if you finish half an hour before the paper is supposed to end, still sit and read and reread your answers, ponder over what you can't remember, you might just remember it at the last moment, so don't give back your answer scripts until you are asked too. I practiced this during my bachelors too. Only once or twice, I guess I have given back the answer scripts before time. And this time too I kept the script with me till the end, mainly because as I wasn't feeling well, most of my time was wasted in sneezing rather than writing what little I did know.

But the point is, it has finally ended. All of it.
After the paper, none of us discussed the questions. I never do that, I leave the place if my friends discuss the paper, but this time I didn't have to leave because no one even talked about it. We were just exchanging "Mubarak ho, last paper ho gaya" and shaking hands with each other.

Haa,... finally it has all ended.
We have finally given our last final paper of bachelors.
All through out this semester I was counting like "Last First Mid Term of Bachelors" then "Last Second Mid Term of Bachelors" and now finally "Last Finals of Bachelors".
It would have felt much much better if we didn't have FYP to worry about.
And also if my group and I didn't think that we had to submit our complete FYPs on 28th. (By the way we are supposed to submit it on 4th june, so it isn't like we have eternity left to work on it).

But still it feels good. Pretty good! :D :D

Post Back: The Picture Day

So finally, the day came. Our Picture Day. It's not actually our picture day. It's not just for the seniors, it's a day when the photographs of all committees are taken but still I'll call it Our Picture Day.

Every senior was getting ready, after all, each senior would be photographed separately for Graduate comments and Graduate Profile. Everyone wanted to look their best.

That brings me to graduate comments. Although I had been planning for a long time that I'll write this and that, but when we were actually asked to submit our comments I was totally blank. I didn't know exactly what to write, of course I wanted to write something very good, but what?
And I wrote the same thing that I don't know what to write, and then I put some random thoughts and in the end it exceeded the word limit and then I had to cut it short :P

Khair, we girls got ourselves photographed in the morning. Then it was all random photos time. :)
We had already planned that in this last year of ours we'll take pictures at every corner of the uni. And we tried to do that.

Of course, how can we forget our beloved "Schon". A lot of pictures have always been taken there and a lot of pictures were taken there on picture day too. Standing in a circle at schon, with our juniors taking pictures from the top, we also made a 0 and 4 to represent our batch of 2004 :)

We took pictures until it was time for Committee pics and we all went out for Digital Eyez then we stayed for PROCOM.net picture so my friends Ambreen, Farnaz (heads of HR dept) and Madiha (head of ICube) can be in the PROCOM.net pic. And as we were there, waiting, and we had nothing else to do we utilized that time too in taking pictures. :)

Then of course the Batch Picture. The fun was in settling for the pic. Adjusting the entire batch in one pic. :) The guys took this opportunity to sing out loud their favorite songs. Starting with the National Anthem and continuing with "Ae khudha mere abu salamat rahein" etc. A few girls joined in too. Then they all started shouting "le lo le lo", at least I think that's what they said. And then when the photographer finally put up the camera to his eyes, the batch said "Cheese" and when he put it down again without taking the picture there was a big "oohhhh" then again he put the camera on his eyes and again a loud "cheese" and then again a big "oohhh" when he put it down again without taking the pic.. and this continued for a while. Everyone joined in this one. It was so enjoyable and fun. :D

This was just the pic for CS batch and then it was the entire batch, all departments pic.

Though Sir Hilal Qureshi wasn't in the pic and it was not a good thing, he is our senior most teacher, who taught us the basics, who taught "Introduction to Computing". Don't know if he wasn't informed or what, but he just wasn't there :(

Any ways, with the batch picture done we were all free to photograph our selves at every corner.
We took pictures with all the teachers, at least the one we could find that day and who also agreed. Waisay, sab ne kitchwa hee lee photo, kisi ne mana nahi kiya shukar. :)

Khair the entire day was pretty good. Reading about it won't be any fun. But being there, enjoying the day was a whole lot of fun for me. We enjoyed each moment and would cherish it always. :)

My Last Final Exam

Finally, we are here. Somewhere we wanted to be ever since we joined university. We looked at our seniors and said "lucky yaar, yeh to bas ab chalein jaein gain"
This is what my juniors are saying about us these days.
One them asked "Bina baji, aap ko kaisa lag raha hai?"
I am happy, but if I really think about it, somewhere deep down I am a bit sad too.

Anyways, don't have much time. I have a paper tomorrow. My last final exams are beginning. And my first paper is of Human Resource Managment.
Haven't prepared very well for it. There are still a lot of chapters left, I don't know what I would do and instead of studying I am here writing about it. Typical me, time waster. :)

Post Back: Data Warehousing's last class

I came here to write about PROCOM.net '08, but as I glanced at my last post and saw the list of the topics I wanted to write about, I saw this topic "Data Warehousing's last class" and I thought, "Naaa.... this is worth writing about, I should go ahead with this one first".

Khair, so Data Warehousing's last class happened to be many student's last class of bachelors as well, it was my second last class of bachelors, as I had Compiler too.

I entered the class late, I wish I could have attended right from the very beginning so I could know how this topic started, whether students asked him or he started giving this lecture himself. Whatever got him started, I can call it the best Data Warehousing class, in fact the most interesting class of the semester. We didn't do much of data warehousing, all we discussed was job. Rafi bhai started giving us pointers, tried to clear our confusions and gave us advice on job related issues.
I'll try to jot down the points he discussed because I would like to remember them:
(these are NOT in the order in which they were discussed)

-Rafi Bhai said and it was amazing hearing him say this "Har banday ko har cheez nahi aati", (not everyone can know everything). I said it was amazing hearing him say that because I always perceived Rafi bhai as a person who wants everyone to know everything, to be good at everything, but he proved me to be wrong.
He said that he sends his students for interview and then people call him up and say "yaar Rafi bhai kaisay bachay ko bhej diya tha, isay to kuch bhi nahi aata tha" and I tell them "did you ask him what he knows??? Why didn't you??"
It really felt good hearing him say that, because most of the people don't realize that. We are in our last semester yaar, we don't know everything. Hell, no one knows everything.

-He advised us to not to talk much to our colleagues at least for the first 6 months. He said that during this period you should be analyzing people. And that, the competition we were in all during these 4 years, is very different from the competition we'll be in during job. He said that I know people who studied together for 4 years, talked to each other, spent time with each other, got job at the same place, but eventually professional jealousy developed between them and they ended up harming each other.

-He advised to exercise. :)

-He advised us not to leave our religions behind in pursuit of success.

-He informed that there are also many diseases, which I (by I, I mean me, Bina) assume would be due to sitting in front of the computer all day long. He mentioned a disease which was I guess something related to tension, in it he said people think about their projects even while sleeping. That commenced an argument between Nazia and Rafi bhai, because according to Nazia we have that disease already. Personally, I agree with her. I won't call it actually a disease but its something we are already suffering from and not just in our last years, but it has started a long time ago. I remember during checkers, even when I closed my eyes I would see the Checkers board. Woh bhi din thay.


And there were many other things that he said. I'll continue adding them when I remember.

Memories......

Tomorrow is my last day at uni, last day of classes. Last day at a place where I spent the last four years of my life, always blaming the place for all the tensions it has brought in my life.
At the start of this last year, I thought I'll miss this place terribly when my bachelors gets completed. But the things that happened in the last two weeks, I became so fed up with everything and everyone that I was just waiting for all of this to end. And my friends kept on saying that they are feeling very sad, they'll miss this place a lot, etc. etc.
Until this morning I felt, and I didn't hesitate to say this out aloud that
"NO I won't miss this place."

But today, I don't know what happened, I was sitting in my last class of the course "Media and Advertising" and I started feeling a bit sad, somewhere deep down in my heart I was sad that this was all going to end soon. I kept turning back to my friend and kept saying
"socho yeh hamari akhri class hai"
And I was thinking, no matter if I study further, but it would not be the same, they way we take classes now, the way we talk to our friends, the way we long to spend our leisure time with each other, this all, it won't be there. This would not come back. And no matter how many fights we had with each other, we'll still miss the good days, the good times that we spend together, I might miss it terribly.
I don't know how to put my feelings in words.
Just this morning I was happy that this all was going to end soon, and when I heard people saying that the are sad about leaving, I thought "comeon yaar, acha hai ja rahay hain finally".
But now I don't feel the same.
The feeling I had in the morning has changed.
And I don't know what to do or what to say.
I wish we had this last year, just to enjoy, not to think about FYP, not to worry about the exams and assignments, not to worry about the job scene. Ahhh, it would have been so much better, but this is what life is all about na. You have to go on with what you have.

Just yesterday, our Media teacher, Sir Pervez Mohsin, was saying that after two to three years you'll miss this place.

I know that no matter how much stressed we feel these days, it won't be anything with the stress we might have to bear in the future.

God... I don't know what to write and yet I can't stop writing this post.
I don't know what to write, I don't know how to end.....

It was also our last Human Resource Management class. And I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Ofcourse, we discussed the final paper pattern, and everything we hate. But then Sir Ally Raza, started saying what my friend calls "Alwidai Kalmat".
And I would like to remember his words.
He shared a story with us. This is from some famous personality, whose name I haven't even heard before. The story goes on like.... there were two kid brothers twins. One of them was very optimistic, he would always smile, even if you took his toys from him, he would still smile. And his brother was a complete pessimistic, he would always have a negative view point, and he was always sad. So the parents got worried about him and they went to a psychologist and explained the situation to him, they told him about both of their children and told him that they were concerned. So the psychologist asked them to bring the two boys to him. Now what the psychologist did was this he took the pessimist kid and locked him in a room filled with anything that a child would want; from toys to video games, sweets everything. And he took the optimistic kid and locked him in a room filled with horseshit. After 3 hours, when he went to the pessimistic kid, he saw that he was doing nothing, just sitting in the middle of the room, when the psychologist, who was with the parents, asked the kid what was wrong why wasn't he playing with the toys, he said oh I don't like playing with these toys, then he asked then why don't you eat some sweets and the kid replied, 'Strawberry isn't my favorite flavor either'. Then he went to the optimistic kid and he saw that he was playing with the horseshit, tossing it around, when he was asked what was he doing, he said "if there is so much horseshit, there is bound to be a pony here too.
Moral of the story: Always look for the positive aspect."

No doubt, it's easier said then done.


Again I'll go back to the last class thing. All through out our 7 semesters we have never every felt anything in any course's last class, it never meant anything, we never even considered whether it was the last class of the course or the semester. We just went about as usual. But of course, this time it's different. It's so different.

I think I'll miss this place, even a little bit, but I'll miss it.

When I left school I missed it badly, but then college started and even though I missed my school and my friends, but I had a great time at my college too, and I got so busy with it, that I would say that I think I didn't have time to miss my school.
Then when I went to university, initially I had such a horrible time that I missed my school and college and my friends there terribly. But again I got so busy that I just went on with my life.

This time I'll inshaAllah get busy too, I hope with a good job. But this time I'll be busy doing something I haven't done before. Before, it was from one educational institute to another kind of educational institution. But this time, it'll be from an institution to a completely different place.
From student life to practical life.
From one phase to another phase of life.

And I guess we'll miss this part the most, being a student. :)

P.S:
I still don't know how to end this post. But I'll stop here.
I know this post has no flow at all. I start talking about one thing and then I start talking about the other thing with no connection between the two. But I guess that's how I feel right now.
And aren't my posts always in this haphazard, confused kind of way.

Your Best friend?????

Normally, I had this one name prepared for the answer to this question. One name. Which has always been the answer. Well, for a long time, at least.
But you can't always remain under a misconception. Its bound to clear up some day.
And now if someone would ask me the question "Your Best friend???"
I still have an answer prepared. But instead of a name, I have this entire theory or you can call it philosophy to answer the question. And it would go something like...
"No one is really your best friend.. except yourself maybe, but no one else. Coz everyone will naturally keep themselves first, and would not care about you if some of their decisions might hurt yours or might hurt YOU. coz in the end what matters is how happy they themselves are and not how happy someone else is. So, the conclusion is, no one is really your best friend."

A very harsh truth, yes. but it's true for me, might not be in your case.
But I too thought that I was lucky enough to have a friend. But it took only one weekend to change my thoughts, just one weekend. It was the 18th of April 2008, Friday.. and everything changed in my assumed world of friendships....

The Credit one deserves

Just a few days back when my friend and I were pouring over the Compiler book trying to make some sense out of it, one other friend of ours stormed into the room, his face betrayed his anger. He just sat down, and it was the first time he told us "what happened" when it was just the second time we asked. Normally he doesn't spill out that easily.
Khair, the actual story is quite long and I don't think I should be sharing it here, but the main thing is that he was angry because he was not being given the credit he deserved. He and this other friend of mine started talking about things that have happened to them, when they haven't been given the proper credit. They complained about the times they have worked hard, very hard on something and still no one recognized it, and I, at the meantime, was plunged back into the time when I was made to go through the same ordeal, my friend was experiencing now, when I too heard the same things being spoken about me..... and let me tell you, it hurts, it hurts like anything. And as a result you loose your interest in not only that thing for which you are not being given credit for and everything else.
At that moment when my friend were trying to prove to each other that they've suffered the most because of this, I was thinking my suffering is more than both of them.
But that's what we always think, don't we?
We think that the worst thing only happens to us, everyone else is happy, but we are the only one with tensions and in a gloomy mood. But let's keep that discussion for another time.
The problem now is why sometimes we are not given the credit we deserve. Why does this happen???
I don't know the answer, unfortunately.
I've been so depressed because of this for I guess the past month, I feel like an invisible person, no matter what I do, I would never be given the credit, I would never be recognized for my efforts and someone else would steal the fame.....
And for the thing that happened to me, because of which I've been depressed, for that thing, there is no one to blame. I've been close to tears all this time, even a small thing, completely irrelevant to the credit-wala-scene would make me cry, and one such small thing, did make me cry, I've been throwing things to let go off my anger, but I am still hiding this from everyone else, I can't tell anyone the reason of my bad mood and low spirits, I can't tell anyone about my be-izzati and I can't blame anyone for what happened, because there is simply no one to blame.
The girl who has been given my share of credit, completely refuses to take it, she has been trying to prove that I too have been putting in as much effort as I have, she even apologized when I was crying my heart out, she said "Bina, if this all is because of me, I am very sorry" and I wanted to say that "No, it's not your fault, not at all" and I even blurted out some of the sentence but the rest of it was clouded with my tears, I hope she got what I meant, I hope she understands that I don't blame her, but I am furious, and I don't know who to be furious with, it's not my fault, it's not her fault, then why did it happen? why did it have to happen?
According to my mom "life mein aisa hota hai"
and maybe life really is all about things like this.
But you learn to live with all of it....

The movie making business (Part I)

We have this assignment for our Media and Advertising course. We are supposed to make a movie on any topic we choose, but the topic has to be related to university. Our defined space is our university.
It's a completely new thing that we are doing. I have never used a handi cam, as far as I remember, and even if I had I have never used to make a professional movie. And that's what we are supposed to do now..... make a professional movie.
We took up this opportunity to let everyone know how many issues we face in university. After all we have been forced to make a movie on university then why not use it to make ourselves feel better by finally letting out all the agony we have to go through each day. Almost everyone has chosen a topic that would delineate the many problems we face every day with just a tinge of positive aspects of the university.
We shooted for the movie this week and the week before. Our topic is "Final Year Project". The first thing was to write a script for the movie, things we'll be including, things we won't be including, for the things which will be included how would they be shown, this and that. We decided to act out the whole thing.
Hey wait, the first thing was to get our topic approved by the teacher, and his reply was "Okay, you can do it if you want to but is it just your groups' problem or is it general."
Our answer was "General"
Then he scared us by saying that "Okay, but it would be difficult. Would you be able to convince the teachers to act"
It was at that point that it occurred to us that we might need to do that. The problem with us is we don't normally think, we just act. For the question we replied "Well, we can try, but can we switch to a different topic if we fail"
And he said "Of course"

So then, came the thing of deciding what to do and what not to do.
I was convinced that everyone I asked would agree to act.
Well, I didn't know how wrong I was.

I'll continue with the story later on.