Busy, busy

It's been a long long time since I had posted something that is not about SQL and neither are just links to other sites. There are two reason for that.. one is that I decided that I should stop writing about things that go on insanely in my head,, after all who would want to read about that. I wanted this blog to be technical, which I guess I have miserably failed to do. :P The second thing is that I have been way too busy...

Just last Friday, walking with friends from office to a restaurant near by, we talked about how we are neglecting our health... the proper amount of sunlight that we succeed in avoiding each day, as when we come to our jobs there is not much sun and when we leave there is no sun at all, and the proportion of calcium that we fail to consume each day. And I realized, not for the first time, that we take care of everything else except our own selves. At first it was studies we cared about, and now it's our jobs.

Everyone is racing against time. Trying to get ahead. So ahead that we neglect our surroundings.

When my friends and I were about to start our jobs, one of my friends told me that she has already informed her employers that she will work only for 9 hours, not a minute less, not a minute more. The reason she stated was "We have already spent a lot of time studying, I don't want to be doing the same at job." And I agree with her, I totally agree. We have woven our lives with threads of job and studies.. we no more spend quality time with our families (this is the 'surroundings' I was referring to above which we neglect).

We only try to manage work, not our lives.

Hmmmm, once again the post started with something else and then became something else.

So I was saying I have been too busy with work and studies (ummm well I don't think I am studying but I kept the book open in front of me the entire day, yesterday, does that count as studying?) that I neither got time to write something, neither is my head bulging with ideas. The above narration is the only thing I could come up with.. :P

Anyways, once again I'll try writing more. Somewhere along the way I have lost the passion to write. I still like writing, provided I don't need to work on it. But I do, I sooo do.

A few days back, one of my friends gave me the address of her blog (which I'll be including in my blog roll, after I am done with this post). And just ruffling through it, I realized how much I enjoy writing and reading blogs. And it's because of her blog, that I am trying to return and put some live into "intricate zone". At least, I'll be writing something, I know no one reads what I write, but still I'll be writing something.


I noticed that that friend of mine had put her articles there. And I remembered I too was planning to do that. So I guess, someone who accidentally stumbles upon my blog someday, might find my articles posted here as well, amidst other inane stuff that I produce.


This is where I end... :P

Best Friends Redefined....

As I stood with my niece waiting for her 'van wala mama' to arrive, we started a little chat. To start the conversation my niece asked:

"Phopo, who is your best friend at university?"

Saying university in her own cute style, her own-created pronunciation, she utters the word like it's a very big word for her to say, which by the way it is, she is only three after all. Okay, back to the topic.
So I didn't know what to reply to this innocent question, so I decided to evade it by saying:

"Aap ho na phopo ke best friend."

At that she broached another question:

"Acha yeh bataein aap ko apni university mein sab se zada kaun pasand aata hai?"

At that I just laughed. Thankfully I was saved by the 'van wala mama'.

********

At dinner, I was narrating this story to my family (in my niece's absence). As they all laughed at the story, my brother (my niece's father) pointed out that she was actually defining what for her is the meaning of best friend when she asked me the second question.
After hearing my reply to the first question, she realized that I wasn't answering her truthfully, she realized that it wasn't the answer she demanded, she must have thought I was that dumb, so she rephrased the question for my benefit. For her,

"Best Friend" means "a person you like the most".

:) Which is not a very incorrect definition. Though this is not the way we adults define it, for us best friends would mean not the people we like the most, but the people who would give up everything for us.... well that's another discussion all together.

********

To confirm my brother's theory, I asked my niece the same two questions she had asked me in the morning. I asked her

"Who is your best friend?"

She gave me three names.
Then I asked her

"Who do you like the most in your school?"

She gave the same three names.

Definition confirmed:
Best Friend is a person you like the most. :) A simple and cute way to define the concept.

New job... New life..... :)

It has been 2 months since I started my new job, that is to say, my very first job.

(I joined on 1st July, and people told me that I should have taken a break, and now I agree with them.)

I have been meaning to write about my job since the day I started, but never actually got around to it. This is because I didn't know exactly what to write. I don't know now either but have decided to go ahead with it anyways.

So... new job.. a new phase of life. Completely new and definitely different. Utterly new for me because I didn't have any experience of free lancing or internships. Different for the same reason.

We have been doing projects throughout the four years of our bachelors. These projects included not only the programming projects, the softwares we created, but also the presentations we gave, or the researches we did and produced a report as a result. We did a Final Year Project to give us an essence of what professional projects are supposed to be like. But being in professional life in reality is different then any simulation you go through during bachelors.

And it's not only the work thing. It is basically about settling at a new place. With new people, who will play different roles in your career, they can be your supervisors, the people who'll work with you side-by-side on a project, the people who are hired with you and the people who are your seniors. It's about settling with an AC on top of your head, and you are feeling like you are sitting in an igloo. It's about getting acquainted with your workplace computer. :P (People who work with me would know what I am talking about.) It's about getting used to the working hours, though they are less then the time we spent at uni, but definitely more tiring.

It's about calling your office, your place.
In an orientation session at office, the presentor broached a question

"Can a person work at a place about which he doesn't feel like he owns it. Can he work at an office which he doesn't own?"

I sat quietly while the others nodded. My expressions must have betrayed me because the presentor pointed me out and said "Yes you tell me, is that possible." And although I wanted to say yes, he can, I instead said no. And then he explained, again because my face expressions must have betrayed me, that

"yes it is possible if the person doesn't like working at that place."

For me the answer 'yes it is possible' holds true for completely different reasons. My reason being that if I think I own the place, I'll stop working. :D :P
I'll work when I understand that I am doing a job there and I am supposed to work. If I feel like this company's owned by me then I would surely not press even a single key, would not even bother to place a ';' at the end of a statement.
But what he meant by owning a place is not literally owning the company, but he meant owning in a completely different sense. And I won't go ahead and explain what he meant, because I don't know how to explain this phenomena.


And in the end it's about enjoying... making new friends, experiencing a new side of people. And again, enjoying...
Coz it's not worth if you are unable to find an element of enjoyment. Enjoyment encompases enjoying your work, loving what you do, realizing that you chose the right field, the right profession for yourself. And you realize that only when you like doing what you do. No, not like, love it. Enjoying is when you don't really want to get up in the morning, and you drag yourself to your office, but when you start working, you get so indulged in it that you don't realize the time flying by. Enjoying is when you are finally done with a project and you get that feeling of happiness, yes the feeling you get when you have finally accomplished something no matter how small. Enjoying also includes the feeling of nervousness you experience when you are assigned your first project, when you are asked to give a time line and schedule of that project, when you are expected to solve a problem, when you are expected to come up with new ideas and what not.
Enjoying is.. being there, doing it. :)

Random Thought

It's true, I have finally realized, that it's not until you loose something that you realize it's importance.

Back in school, I enjoyed going to my school, even if it meant waking up early in the morning, even if it meant taking classes the entire day including classes of subjects like Sindhi and Maths (I used to hate Maths), even if it meant doing loads of homework. I still loved being there, being a part of it, having friends, having those long chat sessions with friends in the morning before the bell rang. I remember I especially got there early so that I can chat. My home was nearby, I could have easily gotten there only 5 minutes to spare, but no I reached my school early so that I can talk with my friends and have fun. Oh this brings up so many memories, that if I start writing about them it would just fade away the actual topic (the title hasn't come to me yet) :)
But still we never failed to complain about our teachers and the school management and how they fail to care about their most important assets, their students meaning us. Ten years spent complaining and moaning on things we didn't have the authority to change.

And then it was College, an addition of two years to my fantastic memories collection. Two years spent full of enjoyment. My friends and I sat together and were always found laughing. Oh those good old days. Thoroughly enjoyed.

And then it was University. I didn't realize that I was enjoying it. The first three years were okay but the last one was fabulous. I didn't know then that I would miss this place terribly once it all gets over.

And you know what the problem is. When I told anyone that this is my last year, I am wishing for it to end soon. All they had to add was "Life would be much tougher afterwards."
No one, not a single soul, gave me the tinniest of hope that things would be fine in the future too. It felt like they wanted to imply that my life would get over once this last session of my academic career gets over. Everyone made me feel like there is nothing good to look forward to. And I hated it. Come on yaar!!! (again roaming away from the topic)

Well anyways, the point is once the time passes you by with a swift you realize that it was good when you were going through it. You may not have liked it then, there may be somethings you would rather hadn't happened, but still it was good. And some part of you wishes that you could have enjoyed it more while it lasted.....

End of another inane post with no relevance to anything.... :)

Sometimes....

Sometimes you have to leave a thing that you hold important for a thing that is important,

Sometimes you have to make the right decision even if it doesn't give you an pleasure,

Sometimes you have to give up the thing you love for the thing you need...

We: the ungrateful lot (Collection of Random Thoughts)

We, human beings, are amazing creatures. We are highly unpredictable. There is nothing in this world that can satisfy us. We are almost always unhappy with what we have and we are always looking for things that we don't have. Well, here by we I mean mostly ME, but I think there are a lot of people out there who are like me in this respect. Not all human beings but most of us are like this.
We should always try to bring betterment in our lives but is it necessary to have it on the expense of our happiness? We worry ourselves sick for the things that don't matter. Work hard, yes but be happy at the same time. Why not be satisfied with what you have and still work for greater things.

I have always noticed that we (again mostly me) thank other human beings a lot. Whenever someone does anything for us we thank them. That is fine, we should thank them. But why not thank Allah as well. After all, Allah is the one who really helps.

When we succeed we give the credit to ourselves, but when we loose it was all our luck. I believe in luck, I believe in what has been written. But I also believe that for some things Allah has given us the power to change. He has given us the power to make the choices and face the circumstances, enjoy the good that those choices will bring and also bear the bad that those choices might bring. But isn't success is something that Allah decided to give us for our hard work, then why not thank him too. Why does it become so hard for us to offer those 2 rakats of shukrana. But when it is defeat that we face, we never fail to blame others and then eventually qismat. Why???

What do you do????

What do you do if you become an after thought to the people you care about?
What do you do if they stop caring about you?
What do you do if you don't have them to share your feelings with you?
What do you do if they become irritated with what you say?
What do you do if they don't claim to be your friends anymore?
What do you do if it had always been a mistake?
What do you do if it was never more than a mere acquaintance?


What do you do if you were never more than an after thought, a part of lost memory?