Sameer Durrani's blog

Saniya has arrived

2009-01-08T08:50:00.002+05:00

Saniya arrived on 6th January. Her birth is an event that makes me celebrate my life more than ever now. It also gives me a reason to continue this blog once again.

I have been very busy. There were 7 days remaing in my marriage once. There are 315 days passed since my marriage now. Life has been really hectic in these 322 days. So much keept happening around. After my marriage, I shifted my wife to islamabad in a very nice apartment. Since then, the routine of life is so that weekly I spend 5 days in islamabad and 2 in Peshawar. In Peshawar there is always some place VERY IMPORTANT (Susraal offcourse) to visit as my wife has vowed to never miss any of her family gatherings and there are always too many gatherings in her family. One fine example is a big celeberation that happened on the special event that the larkay wala and larki wala just fixed the shadi ki date . It is very mandatory for me to accompany my wife with me on such occasions. Along with that there are always certain spur-of-the-moments plans that require urgent attention . so my life is in a rush. There are always too many distractions around and so many things going on that i am not being able to have sometime to relax and write some of my thoughts. Earlier i used to get sick every other day because of this speed of life, but now my lazy arse is getting used to it. Driving for Peshawar/islamabad trip doesnt frighten me as much as the simple Daewoo ride used to . I have driven 20 thousand kilometers in justs these 322 days. That shows how efficient beast-of-burden i can become.

My wife is a very sweet person like me and she is the best thing that has happened to me in life. I wont say that she has made my life a true heaven because i have seen true hell in these 322 days as well - (a married life has to have its ups and downs ) - but she has been very instrumental in make me a happier person. She is somewhat like me (in appearance and behaviour ) but she has a different view of life and so i keep getting my constant dose of paradigm-shifts from her. She wants to enjoy every moment of her life and i feel really lucky to be a part of those moments. It has been fun spending time with her understanding the dynamics of the married life which deals with so many things like Time management, Expectation Management, Health Management, Mood Management ,Use of Negotiatin skills,...etc. There are just so many variables to deal-with now. Finally i have started seeing my life as a computer game (like starcraft offcourse) in which you manage diffent types of resources (lumber, gas) and apply different stratigies. My wife, off course, acts as the player ..... the one you compete with.. lol . As a person who listens to all of my problems and complaints, my wife has been very helpful in guiding me towards the right decisions. She is the main culprit behind my blog's hiatus. She keeps me busy and then listens to me to the extent that there remains no residue to post here. The price i pay.... is that i listen to her....for hours...lol..

322 days have passed since i last wrote my blog. I was a bachelor person then, I am a married person now..and my baby was born around 30 hours ago. So much has been added in my life, so much has been removed from my life. There is no stracraft now. No late hours internet surfing now. No aimless life now. There is a family in my life now. There is some-one-to-go-home-early-for now. There are Indian dramas on starplus to watch now. There are relatives-in-law now. There are valimas, barats, aqueeqas to attend now. There is a filled schedule now.

With the birth of Saniya, there is going to be a lot more addition in my life now. I hope that Saniya will bring me more joy. I hope she will become a constant source of happiness for me and that i will become the caring father that i always wanted to be.

Now i should get up as the night ends. I am doing night duty as my wife's attendant at Shifa Internation Hospital. It is a very good hospital and things have been very good uptill now. The equipment is good. Patient room is very good . It is seperate and spacious. The doctor we consulted is very good . She let me sit in the operation theater and i was continously talking to my wife to comfort her while she was being operated; something i have only seen in movies.

Me goes now. Have to get back to the life. I am not sure when i will get time again.

Oh! Sometimes somewhere during these 322 days,

I became Informatica Certified Professional by passing the Informatica papers but oh! i am scripting for the last 1.5 years.
Starcraft was not released.

7 days remaining

2008-02-22T02:54:00.006+05:00

My life has been very busy. So much has happened.. i wanted to write but was not having enough time.

Its just 7 days remaining. Got an SMS this morning that informed me that next week ,next Thursday, i will be a married man. Time flies indeed.

At office, i had my annual performance review after which i felt very bad. Later i came to know about a few people who joined the company after me but were promoted for doing something great.. something great!!.. yet invisible!!... i got so depressed that i started feeling better . You know, its completely impossible to predict my mood swings. Sometimes i enjoy being what i am . Noman had a similar fate at his office after his annual review . So i guess , its all part of our jobs.

Shadi functions have already started . We had a chor mehndi recently. Chor (thief) mehndi is a type of mehndi in which one party (larki wala or larkay wala) takes Mehndi to the other party's home without informing them earlier. So there were some two dozen people standing outside the gate of my house at near 1:00 am (night) this Sunday. It was fun indeed. I , for the first time , realized that its ME getting married.. i was not giving much thought to the idea but now i have started realizing that it really is happening. Anyway's, two days ago it was our turn and we took the chor mehndi to the larki wala's place..And you know, being in Peshawar, its not proper for the boy to go along. this means that i was not supposed to go along the procession...but so many people from my family were going and i expected so much fun that i decided to go as well. but you see , one has to look at the customs and traditions of one's place as well. I cant really go there along with the other guests. so , the drama-queen-within me gave me an idea..i thought of a plan and when i told this to my family , everybody accepted it. You wanna know what was the plan... well .. lemme just show you a picture of the event ...and i will leave it to you to find me in the crowd.

yeah, the burqa clad woman is infact me. i was also wearing a red ladies shalwar and ladies shoes to complete the disguise. At first, larki wala were quite confused as they were not really sure that it was me in burqa. They did realize that the burqa clad person was of my size but they were not really sure.

Anyway's, my intentional overacting and funny dance moves made them sure of my identity and my burqa was finally removed. ... Wanna see the moments. ..Check out the video. Its about the time when the boys had finally decided to unveil me. The guy with me in the start of the video is the elder one of my two brothers-in-law , the one who finally unveils me is the younger one.

It was truly a fun event that i liked and loved. Every body enjoyed it so much. .Do i not enjoy being a drama queen.

its just a matter of days..when i wont remain single . i will become the head of my family .. new life.. new family..new responsibilities.. And an added responsibility means an added task.. an extra thing to do... Please!!!.. i dont need any more tasks.. i just want to sit lazily and enjoy my life playing games and watching drama series.

Speaking of games and series, i have started watching Terminator:Sarah Connor Chronicles.. Its really kool. A must watch..I am also watching Chuck..that's good too. I stopped watching Prison break..its getting so boring.I stopped watching it before it went on the hiatus because of the writer's strike. I heard season 3 ended... but who cares. I havent played starcraft for so long. Have started playing MOHAA (Medal of Honour - Allied Assault) instead. the single player campaign is really kool.. Its the first ever first-person-shooting game that i have liked.

Naruto is going good. I plan to hang Naruto posters in my room. My room at home has new furniture , new carpet , new curtains.All brought by the larki wala. Another cultural thingy - the bride has to bring new things with her when she moves in so now there are very lavish and beautiful things in my room and it is so much filled that i am not sure where to place my laptop as my writing table has been removed from the room. The only place that seems perfect for its placement is .....err!!!!... the dressing table.... and so i have decided that i will be placing my laptop there on the dressing table - a place where the bride is supposed to keep her cosmetics accessories. No other word on it ..and i have also planned that i will be having Naruto posters on the walls.. I bought quite expensive Naruto posters while i was in US. They were something near 30$ dollar each and there is no way i am going to let them rotten in the cupboard for one more year.. Yay!! Just imagine entering in a newly wed couple's room and finding a laptop placed on the new dressing table and Naruto poster around on the wall.. ... What a perfect combination.

I dont think i will be able to post for a while.I will be busy. My brother is getting married this weekend. My barat will be on the next weekend . Me and my brother share the same Walima.

If you plan to come, do let me know.

A nonsense post

2007-12-05T21:14:00.000+05:00

I am posting this only because i am tired of seeing the goodbye princess post again and again whenever i refresh my blogger page.

so here goes this post..

Oh btw.. i am sick for a while.. Pata naheen kyon.. some headaches and fevers.. thanks to the changing weather.. and no i am not depressed and no i am not missing the Princess.. I guess i was sad on the day only because the Princess was sold for a very low price.. No emotional attachment to that stupid piece of machinery.. Sorry!! i misidentified my emotions..

Anyways, i am getting married soon.. The date has been set.. 29th Feb is the date.. You can see the count down on the right side.. Right now its 86 days remaining.. Seems so many days for now.. but i am sure they will start decreasing soon.

Ok me goes.. Right now i am busy in doing something..

Goodbye Princess

2007-11-14T23:59:00.000+05:00

Princess was sold today. At a throw away price. I finally got rid of it.

Now that it has been sold, I feel like a very important stage of my life has passed.

but am i Happy??? Do you hear me say Yayyy!!!

No? you dont. Even i myself dont hear shouting with happiness. For some reasons I am not happy.

You know what. I have hated this car from the depths of my heart. I cursed it every time i had to ask people to give it a dhaaka. I cursed it every time i had to take Taxi leaving it on my flat in the morning. I cursed it every morning right after sitting on the driver seat because it always gave a dirty mark on my trouser - Actually, the distance between the steering and the driver seat is so little (or may be i am so fat) that while entering the car the steering touches my thighs and leaves a mark on my otherwise neat and clean trouser . Along with that it was always dirty from the outside as I used to wash it with the rain water and since it doesnt rain much in islamabad, it mostly remained dirty. (for those who didnt get it , i mean to say that i used to wait for rain to clean my car).I hardly ever saw it without that ever existing mud layer.

There were so many issue with this car .. and I so much wanted to sold it .. but today , when i have sold it , on a throw away price... I now feel sad.. very sad.. I have discovered something.... that somewhere during giving dhakas to this car, somewhere during cursing it for not starting up in the morning, somewhere during getting dirty by the its thick layer of mud, .. ..undeliberately ,...... unconsciously , .......unwillingly ..... i had fallen in love with it. . . I had actually started liking this non-living mechanical thing.

and i am very serious. I used to treat it like a human being. I guess i once tried to give it Reiki as well. i had a very strong connection with it which i realize now. It had become an important part of my life; a very important relationship for me. In life, our relationships with people get stronger when we share sufferings with them . This car had given me so many sufferings and I have shared so much of my sufferings with it that now i feel having a deep relationship with it.

I talked with Kashif and he told me that the way i feel is because i have lost an aim of my life. and i guess he is right. Those of you who are into Japanese Animes will be able to understand this concept. Going to the mechanic , cursing princess, trying to think the reasons for its kharabi - they had all become an integral part of my life. See my blog, every post mentions this car somewhere. Hey! i even wrote a poem on it.

Today i went to Rahat Bakery...I thought of that time few weeks back when i couldn't start the princess there..had to leave it there for the whole night. and then i started realizing that all the places i have been to in islamabad have a memory associated to this car.. Every road that i think of , reminds me of this car being pushed by a passerby with me sitting inside trying to start it on the 2nd gear. There are few speed breakers in this city that have become a land mark for me because of the impact that i got by driving princess on high speed over them.

These are all memories. Painful they were at the times they happened but now that they have turned into memories - Beautiful sweet memories - I really like them. Now i value them.

I guess all this life time that i spent with this car had some meaning for me.I am getting the meaning at the end of my relationship with it. I guess it teaches me that may be i am not cherishing the things in my life well.. There are things in our life that we take for granted. There are little things that are with us and we hate them for being there. Its their loss that tells us about their importance and what they really meant to us... The loss of the princess tells me that i need to start cherishing those things that i am taking for granted. Whats the use of complaining in life , when we can enjoy it with all it problems. Its a good lesson learnt.

Good bye princess!!! May you have a better life now.. Now that you will have someone better to take care of you.!!!

And hey Princess!! wish me luck too.. Cause i am going to have "someone" else in my life whom i will be taking care of with utmost care . Just 4 months remaining and then a new princess will be in my life.

The Loss of Bodi

2007-11-14T14:19:00.000+05:00

I have a very shocking news. Bodi's (Umair Azfar) mother passed away a few days ago. He is coming to Pakistan to meet his family in Islamabad . He will probably reach here today.

Bodi has written a post on his great loss and you guys can give your condolences to him on this link.

Bodi became my friend in Giki. Was it starcraft or Nix (our common friend) that brought us closer ,i don't know but i have spent a lot of time with him while I was in Giki mostly discussing computer games . I used to be at the listening part with him. Later , these discussion evolved and we started talking more about my favorite topic of discussion i.e "me" . Bodi went to Finland some 2 years ago for having "Aaala Taleem" (reminds me of an essay on Quaid-e-Azam that i used to write in school). He has done his MS now and currently he is doing a job there .He still engages in discussions on my favorite topic with good zeal .You guys would have noticed his comments on my earlier posts. He is a very good friend of mine and the thought of his loss saddens me again and again.

I pray to Allah to shower his blessings on Umair's mother .May she find a perfect place in heaven.May Umair get the courage to bear his pain.

October 2007

2007-11-05T10:30:00.000+05:00

Oct passed good. Starting with Teradata day , I had fun time whole month.

In Ramzan, I arranged a gathering of my gikian batch mates for an Iftar. It was my first ever administration of such kind of activity. and yeah i did mess up. I booked a table for 12 people nearly 2 days before the gathering at the Pappasallis Islamabad and when everybody reached there just before 5 minutes of Iftar, i was told by the receptionist that there was no reservation by my name. when i inquired , i found that the reservation was done in my name.. true!!!.. at the Pappasallis...true!!!....but at the Pindi branch. Stupid people!!! i was embarrassed in front of all the friends.. Anyways we went to Cafe Grind which is not as good but Khair! .While having food, I did get a few moments of regrets at times when i realized that every one around was either doing MS or PHD or had already done it.(Reminder! i am still just a bachelor - both professionally and maritally) but Khair, i guess i need to practice being dheet a bit more. .

On Eid , i bought my first Kurta ever on a special demand from my susral. I bought it from Junaid Jamsheed. It was pretty expensive , nearly 4000 Rs. Even my coat trouser suits are cheaper than that .Only the people at my susral had this chance to see me wearing that kurta as I didn't wear it anywhere else, fearing it will get dirty.

And yaaaay!! i did advance level course of the Art of living in the end of Oct (last weekend) .For this course, I stayed at a spiritual retreat , Bani Gala ( a place near islamabad raval lake) , for 4 days with the members of Art of living. The course was lead by a lovely lady from India and was attended by nearly 20 people. While there , we woke up early in the morning each day to do yoga before the breakfast . Rest of the day we performed some house chores (cutting vegetables, cleaning etc) , did meditations and had some good lectures. We had a silence meditation in which we remained silent for some 2.5 days. It was amazing . I learnt many kool things there.The stay was at a place from where we could see the lake all the time. It was a lovely experience. I didn't lose any weight during this level of the course. How could I , the food was so tasty there. They had all non-meat food and it used be so tasty that i couldn't stop myself from over-eating . All the people there were really nice and friendly (like me) . Since my return from bani gala, my sleep routine seems getting better. Now sometimes i feel some energy at the base of my spine. I hope it is what i think it is.

and yay! Peshawar Motorway was finally inaugurated last week.[news] Today, I came islamabad through this new motorway in the morning. Its 1 hour 30 minutes from Peshawar toll Plaza to Islamabad toll Plaza if you are driving nearly 110-120 km per hour. Thats kool.

I have been working too much for the past few days (thats why there has been no post).I am on a bad project again. Again late sittings with no acknowledgments but whatever ! my life is going all good and chill. I watched the indian movie "jab we met" and was impressed by the concepts of the heroine of the movie.

Ok me goes now, to see what the CNG mechanic has done with my car. Princess is still around... .

Teradata (Tumhara data)

2007-10-01T14:53:00.000+05:00

I am no more an employee of NCR . I work in Teradata now and even though i am working at the same place, sitting on the same seat, drawing the same salary , I am in a new company. yayyy!!! doesn't that make you wanna party!!!

You know what! ever since graduation, i have been switching and switching and switching. I cant stick at one place for long. Now the people at NCR found a way out to make me stick at my place and their solution was to virtually change my job place after some time and that was being done by sending me to US first and then to Dubai . Now they have come up with a new strategy and that is to shift my company.

so this morning when i came to office, i was greeted by the company boss at the very entrance and then i was given a bag with Teradata goodies in it. Every where in the office there were/are orange and yellow balloons , stars and beautiful flowers . People are wearing black Teradata shirts even though generally we are supposed to wear formal dressing with a tie in office. There is a happy environment around which uplifts my mood and makes me forget that the princess didn't start this morning and i had to come to office on Taxi

The picture below shows the decorated office. (can you find me in there)

And now the picture below shows my happiness that i got from holding an orange balloon that has my company's logo on it. Another reason for being happy will be explained in the next picture. For now see this . (dont we , me and kashif , look like Pizza delivery guys!! ) .

so as i was talking about the main reason of the happiness - well , it is that i was able to fill this balloon using my extra powerful lungs. you can see a big difference in my tummy before and after filling this balloon. I lost 10" waist. yay!!!

but wait.. my excitement doesn't end here.. there are a few other things that i got that make me explode with excitement . See them scattered around me below.

Yay!! i am one happy employee!!!

there is going to be an Iftar party in the evening and i will be regaining the 10" that i lost by filling balloon. Life is all party.

Yay!! I am one happy soul.

Movies and Series

2007-09-27T11:33:00.000+05:00

I am no more tech lead.. my project changed... yay!! and its a European project now but i haven't been asked to apply for a visa yet means i wont be going onsite for the project.

Princess is back but now i am happy .It is not bugging me much these days .In Ramzan, I must have a car otherwise it becomes so difficult to reach Rahat Bakery . trust me people, the chicken pakoras from Rahat are really amazing. They sell them during Ramzan only and they are really expensive ..350 Rs. per kg. At certain places you can have a proper Iftar-cum-dinner buffet at less than that ..There is a restaurant near my office where they offer it for Rs. 300 only. Now that is a big difference.

Last weekend i simply stayed in bed watching movies and series. Watched one complete anime Death Note. It has 37 episodes and is great.The story starts when a shinigami (death god) drops a book , death note, in the human world. The book has the power that if you write any person's name in it , he or she will die. Now this kind of a start of a story gives an idea that the anime will be magical / fantasy type but it completely changes it genre when the story evolves . It turns into a suspense as the police starts to hunt for the owner of the book when all the criminals in the city start to die by themselves. Its a blind hunt as they don't know the murderer, neither his location nor his method of killing so they have to find a way to reach the person who is killing everyone around the world. Its a good suspense. Do watch.

I also watched Khuda kay liye, the movie by Shoaib Mansoor. I watched a pathetic print but its good. The story is not as good as a Shoiab Mansoor movie should be . The whole story goes very smooth. You wont find much twist , It just goes on and on and then ends. Many things are predictable and you don't find any big element of surprise. It just seems like a normal PTV drama but still its much much better than general Pakistan films. One character of the movie who leaves his family for Jihad training reminds me of my time when i was tableeghi. The brainwashing of the young minds by the molvies has been shown in a very very good manner. The way they manipulate religion for their own benefit and look down upon the ones who do not listen them has been represented in the way it really is.

I also watched a movie Sunshine. Its a science fiction and don't watch it if you like science fiction. Infact , don't watch this movie if you like watching movies.

And i watched Blades of Glory. Its a light and funny movie. The story is about two ice skaters who decide to pair up for a championship after they are banned from performing solo. Thus they form the world's first men's pair. The movie is a good comedy.

There is also a cool anime Ergo Proxy that i am watching these days. Its good. The thing about animes is that sometimes you have to tolerate them for a while. Then they become very interesting. Ergo Proxy is difficult to understand in the beginning but it gets interesting later.The story is set in future when robots likes servants have become a part of the society and there is a virus that is infecting robot machines with "human emotions".The sound track is very cool. Its a good and stylish anime. will complete it by the end of this week.

3rd Season of Prison break is out and 2nd Season of Heroes is out. Prison break is going slow.Heroes now seems boring. The last episode of the first season left a very bad taste.If they have to show a pathetic end, why bother watching the show. but anyways, i hope this season's ending will be good.

I havent played starcraft for so long. Thats why i watched so many movies and series.Its good that i dont have DSL in islamabad. right bodi? Losing weight is not the only reason for avoiding DSL at home.

Mr. Tech Lead

2007-09-03T19:18:00.000+05:00

Yo! I couldnt write for so long. Lazy me!! let me skim through my recent past quickly.

Of Office

I recently got the role of the offsite tech lead of my project but that just means an increase in responsibilities not an increase in pay . Anyways, it all went good. I earlier had some problems managing things but then i found ways to make my life easy.

I also got a new laptop. Dell latitide D620. Its core 2 duo with 2 GB Ram with a wide screen. I havent felt any difference in this laptop and the old one Dell 610 yet.

Of Princess

Theoratically, the princess was sold (wait!!.. dont start celeberating yet) . My mechanic found a person who wanted to buy the car but because of my laziness i took nearly a month to leave the car to the mechanic place. I left the car with mechanic last week and then he told me this week that the person has already bought another car so now i have to get the car back from mechanic and have to find a buyer again . The curse is not over yet. You guys are not praying properly for me

Of the Trip

I went to a trip with my old fellows of PTA. It was a fun trip to Kashmir. The places we visited had strange names so i dont remember them . The place was so beautiful . just staying there and looking at the scenes makes you so relaxed .In evening we went to a lake and had a good bar-b-que there. I will be getting the pictures soon and will upload it on my facebook.

Of Starcraft

I started playing starcraft +warcraft 3 with office mates and have earned a good name already. Bodz and KB went on a starcraft tournament and were eliminated quite early in the tournament. This means that the people whom i idealize in the art of starcraft and who are my teachers in the game - even they have a long way to go. but anyways , this cant make me stop playing the game.

Bodz posted a great deal about the tournament on his blog. Seeing his pictures with KB

i felt so nostalgic. I wish i could be with the two of them. Why dont I get assigned on a europeon project .

Of Ramzan

Ramzan has started. Passing this month when you are living alone is no fun at all. Iftari is something that i can easily pass by going out somewhere but for Sehri the lazy me has to get up to make things to eat .Anyways, I hope this month will pass soon.

The last curse of the princess

2007-08-03T19:37:00.000+05:00

Princess has not been sold yet. My impatience led me to give another ad in the newspaper. The ad appeared last Sunday and since then i am continuously getting calls and calls and calls ..

Initially i was saving each caller's number with name to manage the calls but then my mobile's memory fell short . and so did my endurance. Now i just listen to the calls , tell the people where they should come to see the car and thats it. No management of their names at all.

People are so strange. they will call me any time whether i am sleeping or eating or getting ready for office..and then the questions they ask are plainly stupid.Mostly people ask the things that I have already given there in the ad. Is the car Subaru?? Is it blue?? Is it Islamabad number?? blah blah blah.. All these things ARE plainly WRITTEN in the ad. Why do you ask these things... you freak!!!!

And then they dont show up on time. They would tell me to stay in office so that they may come to see the car and i would leave the office late cursing them for not showing up for 4 hours. Those who come , come very late and when they talk - they have to tell me the details of the cars that they have kept all their life and about their family and other irrelevant blah blah.. come on guys.. why the hell am i going to be interested in YOUR story and YOUR cars and anything about YOU at all...

Khair.. this is how things happen in life. Now i usually dont wait for people when they tell me that they are coming to see the car.

People.. please pray that i get rid of this car..

I am staying in Islamabad this weekend. Just for the sake of the car.. wanna get some car deal done this weekend. wont have the fun of playing starcraft. :( Bodz and KB might go for a brood tournament in Sweden . Lucky them ..

I am still happy that i did the Art of Living Course. I am so happy. I am still doing the breathing exercises and I feel good and fresh the whole day.

Art of Living Foundation

2007-07-24T16:41:00.000+05:00

Week before the last week , i attended a workshop by Art of living Foundation. It was a 6 day workshop with nearly 3 hours every day ; a wonderful experience which i enjoyed a lot.

This is my first workshop that made a lot of impact on me. They focused on teaching breathing techniques and yoga. I have been studying many things about yoga and breathing on internet from a long time and i was feeling the need of such kind of a workshop.

The basic concept of Art of Living Foundation is to teach exercises that increase prana. What is Prana? Its a life energy - probably the same as qi/chi. Through Yoga you can considerably increase the prana in your body.

The effects of the workshops are lasting. . There were a number of spiritual lessons which might become a part of my life now. There was one exercise which i will mention as it had a very deep effect on me. In this exercise, the participants were told to sit in pairs facing each other with eyes closed. Then we were told to open our eyes and look at each other silently and then a question was asked. "If God ever comes to you in this face, will you be able to accept Him as God?". It was a very deep thing. The question hit me somewhere deep. and it still echoes in my mind now in my free times.

Earlier i was told by someone that Art of living foundation is promoting hindu concepts. What i have learnt is something that is beyond the domain of any religion (or may be i havent studied enough religions). The founder of the course is an Indian . true !!! ..his teachings are not . He is the follower of the Maharishi guy - the one who started Transcendental Meditation. The main exercises of the Art of living course are clearly given on their website . see. This is unlike other workshops as other instructors usually try to keep their teachings secret and sacred - making it impossible for a person to know what will be offered unless he/she gets registered for the course. Art of living makes it clear as to what they do and thats why they seem honest.

I came to know about Art of living when i was in Michigan , US. The course would have cost me some 400$ , had i done it in US. but lucky me!!.. i found them here and did the workshop at a much much much much lesser price .. :D ..There are only 2 Art-of-living instructors in Pakistan. luckily both are based in islamabad . . Btw, one of them is a VP in Mobilink.... kool ..

Ali Bhai and Noman also attended the workshop. Ali couldn't complete but Noman completed it and is as happy as i am.

The advanced level of the course will be offered after Ramzan. and in that we will have to go and stay at somewhere for sometime... for some 3-4 days.. isolated from the world.. What does that sound to you.. kool or weird.. :d ... well. ...kool to me atleast.. Reminds me of the time when i used to go on Tableeghi Seh Rozas - (a 3 day trip to a mosque) . Those , too , were days.

Oh btw!!... i lost 2 kg weight during the workshop. :D

My life for Aiur!

2007-07-12T14:05:00.000+05:00

"My life for Aiur" - this is what a Zealot says when it comes out of the warp gate. Zealot is a unit in Starcraft and along with starcraft it has made its appearance in my dreams as well when my starcraft addiction was at its peak in 1998 or 99.

Anyways, these days my life is for Aiur as my starcraft addiction is growing again and why shouldnt it grow when i spend two nights every weekend playing this game with my old gikian fellows and have started winning few of the games. .

I have been a loser in the game for a long time. Failing to understand the basic concepts, i make mistakes that usually provoke my allies. Long time ago, while in Giki, while on bnet (the server on which starcraft is played) I made a mistake - ( to be more specific , i had a dozen dragoons but i couldnt make them cross a river bridge when my ally needed them badly to protect his base ). My ally got pissed . He sent me a few angry words & left the game. On that day , like a priest who takes the vow of celibacy , i took a vow that i will never play starcraft on bnet again. This was a stupid vow . As then i started playing against computer only and a computer AI is extremely predictable .You can neither have fun nor learning by playing with it.

On May 19, Blizzard announced that starcraft II is in production and so i finally decided to listen to bodi's constant calls to join bnet . Thus I shifted from playing-warcraft-daily to playing-starcraft-daily , got DSL at home and came back on the bnet server again.

Last weekend i followed a good routine of staying awake all night for the love of starcraft. Bodi and KB were too nice to teach me to overcome the main mistakes that i usually do. Bodi went out of the way by giving me a proper walkthrough lecture on the very basic build order in the game . Now i daily follow this practice religiously to improve the game.

I dont think of Starcraft as an addiction anymore.(earlier, i used to) Although it distracts me from my life routine and has all the ingredients of a proper addiction but now i have surrendered to the fact that of playing Starcraft lifts my mood..it keeps me happy.. it keeps me running . :D

Nomi and Timmy

2007-07-06T10:31:00.001+05:00

Two of my very good friends started blogging. They are both a gift from Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) to me . I worked in PTA as Assistant Director for nearly an year and these two guys were my colleagues there.

Of Nomi.

Noman Yasir Jelani (NYJ) was hired in PTA with me and we got the same "Engineering" department. I was in "Type Approval" section and all kind of telecom equipments imports used to make their way to approval through me (please dont get impressed- the work sucked big time!! ) . Noman was/is in the Numbering Plan section. All kind of telephone codes, UAN numbers etc. make their way to approval through him. When i left PTA , Noman started handling both the areas. He is quite an efficient and hardworking person and is a really fun work partner. Together we have seen a time of hardships and frustrations. I consider him quite mature and I guess i can discuss almost everything with him .A few of my present day concepts have resulted because of my long discussions with him . He doesnt usually know about the cutting edge mumbo jumbo (IPod, Iphone wagheera) but grasps new ideas very quickly. He is a very very very good friend of mine and i always enjoy his company a lot.

Of Timmy

Timmy is in some software related department. I never understood his work . :D . He is a luminite (graduate of LUMS) and has interests in japanese animes and gadgets. He is the one who introduced me to the world of Naruto though he curses it now as i keep telling him the spoilers. See! he only watches the anime (cartoon) whereas i also read the manga (the comic book) and I am always more updated about the story than him as the manga's story is always ahead of the anime. When i returned from US i brought a Naruto action figure for him and he is still keeping that in his office. He owns a Nintendo DS, an Xbox 360 and a PSP and i am waiting for him to buy a Wii as well :D . (you can see the naruto action figure along with Timmy's other gadgets in the picture) Now all these possessions clearly give an idea that he has a good knowledge of the latest technical Mumbo Jumbo . He can easily talk for hours about the various differences of the different gaming platforms, their future strategies & plans and their upcoming games and blah blah ... but sometimes it becomes impossible for me to bear him and that happen mostly when he is making a request and when he does that , he makes use of a long-duration low-frequency low-amplitude sound that becomes so irritating that the listener finds himself with no choice but to accept his request .. not only to stop the sound but also to stop his lower lip that vibrates aimlessly to help him generate merciful feelings in the hearts of the others.

Of these days

Life is going all fine. Unusullay, Princess is going fine. No customers yet. I received calls but very few people actually came to see it. bad :( . Islamabad is having the Lal Masjid issue , not sure wether its over or not. Once you are in office you are not connected to the real world anymore - there is no TV here :( and you have to wait for things to appear on internet to know about them. Lal Masjid is near to my living place . Its in G6 and i am in G7 but nothing crossed the sector borders. Life remained peaceful in my area. I am completely unaware of the latest update but its really sad to see people doing such things. Once i used to have such kind of thinking (yeah! I used to be a devoted Tableeghi) but I am happy that now i have chosen the right path :D

Of Spiritual

I might start a 6 days class with Art of living Foundation . I came to know about them while i was in US. Got their Pakistani branch's address from there and now the Islamabad branch is going to have some classes next week. I might attend them . Unlike the fourth dimension and mind power , this seems to be more oriented towards Yoga and breathing exercises. I am not sure of the course contents yet but i hope it will be more of a practical thingy. You can read a wiki about them here.

Of today

Me leaves for Peshawar today - For the love of Starcraft . Bodi gave a sacrifice last weekend by being my ally in the game - As expected we lost all of the games and then a frustrated bodi taught me a Protoss build order (though i still think i can play better with Zerg) that i am suppose to follow religiously to increase my chances of winning. Lets see how it goes this weekend.

Princess For Sale

2007-06-25T17:13:00.000+05:00

I gave the car Ad in Jang Newspaper. The ad appeared this Sunday. I also gave an ad on the internet site that deals with car sales in Pakistan.

I have been receiving calls since sunday. One guy came to see the car. Others are planning to come to see the car.. The calls are still coming..

The ball has started rolling.

My life - 20 June 2007

2007-06-22T10:29:00.001+05:00

Of the sister

Finally I met my sister. after some 2.5 years. She arrived Peshawar last Wednesday (14th June) and I was so happy to see her. She was in Ireland for a long time and now she is back to live in Pakistan again. Before coming to Pakistan she went to Switzerland with her husband on a vocation trip and had a blast of time here.. Looking at the pics and videos that she made there in Switzerland , I wish I could go there too. Now I just hope to get the Switzerland project next time. :D

Of the starcraft

I took two days off from office which eventually turned into four, thanks to the adjacent weekend. On Friday night I played starcraft till 5 in the morning with 3 of my Gikian friends. The thrill and enjoyment that i get from playing the game is out of this world. I lose a lot (and that is usually my default play style :D) but still i just cant stop playing this game.

Of the car

I returned to Islamabad on Sunday (17th June) and found that my car , the princess, was not willing to start the engine. Damn you proud princess!!! I had to get the mechanic next day to get it fixed again. No wonder my friends ask me to put the mechanic's mobile number in Mobilink Friends and Families. :D lol.

Even today the car was angry. I reached the office a little late. When i parked the car, a guard asked me to park the car on the other side and the princess went all mad and refused to start at all :D . Khair,i went to Mechanic in the evening again who sent me to the car battery shop who told me their stupid version of solution of the car's problem.They proposed replacing the wire that links the car generator with the battery. Now i might be stupid in car problems but i understand this very well that the generator has got nothing to do with starting the car . This princess has made me learn a lot the hard way. Anyway my car-saga ended with an electrician who worked for some 3.5 hours to fix the engine-starter. i returned home too late - near 10:45 pm. See!!! Isn't keeping this car a full time job in itself.

Of the food

My weight is still the same. I am still maintain it you know :D. Every day there is one or another reason to escape dieting. This Monday, we had our NCR batch reunion as after a long time all the people of my batch (the 8 of us) were in Pakistan .So first the boys of the batch went to Savour Foods at lunch. Savour is so tasty ; eating less there seems like a sin. On Tuesday we had another batch reunion and this time it was without gender discrimination. we went to KC grill . How can you diet at KC grill?? :D then today a friend who returned from Turkey took us to Papasallys . again!! how can you even think of dieting there. :D . I hope the rest of the days in the week will go normal. Every single day you get one reason or the other to celebrate.

Current plans

Have to sell the car....

Have to sell the car.....

Have to sell the car.........

June 2007

2007-06-13T16:08:00.001+05:00

its been a long time since my last post .I wasnt really busy its just that procrastination rules my life now.

Back to office

Back to Pakistan, Back to Islamabad, Back to office , Back to my seat. Happy to be in a good AC . The place where i worked at Dubai had a pathetic air conditioning system and it was really difficult to work there.Now its so relaxing to sit in a cool place with relaxed environment.

One week vacation - Starcraft & Peshawar

I had a week off from office which was spent in Peshawar with family . Got DSL installed at home for the love of Starcraft even though it meant messing up with all the telephone wires at homes.It took so long to get all the phone lines fixed. Later i played a few starcraft games with Bodi , lost in all of them as expected :) but the thrill and enjoyment that i got from playing the game ; its always awesome.

Life is changing again - I am beginning to like Peshawar. now this is something that i never expected to happen . Sometimes, I even think of settling there. I just wait to see how long this phase last.I am just getting tired of being alone all the time. Cant take it any more. Thanks to Naruto (an anime - Japanese Cartoon) , which let me understand this problem .

Islamabad - my room

What else, my return to my room in Islamabad was greeted by a computer that was not working and an AC that was not turning on . Computer is still not working. The AC turned on later but it wasnt showing any display at all. I was worried for a week but just a few days ago i found the button on remote-control that says "light" and that turns on the display of the AC when pressed. :) - problem solved - .there was some cooling problem with it too but last night i cleaned the AC filter (jaali) and now my lovely Dawlance is super kool again.

Islamabad is really hot these days... i am talking about the weather ;)... i really hate going out in the sun.. luckily there is no load shedding in my area.. but i know there is too much load shedding going on in other areas..

Of the princess

The princess has returned.. My beautiful car Subaro is back.. it stood idle for some 6 months at a friend's home (thanks for his patience) since nov 2006. the battery was down ... i got it fixed this sunday..and i am still tired because of all the khota kaam (donkey work) i did on sunday. now i am planning to sell it as soon as possible.

Of the project

I am back to my old project -the one for which i went to US. but no scene of going to US now as I didnt accept going out again so soon. I want to stay here for a while . Why? I dont know.

- now -

I wil be leaving for Peshawar today. My sister is coming back from Ireland.. its toooooooooo long since i met her. and i really want to see her now. I hope there wont be lot of load shedding in Peshawar for these 3-4 days..i hate garmi. and my home at Peshawar has been designed in a way that its always extremely hot in summer and extremely cold in winter.

Plans:

have to get the room cleaned
have to get the PC fixed
have to sell the car
have to give SQL paper (2nd paper of six for my Teradata certification)
have to start exercise (current excuse = the weather is too hot)

Going Back to Pakistan

2007-05-24T13:57:00.000+05:00

Last weekend i went to Abu Dhabi to see the match between Pakistan and Srilanka . I am not a cricket fan. but i enjoyed being with the crowd in the Abu Dhabi cricket stadium. The shouting and halla gulla; it was all so fun. The crowd was doing strange and funny things. People were really crazy. :D but i enjoyed it all .

One big news is that Starcraft 2 is coming.. I am so happy..so excited about this. Blizzard has not announced the game release date yet. Starcraft is the first game i ever fell in love with. It remained in my mind for so long. Now i just cant wait to see its part-2. New units , new graphics , new strategies ; It will be all so fun. I just wish i get some multiplayer gaming environment somehow.

Rest of my life has been uneventful. I will be flying back to Pakistan today. I didnt get any time to do much here in Dubai.It was a boring place indeed. I feel i am close to nature and so i dont like living in cities like Dubai. Life in small cities having lesser traffic and short buildings is better.
The perfect ideal place to live for a person like me is GIKI , my university. I miss the place too much. Probably its the only place i have fallen in love with ever. On a side note, i feel i have started liking Peshawar as well. Why? The reason should be very obvious . :D Anyways, now I am so eager to meet my family (and the extended part of it). Its been too long since i have seen my parents and its been really really really long since i have met my sister. I miss them all and now i feel that I am turning into a family oriented guy.

Spiderman 3

2007-05-04T23:20:00.000+05:00

I saw Spiderman 3 last night. it was good. The effects were good but storyline was not as strong as i was expecting. Actually i read it somewhere that story of Spiderman 3 was written before the story of Spiderman 2, and so Spiderman 2 was written keeping Spiderman 3's story in mind.

so i was expecting something real kool in terms of the story line. but it wasnt as kool as my expectations. Some parts in the movies are really funny.

What else ,
Still office - home - office routine...
havent checked my weight for a while... :D

-changed the looks of both of my blogs but they dont look as good as i was expecting....need to work more.

General Motors Diet Plan - Part 2 0f 2

2007-04-30T20:18:00.000+05:00

Thursday: DAY 5

breakfast:i had sausages (they were bit oily) with cucumber
Lunch: i had some salad . most of which was tomatoe.
Night: i had a Roasted beef salad from SUBWAY.

Friday: DAY6

breakfast: again, i had some sausages with cucmber.
Lunch: i had chicken breast salad
dinner: i had canned fruits (pineapple + cocktail)

Saturday: DAY7

breakfast:Sausages again . cucumber again
lunch : subways salad + rice+ sauteed vegetables + mixed fruits
Night : Strawberries + RANI orange juice

so this remained my diet. It doesn't conform very strictly to the plan given by GM people, but whatever, the deviation is not tooooo much. ..Its ok .. isnt it??

Khair, having said that. Just guess what i achieved. ???

And when i let you have some time to guess about my weight loss, here is a hint .

My colleague, the guy here at Mashreq Bank Office, who started diet plan with me lost 4.5 Kg.

so make a guess, how much did i lose...

Just guess!!!! Scroll down for the answer..

Keep Scrolling.. :D

Keep Scrolling.. :D

Keep Scrolling....

And NOW...

comes the surprise...............

because.............................

I........................

LOST............................

only 0.5 Kg.. :( ..

My whole day was sad today. (Checked the weight today morning before coming to office).

and now i am feeling homesick. Akheer bore.. spent one WHOLE FREAKING WEEK.. and what i got was only and only and only and only 0.5 KG.. ISNT THAT FREAKING DISAPPOINTING.. :( :( :(

Khair.. All is well that ends IN A well. (yeah, this is MY english!!).. there is always some reward hidden in hard work and in my case this HARDSHIP of 7 days has resulted in a good thing that now i FEEL lighter. i don't know how to make use of that though. But i know , such kind of feelings help one a lot in overcoming their goals. A colleague here floated the idea that probably the FAT converted into muscles OF EQUAL WEIGHT. I cant rule out that possibility yet. :D

but with time , i will see how effective was this diet plan. Cause presently i feel no kind of attraction to Fatty foods. Lets see how long it lasts.

And NO!! i haven't lost hope yet. Next time i am going to have a more strict diet . This time i let some oil pass to my stomach but next time it wont..

And please...if you want to make any comment, don't ask me to start exercise.I know that i am supposed to exercise and i have been trying to start doing it "from tomorrow" for so many months...

General Motors Diet Plan

2007-04-25T21:17:00.000+05:00

DINNER CRUISE
The dinner cruise i talked about last time was good. We went on a dhow (small ship) and saw the whole dubai through the creek area. We had a good dinner . then there was a lot of Hala Gulla as our sponsor happened to be lively people and they had planned a good interactive programme for us in which they distributed a few gifts as well. I liked the experience , even though there was no belly dancer there :D . The client people are really good and cooperative. Dubai for the first time looked good. Maybe because this was my first chance to look at these tall towers from a distance.

DIET PLAN

These days , I am on diet I am following General Motors diet plan that promises to reduce 10+ lbs in 1 week.

It makes you eat only type of food each day.I am on day 4 today. so i had bananas and milk today.

My weight this saturday was 102 Kg. (please dont faint with shock). I started this plan on sunday. (Sunday is the first working day of a week in UAE).

Sunday: DAY1
I had only fruits whole day. In breakfast i had lots of water melons or may be melons (whatever it is, that has red pulp and black seeds) . In lunch i had lots of fruit salad with so many different fruits. At night i ate apples which i think was a bad idea as apples have caffein and i shouldnt be taking caffein at night because then i cant sleep for hours.

Monday:DAY2
Only vegetables. I had some beans in breakfast (Vegetables naheen thay hotel kay free nashtay main) along with a few cucumbers. Lunch main i had vegetable salad. then at night i had a salad from Subway with ALL sauces except mayonise. It was very very tasty.

Tuesday:DAY3
I was supposed to have vegetables again. but i started the day 4 diet by mistake and had two glasses of milk :( i realized it soon.. and remained sad the whole day. .. had some cucumbers after finding out the proper diet. In lunch i got Subway Salad delivered to office. it was very tasty again. then i also had some fruit salad. At night i had a mixture of fruit and vegetable salad. Pineapple and Apples taste really good with salad.

Wednesday : DAY4 - today
I had bananas and milk whole day. I bought a biiiiiig banana, nearly a foot long, but it had not rippen properly so i left it after 2-3 bites. then i had other small bananas and milk. The milk here tastes really strange . :( .. and bad.

Thursday DAY5 - tomorrow
Tomorrow i will eat tomatoes and lean beef. now i dont know what the hell is "lean" beef . I guess its fat free beef (as told by 'HER'). I guess i will be taking some Salami beef wagheera.

There are different version of this diet on internet. All are same but they just change it on the 5th day. i.e some sites replace beef with rice , probably for vegetarians.

Anyways, wish me luck. wish me feel happy on this coming Saturday, when i will check my weight again. 2 kg bhi kam hoya to i will be happy.. :D.. I dont know wether i am following a diet fad or what but i just hope it will go good. I just want to get rid of this fat tummy of mine. :( .

now Dubai

2007-04-18T21:58:00.000+05:00

Since my last post just a few things have happened.

1st Feb. as you know i got engaged in a very drammatic manner.

3rd Feb. My parents went to ireland to be with my sister.
(so you see the whole plan was to get me engaged and leave the country so that i may not be around to complain for what they have done to me)

14th Feb. I had my life's first ever valentine's day :D. (we didnt meet each other, but we sent gifts and shared greetings ) :D.

26 Feb. I came to Dubai for Project on Mashreq Bank. am still here..Dubai is a boring place. I didn't even enjoy Desert Safari .

April 8. My parents went back to Pakistan.

Hmm. so these are all the events during this period. Kitni uneventful life hay..

Other small things:

Naruto's new episodes are being aired now.
I bought a guitar. havent used it yet. :( My colleague (who is in Dubai with me ) said that he will teach me how to play it but he didnt. :(
I have finally started liking informatica. The ETL tool that i am working on these days. I have also started liking my work. Not the repetitive part of it though.

Generally:

Life is again all work. Late night sittings.. working on weekends.. The Team i am working with is good . All people are Pakistani/Indian but the medium of language in general is English+Urdu.

I havent had much chance to see much of Dubai. Thats why i say Dubai is boring. Probably i will enjoy it when i will come here after marriage. (though i dont think its a place to visit if you want to have fun) . I have been eating Shawarmas mostly . thanks to the my colleague who likes to have shawarma & mountain dew in every meal.

-Weight is still the same i guess. :( kaafi arsay say check naheen kiya..

-No spiritual experiences. :(

bus only work..

About Friends:

A very good friend of mine did 4D level 2. Unlike me she was able to bend the spoon. I wish i was there in Pakistan to attend the workshop.
Bodi got a job in Hellsinki.(some place in Finland) He is very happy now. Now he is so rich that first he bought a laptop and now a PSP. He even had a hair cut.
Jazz decided to come out of his slumber and started blogging again. His blog is not accessible to the common people as i have told him a trick to hide his blogs. :D
Amjad went to Turkey for a Project. His first long duration foreign trip.
Noman lost his "Networking Fundamentals" book after his exam. He has already lost a few things before.
Timmy bought a new gaming console. ( i dont really remember him telling me so but based on my previous experience , i am sure he will have bought one in this time duration :D )
SHE , the one i got engaged with , is becoming a good friend of mine. :D

Ok me goes now. My colleague is extremely mad. He had been downloading stuff from net whole day. and now there is no one to chat with or nothing remaining to download from Internet.. so he has to leave .. means.. we have to leave...

Btw tomorrow I am going on a DINNER CRUISE with my team... sounds kool. :D ;)

I got engaged

2007-03-23T21:59:00.000+05:00

I got engaged in a very dramatic way.. It really amazes me now that i look back in time . let me take you with me to a few fragments of my memory..

30 Jan 2007 11:00 pm

I am in Detroit in my hotel..My flight is at 1:00 pm.. I should have been at airport at 11:00 pm.. its already 11:00 while i am here at my hotel.. i am worried 'cause i already have an experience of missing a flight once... it seems i will be missing it again.. .. I am worried their is too much laggage to pack, i cant have any interruption in this packing process.

but i get an interruption when My mobile phone beeps.. i dont want anyone to call me right now..i am damn busy. i have a flight to catch.. i pick up the mobile.its a message from my mother asking me to call her home. Oh god.. there is no time to call her.. i am already late.. but i am calling home, am asking my brother to ask mummy on phone QUICKLY as i am already late.. mummy comes and now she is telling me that I am getting engaged on Friday.. I am angry.. What the hell is this..its just one of those plans that never wear the practical-shalwar (amli jaama) ...i havent even seen the girl.. There is no way i am going to accept any such stupid arrangement..

I am finishing the call and am running in the room..trying to pack all the lugggage.. i know there wont be any engagement. it just cant be..I wont even be thinking about it.. it was just an interruption in my work to pack my luggage.

(2 hours later)

12:50 pm

I just made it to the Gate for my flight going against all odds (refer to my previous blog entry) .. i had been running all the time.. i am so tired.. i am taking quick breaths.. havent thought of that call from my mother for a long time...soon i will fly to Newyork and then from Newyork to Dubai..

(12 hours later)

11:45 pm

I am onboard.. flying from newyork to Dubai.. i havent thought of that call from my mother for a long time ..i know its not going to happen..so i am not even thinking about it..i am watching "Peacefull Warrior", and i am wondering oh my god, i am watching this movie at the perfect time...there could not haven been a better time to watch it ..

(14 hours later)

31 Jan 2007

10:00 pm

I am at Dubai Airport.. I have a flight at 3:00 and i am stuck here since 8:00 pm. i hate such a long wait period.. An NCR colleague whom i met here on Airport , took me to Emirates waiting lounge where they offer free food and internet.. i am chatting with my sister on internet. she is telling me about my engagement.. and i am getting angry ..i am telling her that there is no way i am going to get engaged .. .. She is trying to convince me that i will like the girl.. and i am all against her ideas because i know that my family doesnt know me.. i cant marry anyone without knowing her first...My sister tells me the name of that girl..she too is not sure of the full name...Anyways, i know there is going to be a bad scene at home when i will reach there... i know i will be extremely chirchira because my lack of sleep will start my depressin-cycle by that time..and there will be too much fight at home..i am already depressed..

(8 hours later)

1st Feb.

7:10 am.

I am at the Peshawar Airport. I am waiting for the passport stamp people to come and stamp our passports.. the whole flight is waiting for the officials to arrive.. everyone is angry on the airport people.. there is a big crowd yelling and shouting , i am a part of them and i am cursing the staff too..

(1.5 hour later)

1st Feb 8:50

I am out of the airport . the stupid staff wasted so much time..though all they had to do was to stamp our passports showing that we have entered in Pakistan.anyways , i am outside the main building,..My father is greeting me..he is happy.. i see my my brother & mother..everyone is happy..

(1.5 hour later)

1st Feb 10:30 am

I am at home. have had breakfast. had talked with everyone..have opened my luggage to show them stuff that i brough from USA.. My father has left to get Mithai for some event in evening.. They havent asked me about my willingness yet.. they are just telling me that they are taking me to the girl's place to make us see each other.. i am not interested.. i have got a jet lag to get rid of... but they are all happy .. full of energy.. i am going to sleep now..

1st Feb 6:30 (8 hours later)

I just got up from my slumber.. My mother has asked me to get ready..to wear my suit . i am all sleepy and bored.. there are guests downstairs.. Why are so many people going with me when the plan is to see the girl only..

1st Feb 7:30 (1 hour later)

I am downstair meeting all the guests.. They are congratulaing me..oh.they are congratulating me because i just returned from America.

8:30 pm (1 hour later)

I am at the girls place..there are so many people here.. what the hell is going on .. i havent even seen the girl , why is everone congratulating me.. we havent been engaged yet.. i havent given any approval ..dah!! will anyone even ask me for my willingness..what is my family doing.. I start pretending that i am enjoying.. and realize later that i AM enjoying it ...Why?? . fortunately , my lack of sleep has started my maniac cycle instead of the depression cycle.-and its giving me enough energy and life to last for that day..but thats crazy .

10:00 pm (1.5 hour later)

I am sitting on a wooden swing (Jhola) wearing phoolon ka har..SHE is sitting with me.. There is a whole bunch of people looking at us.. they are all happy . My mother is giving me a ring and asking me to put in the HER finger..

i havent even seen the girl.. i havent even looked at her face yet..

I have got a jet lag..

I am trying to put the ring on her hand...somebody is shouting.."hey! hold her hand with your other hand ".. I am holding her hand , putting a ring on her finger. She takes out a small box and puts a ring on my finger...

The crowd shouts ..Mubarik ... Mubarik....

........

....

I am officially engaged...

...

Deep down , inside (at the time of the exchange of rings)

i am thinking that its ok.. i dont know what will happen next.. but i am accepting it.. .everything will go good.. i dont know how she looks like .. i dont know about her personality at all..but i am accepting it..I am thinking of my sister's words.."All girls are same.it doesnt matter whom you chose".. I am thking of my mental state that i had a few weeks ago at Meijeir departmental store in US when i spent two and a half hours to buy a single pair of steel toe shoe ...i had spent all the time (2.5 hours) comparing this one pair that i liked (and later bought) with all the shoes in the that store ..and i had thought

"Come on man!! If i am taking so long to chose a shoe, i am going to spend life times in choosing a girl.. I should better let someone else do the selection"..

I am also thinking about THE Answer from Daughtery..... THE Answer completely sealed one one aspect of my life... and now it seems completely fitting that i entering a new phase of life . The timing is perfect.

i am happy .I am satisfied ..

.......

...

I am accepting the engagement , I am accepting the script...

Sameer coming back , against all odds

2007-01-31T22:31:00.000+05:00

I left US today on 30th.. (and now at night..this part of the world say that its the night of 31st..My mental time clock is totally screwed)

AGAINST ALL ODDS

My first flight was from Detroit to Newyork at 1:00 pm and i made it to the gate just 15 minutes before the gate closing...I had so many odds against catching this flight . they are all worth mentioning :

First i got delayed in packing my stuff. i had planned to do it on 29th (the day before my flight) but all of a sudden i had to attend a dinner - it was a goodbye dinner to me :) so i had to attend it , then i had to visit a guy to return him some money, then after coming back from his place i had to go visit him again 'cause he called to inform me that i had given him 20 bucks more.. then i slept late..woke up late..couldnt start packing on time..
had too much stuff to pack. (i went with one bag 1 hand carry. am coming back with two bags, 2 handcarries with 2 jackets on arms)
Usually , in my hotel ,at the front desk , people can give you your complete bill whenever you aks them but For my complete hotel bill detail , the front desk lady had to go to get the accountant. a long process that wasted my time
it took time to clean snow from my car.. It snowed that morning..
I took a wrong exit on my way to airport..and in US ,taking a wrong direction can not be fixed very quickly. luckily somehow i got a sense of the road directions (even though the place was new for me) and got back on track again...
Before Returning the car to car rental , we are supposed to fill it up with fuel. When i reached the fuel station , the car's fuel lid was was frozen , it didnt open ...
After fuelling, i was supposed to make a U-turn on the road, the way i take U-turns in USA is that i keep on going my road until i find an empty street on the right side, i drive into that street , take a U-turn there , come back towards the main road , and take a left turn - this results in a complete U-turn.. This strategy didnt work today, i didn't find any street at all on the way forward, all the streets that i got were entrances to some other Car Rental companies . and you can not get your car out easily if you mistakenly enter in there..
I had two luggage bags, two hand carries and was carrying two jackets.. and i didn't find any trolley in the airport area...i had to take my stuff one at a time.. u know taking few pieces forward, putting them there, coming back to get the rest of the stuff, then moving forward with some parts... The most difficult of this was climbing the elevator..
when i finally made it to the boarding pass issuing area, i was told that one of the bag is overweight.. I had to make some luggage adjustments right there..
there was something in me that beeped in the security door.. even though i had removed my jackets, belt, steel-toe-shoes, wallet, mobile..everything ..the door just beeped...so the guard took me to a side and kept checking me for some 10-15 minutes.. (it was a descent checking - mind you!! )
I kept kept racing the car all the time (even overtook a few cars, a big acheivement for me) , at airport i was running all the time, , remained frantic all the time.. It took me some time to stabilize my breath when i finally reached the destination... (thanks to my motapa)

With so many hands (hands ; the verb , not the noun.), I made it . I got the flight.. Now thats an improvement.. (Reminder: Last time i entirely missed my flight from New York to Detroit). I don't know how i got his flight . some may consider that time stopped for me, some may consider it a CLEAR sign of some divine existence , some may consider it just a coincidence and some may consider it just a part of the the script .

Anyways, I made it to New york near 3:30. ..stayed on airport for some 7-8 hours (with nothing to do).. had an 11 hour flight to Dubai (watched four movies)..and now i am in Dubai. once again i have to spend some 6 hours on the airport here.. :(...

THE SPIRIT WITHIN

Now when i look on my travel accomplishments...to me it seems i learnt a lot from this trip. Probably i might be able to label my recent life in terms of this trip (like the sameer before the US trip and the sameer after the US trip) ...It was a big paradigm shift in my life.. Thanks to the answer.. (Referring to my last blog).. I am a happy being now.. nothing is eating me inside anymore.. A psychic read me and said that my state is like a tree whose trunk has recently been shaken. The answers i got from the Jean and Don Daughtry were really amazing.

I have realized that people are more important than places..For the first time, i felt i was missing people.. may be i got too social in previous years.. or may be i have improved my relationships.. may be i have started giving more importance to the friendship bonds.

I have also learnt about many new spiritual concepts..new ideas that make sense to me.. new spiritual practices.. new beliefs...

My belief in the script is increasing ... The way things go , and their sequences.. it really amazes me.. Even on this flight that i just had from Newyork to Dubai...well.. there is a Movie - "The Peace full Warrior"... For some unkown reason, i wanted to see the movie.. bus dil karta tha..when i was going to Newyork (in Novemeber) , i thought many times of watching the movie on plane but skipped it every time for some reason or the other.... Now ! when i watched the movie tonight during the flight ... i realized that it had 2 very important messages for me ..which i would not have caught at all , had i watched the movie before the US stay.. i mean.. something that i learnt in US, made me properly understand the message..this sequence of events in my life . it is so amazing... these Lessons - coming in the order they should be ; I just cant call it a coincidence...

Anyways, I am happy that i am going home.. i am happy that I have got "Eternal Sunshine of the SPOTless mind". "SPOT" being the name of my project.. This project had made me extremely busy ..since August .. thanks good that i am not working on this project anymore.. i want to live my life now.. working for 16 hours a day doesnt leave you with a normal life at all..

and oh! My parents are cooking up something for my future ... I feel something coming my way SOON.. a further BIG change in life .. I don't know wether I will be accepting their decision or not. but.. well.. i dont know.. the coming 2-3 days are going to be very important. ... but!!... when i look inside, i dont feel too much motivation in going against their desires ..

PS. oh regarding my achievements , i forgot to mention that i finally learnt how speak the word "pork" , earlier for some reason i couldn't speak it properly .. every time my tongue slipped on "k" , making it an "n"... Just imagine a guy making this mistake at a restaurant enquiring ," Has this stuff got any pork in it?" :)

PPS. pray for me to recover from the Jet Lag soon... i am completely different when my sleep is disturbed..

Sameer gets THE answers

2007-01-22T21:27:00.000+05:00

The scripts of my life took me to Jean and Don Daughtery.. An excellent spiritual couple whose life is all full of unbelievable things.. I met these guys at the Psychic Festival . They gave a live demonstration of Consultation in Trance . The way it is does and what it does is that Don (the husband) goes into deep trance and the Jean (wife) asks him the questions which are then answered by Don.. while he is in the deep trance state...

I was lucky to get a free reading ticket from Jean and Don .. I was even luckier to get some help from a guy Harry. Harry happens to be an iridologist (Iridology or iridodiagnosis is an alternative medicine practice in which patterns, colors, and other characteristics of the iris are examined for information about a patient's health ). I got a chance to get my eye examined by him and he told me some health problems that will arise soon if i dont take any necessary precautions.

Anyways, Me and Harry went to see the Daughtery couple at their place.. It was some 40 minutes drive.. and i was really scared by the traffic Jam..

It was a good talk that we had there.. I felt my self all inside a pool of knowledge.. They have a Greeeeeat weatlh of knowledge about things and the good point is that all their concepts are original i.e They have not been derived by any other person's , cult's or religion's teachings but by their own life experiences and their personal abilities which have taught them a lot . Jean has been seeing spirits since her childhood and the guy has been too much regular in medidation, Out of body Experinces and Near Death Experiences..

I had prepared a list of questions with the help of Harry , most of which related to me , my sister and mother... i only had some 55 minutes to ask the questions..cause Don cant stay in his state more than that.

I got satisfied answers to all the question that i had . i asked all the important things that were bothering me ..Especially my biggest problem.. something that has been bothering me for quite some long years. something that had completely changed my view of life, religion , society and everything that relates me for i dont remember how long......there is something that was there and i just could not accept it ..the only way out was to accept it completely and bear the resulting difficult life... but a part of me was not willing to accept it..and i was under some internal conflict that was affecting my life..so i posed this qusetion to Don.... and the answer that i got filled with me with happiness..it was completely according to my expectations....It was so strange an answer that Harry even shouted and requested Don to answer that question again.. And I was all full of Joy , amazement , happiness.. I just wish i could write things clearly... I tend to tell everything about me.. but there are things that i just cant tell , not because i am shy but because of the complexity in understanding it....so.. for you ,my dear reader!! ..the summary is that once again my view on life has changed and its good now.....i just want to share this new joy and happiness with you.. Just feel happy for me..

Haaaaah!!! i finally solved one big issue of life..Now i just wait to get new tensions and problems... Lol...

And i am about to go back to Pakistan.. Now that my purpose to come to USA has been fulfilled, i guess its time for me to leave the place.. .I was thinking of going to the couple again to ask few more things.. to know about my past lives, to know about the unfinished business that i carry from the past lives... but i guess the script doesnt want me to have more knowledge. May be its not needed..

Hmmm!!!.....Its a good script.. I am enjoying it...

Sameer meets psychics in USA

2007-01-11T11:15:00.000+05:00

Long ago when i dived into the world of spiritual knowledge , i thought there are not many people in this field ..it was always difficult for me to find people with this same interest and explain the things to those who have no interest in this field at all.... i have seen some people explaining it in a very good way to other...... but whenever I try to do it ..I start feeling stupid myself during the conversation... lol..

when i came here to US , i thought it will be now more difficult to me to tell people about all the spiritual things cause they are so developed and realatively more logical..

but i was wrong.

last week i attended a meditation seminar in a library here.. It was good... its an organization called "Art of living Foundation" which also happens to have a center in Pakistan..in islamabad (which is probably not active)...they gave a good demo of a breathing exercise that they wanted to teach in a course later..it was a good exercise.. but the class is like 200$ (this is special discount for me when i did some runna pitna that i am a visitor and wont be here for long) .. so i am still thinking wether i should go for it not.. havent i already done enough courses...

After the meditatin class i was just checking out the library and i found a magazine there from which i got to know about a Psychic Festival in Sheraton Hotel nearby..

so Today (7 Jan 2007) i went to that Festival...and i was amazed by the size of the crowd and the amount of activities going on.. There were so many things there.. the list goes as:

-Psychic readers and Clairovoyants ,who were using tarrot cards , astronomy , nuemerology , palmistry and so many other things and stuffs to tell you about you....they were charging some 15-30$ for it...i couldnt get time to get a reading.. i regret that...

-People selling crystalized water (based on Dr Emoto's research..RAZA are you reading this..:) ) , they process the water so that it maintains the internal symetrical crystalline structure on the molecular level(even in the liqud form) and then they sell it..... they claimed that a drop of it can be used to convert some gallons of water into having that kind of structure..

-then there were Meditation cassettes by a company that i already know about, Minroe institue.. i dont know wether its a company or a proper institute..they had some CDs that can make you have Out of Body Experience.. the cost was nearly 100$... :(..

-then i met Christian tableeghees who spent some 20 minutes around me to brainwash me in belieiving that in every problem i should call the Jesus name as he is still alive and still listens to us .One woman became very emotional and she gave me some dozen examples of her life in which she was about to have some life threatning accident but all of a sudden she called the name of the Jesus ....and bingo!!! she was saved... in her opinion , that was enough to convince people.. ..anyways, They did a special prayer for me and my family specially my sister....they also asked the holy jesus to cure my throat (i cough a lot.. for no reason at all.. )... it was all free .. they didnt take any money from me.. :) they did take a lot of time from me.... :( ... once i left their stall i didnt go even near to that corner again... and oh!! my coughing never stopped...

-then there were Dianetics people who even took my emotional test through the legendary E-meter ... The lady was so much worried about my mental stress that she was asking me to buy the book again and again.. it was 8.95$ .. could have bought it ..but c'mon !! its available in Pakistan too...probably at a cheaper price..

-then their were full body reiki massages.. there were beds and massage machines and people were getting massages there...

there was so much there.... Free lectures on so many things.. i missed many of them cause i was late.. i still curse myself for being a lazy @$$...

-then there were aura photographers.. one guy was taking aura photograph with a krillian photography tehcnique.. i got my aura picture through a Bio Feed Back Machine.. See my aura below..

This picture comes with a 28 pages report about me .. telling me that i am all fine... there is no problem with me at all.. Shit.. there is no point in wasting your money on knowing that you dont have any problem at all.. lol.. but the 28 pages report is really great.. i always love people talking about me (the main reason why i always miss my Giki time : we , all the TAs, used to discuss ME in our spare time in cafeteria).. so a 28 pages report is really kool...It tells me a lot..

See my aura on the right . According to the report , it seems my chakras , my aura , my yin / yang , my male/female within , my energy levels........everything is balanced.. all my things are in total harmony.. i felt good to know that... good to know that all my chakras are all fine.. good to know that my cough is not because of any problem with throat chakra.. good to know that my too much relocations is not causing any problem to my root chakra.. good to know the reason of my not being able to have an out of body experience -> the lady says that its because i am too much grounded (i dont know what it means..)..... good to know that i have a good amount of connection with the angels up there who are trying to guide me..its even visible (to that lady who took the pic) in my aura picture.. .. the diamond above my head in my aura picture depicts that there is already something going on for my Psychic development, some divine help is already going on..some thing is making way for me.. and yeah! i feel that too.. sometimes i feel as if my life is scripted... its a kind of feeling that somehow someway i always find spiritual people/events ... but its just a thought...

Anyways , i wasted sometime in having the lunch buffet there.. it was 10$ only ..seemed good..was cheap..so i went for it.. but it kinda turned out a waste of time..as i didnt know about the free lectures going on as well in a seperate room...i would have preferred attending the lectures then going for food...

The first lecture i attended was on breathing.. there was some new kind of breathing that the guy was teaching.. a new technique that i really liked..usually we are supposed to use our nose while doing the breath meditataion... but in this technique we used mouth.. the effects were good...

Then there was a lecture on stones... i learnt a good deal about them.. and now i may start this new interest...cause stones are KOOL,,. The lecturer also told a thing of Palmistry...according to which, it seems , i am carrying a big amount of knowledge from my past lives...

Later, I attended a demonstration of consultation during Trance...where a man went in trance in front of audience and told us that there will be a polar shifting in 2018 .. he told us about its effect on Michigan ....he predicted that there wont be much loss in michigan..the north pole will shift by 45 degrees...there will occur some difference to the number of hours in a day ..probably an additino 2-3 seconds.....and a few more things will happen that i have forgotten....They had a Qura_andazi too .. in which they offered a free reading to one of lecture participants.....and lucky me ...i won a 220$ free reading .. i.e the guy will go in trance specially for me and i will be asking him the questions......so i will be knowing about MY future soon....or probably i will just ask about my present..that is of more interest to me...My present and the information that i carry from my past lives...

It was a fun festival.. I still curse myself for going late.. would have done so many other things.. would have learnt so many other things.. but well. i guess..may be it was scripted that way.... that was best for me..cause if i had known more ,it would have taken me longer to post this blog..lol...

one month remaining...

2007-01-03T09:26:00.000+05:00

New year passed , bari eid passed, my birthday passed.. first time out of country...out of Pakistan.. These celeberations are already boring; i mean, i already complain about these days as being boring,but this time it was boring than ever before....

We were/are having very narrow deadlines for the current project...so we worked non-stop without a break..for nearly some 28 - 29 consecutive days.... There were no weekends, no holidays, no breaks etc..i had started getting my latent depression getting over me....infact i guess it did.. i dont think that is the proper way to work on a project..a break is always needed to increase productivity...thats not what i say , thats what psychology says. .. you always need to spend some time out of the box..

Anyways , we finally had a break ...a long one.. on christmas..starting from 23rd Dec to 1st Jan..most of the part of this vocation was spent in bed......Three people from Pakistan NCR left .two are not billable on project anymore (they wont return) .. so i am left with just one person to hang around with.. Its really boring..

The only great thing that has happened is my own car.. i finally rented a car.. a Chevy HHR.. i guess its 2000 CC...Its great.... more than enough for all of my requirements.. has a roof window , automatic gears, remote ignition (that is you can start/ignite the car engine from the remote ) , seated heats , a big diggie.. its a complete comfort... i am gonna miss this car later....i wont be able to enjoy THE PRINCESS at all when i will return to Pakistan..

There happens to be an Auntie of mine who lives nearby .. at a distance of some 35 minutes .each time i visit her my driving time decreases.. Driving is very very easy here.. but i am always scared .. especially on free ways/high ways.. Visiting my auntie was the only good thing in the vocations.. the only time i could conversate with people for long times.. She is in US for some 26 years now..and her children are all Americans now..

Google map is a real fun thing now. i visit a certain place and then keep on looking it on map for sometime to see all the area around.. its really beautiful , the way it shows all the roads and building , amazing.. i always take my driving directions from there..

In the vocations , i once visited the Detroit Science Center.. It was amazing.. I finally saw I-MAX cinema there; something i had planned before coming to US...an I-MAx cinema covers nearly the complete vison angle... in a normal cinema when you just you just look in front on a flat screen .. in an I-MAX , the roof is the screen .so you sit and rest your head on the head rest and look slightly upward.. Its really Amazing..I might visit it again before leaving..if i will get time..

I have started feeling really bored now.. want to go back to Pakistan.. This place is good .. its really beautiful and all organized.. but i dont have friends here..

Work started again.. soon i will be all busy .. but my countdown has started..today is 2nd.. i have to stay here till 31st.. 30 days remaing...

Right now i am in office.. there is no task to do right now.. but when they will start coming , it will be like raining..i wont have anytime or life then..

Ali bhai blogged about our newyork trip on his blog here . Ali bhai is my colleague in NCR... basically my batch mate.. happens to have very good knowledge about every topic of the world.. He has written a very very very very long narration of all that happened in Newyork.. (still his post doesnt beat Raza and my war on Professor Eugito mototo or whatever ) ...thanks Ali.. His long boring narration has become funny with my slight interruption in the writing.. (those who have been reading for long can easily find my touch there :) )...

And you people can see my pics here.. and of my car here .. see some more here in the order they are ..do give some attention to the captions ...they explain a lot...

Sameer is working in America

2006-12-01T08:58:00.000+05:00

I am at office.. at the Daimler Chrysler's office.. Its all silent. i am just hearing the sound of people tapping the keyboard keys . they are all busy. I am free and am waiting for someone to leave so that i may leave too.. I dont have my car yet... :(

Its night.. It was raining outside in morning.. not sure wether its raining now.. work is there... and i should be the last person to complain as i am the one with lowest amount of work load.. but still.. I complain..there is too much work...even if i am free after 13 hours of work

my stomach is so full... Had an omelete in morning...with apple juice..then had fruity yougurt -Banana and strawberry mix . Its tasty and You can find the fruit at the bottom of the cup... had a chicken with tomoatoe in lunch.. it wasnt tasty.. Just a plain chiken piece with some tomatoe on top of it and some boiled vegetables along it.. Ali bhai had turky pot... that was better.. it tasted like the usual curry food that we have in Pakistan... that was tasty ...Food here usually contains boiled items..no spices..

Had a green apple later in evening .that was tasty. and then there were lot of choclates.. There is a very kind lady in my project who usually brings left overs from the Office Parties for us... Yesterday , she took us to a party left over areas..where i ate a lot..Today shebrought choclates for us from a meeting.. we ate so many of them.. .. and i am feeling so full of choclates right now.. :).. i may not have dinner tonight...

I dont like this growing tummy of mine now. day before yesterday , i broke my trouser's button.. now thats a clear signal of the coming storm.. I am eating too much here.. much of it for the sake of TRYING it.. but now I want to reduce even though i am not fat by the local standards.. i mean, in America a person like me is not considered fatat all.. There are real FAT people here.. and oh my gosh!! there are too many of them..and oh my gosh! they come in all genders, shapes ,sizes and colours.. :).. so i am happy that i got my name removed from the category of FAT people without doing any effort.. :)

Oh.. and i got a mobile now.. bought it on black friday..but it wasnt working uptil now.. got it working yesterday.. if you wanna call me email me and i will send you my number.. :) .. but what the hell.. most of the times i am unreachable... the place where i work is in the basement... and there are no mobile signals here.. Telecommunication system is not very good here.. I feel Telecom system is better in Pakistan...Its cheaper and is proper.. Here i buy a calling card for 5 dollars .. use it to call home.. it claims that i can talk for more than an hour.. but it always ended up giving me some 15-20 minutes.. I have used Long Distance Calling Cards in Pakistan, they mess up too but not as much as these American cards..

What else...the weather report says that it will snow here on friday..

oh and the work report says that i will be coming to work on weekends too... Probably there wont be any free weekends till Christmas..

I am feeling sleepy.. there are talks now in office.. my project people are working. i am not..i dont know what they are working on.. but i am here and waiting and wishing them to leave.. cause i wanna leave too but i need a ride to my home..

Oh! Chuck is leaving..me goes to catch him.. :)

Sameer has reached US

2006-11-30T07:51:00.000+05:00

so i reached US on morning of 15 Nov. I landed on New York JFK Air Port.. where my entrance in US had to be registered with the US security department ... It is something that i was very scared of from the very start.. They usually take a long time to check non-US citizens.. and it is recommended to have a gap of atleast 4 hours before the next flight from JFK to Detroit because the time taken for checking is usually that long...but in my case, my flight was the only flight that landed on the airrport.. so i was kinda lucky as there were no long lines..i was the first one in my line..then the whole procedure went quite smoothly, i was all clear in some 45 minutes...great!!!!...

but then i had nothing to do.. so i just roamed around the airport...checked my next flight terminal , got the boarding pass from there.. I didnt checked in then as there was no point going inside cause they dont let you come out once you go in..

I started feeling tired very soon.. so after having lunch , (Rice with Sweet and Sour Chicken) I slept on the bench for a while. My flight was near 2 , i started going towards my terminal near 1:20.. i thought it was a reasonable time for me to reach the GATE ..... I was wrong..

In the Airport , there is an air train that takes you from one terminal to another..There i asked the lady at duty about my terminal ..she asked me about my flight and when i told her...She exclaimed.."Hey you have already missed your flight".. Scared!!! i ran... i ran to my terminal ...reached there.. but oh there was a checking first ...a complete checking that required removal trouser belt, shoes and laptop from its bag...err..they wasted my time.. then i ran again ..at a very good speed.. but even then when i reached the gate, i was informed that my flight had been closed... I was late by minutes only..

i then had to take another flight..... blah blah blah!!!!

(writing the rest of it on 29 NOV)

well .. i didnt get enough time to update my blog.. the story continues.. I reached to Detroit near 9. where my team welcomed me at the airport.. Then i was taken to my hotel after food... My hotel is different than the other team mates.. cause there was no vacant room in thier hotel.. so they are staying at Marriot Spring Suites and I am staying at Embassy Suites.. and i beleive my hotel is better...Its two big rooms.. and the bed room has got a real big window from where i can see the highway .. so i really enjoy seeing Amreeka from there.. :).. Detroit is a cool place.. both in terms of exclaimation and the weather conditions.. :)

What else... We were not allowed to have a free weekend the first weekend of my arrival... and then all of a suddent there was this four day leave of Thanks Giving in which we had a trip to NewYork..

NEWYORK

NEW YORK is a city full of people..

we visited Empire State Building. we wanted to go on top of the building but the que was two hour long so we dropped the idea.. we planned to see the Statue of Liberty but we didnt have enough time to reach to that area from where we can atleast view it.. :( .. We went to see the Rock Feller Center, its a high building and they too have an observatory on top of building to see the whole Nework.. there werent too many people in que as its a new observatory and not every one knows about it..

Thats it.. There is too much that i want to write.. but i cant.. i dont have time. I have to call so many people..i cant.. i dont have the calling card ..I got a prepaid mobile connection last Friday..It has not been activated yet..seems that Telecom Services are better in Pakistan...I dont think I will be getting my own car soon cause i am a bit afraid of driving here...besides i havent driven automatic cars before..but i guess that shouldnt be a much problem.. The only problem is to shift to the left handside driving ...and the new kinda traffic signals/rules...

I havent enjoyed much healthy time here.. I have been coughing for so many days...My sleep is not proper yet.. I am still underslept..

People are really nice here...you usually find strangers greeting you and giving you a smile.. Most of the people happen to have a sense of humor.. a very well developed sense of humour... They are friendly and cooperative..

In few days , i dont think i will have any time for internet... even right now i am typing this all because Informatica (software that i work on) crashed and it locked the mapping that i was working on .. Somebody is trying to get it fixed.. and i am making use of the time to write...

Sameer goes to US Part 2.(On flight : Dubai to NewYork - date:15 November Time: i dont know)

2006-11-17T03:11:00.000+05:00

I am on my flight to New York.. (uff!! i am so happy to write it).. its a 14 hours + flight .. I have never ever had such a long travel before..not even a land travel..

I guess i didnt write much about the reason of my travel in the part 1 of this post.. here it goes: I am working on a project for an american company DAIMLER CHRSYLER FINANCIAL SERVICES. Its a financial services provider of a car manufacturing company.. It was/is because of this project that my online life is not active for a long time. Since August , I am continuosly busy..but oh thank God (IIE) , atleast i was called onsite ..... From a pessimist point of view, this is not very great, cause i had been working like a donkey offsite till now.. (even my weekends and legal holidays were on) .. and now that there is rest on the offsite team and the work load focus has shifted to the onsite team, i have been called onsite..the onsite team has already started working on weekends from now on.. Its going to be a difficult job i tell you...I am seriously expecting that i will fall ill soon..But from an optimist point of view , HEY MAN!! i am going to America ... i dont care what they make me do there.. :)

[If you think that the words Pessimist and Optimist have been wrongly placed, then sorry.. I know the meaning of both but i am not always sure which means what..so kindly make that adjustment yourself for your 'READING PLEASURE']

In recent past, a few things happened which i missed to blog, thanks to the my project... Let me just recall..

My Family Life:

My sister had a very major life/death operation...Doctors who operated her said they would not have been able to save her had she been half an hour late.. it all happened on her Eid Days in Ireland.. She is fine now .. is resting now..not as much as my mother and I want her to .. I just hope she will heal and recover soon..

Personally i feel my bonds with my family is getting stronger now....Its a new change... Its a new me.... I just dont feel very good to see my parents' condition now...The fact that they are old is very apparent now..They too have realized this and thats why they are urging me to get married soon.. but now with my sister's recent condition they have once again forgot about my marriage plans.. :)

Anyways, i have also started feeling very social.. I am very excited on my travel , but i am also feeling bad for missing a few things like seeing my sister this december when she will come to Pakistan, Missing a good friend's wedding this weekend, missing meeting my very good friend and an ex-mentor who will come from France to Pakistan for a few days, missing the new-hire party at my office for which the office people have already collected money from me :(..

My Psychic Life:

My Psychic life is improving now.. Finally i have started picking words what the other peoples are about to say..It doesnt happen all the time..The frequency is once a week ..but the point is that it has started happening ..now when i am not meditating any more.... Oh! and I had a dream in which i saw myself present in US ..this dream was out of blue.. i mean there were no chances of me going to US .. and exactly that same day my tech lead told me there are chances that i will be flying to US.

My Princess Life:

Princess has started behaving better now.. I had no problem in Ramzan .. but just last week , the generator belt was broken.. I have now posted a FOR SALE notice on it and after my return from US, i will be selling it through newspapers ads.. I was definately going to give this ad on this sunday's JANG.. but i could not do it because of this suddent travel. Oh, and i found the problem atlast.. It wasnt the car all this time.. it was the mechanic..

Office and Travel Arrangements:

There have been too much work in office..There was no official leave for me to prepare for my travel. I was assigned work as if i was not to do any travel preparations at all. It was really troublesome getting my International Driving License, and a air breaker jacket and other important travel arrangements.. The most difficult thing was to get things done from Office.... I had to inform a few people at office about my travel and had to ask them to permit me a few things like increase in credit card limit, travel advance money etc. etc. but things went at a pace slower than my expectation..I hope i will receive all the approvals and the money soon..

Back to the present:

The plane shakes like shakira every now and then.. but its a comfortable flight.. An Emirates flight it is..Had heard so much about it..Food was good..I dont know why arent there any AEROPLANE FOOD restaurants in the world.. I watched ICE AGE 2 .. didnt enjoy it very much as I was not feeling very well.. but its a good movie.. I would have enjoyed it more had i been fine.. I am sleepless for past few days...I just hope my sleeplessness and my happiness of going to America ---Comibined, they wont trigger any thing.. I just hope my depression will remain in control.. though i wont mind getting slightly maniac :) ..trust me...Its a great feeling when you are a maniac..:) ... Oh..i just saw the map of the flight, and they showed Tampere in the map.. Bodz!!! I just passed your area!!..and hey man!! i am really sorry for not being able to socialize much with you..

I am losing the sense of time and space.. what is the time here..what is the time in Pakistan..is it night outside..i dont know much..Will be writing something on my pocket notebook ..

The laptop battery is going down.. so me goes ..

And yeah!! i have decided that i will write my blogs in a single go.. the WRITER inside me doesnt let me post things without a million reviews and tweaking... but i am tired of so much reviewing of text.. So now you are going to read my raw thoughts..

This is my first post through Windows Live Writer.. Lets see how it appears on my blog...

Sameer goes to US

2006-11-14T22:25:00.000+05:00

I am on karachi Airport ..waiting for my flight to DUBAI.. will be going to New York from Dubai and then from New York to Detriot , Michigan....

YAHOO!!!!

I am so excited about it..

They told me 5 days ago that i have to reach US on 16 Nov. Happy i was but travelling has always been a tensed thing to me..and international travel.. come on man thats a MEGA tension..

so since 9 Nov, i have not been able to sleep properly either because of some stupid sleeping arrangements + happiness. The first night i kept thinking of US... was completely unable to sleep.. I am still somewhat suffering from the sleep loss.. You know , i do crazy thing when my sleep is not complete... I always have to take GOOD care of my sleep wake cycle.... and i never manage to do it.. :)

Past months were very busy.. Too much work.. Too much work... i , at last, had started missing my life.. was kinda bored of my work routine too... was kinda frustrated because of that one irritating person of my project team who works a lot more than me in the same time.. Living with extra efficient people is not new to me.. I have tolerated many of them in GIKI.. i still remember people who used to study double than me in half the time i used to study .. (that multplies their efficiency with 4).. but this guy, this irritating guy I am talking about .... does not irritate me with his efficiency but with his talk...he talks, and talks and talks..and i really thank Gid whenever he leaves...

Shit.. i have to catch my fligh...

Busy again

2006-09-24T21:09:00.000+05:00

I am busy again.. Last two weeks went good.. My trips to Rahat continued.. :) ...

NEW THINGS

I watched the play Dally in the Dark , it was great... First play of Shah Shrabeel that i really liked ... .. was really funny... An old friend of mine was the Assistant Director of the play..I just hope he will offer me some good role (probably leading) in his upcoming play... :).. Uff!! i am so full of talent..

Oh!.. i bought a new mobile.. along with a new SIM..., Warid number..its so great.. now i am able to easily talk with anyone right while sitting in my office or in my home.. I am also keeping that pathetic mobilink connection as well.. but it is there just for the number.. Warid is really great.. Its very cheap and the sound quality is great...

PRINCESS

What else .. yeah!! Princess has gone really bad.. i gave it to the meachanic last saturday.. got it back this thursday..i.e it stayed with mechanic for 6 days.. :)...... Will start efforts to sell it soon.... i was coming to office yesterday, took a turn on a square...and when i had turned enough , the steering refused to come back.. as a result the wheels remained in the turned position.. and my car kinda started circling on the road.. :).. A motorcycle bumped into the car..and there were some angry screeching sounds of a few cars.... it could have become a really BIG accident but thank God nothing big happened...

OFFICE

Office work has become more demanding.. :(.. i even came this saturday (yesterday) and worked till 12:30 (midnight i.e) .. and now i am here again...on sunday... :(

HEALTH

I hope to reduce some weight this Ramadan.. but its just that these days.. my old desire to eat good and to eat great (in terms of amount) is coming back.. and in every Ramadan there are so many parties to attend.. waisay i am looking forward to have iftaris in office.. Thanks to the project deadlines..

FUN TIME

I have recently started watching FULL METAL ALCHEMIST these days.. its good...and i have also started playing Diablo 2.. but what the hell i cant install on my system at home.. ... :(... I told a guy in my office that i have starcraft at home and he got really excited about it.. I brought it for him the next day and then we had a 1 on 1.. which I won after having a tough time.. :).. I enjoyed it a lot.. I wish i could play it on BNET... Bodz! you are so lucky that you are able to play it on BNET..

ok.. me goes to home..to prepare for my first Sehri..

A weekend spent well

2006-09-11T19:07:00.000+05:00

This weekend i got my room cleaned.. it was a four hour procedure.. in which i removed all the stuff from my room.. got it cleaned..then got the mat cleaned.. then placed things inside with a different setting.. Now i cant watch the TV when i am sitting on bed... A stupid configuration that i will change soon...

I had Rahat ka Pizaa on both the days of the weekend.. Rahat.. my old love .. is coming back to life.. :)..

and i had a fancy hair cut.. Razar hair cut...a cut in which the hairdresser uses a razor instead of a scissor to cut the hairs.. This give a Rough look (How? i dont know..the hairdresser told me so) .This new hairstyle requires shining gel to give a good look but i do not use gel, so the style is not looking as great as it should... so i do not look Rough .(whatever it means)..

The weekend was spent well.. i enjoyed it.. i also watched Xmen III.. [Spoilers ahead] didnt like it much.. There was no point in killing Xavier.. He didnt die a heroic death...and there was no point in killing Cyclops either..and there wasnt much contribution of the phoenix idea to the whole story plot.... The whole story was ok without her.. Khair.. the effects were good.. i was only happy for rogue for losing her powers... :)... She deserved it... :)

and there was a mouse in my bathroom's commode (WC) this morning.. an alive mouse ..or may be rat...or whatever... it was trying to come out but was slipping again and again.....i hope it wont be there when i will reach home..

3 more parties

2006-09-08T19:42:00.000+05:00

The parties never ended...

6th Septemeber... Wednesday

On Wednesday...We , the whole project team , went to Pappa Sallys for lunch.. to celeberate the birthday of the youngest person in our batch.... on his expense offcourse... :) We had very very tasty Pizzas.. The Pappa Sally's Pizza's are a hell lot better than Pizza Huts'..

7th Septemeber.. Thursday

A friend of mine is leaving NCR.. He was in my NCR batch... He has been offered a very good post from an other company and so he is leaving ...We gave him a Lunch at Lasania...

8th Septemeber.. Friday

Today , i enjoyed some left over food .. :)... Some Goras visited NCR this week..and food was served to them in our recently constructed Cafeteria.. The food services were provided by Trimutsu.. A new restaurant in blue Area which i havent tried yet....but i have heard its very expensive.. The food was great..

I FOUND SOMETHING

Well.. I guess i havent mentioned on my blog yet that i lost some 7 Kgs recently.. but OH thanks! to all these parties.. i have gained it all again... :)...i have found what i lost..... :)

Four days of Party

2006-09-05T12:20:00.000+05:00

Last week was full of parties.... All related to my office life..

Thursday 31 Agust

First there was a gathering on the expense of our Program Managers.. At Planet X.. but we didnt watch any movie there... :(..it was just food..

Friday 1st Sept

Then there was a Reward Acheievement Celeberation the very next day... A new tradition has started here to celebrate the acheivements of people every month..

Saturday 2nd Sept

It was Fauzan's Waleema on Saturday..He is a part of my ETL team.. He was lucky to get his days off right at the climax time of the project....... I reached on his Walima at a time when most of the people had already left.. Thanks to my princess.. the tyre punctured on way..I hate changing tyres... Luckily the spare tyre was fine.. (Last time i had a tyre puncture and the spare tyre was found punctured too)... but unluckily i was unable to pull the tyre out.. It took me some 15 minutes just to pull the tyre out of its place from my car's trunk..the CNG kit installed there provides too little a space for the tyre to come out.. and i had to exert all my super power to pull it out..

but that was only one hard part.. the other was when i tried to unscrew the nuts of the punctured tyre.. I kept trying to unscrew them for some 15 minutes but they remained tight.. The poor me then asked a Taxi driver for help. The guy parked his car , took the tools from me and unscrewed the nuts with one blow and then it dawned on me that :

"I was applying pressure in the wrong direction ...I was screwing the nuts insteads of unscrewing them"

Khair.. this direction thing is a lesson that i have learnt for ever now..I am never going to forget it again..

The whole tyre changing process took nearly more than one and a half hour...When i reached the wedding hall (PC pindi), most of the people had left..the food time was over .. all i got was some kababs and baryani.... But whatever I am happy that I was atlast able to reach that place...

Sunday 3rd Sept:

Our Organizational hiearchy has changed and the x-program manager of my x-team is leaving for Turkey..so we , the old team, gave him a farewell dinner at Cinemon... It was my 3rd or 4th trip to Cinemmon and i have now kinda started disliking the place.. First of all there is some not-very-decent thing famous about that place which might be just a rumor .. Secondly , their menu is extreme complex .. I always have to think a lot before giving an order..and what the hell.. i always forget the name of the dish that i order at the time it arrives.. lols...:) .. and then i never like the taste of the thing that i order.. and yeah!! the price is always too much.. The place is veryy expensive...

This time i had prawns or shrimps or whatever in starter... I ate one piece and then i asked..

" Do we eat the legs of this thing?"

I got two answers..

1. No.. we dont eat it..
2. Its not a leg.. Its a tail....

i had chewed the leg/tail by the time I got the answer...and just to look decent , I was not willing to throw it out ..so i gulped it.. and then , all the time during the dinner i kept feeling this irritation in my throat... :(

so this was the story of the past few days.. I will be ending bleach (cartoon anime) soon.. will start my spiritual practcies after that hopefully... am completely out of practice for soooooo long...

Oh.. Tomorrow there is a birthday of a friend , another ETL developer of my team... and he has already promised Papa Sallys Pizaa on the occassion.. Wow!! i love celeberations.. :)

Catching up with the deadlines

2006-09-01T18:14:00.000+05:00

Finally i see some improvement in my working.. A little help from fourth dimension made me improve my concentration at work... Before that, i was doing so stupid mistakes that my project partners have come up with the name "Sameeri" for stupid mistakes...so whenever anyone makes any stupid mistake we say that he has done a Sameeri... :) ... You see i am building a good reputation for myself... :)

but now things are getting better...i am not doing much Sameeres now... Things are going smooth now..

We are having many parties at GCC these days.. The management is really trying to pump up our motivation level.. but they cant increase my motivation level...I am already so happy here.... :)..I have recently realized that all the people in my team are really lively and full of fun.. The Tech Lead of the team recently returned from USA and he brought a box full of choclates for us.. Now we start our daily 8:30 meeting with choclates.. i dont go to the bakery for the breakfast now... :)..

What else , I am watching bleach these days.. Its really a fun anime... (Anime = Japanese Cartoon).. Its a great anime.. There are spiritual beings (death Gods) who come on earth to kill Hollows (ghosts).. One death God sacrifices her powers to save a boy.. As a result the boy gets all the powers of her..and he has to complete her job of killing the ghosts...very soon his very close friends start developing their own powers because of him... Its a real fun story...with akheeer action and fun... DO watch.

Fits of laughters

2006-08-18T23:08:00.000+05:00

Its been more than 2 weeks..I am sitting at the same place with same people..and i sit here from 8:30 in the morning till late night.. ..same faces that i see daily..I admit its fun ..more fun than seeing different faces each day..cause i happen to have very lively project partners...but every day when i wake up in the morning , i dont feel the begining of a new day..Its seems i am still passing a long day...May be i am not resting enough!!!

The project is going great...enjoying the company of my project partners is a real treat..and I am getting my usual fits of laughters like my very old days..there are some stupid funny statements which make us all very excited...we laugh whenever someone of us says that and we say it frequently.....it continues like this the whole day....and we keep laughing regularly...reminds me of my GIKI TA ship times...reminds me of one specific time when I and Kashif Bhatti had a long laughter that i guessed lasted for more than 15 miutes..may be more..I guess i never had a laughter longer than that ..and we were laughing because i gave him my reason of not playing starcraft on battlenet (multiplayer) ..basically it was a comment that my allied player gave me when i failed to protect his base..I had more than a dozen dragoons ( a strong fighting unit) but unfortunately I was not very sure of what to do with them...My ally's base was under attach and i was supposed to help him with my draggons..When the guy realized that I wont be able to reach to his base in time (cause i was having trouble in crossing a bridge..the dragoons are big units and with big units you can not cross the bridge so easily) he left the game after leaving a message for me.. . At first glance, It looked like an advice of what to do with those dozen dragoons.. unfortunately i didnt know the meaning of one of the english word in the message..so i , while playing the game , specially checked my electronic dictionary to see the meaning ...thinking it will help me win the game...and i found it it was an abusive term.. ..lol..

..and after I told this whole thing to Kashif Bhatti...we laughed like hell for so long....It was night..we had to go to sleep but we were standing in the doors (our rooms' entrances faced each other).... I had to finally sit on the floor cause i was laughing so hard that i was impossible for me to keep standing............Those were great days ....the best time of my life... I wish i could go back..I wish i could go back to Giki... back to that time.. with all those friends.... atleast for once more in my life... The time that i am having now is great too..but those memories ..that time ..it has set a benchmark for me.. a benchmark to compare happiness level...

I am happy that i got all those laughters back...but Oh God !! i am feeling so nostalgic...

Haste makes waste

2006-08-17T20:52:00.000+05:00

My days are still passing with LOADS of work...with me increasing my own workload by doing stupid mistakes...Thanks to my habit of getting tensed, i try to work quickly and end up doing mistakes like working on the wrong things, importing wrong tables in the database, deleting the main target tables instead of the temporary tables.... so with my normal work , i also have to spend some extra time to correct things ...... Khair i hope i will soon overcome it.

I have got 3 DVDs games with me now.. Thanks to an assignment initially given by JAhaZZ...but god knows why ....i am always so unlucky with DVD games.. whenever i buy them ,I always have to visit the shop again to get them replaced..even now , the three DVDs that i have are not functioning properly...and a poor guy like me who hardly gets enough time from office these days has to spend some hours trying to make the games work.. Yesterday , i spent two full hours trying to install the games...:( ....the games being ..my all time favourite DIABLO 2 , Black and white 2 and DREAMFALL...

ok me goes...will try to install the games again...i hope to succeed this time.. but i vow now that i will never ever ever ever buy a game DVD again...

Free for a while

2006-08-12T20:58:00.000+05:00

Finally i am free...We had a burst of work assignment..which made me work late along with the whole team... The past 6 days (including today's...we had to come office on saturday too) were fun...in a team of four ETL developers., i enjoyed the burden a lot. Its always fun to enjoy life in extreme conditions.. daily meetings at 8:30 am in morning ....leaving for home around some 10 pm at night.. laughing at the most stupidest things around... it was a time spent well....

What else..nothing much to tell..cause nothing new happened in my life..there were just data mappings in my mind for the past few days..

The weekend is here...the monday is off (14th august)...thanks god the assignment ended today.... two free days ahead... and i havent planned anything for such a long period of free time.. but does that matter..its the same even if i plan.. :) .. but i must party a lot...more work is on its way..

and oh God..14 August is coming..i hate listening to crackers every 5 minutes...Its so annoying...

My brother's engagement

2006-08-01T15:47:00.000+05:00

This weekend my brother got engaged...finally...!!!! ............and now .. i have become the focus of many staring eyes... ..lol!! :) .. but i am confused ... cause i am really considering a few things...like...is it the right time...should i go for it now..should the girl be of my choice..or should i let it be my parents' choice... should i chose a professional or what....should i accumulate more money before getting married.......... Its such questions.....confusions...puzzling thoughts... that i am having these days.. I havent seen many of my long terms plans materializing..and i kinda dont want to waste my time in planning things..but ....well...err!!!..umm... errr....!!!! ?????...I know i will keep thinking of such things.....

The engagement was on saturday ..the program ended near 12 at night...but we reached home near 4 in morning....this was a big disturbance in my already disturbed sleep-wake cycle..and when my sleep-wake cycle gets disturbed , I become extremely cranky (Chirchira) ...(though sometimes i become quite funny..but its a different mood cycle that i am suffering these days).. so please stay polite with me for a while... :)..its for your own benefit... :)

And I have got a new addiction of a game..SIMS2..Its a beautiful game in which you control lives of different people..you make them go to school , take a bath , play games , have food , clean their home , then they grow up , they marry ..they learn things...etc..etc..etc..the game is full of many fun things...and it is very addictive...it made me stay awake till 3 for 3 consective nights last week...A few days ago It made me sad when a person in my game died..and last night a burglar stole TV and books shelf from my one of the families that i am playing with...

ok me goes now..i am not feeling well as i havent had enough sleep yet..i even took a day off from office yesterday as i was ill...please pray for my health...

oh !! about the princess ..last week its battery generator failed..had to get it replaced...but the fun thing happened last night..when i returned from home (Peshawar) last night and went to Rahat Bakery as the first thing..just to cheer up my motivation that is down because of my illness.....There i was having some snacks while sitting in the princess and i thought to put the keys in the ignition plug..i did that...and after a while i thought i should better get some juice too...so I got out of the car..locked it...and OHHHHHH!!!! I left the keys inside...:(...Now the two front doors of my car have different locks ..one has Suzuki locks other has Toyota Locks....so at that time of night (it was 11:30 pm) i was seen asking people (having Toyotas and Suzukis) to let me try their keys on my car...but no success....after some 6-7 attempts of opening the locks with different keys..i finally had to came home on a TAXI to get a spare key that i have placed at home for such occasions (i have locked the keys inside two times before:) ) ....

Thats all for today...Very soon i will write about a friend who is leaving..(leaving what??) ....Details later...

Me in July 2006

2006-07-25T20:01:00.000+05:00

My O my..This is a big gap between the posts....but its not my fault..my desire to stay on the edge of technology made me download FireFox 2.o beta the day it was released..(it was not even on mozilla's main webpage..I had to search for the installation file on tech forums)...then i wrote a long long post and just when i was about to publish it. . ..firefox crashed.... @:..i was so angry..now i have switched back to 1.5.. i dont know why people call firefox stable..

My project is going at snail speed now...with bursts of late office sittings once in a while..I am kinda getting tired of late sittings..so now i usually try to leave office early..thats why no blogging for some time...Today i sat late as i had to call Ireland to talk with my sister... enjoyed some shopping time along with her in ireland markets....

Oh... N E W S .. My brother is getting engaged..this weekend...so I will have to go home.. I might even take a day off from office..

What else..i cleaned my room ..and now it looks better..(cleaner)..i have also bought an ironing table and now my room is more filled with ever with me occusionally hitting one thing or the other on my way ..The following events frustrate me at times..

While ironing my clothes , the long sleeve of the shirt hits the power cable .. that makes the cable fall out of the socket ..that turns off the TV..now ...It is important to plug the cable carefully so that the hot iron may not fall down on my head while i am bent below the iron table reaching the wall socket.
Before using my PC i have to drag my chair near the computer table...then while ironing i have to drag it a bit far away (usually to the center of the room ) so that i may get full freedom in moving my arm...then while going out of the room..i have to move the chair from the center to area behind the door so it may not come in the way...but ..then to use my PC againI have to drag the chair again causing it to come in the vicinity of the ironing table again..!!!!!!!.... .The cycle continues........argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ...........But wait..............thats not all............ this continuos dragging of the chair effects the floor mat so that ripples are formed on it and then i cant open the room door without first clearing the mat ripples.. argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!....
And now that i have an AC in room ..I have got one more remote control to search for (first it was only the TV's remote) ...so yeah!!..still ..most of the time in my room is spent searching for the remote controls.

FOOD:

I recently added Jalapinos peppers to my collection of sauces and pickles at home..for some time, i am enjoying sandwiches made from frozen food and some good sauces ....and wow!! they taste greaaaaaaaat............ I love eating all the dishes made by the genius cook within me....

Princess:

Princess is ok...I finally shifted it on Gas......It was indeed a rarely sighted scene when i was watching Naruto on my laptop at the mechanic's place in Pindi.....:) ... then a few days ago , i had some trouble with gas again....but when i got gas filled from an other gas station..the car started working fine..i dont know wether its true or not but it seems that different gas stations have different kind of gases... huh!!!.. o-:

Spiritually...

I am kinda lazy on the Spiritual front ..am not regular now..i keep feeling relaxed all the time and thus i fell that i dont need to do any meditation..... This weekend i listened to the Silva CDs that i once got free and found that they are too great for me if i use them... I have too much good spiritual knowledge stuff piled with me now but i dont have enough time to read /hear /view it..

About Friends:

Noman Yasir Jelani aka NYJ is going to Canada..for a training on Wi-Max.. something great happening to a great guy like him..
Timmy aka Taimoor had a new haircut on my constant insisting...It was a Razor Cut i.e The hairdresser used a razor instead of scissor to cut his hairs.. Its the newest fashion in the town dattey boyou.. [dattey boyou is japanese of 'you know']..so please get impressed from me for having a friends who has Razor cuts ..
Saleem Gul wrote an article on Net beans..[link].I dont get it what net beans is..even though he explained it to me..(hey!! i am EE guy) ...:).. so please get impressed from me for having friends whose articles appear on big sites...
Jazz has requested me to be courteous enough to go to Jinnah Super , buy some computer games for him (there were some 40 games in the list he sent to me with nearly 30 marked as MUST HAVE) and then be more courteous by sending it to him through TCS..oh! thats not all...he has also asked for some choclates with it...
Bodz asked me not to do anything for any one ever...This is the corollary of one of the laws of successful life.... "I am happy and I must remain happy" ....This was said a long time ago but i recall it now as i seek guidance in order to analyze JAZZ's highly demanding request ..so i guess...i should not send any DVDs to JAZZ..(even though now i have bought 3) .. I must conform to Bodi 's saying as thats the only commandment that he left for me before leaving for Finland..I cant betray one friend for the other...

Naruto

Have seen some 177 episode of Naruto and have started with reading its manga (the comic book ) ..It is as addivtive as the anime (animation)....Uff!!!....Naruto is too kool...oh an btw! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle is coming back too .. the movie will be released in 2007... [link]

What else...hey!! i am keeping a frenchie beard these days... :)

TRIM

2006-07-07T21:52:00.000+05:00

Today was a busy day..My new project's work assignments have started to arrive and they do suck a lot of time..

The whole day i kept making foolish mistakes..where the most common one was : not trimming the values to compare.[for non CS people: i was not converting the values to same format before comparing] ..I even wrote it big on a paper "ALWAYS TRIM" and kept it in front of me..even then i kept doing this same mistake again and again..

My previous project was DHL Czech Republic...and i was not happy with my performace in that ..I had vowed to be extra efficient in my new project but...what the hell.. i keep getting stucked in very basic things...kept working till 9:00 pm where as all the other team mates were free by 5 pm.. :(.... I kept cursing my self the whole day for not being able to catch up ...but khair..thats life.. after all i have changed my whole field...so whatever is happening should be an expectation.. I am not a very genius guy and i will have to live with my speed of grasping new ideas.

Oh.. I had a lunch at Marriot today..It was a treat from the project manager of my previous project for our good work on the project. The guy was so happy that he sent money from Czech to sponsor our lunch...Earlier the plan was to go for a dinner but we couldnt get a common free dinner time so it was decided to go for it on Friday's lengthy lunch time.. We had Thai food..I have never had thai food before..but.. i didnt eat anything new in the food.. the only new thing that i noticed was the strange combination of Kahwa (green tea) and choclate that was served after the food...instead of the dessert..

What else..I am blank...completely blank..made a telephone call to my sister a while ago... felt sleepy during the conversation even though she was talking about something that can effect my future...

Kashif Bhatii aka KB is in Nathia Gali right now.. I kept trying calling him the whole day..His number was not reachable.. :(.. will probably meet him on sunday..

Am feeling sleepy... will go home now...am waiting to see how the Sand Ninjas will save the leaf ninjas from the sound ninjas... :) ..Today i got new episodes of Naruto you know... :)

GCC birthday

2006-07-03T11:56:00.000+05:00

GCC Birthday

We had GCC birthday on 29th June.. GCC , my office , is short for Global Consulting Center.. Its sort of a branch of NCR which turned one year old on 29th. We went to Hotshots F-9 park to celeberate the birthday where we started with bowling. I have never played bowling before.In the start the game looked weird..and i was really wondering who invented this game and how..?? but later i started enjoying it..My score was the lowest in my team. :(

Then we had Laser Tag. I had been trying to play this game for so long. It was a nice game of 15 minutes in which we , 5 boys , played against our enemies , 8 girls , and lost.. :(... In the game , we hit each other's infra-red-sensor-jackets with laser guns ..it is a great game , i will surely be playing it more...was fun..Seems a sure way of losing weight as one keeps running around in total excitement for 15 minutes..

Then we had food and i ate chicken wings till the vomit limit.. lol. :)

At night i was very happy(hyper) and when i met Noman he commented on my behaviour as "You are acting like little kids who become very hyper after having jhola at a park" :)

About Naruto:

I have watched 99 episodes.. an episode is 20+ minutes ..and many times i re-watch a scene repeatedly...so it means that i have spent 33+ hours on it.. I am still enjoying the story line.. its great ...

About My Spiritual Journey:

On this weekend Timmy aka Taimoor gifted me a book ..Its Zawiya 2 by Ishfaq Ahmed..(oh.i am getting too many book gifts these days) .I also bought a book on telepathy by Khwaja Shams-ud-Din Azeemi. I am now feeling that spiritual development doesnt depend only on learning psychic abilities..It also requires learning of life concepts . I recently understood the importance of Forgiveness..A term very heavily used but rarely understood in its proper meanings..I plan to write a post on the power and meanings of Forgivenessthe way i understand it..The book Zawiya gives a good insight into life..I feel the words of the author going deep down ....deep inside me...It sort of cleanses the soul and empowers it to grow.. A PTA friend , Shehryar, used to say that its not important to learn psychic abilities as they are not the ultimate goal...He is quite right when i think about the ultimate goal.. but i am continuing just because i want to see the world with a different angle..atleast for a while..

I have a lot of books piled up now that i have to read.. I have a lot of audio/video lectures to listen....and there a few softwares that i have to try..and then there is this one software that i want to crack ..i have been looking for its crack since Oct 2005... :(.. i am too desperate that i am even willing to reinstall my windows after every 15 days.(the trial limit is 15 days) .but i hope i will soon find easier ways to make the trial run longer. May i succeed in my (un)holy plans..

Sandwich and Salad

2006-06-29T12:02:00.000+05:00

Life is a bit changed these day... thinking of Naruto all day... and then trying to watch its clips every now and then..have watched 75 episodes...(there are nearly 300 in total)..

yesterday , i had a strange cooking experience.. I was trying to make a sandwich ..ended up making a Salad..:) ..I have too many sauces at my places..Tomato ketchup , Mianoese , Chicken Spread , Olives in Vinegar, Mustard Sauce.. so i usually bring some frozen food from market and enjoy a tasty sandwich . Sometime i bring that to office. Last night the tomato slices, cucumber slices, onion pieces ,capsicum pieces and the cutlas pieces made the sandwich bigger than the capacity of the sandwich maker. so i finally made a Salad out of the ingredients and stored that in the fridge so that i may take it to office....Oops!! i forgot to bring it in morning..

My sleep cycle is very disturbed these days.. i do go to bed early but once there, i start watching Naruto. strangely i am not having the effects that i usually have with lack of sleep..It might seem stupid if i say so , but i do feel it that watching Naruto fills me with some kind of energy..I dont know what it is...Probably its happiness... or satisfaction.. I dont know what..but it is there....

Ok!!...Me goes to enjoy the birthday of NCR GCC (my office) .. too many celeberations around these days..

Quick Refresh

2006-06-26T10:14:00.000+05:00

I have fallen in love with NARUTO.. A japanese anime..about Ninja kids who use their Ninja Arts, different illusionary techniques and Chakras for fighting with each other. Its a great anime.. i have watched 50 episodes uptill now...I started watching it because i heard they use Chakras. Now , most of the times i keep thinking about the characters of the anime.. I am really impressed by the great art , the story line , the characters, the music , sound track , the everything.. I wish i could learn Japanese..

I went to Ceroze Cinema last week with PTA friends.. Noman Jelani ,Taimoor aka Timmy, Kashif.. We watched MI:3 ... ( a pathetic movie!!).. All of a sudden i feel my connections with PTA friends getting stronger.. Later in the week I enjoyed Noman's Bday party at Italian Oven with a few more PTA friends.. Noman was my best buddy in PTA... He is not a very sensitive person and is usually very hyper ..thats what i like about him.

I had a 4D workshop last weekend. Three NCRians , other than me , attended the workshop.. Taimoor aka Timmy also attended it.. The workshop was not great.. It was poor in contents and was very mismanaged in the start..I have been attending the workshops for a long time and i feel that its quality is dropping continuosly.. Oh! i did it for free.. :)..

Our office is now strictly monitoring our internet usage.... i had a download of 330 MB (for a month) where the average usage was 55 MB..later i found a person who had a download of 7 GB of data.. :) ...Access to Google video was blocked last week..This morning i found that MSN spaces has been blocked too. :( ...I hope i will be getting Bodi's posts through google reader (i dont know wether RSS feeds get blocked or not)..... Soon blogger will be blocked too... :( .. I surely need to get an internet connection at home..

What else:

Raza left Pindi..He is back in Karachi now..He will soon join Imperial University London for his PHD on Dr. Emoto's Crystal. :).. ..Raza is a great person..(i must say so afterall he has gifted me two books on my MOST favourite topics).
My brother returned from Sweden.. His "haan" has been done and now his mangney will be celeberated soon.

Adush

2006-06-15T19:57:00.000+05:00

Though they have deleted my wiki , they can't delete my intellectual work.. I hope the image above will be readable....and please express it when you get impressed by my laptop's 1400 x 1050 resolution.

(For best results , please open the image in a new window and then save this full image on your harddisk and view through a image viewer)

What makes me happy today:

I finally got a song that i was looking for so long. Its "Release - Afro Celt Sound System"..
I am also happy because i got Earth 2 whole season from a guy in NCR. Earth 2 was my favourite series when i was a kiddo.
I am also happy because the "Dungar"(read:Dung-gar) Pointer gave me a nice and expensive treat today at "Table Talk" restaurant in Kohsar Market along with a few other NCRians. I was thinking i will have to pay , but the news came later that its a free treat by him. Thanks man!!!!
And i have finally formated my system..though i had to go through a big process for that and there is still a lot of installation to do tomorrow.

NLP success and Dianetics

2006-06-12T11:04:00.000+05:00

NLP Success

I met an old friend who was extremely worried as it turned out that the girl of his dreams was not exactly the girl of his dreams. He met me right after having a very traumatic incident with that girl.He was sad , disappointed and was thinking of himself a real loser.. Thats when i thought of applying an old forgotten NLP trick on him..

I asked him of to think of all the worst things that can happen to him .. he did so..then i asked him to tell me about the best things that can happen to him..he did that too.. I asked him the first question again... and then the second question again.. I kept repeating it..making him answers to me louder everytime... This is known as pattern breaking... I dont want to go into much detail basically because i do not remember the precise science behind it..but whatever ..the thing worked and the guy was all ok and fine...He left feeling great and confident..

There was another trick that i applied on him..I dont know the name of it but i have applied it so many time during my academic life ..it a special breathing mechanism through which you can get rid of all the negative thoughts in mind.. I dont remember how i learnt it.. but i recently read that this is a very good technique to awake the kundalini...

I now feel very satisfied when the guy tells that both the tricks helped him a lot...I regret now for not practicing these things earliers.. This was my first attempt..though i learnt the course an year ago..

DIANETICS / SCIENTOLOGY

Dianetics has started managing its office in Islamabad..They offered a Seminar on Communication Skills this sunday..

A few concepts that i learnt follow:

A man is composed of a body , a mind and a soul ...
Body: it is the physical thing that we can see.. i.e our organs..
Mind: it is the collection of mental images that we have...i.e it is the collection of all our memories..this is not only limited to visual pictures but also the memory of other senses.
Soul(Thetan): it is us...we ... the spirit..the thing in us that thinks...

Reactive Mind: According to the concepts of dianetics , all of us have a reactive mind that stores traumatic memories and these traumatic memories keep haunting us all our life.. these disturbing memories are called engrams.

Auditing: Auditing is a procedure in which a guy who wants to get rid of the thoughts in the reactive mind sits with a councilor (called orator) and talks about various incidents of his life.. the orator takes once incident at a time and asks the guy to reapeat telling about the incident again and again each time giving more information about the incident.. Finally the guy starts feeling fine about his traumatic experience and gets rid of the engram cause by that experience.. The auditing session continues as long as a person is completely clear of all the engrams.. Such a person is then termed as a CLEAR in terms of dianetics.

About Aliens:
I read somewhere that dianetics is related to an idea that long ago aliens invaded Earth and brainwashed the people. but in the seminar , they didnt tell us any such story..besides even the main stream article on wiki doesnt say so..so i guess that was just a rumour.. I spoke to the manger of the dianetics office here and he didnt know about any such thing..

About the Communication Seminar
It was a nice seminar.. cant write much as i have already spent too much time writing about Dianetics.. There were some communication exercises in the seminar which seemed good to me.. At the end of the seminar they showed us a video of Tom Cruise saying good words about the Dianetics .. He is famous for actively supporting Dianetics.. Celebrities like him make marketing quite easier.. :)

Dianetics offers variey of courses like the Basic moral values , career growth, learning the methods to study, etc.. Basically these are all self development courses...I may or may not take some course...All depends on what if feel about it in future...My first experience was fine..and i may go for another one, though i am more interested in knowing the Aliens stuff... :( . Self improvement is good but the alien thing is really kool... :)

CAR conversations

2006-06-08T11:05:00.000+05:00

with a general person:
speak:my car is with the mechanic
hear:again.
speak:yeah
hear: oh..why dont you leave this car..why dont you buy a new one..i tell you what ..there is this option that you can get the car leased from a bank...the way to do it is .....[i wait till the end]

with mom..
speak: hi...
hear: hi..how are you? have you started searching for a girl yet or not.
speak: no..mom.not yet..
hear: start looking then...i want you to get married soon..
speak: all right..i will do it..right now i am very bored ..Its the car..its still with the mechanic..
hear: what?? why dont you just get rid of this car..throw it away..whats the use of it if it is disturbing you daily..sell it and buy a new one...dont take this tension any more...get rid of the junk...
speak: i dont have enough moeny to buy a new one..
hear: Why dont you get it leased form the bank..its very easy..pappa was saying that Sameer can get a car leased from the bank..all he will have to do is........[i wait]

with a friend who visits Islmabad after a long time
hear: What is this..
speak: what?
hear: what kind of car is this?
speak: yar..kiya kharabi hay is main..it is doing all the work for me..
hear: but you are earning good you can get a better car..
speak..yar..i am fine with this...whats wrong with this..
hear: whats fine with this car...its doesnt even look good. why dont you buy a new car..
speak..cause i dont have enough money.
hear: thats not a problem you can simply get a car on lease...you can buy whatever car you want ..all you have to do is... [i wait till end]
speak..ok.should we go now..
hear..yeah..but it will be better if we leave your car here and go on my car..

with Bodi
type: ok yar...me goes now have to get my car...
read: from where?
type: from the mechanic..its **** was causing problem ...
read: whats the use of such a car ..you have spent so much on this stupid thing..An old car is always an old car...
type: yeah! i realize it now..
read: you always realize things late and you dont ever listen to the people around you..had you listened to me earlier and had you abstained from spending so much on the old car and your stupid silva workshops, you would have earned enough money to leave Pakistan..
type: yeah..right!!
read: your life is so full of waste..start doing something about it...you have no plans for your future ..you want to do whatever comes in your mind.. didnt you learn anything from your tableeghi time... why dont you just listen to me.. Now start saving your money and make up your future..

[err..should i tell him about the lease thing]

with Raza
speak: yar..what the hell ..the car is troubling again..
hear: uff!! kia mosiabt hay..why did you buy it..
speak: yar..a friend of mine in PTA sold it on me beacuse he wanted to make his boss happy..i was fooled by him...
hear: this is certainly quite interesting...why do you trust in people so easily..why are you so blind a follower..this is why i always ask you to go for a peer review whenever you have to spend money on something...Peer review is a proper scientific process in which recognized and affiliated scientists review something genuinely and publish their scientific research results in international scientific journals that are read world wide in the scientific communities and then there are seminars and discussions on the findings and the results of the research are then made public..
speak..err..Raza..who is that guy in green shirt...
hear...where ..where...which way..
speak..Adussssh....
hear. oho...had darjay bad tameez admi ho..how do you always remember this..

With NCR pepole-lasania cafeteria

Speak:yar meri gari aaj phir khar gharab ho gayee hay..
hear: oho..ab kiya ho gaya aap ki gari ko..perhaps now the engine is not working..but i guess it was working fine..kiyon keh woh app nay abhi abhi theek karaya tha....perhaps its some problem with the clutch pad.
hear...app [pause] aisa [pause] kiyon [pause] nahee [pause] kartey [pause] kah [pause] aik [pause] hi [pause] bar..
hear: yar..aik to yeah bolney main itna time lagata hay..sham ho jati hay suntey suntey...
hear: to to chup kar na..suney day..or yeah dhuwaan zara side per phank...
hear: acha..yar main door bhait jaataa hoon..
hear: to door bhi bhetay ga to dhuwaan phir bhe hamari taraf hi aye ga...yeah to bata aaj hum cigarette kon sa pee rahain hay..
hear:pata naheen yar.yeah ***** kaheen say lay ker aiyee hain..
hear:kiya..****!! aap yeah cigarette is kiy liye lay ker aaeen hay..app is masoom ko kharab kar raheen hain..
hear:naheen naheen..main is ko kharab naheen kar raha..infact ..rather...yeah or sameer mujhay kharab kar rahain hain..
hear...acha..to main ap ko kharab kar raha hoon..
hear: naheen naheen..haan haan.. mera matlab yeah naheen that..mera matlab tha keh mujhay Sameer kharab kar raha hay.. Seemingly , appearantly !! usi ki company say main aisa ho gaya hoon..
hear: acha chal main pepsi le kay aata hoon..
hear: pepsi...oh yar meray liye woh bhi lay aana.. [a hand gesture is used]
hear:raita!!?? koon sa?? ...
hear:koon say wala...yar ap batain kain main kon sa wala raita khaoon...
hear:yar ab app nay khana hay to main kaisay bataoon kay kon sa raita khana hay..
hear:yar bus to lay aa na...kuch bhee lay aa na .. Roman Catholics main aisa hi hota hoga..acha.ja
hear:Roman Catholic ...perhaps woh itna dahee naheen khatey they..Romans main cheese zaada use hota tha..haan...laiken Rome ki aik city thi jis main , i guess, dahee bhi bohot istimaal hota tha..rahter there were two such cities...perhaps there was only one..perhaps other cities got this tradition from that city .....rather..perhaps..rather...
[a laughter]
[a laughter mocking the first laughter]
[a laughter again because of the 2nd laughter]
hear:Oho..Chal to suna to kiya keh raha tha..yeah..roman catholics to hamara damagh khatey raheen gay.. bulkay damagh ki dahi banatey raheen gay...
hear:main [pause] keh [pause] raha [pause] tha [pause] keh [pause] app [pause] naiee [pause] gaari [pause] lease [pause] per [pause] kiyon [pause] naheen [pause] lay [pause] leetay . . . . . . . . . . . ..

NCR- THE secret P3 corp meeting

[since its a secret meeting]
what others hear: [some muffled sounds ]..'my car'...[some muffled sounds ]..'princess is naraz'...[some muffled sounds ]..'in 4D'..[some muffled sounds ]..'fix its engine in the healing room'..[some muffled sounds ]..'power symbol on the seat'...[some muffled sounds ]...[a strange sound as if some hindu is chanting some praying words]....[some muffled sounds ]..[a laughter]...'Kundalini was awakened'....[some muffled sounds ]....'then the three wise men looked at me and said'...[some muffled sounds ]... 'the aunt who died with madness'...[some muffled sounds ]..[a laugter]....'meray say kuch kiyon naheen hota'...[some muffled sounds]...'Out of Body experience is so'...[some muffled sounds ]..'program managers'....[some muffled sounds ]....'i have shared this new software'...[some muffled sounds ]...'itna fit hay.itna zaada fit hay'...[some muffled sounds ]..'koi naheen ji..yeah kiya baat hoi'...[some muffled sounds ]........

War of the words

2006-06-02T20:18:00.000+05:00

Below is a reply to the comments on my last post..I did not have enough motivation to waste time on that stupid comment box that requires html scripting for formatting...and you can not even put pure html there...

I am continuing this word war because i am somewhat tired of me shutting up after just one or two sentences from people who dont beleive me and start arguing ...so this one time i have decided to continue it..Much of the text that follows might not be interest of you..You can simply read the last four paras..as before that ..its a conversation that goes on between me and Raza ....and i guess only he will be able to have the motivation to understand and read all the thing... To get his comments on what i say, do check the comments section later..

Legend:
Blue text is my earlier writing..that i wrote in a comment as response to a comment .
Green text is Raza's reply to that blue writing..
Normal is my present writing which is a response to Raza's green text..

CONVERSTAION WITH RAZA

Ok..lets go through it again:

First off, there is a distinction between research and scientific method. Research is a part of science, and thereby you cannot do research applicable to science unless you meet other criteria of scientific method. That research is associated with scientific method is in the definition of Research from the wiki link you cite.

I still have no interest in the scientific method..why because it is NOT something that you talked about earlier.. you used the word research ..but then you looked on the definition on it and didn’t find any thing objecting Emoto.. then you looked at this link of scientific method (given on the wiki of ‘Research’ ) and then you are using the word ‘scientific method’ to help you to the rescue.. I am sure that you know it more than I do that staying on one word is important in a discussion cause going into the meaning of each and every word makes things out of focus…that why I am still hooking to the word research.. so in the next reply which you will definitely provide. .i don’t want to talk about scientific method cause I don’t think that its helping me.. but if you really think it IS that important ..i am talking about it in the para below when you yourself provided a copy paste from it..

I gave you the criteria for scientific method, which includes peer review. It was paraphrased, here it is again in case you missed it:

Another basic expectation is that of making complete documentation of data and methodology available for careful scrutiny by other scientists and researchers, thereby allowing other researchers opportunity to verify results as well as to establish statistical measures of reliability.

The writing itself says that this requirement is mainly an expectation..and not a requirement.. Btw do you know that there is criticism on the "peer review thing'.. mainly because it is slow (taking many years sometimes) and because it makes the ability to publish susceptible to control by elites and to personal jealousy.

And IN YOUR FACE ...let me tell you that there have been many papers that appeared in scientific journals without any peer review...FAMOUS EXAMPLES:

1. Publication of Watson and Crick's 1951 paper on the structure of DNA in Nature.

2. Abdus Salam's paper "Weak and electromagnetic interactions". Salam even got the Nobel prize for it in 1979. and ou

You ask me why I give such importance to Wiki, for one you quoted it when you posted on Silva so I assumed its a resource you trust, for another although everyone can edit Wikis, Wiki is "open source". Anyone can raise objections and contest material, thereby if there are differing opinions on a matter they are often contested. If you find anything misleading here, you can do the same.

Raza!! We were not talking about MY CRITERIA to understand thing…It should be YOUR CRITERIA all the time… You already have so many objections on my sources and the things that I think are trustworthy….. and btw MOST of the spiritual stuff that I have learnt is from wikipedia.. does it mean that you believe in that all too?? Aint this strange that I guy who believes in research still follows a site which can be objected by anyone and which can be edited by anyone who may or may not be applying the so called scientific methods in editing the wiki. It is even objected by the wiki writers... read...

So how many people do you know who edit wikis using ‘Scientific method’ and how many people in the world are all dedicated to the holy cause of keeping wikipedia correct . You have assumed that all the people in the world have an all time internet connection along with ample of time & motivation to check the wikis of their interest. On the Internet, it's impossible to actually confirm people's identity in the first place, short of getting credit-card information. On any site it's very easy to come up with a fake identity..

WRONG!! Lets see how..there are two objections
not repeatable
double blind

REPEATABLE:
Emoto's experiements are repeateable...Not only that the whole process has been described on the same wiki from where you learnt all the things against him (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto) but also on NBC's website where they even tell you to experiment it yourself.. They the NBC guys call him a researcher btw...
(http://www.nbc10.com/news/5455548/detail.html)
http://www.nbc10.com/news/5476558/detail.html)

When I say repeatable it is in context of technically complete specifications, which is not the case.

A group of students in colorado (i think) tried to repeat his experiements (the very last link on the wikipedia site on Emoto) and they came up with the conclusion that it was impossible to do it, because the specification is just too vague. (They also found that virtually all of the crystals across different emotions looked the same in general)

NO RAZA.. you are wrong again…. they were able to do it … READ IT AGAIN..its here…It was done by Advanced Placement Psychology class at Durango High School in Durango, Colorado ..They did the whole experiment using ALL the technical parameters defined by Emoto .These technical specifications are written on the Emoto’s wiki and the class itself has defined it in their procedures as well.. … The students were ABLE to do the experiment .. and there results were in conformance .. Read below as I answer

Emoto approaches the issue of objectivity from a radically different perspective: Since each person's state of mind will affect the water, and since much of the experiment is based on the "consciousness of wanting to find that beauty," then a person with a neutral or disinterested perspective might not find the crystals at all, he said.

so are you getting it..the water gets effected differently by the thoughts of different people..so you can not go for the blind test.. Blind test can be used only at the places where the state of changing a person mind wont effect the result..Here , the results WILL be effected..and thats the basic essence of the whole research...the way you presented this thing was as if Emoto was denying any offer of the peer review and was hiding his findings...he, instead, has described his method so clearly that even you yourself can do them to check their authenticity..What else do you want..

First off he hasnt presented his methods in a way that I can do it, or even you can. I've cited you a link where a group of students tried to replicate his results and couldnt simply because there wasnt enough information, and what he did give did NOT give any fancy results.

AGAIN.. YOU ARE WRONG .. The students were able to do it.. citing something and presenting it in a wrong manner wont make your argument true…READ THE WHOLE THING AGAIN.. READ IT here..…Since you have WRONGLY repeated the thing so many time..now I will give the true picture by writing the conculsion that they (the colarado people) had ..It follows

Conclusion: We did not find sufficient evidence to refute or accept Emoto’s hypothesis that thought influences water crystal formation. We noticed one interesting similarity between two separate groups of water samples: Similar crystals formed on the same message, “I despise you,” in two types of water. But, for the most part, the crystal formations in each water sample resembled each other, regardless of the messages attached to them. We concluded that in order to make a significant finding, further research would have to be done. So, for now, we will have to live with our curiosity and continue to wonder if our thoughts have the power to influence water and ultimately ourselves.

So you see it.. They were able to find the same type of crystals on the same type of message “I despise you”….and although they did not have very very supportive result..they still accept that they do NOT have sufficient evidence to refute or accept the guy…They have concluded that FURTHER RESEARCH should be done.. FURTHER RESEARCH right??? So the experiment did provide them enough curiosity cause they did find something there..

AND RAZA…here I wonder again.. A researcher who proves his point by giving theories from wikipeida and examples from some Psychology class at a High School . Are they really so credible for you.. Is that YOUR criteria ??? this clearly means that YOU CAN NOT target my criterias when your own criterias are not worth trusting.. Wikipedia and other internet search results should not be a criteria for a proper researcher at least.. and if it so then whats the difference between a normal person and a researcher..

His saying that you only find the crystals when you WANT to consciously find them, doesnt that send off warning signals? The blind tests do NOT impact the conditioning of the water (that would cause the crystals to form). They are there to discourage people from finding the crystals they'd like to find.

HE never says that you only find the crystals when you want to find them. He says that he hired photographers based on their…..(cited by wiki)

aesthetic sense and character is the important aspect when taking crystal photographs. Therefore, I try to make sure that they can take photographs in a relaxed and positive atmosphere.

…. (citation ends)

SO this is how and why he selects people.. and off course that’s what he should do…why? Because not every person has a properly developed aesthetic sense. Not every person is able to find beauty. You can go on and read this thing in Psychology if you don’t trust me.. and secondly he wants to provide a proper environment in which people wont be fighting on the definition of beauty…

What Emoto is essentially saying is that you consciously look for crystals that support your hypothesis. Either that, or I misunderstand you.

Well..from the thing that I read I don’t think that’s what he is saying..Try to read it with an unbiased mind…

At any rate, theres nothing stopping people from using all their mind power when they're creating the crystals. However if they start using their mind power when photographing the crystals, then you basically are never going to be wrong :).

Well.. the way I understand it…is that the thought projection thing (that you have named mind power above) is done before taking the photograph… i.e the step 2 on the wikipedia …photography is the step 6 in the procedure defined on wikipedia..

Since he says its language independent, he could follow blinding by cursing in one language and hiring the photographer of a different origin who is unaware of what to look for.

Yes ..He has exposed water to different languages and has come up with the same results… Hiring a photographer of a different origin is not important at all…cause that is the step 6… but offcourse this is yet again a very trivial thing which you can use to build another argument only because there is no information on whether he actually tried hiring a photographer or not.. though you yourself know that people on other places (colarado) have done these things… yet again you will come up with something about which there is no information wether it was done or not..just to create confusion…

But then no...you have to consciously look to find structure right.. So you have license to fabricate any relationship you want.

I didn’t get this sentence.. Paraphrasing may help… The thing that I understand is that your probably mean that you can get what you want from it..the same way ..you and I google on the net and always find opposite point of views on the same things…some time from the same source…some time from same experiment results…especially the Colorado one…which you yourself asked me to READ AGAIN…thinking that I had not read it..and then I have given the whole conclusion here telling that the experiment was infact concluding in the favour of more research.. Citing it went against your points..

And it is true that Emoto has not published in peer review, nor are his methods repeatable (I once again urge you to read the report of the psychology class that tried to redo his experiments).

YES RAZA.. I have read the report of the psychology class..and I don’t urge you to read that..i simply ask you to scroll up and see their conclusion from up there..that I have simply copied and pasted from their website… I am really amazed a psychology class in colarado is all that you are referring again and again.. Hmmm.. a very nice example by a person who claims to look into SCIENTIFIC Methods when proving something…It shows your level.. and you blame that I am the one who believes in things quickly.

By the way, the *Photo Essay* he has out is in the American Journal of Alternative Medicine. So it is clearly not a case of him not having access to scientific journals or anything like that. He merely, for some reason, does not put his research out in a scientific way.

I don’t know wether its him or not…I have never read an article or anything from him explicitly saying that he is not deliberately writing things to scientific journal..May be he tried and was turned down by the political bodies in the scientific community …may be no body ever approached him…(like that 1 million dollar challenge ,in which the foundation never actually directly asked him).. there can be many things..…However, what you should come up with must be an article in scientific journals completely against Emoto…Can you find that..oh you can always use Google and Wikipedia..

What else?? Oh!! read comments on him at http://66.201.42.16/viewitem.php3?id=511&catid=510&kbid=ionsikc where a woman who is M.D., Ph.D. , Founding President, of American Holistic Medical Association talks about Emoto..

I didnt give my links any credibility just because they were written by Phds. Nor because any TV station called someone a researcher, because I am a "researcher" and that doesnt really mean anything.

Oh..you never gave any credibility at all..though you should have if you are a researcher.It was only me attempting to give some credibility by citing a PHD…all that you ever cited was the wiki searc results…oh how very credible…All wikis are written by PHDs right (sarcastic…cause they are not written by PHDs..They are written by people whose identities can not be verified..)

Masuro emoto ofcourse could be called a researcher. He is after all a Phd, even if thats from the Open University of Alternative Medicine in India or whatever.

Earlier you said in an earlier comment ..the 2^nd one in the comments on the post…that he has not done any research.. Read the last line of your comment ..….Now you are saying that he can be called a researcher….Does it prove something..?? You yourself are saying conflicting things…

So Dear Raza ..now i have used your own criteria to prove the guy true

You havent *proven* anything. Nor have I *proven* anything. Lets not claim results we havent got. Neither of us is Masuru Emoto :D

Oh yeah…and I didn’t prove that you said conflicting things up there....and here again you are blaming Emoto of saying things without a research.. False claims Raza!!.. you are not coming up with anthing solid ..you are just repeating the sentence to make the false look true..

Talking about existance of no research...and then denying an example ...and then keep reading it about from other websites to prove it wrong....when the problem is not the research ...but in my ability to believe those things quickly which you do not...you have been targeting the wrong thing Raza from the very start.

Well this has been an encouraging exercise for me because I've gotten you to read about him, even if that has been from the section of Wikipedia that was sympathetic to him :D.

Wikipedia was sympathetic to him.. really??…Oh you can always raise objections on this article then as wikis are supposed to be neutral…and you claimed earlier in your comments that anybody can do that…Lets see who has too much spare time to go and correct all the wrong things on the wikipedia…Lets see who edits Dr. Emotos wiki now to make it appear neutral..After all , as you claim ,its an open source thing which according to your logic makes it credible and true.

The last time we talked, you gave me an example of the "science" of your stuff, do you remember? That they have captured the katra or whatever with some magnetic resonance stuff. And I dismissed that and said tahts not science. And we had a whole discussion on what science is then, and I told you that the body of knowledge that is accepted in universities and scientists is science (becuase science is a function of what we know).

Do you remember that debate? We ended on whether science is the same as knowledge.

Yeah…I remember..we were standing beside my princess. I was of the view that knowledge is science..and you were confused wether it is not..and that’s where we ended when I got bored by your confused answers of wether knowledge is science or not. At that time you claimed that there is NO RESEARCH anywhere in the world on the paranormal stuff..

So clearly, my saying that there is no research on this was in context of scientific research. I have shown you how this isnt research, the guy hasnt put out a scientific publication and that he doesnt shield his results from bias (the requirement again is that you dont need to be unbiased when cursing/being nice to the water crystals, but be unbiased when filming it).

WRONG…you have to be biased before taking the picture…REPEATING again…just because you want it to appear it true.. oh..you say (you repeat) that it is not a research as the guy has not come up with any scientific publication…but how is it that you call yourself a researcher when you too have not got any scientific publication against the Water crystals… Let me repeat to make the true thing appear true…that Emoto doesn’t say that you need to be biased when filming the crystal.. you do it before that….

If you think the Randi stuff is non-credible then I'll drop that argument. Anything that either one of us doesnt trust becomes a red herring.

Oh.. Wow…you are trying to show that all the other things that you cited were extremely credible….

so let me be clear..i have been into paranormal stuff and though i have not been able to come up with earthshaking results , i have had enough experinces/reading that make me understand a few phenomenons... uff!!

The way it will work out Sameer (and you can put this upto my being in tune with the cosmic energy of your future) is that you will realise that these things do not bring any appreciable value to your life, eventually, and will discover how people can take advantage of your genuine longing for spirituality in order to fulfill their own very material need for money. However, you will do that only when you've paid a very hefty physical and career price for it.

thanks for PREDICTING the future…All knowledge comes on a price…It may be money…it may be long hours of reading things on internet… People do waste their money and time on things they wanna know and learn.. I spent a lot more (money +time) in GIKI on my electronic engineering studies…Do you have objection on that…cause I am in an IT firm now.. I never found the line of people dying to hire me in their company at the time of my graduation…neither I ever found a good electronics related company …but still I believe that the education I got there was important for me… I still keep on going on Electronic/Telecom related seminars cause i know that eductation never goes wasted.. Btw ..in this para..don’t you think you sound like the molvees in the mosques who tell people that they will be burnt in hell flames if they wont listen to what they say.. and just to clarify: i have spent a lot on this knowledge and i have no remorse..

From various parts of our conversations I've come to see that you want to lose weight but you dont because a lot of your time is spent in this stuff. You want to be progressing career wise but dont because you spend your time and money on this.

From previous parts of our conversations , you consider that fatness is the most important thing in my life …I assure you it is not…There is something else (it is out of scope of this discussion..but what the hell..you are already going out of discussion by leaving Emoto and all of a sudden pointing on me.) .. so I tell you that the reason I have fatness is that I never gave it the top priority..There are other things in my life which I do consider more important..and if you trust my conversation with other people, then let me tell you that I once told my Guru (prof Moiz) that I am not losing weight cause I realize that I do not consider it very important…He answered me that I should apply some techniques to make it appear as the most important thing.. though , he added, that if you are happy with it , live with it…I also know a guy who has achieved a very high spiritual status but is double the size of me… slimness is not at all as important for him…I agree that there are health risks involved with fatness…I am not saying that one should remain fat…its just that it at the moment does not appear as my top priority.. A fat guy who is happy with his life is a million times better than a slim , smart ,handsome and **** guy who is not happy..

…The reason you think that fatness is important for me is that it is one thing that I make fun of a lot..(you know..my own self is the biggest source of fun for me)…

About my career progress: … Do you fail to see that I recently left a job where I was earning more to a job where I am earning less.. only because its offers a better career...but whatever..career too is not THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in my life...I want to live a happy life..and you have not heard of what I say about my previous job where I was getting more by doing less… and you have not ever heard of what I say about my satisfaction level now that I switched job..perhaps reading my earlier posts (which I started during the job switching time) may help you…

There is a time when one needs to look around and evaluate what is holding him back in life, and drop it like it never existed. Tell me this, do either me or Bodi still prefer games over advancement in life?
I don’t know about what you guys prefer…let me just make claims on me ..I do give preference to advancement in life… …. Offcourse you saying this because you have different parameters to define “Advancement in life”…Your idea of having advancement in life might be getting lot of money , enjoying a very good designation etc. etc.. For me the idea is to BE HAPPY with whatever you have.... i want to remain happy even without having much.. (Reminds me of a one liner by bodi….I am happy and I must remain happy)...Its not that i am deliberately trying to be prefer spiritual thing on life..its just that i am prioriting things that are important to make me happy... I dont believe that a good career can keep me happy all my life..

And btw I believe that I was hired in my current company because for the first time in my life I had done NO TECHNICAL STUDY and only SPIRITUAL PREPARATION for the interview..and I was selected even though I have a EE background and they hire CS guys.. Offcourse, you can consider this as a mere coincidence.. I can go into further detals if you are interested…but this is one thing that i strongly call my success...

What kind of spirituality inhibits a person's personal life? What is the difference between your tablighi jamaats gasht and making you lose ICI mails and these tapes and meditations and 15000 rupee conferences?

What kind of spirituality is so corporate, so manufactured, so marketed, so prepackaged into nice little consumer boxes?

These are just derogatory remarks.so I am ignoring them.. But I know about research organization that ask for MONEY …They ask for money to get registered WHY????.. ..Knowledge has become commercial..Its not the problem of spiritual knowledge only..Its the knowledge of everything…Be it spiritual ...be it technical papers...

You are supposed to be a free man, free from anything that enslaves you. IF you have control over this, IF you can give this up and focus on other things in your life that absolutely need your focus, and IF this is not hampering your career and health, I would have no objection to it, nor would I write so much.

Yeah.. a guy who is so materialist that he considers CAREER and MONEY the most important things in life is asking me to be a free man… Let me be clear the real important problem of my life (description is out of scope .it has been shared with only few people) can not be solved by a good career and money.. and..errr…Just to give you an example…how can you ever make a person’s idea about God’s existence by giving him lots of money and good career..Can you?? (Clarification: God’s existence is not my real big problem)

As far as my health is concerned , my office job is whats making me fat..

But I dont see it that way. I see you held hostage to this. And I dont think one has an indefinite time in life.

And how do I consider it as any help..when you don’t tell me a way out ….. just telling me that you don’t like something wont be of much help to me…I understand that there is no indefinite time in life…so what is your idea about it..should I devote myself completely to money and career advancement….or should I enjoy my life by learning thing I want to learn…and by remaining happy with whatever I already have.. ..

If you want to talk more about me..we can...and we should as it helps me more than it helps you..but I just want to stay on the current thing..the Dr. Emoto thing…the last few things can be discussed…We can talk about it but for now I prefer to stay closer to the main topic of discussion…

CONVERSTAION WITH RAZA ENDS

THE LAST FOUR PARAs..

Our discussion started on your objection : I cite it

I disagree with you on key aspects though, foremost that you are too easy a believer, and thereby you undermine your own quest by taking whichever spiritual door shown to you without really questioning anything.

You blame that its me who believes things too easily.. In this course of discussion I have seen you believing in thing that you already wanted to believe…I have always been a skeptic to all my spiritual things myself.. and I look at it in a neutral manner…and I like to discuss it in a neutral manner. ..you seem to have a belief that these things are false.. you are not seeing these things neutrally.. All the objection that you had on Emoto’s experiment was that he had not done any peer reviews…something which by its definition is just expected and not required..that Abdul Salam thing turned out to the rescue ... My god, people are getting noble prizes without peer reviews...something that you hold so dear..

And this course of discussion also shows the your approach and mine approach to trust is similar.. Its just that you don’t believe at all…I , on the other hand, might be a believer but I am still looking at these things in a neutral manner…I keep looking at things..to verify them…cause I think you have to do things in order to verify wether they are wrong or not.. Just reading on some big words against something is not enough (this comes from a notice on your statement..that silva is nothing but “cold reading”.. I have done silva..it has nothing to do with the cold reading. .the teacher there never ever told us anything about us ..let alone any cold reading..you should have atleast read about Silva or atleast cold reading)..

I usually try to have my own experiences and my own opinions…I don’t want to waste my life on copying and pasting…so I go out to have my own interaction with of all the things that I want to learn.. and I guess that’s what a research is.. If at any time later, I decide that all these things are wrong (though at present I don’t feel like it as I am currently successes after a lapse of so many years) I will still have the satisfaction that it was ME who proved it to me....not a copy and paste of somebody’s else writing…and I guess that’s what makes me a researcher..

I am alone on my Journey

2006-05-30T15:06:00.000+05:00

People do not seem to appreciate my spiritual endeavours .. A proof is the comments on my last post...

Raza and bodi are my friends from Giki..and i still have this grudge that they didnt let me be their partner in writing the novelette for the first official Giki magzine.. btw, I did take my revenge later by never making it to the list of those 4,5 people who ever actually managed to read that story completely.. :)

Anyways, I have lived with objections on my spiritual endeavours for long..4th Dimension , Hypnosis, NLP , Silva, Reiki, Out of body experience.... all these things never made sense to anyone in my social circle.. But i have never cared .. i have my beleifs .. I do not mind changing them..and i dont mind putting them in front of people to get criticized... but till yet no objection has made much sense to me..

Raza...! your initial argument was that there is no place in the world doing research on such things.. We never talked about your opinions on the results..so that is a new argument that you are coming up with.and btw we can always have objections on all kind of experiments.. All great sceintists have experienced great opposition at their times.. This doesnt mean that they were wrong .. this does mean that they stood with what they believed.... but anyways this doesnt mean that i whole heartedly support Emoto..though i do know that even research in USA is not as good and authentic as it is considered..and if you dont believe me, i can cite a person who has worked in two research labs of NASA... do you know that guy Raza!! :)

And about my wasteful life...(was it wasteful or waistful??) ..well..I guess thats it is for me to decide how much value is getting added to my life by learning all these things... I have always liked paranormal things...and i enjoy doing paranormal stuff... I know people who spend thousand of rupees on expensive graphic cards and then they waste hundereds of hours playing computer games.. so...you see!! my case is just like that....with the only difference that the stuff i do and i believe has a lot to do with coincidences... and recently i have started to have a lot of coincidences.. and it will be very stupid of me if i fail to relate these increased coincidences with my recent increase in spiritual practices...

but offcourse i never mind people objecting me...how else will i ever know that i am going...

PS.. i miss KB here...though Raza is compensating his absence a lot by being as much logical as he gets at times..but still KB has his own his class.

What i learnt from Silva Workshop

2006-05-23T13:40:00.000+05:00

SILVA workshop ended.. It was a three days workshop where i learned that my already learnt things are enough ..Now is the time to practice them..

About "What do you do in that workshop?"
You can get all the details about Silva from wikipedia (see) ..About the workshop that i attended; its a three days workshop in which they program our mind with different techniques.. They take us to a trance state (a state between being sleep and awake state) and give us a few suggestions.. This is called programming.. Ideally there should be 21 trances but we got only 14.. :(...And that too were not very clear to understand..

VISUALIZATION & IMAGINATION
A main thing that i have now realized is the importance of the VISUALIZATION and IMAGINATION. These two are THE MOST important skills in mind sciences and they CAN be developed and improved by simple regular practice...

Water can store our message
There was a very informative video shown in the workshop.. it was about the ability of water to store information .. There is a guy who did some research on the crystal structure of frozen water and came up with amazing findings...His experiments show that the water crystal change their structure if you project your thoughts or emotions on it.. The video showed effects of prayers, greeting , curses on water crystal.. I am showing a few pictures...

This is the picture of fresh water which has no crystalline structure...

Then this is the picture of that same water after it was exposed to prayer... See the beautiful crystal structure.

Then this is a picture of water after it was cursed...

More details can be found here and here.. These articles provide more images..

The main idea is that thoughts can effect things..The power of prayer does exist..and that there are people who are doing research on how mind can effect the matter. (For the eyes of Raza: Do you still believe that There is NO Place in the World doing research on such things)

Mind Rulz..

For the love of Princess

2006-05-18T21:00:00.000+05:00

I have been tweaking this poem for a month......now i am finally copying and pasting it without having a look on it cause then i will easily spend an other hour on it..so do ignore any obvious errors in it...till monday..till i return from SILVA....

Oh princess , my princess ! where have you gone

I wait for you daily, from dusk till dawn

I miss your broken mirrors , and your teerhi seat

I miss going far away, to try new things to eat

Can I guess the speed , you ever had at max

it was 60 right? , on which other cars relax

do you miss having dhakas , each and every morning

and then being Naraz without giving me any warning

even Amjad never smoked ,while sitting in you

see!! every body knew, you hate cigarette ki boo

Getting your body washed , has always been a pain

But why to worry now, In summer there is more rain

Now my friends are happy, they never have to wait,

Since you aren’t around, I never reach anywhere late.

I miss all that ‘khar khar’ , you used to release

So please come back , oh! please please please please

PS. Uff!! main kit fitna poet hoon!!

Sleep Less, Relax More

2006-05-18T16:47:00.000+05:00

it may seem like a telenor ad...and i do like all their ads where they tell you about one thing that is less and the other that is more... I am waiting for their "Pay Less, Talk more" product.. :).

AC

I bought a split AC yesterday.. DAWLANCE ka.. 1 ton ... Akheer kharcha.. but after using it for a night , i have realized that i badly needed it .. my body needed it... I slept for 6 hours only and when i woke up i was all fresh.. Earlier i was not relaxing even by having an 8 hours sleep.. Before the arrival of the AC, i had been following a proper protocol before sleeping.. It was a long protocol that involved taking showers 2 times before sleeping...and turning on my SALT LAMP for a while .. I have a belief that my salt lamp has magical power to cool down the room in summer and warm it up in winter.. There are other beliefs associated with this lamp..but that will be in a later post... :)

SILVA

For the next three days i may not come online.. My silva workshop will start from tomorrow.. Its a three days workshop...from morning till evening...(nearly 10am to 6pm)... For 3 days , i will be having breakfast and lunch in PC... :) .. Yumm!! Yumm!!

OF THE PRINCESS

Oh! i forgot...She is back.. Details later..cause i am getting late now.. I have written a poem on the princess in its absence... but shouldnt that be a seperate post..

The new addiction

2006-05-16T10:53:00.000+05:00

I first saw a guy playing Starcraft in PC Lab (GIKI, 1998, my first semester) . I was awed by the method of playing the game....I had never seen a game being played solely by a mouse before... The first sight of the game made me fall into love with it...and in the time that followed i got fully addicted to it ..I still consider this game as the 2nd most important reason that i got probabtion in my first semester in Giki, ....the first one being Nix..

Addictions have played very important role in my life... the few that i have had are Starcraft , Warcraft , Food , depression , e-mails , stupid jokes etc.

Recently i have developed a new addiction..reading.... reading of the spiritual stuff...of mind...of soul....of eastern meditation techniques...etc...etc. There is a big treasure of information about these weird things on internet.. (Yeah!! i am not alone) .. and once i start reading the things i can't stop for hours.. At home, I am in the boss stage of prince of persia 3 for the last 2-3 weeks and even though i have read the method to kill the evil Vizier (the boss) i can not get enough time to beat the shit out of him because my reading addiction is not letting me have enough time to even turn my PC on .

OBE ... is Out Of body Experience.. Our soul leaves our body every night when we go to sleep .. It then goes to another plane....which is known as astral plane... We recall the experiences of our soul in the astral plane (when we wake up) as dreams...
OBE is like dreaming but it is with an awareness.. I am trying to have an OBE for a long time..but very recently i have started trying it regularly ...Last night i did have a glimpse of what OBE is like...

DREAMS:

My dreams are making some sense now... A week ago i had three dreams that had very deep meanings.. I got the solution of my biggest problem through the first one...slighlty understood the reason of my current religious status through the second one.. and had an idea to keep continuing my workshops from the third one... Finally!! I am getting a guidance...A connection.....

I am happy that now i am making progress on the spiritual front...

Sorry...but there is nothing new..

2006-04-28T21:53:00.000+05:00

Yeah.. there is nothing new on my side... with a life that has turned into a office-home routine now.. there is nothing great to write...

Of the princess..
The Engine Transplant operation turned out successfull.. there is some work to be done on the body and the brakes...most probably i will be getting her back on Monday evening...a time when Jazz will have left Islamabad... :(... Jazz!! wont you be coming to the hospital to see my precious ??....my princess... the damsel in distreess...

Of the weight...
There are two weight updates ...

26 April... Yipeee!! I lost a kg...
27 April.. Ooops!! , I found a parallax error in my weighing machine , fixed it , got the lost kg back... :)

Of health..
I got warts in my feet... :(.. i hate summers..

Of the Spritual Stuff...
My practices have reduced..thanks to the workload in office ..it reduced my frequent visits to bathrooms now.. I dont meditate regularly but the reading addiction that i talked about in my last post is still there..my focus is on dreams these days....seems they too have a very definite role to play in the spiritual development/guidance of a person..but one has to develop skills to be able to use them properly ..

Of the Weekend
A long weekend is starting...I just hope i will be able to do a few things that i am planning to do for so long... that includes , interalia,

getting my laundry done,
getting a decent hair cut ,
setting my room so that i may be able to watch TV while lying on bed ,
reviewing a poem i wrote last week ,
completing the flash advertisement for Silva Workshop for the institue of mind sciences ,
listening to all those Silva CDs that my partner in crime got downloaded from internet ,
reading the Silva book that i bought ,
finally visiting my uncle who lives in F11 ..something i have been planning for an year
meeting JAZZ...
watching scrubs..so that i may recover some harddisk space after deleting them
using my Psychic powers for Farhan (Gikian , Batch 15) so that he may start studying 18 hours a day...till the finalz...8 May ..

but.... above all ...,

having an OBE...

..... whats an OBE.. ??? ......hmm!!!.. we will talk about it later .. some other post......

Me busy and addicted

2006-04-19T16:59:00.000+05:00

Sorry for the late post.. but I was busy ..officially busy …I was busy in some trainings for an other NCR project along with my current project and apart from that that I developed this addiction of web surfing to know more about all the things related to my weird interest… Its more addictive than computer games..cause i havent played Prince Of Persia 3 for so long…. and what else ..now i happen to have a very good and efficient partner in crime in all these readings and knowledge searching...Anyways, today I have got some time to write a few lines and I am writing them as quickly as possible cause I have got a dead line to meet …

Health update:

I bought a weighing machine.. atlast. Now I check my weight daily.. 2 times a day…..

Spiritual update:

I have become somewhat regular in my spiritual practices. And I am having some successes with it….finally.. This involves sending remote healing to a few people.. Psychic development is a long term thing which requires regular efforts.. Now that I have my own personal unshared room , I can easily practice the things…Besides that I have found a way to practice it in office.. How?? ….. err.!! i guess NCR friends should not be knowing this...

O'.. Great goddess of Blogosphere ..i invoke thee to turn the following green coloured text invisible from the eyes of NCR people

Ok.!! the question is How I practice my things in office?? Well, the answer is that I go to the bathroom and practice it there.. Not only that the environment is perfectly isolated there , the noiseless room makes me relax properly and as a bonus I also get a very valid excuse for my absence from the project for a good period of time … am i not I clever ?

And now I have also started reading books on the stuff …(yes bodi!! They do have books on these topics)….I have bought two books …and I have got a lot of pdf stuff that I plan to read later in my free time..

Of the princess:

The princess has been admitted to the mechanic doctor where she is currently undergoing her engine transplant along with some other minor surgery processes.. Princess will be getting new body organs of a CULTUS …On her last day , before the operation , she insulted me as much as she could.. Her engine stopped in extreme busy traffic the moment the signal turned green …This happened twice..(no..it was not a deja vu!!).. both the times I was in the front of the row on my side of the chowks…and these were both busy chowks ---i.e Peshawar moore Chowk and Zero point Chowk--- … just imagine….itni zaada insult…and what was my crime….only that I forgot to check water and oil for 3 weeks..

So these days I am baykar (without car).. Theoretically this should help me lose weight… i will be updating my readers about the results soon..

Gikians around me

2006-03-29T10:03:00.000+05:00

The weekend passed with my university fellows..All of a sudden, there was a burst of so many Gikians..

Friday

I met..Jazz.. aka usman Aijaz...who was in Islamabad to spend some time at home..before joining Engro as a project Engineer...We dined together at Pizza Hut along with Khurram Nadeem -another Gikian friend, working at Ericsson ... I ‘tried’ the too-much-being-marketed stuffed crust pizza finally... The only difference that I found between Stuffed Crust and Normal Crust Pizza was ……that the Stuffed Crust Pizza had more salt .... Damn!! I always hate it when I start believing in the marketing stuff..

Jazz is currently in Engro and he is enjoying his time there filling up bulky registration forms. He looks like a greek god in this picture...This picture has been mentioned in the works of the great blogger ...Lord Bodi... see here..

Saturday..

Alvi creature arrived .. He is working in Saudi Arab... where he has lived most of his life..He is on Pakistan Tour ..its not a concert tour,though he has the potential .. He always comes with great plans to meet everyone. And the plans remain plans .... He used to be my religious mentor once.. When we got our Year book on our graduation, there were 3 comments on Alvi's page .. Two from his project partners.. both proposing him to leave the childish ideas and to grow up...Third one from me.. praising him , his wisdom and his intellect.. so you can well imagine about the kind of people I have followed all my life..

Anyways, Me and Alvi went to Jehangir where we had No-chicken food.. …. Thanks to the bird flu fear…We had mutton karahi and seekh kabab ..I had a lot of talk with Alvi..I am happy that he is just a friend now and not a mentor any more… I am satisfied with my beliefs , my own life and everything that is happening…

Alvi is currently in Lahore suffering from food poisonining.... ... May he get well soon..

Sunday

Raza arrived from Pindi.. He is a Karachi based CS guy who has recently joined Ultimus after completing his MS from USA…. He used to be my partner in crime in Giki when I was in habit of mass mailing my whole batch about the things that I thought were funny.. (You wont believe me but is true that I even had fans of my emails)

We went to try a new place at Lunch…The CAVE…The place was great… Made like a cave and you do feel like sitting in a cave...(For the eyes of bodi only: Bodz..its the same place where used to be your favorite Chevy Restaurant).. Raza had an arabian dish and I had the chef’s special steak… the name of which I couldn’t understand though I made the waiter speak it some five times.. Later we went to Margalla hill tracks....trekked for less than a km discussing people's religious beliefs...And we had a looooong debate when Raza tried to prove me that all the spiritual stuff that I am into has no scientific basis. The logic he used was that he has not heard of any scientific research being done on spirituality in any well-known university. When we were in Giki, I once had a long debate with him on whether vegetarians should eat meat or not.. (I love talking food) ..Raza won the debate after referring to some world wide survey that proved ,inter alia, the longer life spans of vegetarians.. Later he told me that there has never been any such survey and he was simply having fun with me..

It was fun enjoying time with my old mates…I realize now that being with a good friend is more enjoyable then playing a computer games..

Monday

On monday morning..i got a call from Nix from America...I can not write about him as a part of a post..He needs a whole post devoted to him and only him..

And then what I found.. another Gikian batchmate commented on my previous blog.. Sabah.. He blogs too..and I found a post on GIKI on his blog... There is a part of his post that I liked so much that I am copying it here..

I just thought I'd share something about the place as I was feeling somewhat nostalgic. As a good friend once said about the place and I'm trying to accurately quote him,

"I wish they would find out that there's something wrong with our degrees and we're all called back to do it all over again".

That's how cool it really was!

How true...

NCR Annual Dinner + 4D + POP3

2006-03-24T11:59:00.000+05:00

so .. the weekend passed... i attended the Annual NCR Dinner.. and it was great ..For the first time i attended a company's program in which people joked on the senior management people of the company.... on the stage.. in their presence.. and nobody seemed to mind a single thing... it was a new experience for me... people doing skits as if they were in unviersity or college functions..i too had a little role in a video skit that was shown by my office people..

Then i had this workshop on 4D..and for the first time i had a free workshop .. because i introduced a new person , krakhead , who seems to already have the natural abilities that i am trying to learn.. This time there were a lot of people in the workshop thanks to Prof. Moiz's (the guru, the teacher) appearance on TV... In the end of workshop, there is usually a remote sensing session (aka telepathy).. i , being a 4D-graduate , took two new going-to-be-4D-graduates..made them do the whole process .. and they too had 100% accurate sensing... I had asked them to sense my grandmother and tell me about her illnesses.. they were able to give me the correct answer..though none of them has ever seen my grandmother.... But i know that my close friends will never believe me if i tell them these things... My spiritual journey using mind sciences has been an alone one for a long time.. but now i am making friends who believe in such things.... It matters a lot to have such people around...

Something good has happened to me too..A clairovoyant that i made friend in the 4D-intro told me something that made me understand the reason i was not having major successes in the spiritual world.. and because of that ..a new change has happened to me.....a BIG , NEW, GOOD change....I wish i could go into the details..

The biggest News: I finally installed prince of persia 3.. The game is great..but ..i dont know why.. i am not addicted to it yet... The game has got good creative things...a new speed kill system...and i really liked the conversation that goes on between the prince and the dark prince.. And..oh!!.. The Farah from the first part is back too.. Just wait a few days and i will be writing about nothing but the game..

Food News:
One of the colleague at office found an earthworm in food served in our building's cafeteria...He mailed to the whole NCR about it..so people do not go to cafeteria anymore.. but ... do i care?? :)

Ok me goes.. Jazz will be waiting for me. He got Job in Engro as a project Engineer ..(good pay i tell you).. he is enjoying some time in isloo before he joins the place on monday and i dont want to miss spending time with him..

Less but frequent

2006-03-14T13:40:00.000+05:00

I write too much in a single post... i should be respecting my reader's patience.. With a current profile view of 77 ..(WOW!!!).., i have vowed (once again) to be more frequent in updating it ...

I am suffering from a sleep disorder these days.... There seems to be something bothering me.. probably the fact that i have taken too long to give my 2nd Teradata paper is giving rise to my old habit of developing exams tension.... or probably because i havent meditated for a long time or probably the late night reading of Da Vinci code did not let me had enough sleep last week.. Whatever it is, i really need a long rest..

.... And today has been very bad to me uptill now.. I was late in getting up this morning (again).... there was no hot water...which meant no shower... :( Then i found that princess was naraz on the oil-change process that it went through yesterday , thus making me come to office by Taxi.. in rainy weather.... :(...on reaching office i found I was late by 2 minutes :(.....then i got an email from the tech lead of my project team giving a good amount of task with a deadline of Friday.. :(.... . Anyways i m happy that the rest of the day went fine.. :)...

An update
..hey! i got cable TV at home.. so half of the time at home is now spent in...... guess what??? ...watching cable???.....NO.!!!.... its..... searching for the remote control... :)

A Food update
The dieting that i talked about in my last post....i couldnot continue it for more than 3 days.. ...there is no fun in life without good food..

Coming Attractions
This weekend I will be attending an NCR's function called annual dinner.. Besides food there will be some skits , performances in it .... Being an arts fan, i am eagerly waiting for it.. .. on Sunday i will be attending my 4D workshop as well... I hope this time i will be repeating it for free as i may introduce someone new to the workshop...... So i am really waiting for it...

We bake our own bread.

2006-02-27T16:01:00.000+05:00

Hmm..so finally i started dieting.. Did i ever narrate the story about the sweet tummy of mine.. The story starts in summer of 2003 , when i realized that there is nothing wrong in continuing eating when all the others have finsihed their food... People dont mind it ...I also realized something about eating the left overs of others..there is nothing wrong in it..infact, it looks kool... so I started it with these two rules ..Later i developed others like:

Rule 1: When you are involved in physcical activities, you dont get fat if you overeat....
Rule 2: Eating food makes me happy..
Rule 3: Happiness is a gift of God and i must always be celeberated it....by rewarding myself with a good food..
Rule 4: Home made food is good for health and eating home made food wont make me fat..
Religiously..it is better to fall in love with food as that keeps a believer away from the love of other sins.. (This is not mine... It was literally said in a religious gathering i once attended long ago..honestly...)

These new rules messed up somwhat..and mutated into some stupid logic: Description follows :

RULE1--> When i am standing , i am doing a physical activity..so i wont become fat if i overeat while i am standing..This means that if i keep sitting the whole day working or playing warcraft 3, i wont get fat if i momentarily stand up to eat something
RULE2--> I have lived past few years shifting many jobs and places....that made me sad...:(..so i had to do something to make me happy... and beleive me eating a cup of vanilla icecream takes away all my tension..(Btw..this property of vanilla flavour has been proved scientifically)
RULE3-->At times it was difficult to get out of the cycle of rule 2 and rule 3.. i.e ....eat ---> become happy----> celebrate the happiness by eating more---> become happier---> celeberate more by eating more.----> REPEAT..............
RULE4-->The rule 4 got messed up when i found that MAMA ICECREAM is a 'home made icecream'.. the rule says that the home made food never makes me fat...so i ended up in having Mama icecream as frequently as having atleast one cup daily for a very long time...(After all!! Whats wrong in having just one cup a day!!! ??) There are nearly 36 flavours of the icecream..Offcourse i have tried all of them...'Cookies and Cream' is the best one..This year i had one cup on on 20th Jan and the other on 9th Feb... .. :(.. without MAMA, I am really missing all the fun of life......
RULE5-->Well.. I used to be very religious..and at that time i made it for sure not to fall in love with anything but food..It somehow became my prayer.....a prayer that i regularly offered to keep myself away from the horrible wordly sins.. It was basically an attempt to get Sawab.. so that i may go to heaven.. To have the delicious food available there..

These were the 'few' logical mistakes that transformed me from a slim and smart Sameer of 33'' waist to a fat but smart Sameer of something between 38" and 40".. (Please note the intentional use of smart in both the descriptions)

Anways, i was talking about the story that started in Summer of 2003... The story has different episodes..telling different phases of my life.. telling that i have lived alone for a long time...When you are alone you try to find things that can keep you happy.. For me the search resulted in Computer games and Food... So i fell in love with Starcraft , warcraft 3 along with Rahat Bakery and Mama's icecream.. I used to have lunch in office.. and then at night i wondered like zombies in search of any new 'untried 'bakery or a new good restaurant...It really feels like a loser When you go and sit all alone in a restuarant to have food ..but who cares!!!......Intially my bicycle used to be my partner in crime... These days my princess Subaru is carrying me to far away lands for the sole purpose of trying a 'NEW' taste..... Most of the times i am already full when i TRY something new, .. but ....well!! you know ...curiousity !!!!....It even killed the cat.. ...

My food story also tells about my improper knowledge of food constituents ..i.e i have never able to learn what is protien , what is fat , what is a carbohydrate...etc..etc..( now dont be surprised..i cant even differentiate between chicken and beaf sometimes ) ..so many times i ended up in eating a FAT rich diet that i thought was a PURELY PROTEIN diet.....Impressed.. :).. example: many times I have had maionese rich salads thinking they will help me in dieting.. (Chicken pineapple is still my favourite)

My food story marks 1st April 2004 as the day...when The desire to look smarter.. (Note: I intentionally used the word 'Smarter' and not 'smart')..made me start a daily walk from my the then office..PTA..to my..the then home... It was a long walk from from F-5..(near secretariat) ..to G-9 .(.Peshawar moore)...Now thats a long walk...a really long walk of 2.5 hours... I used to take the blue area route ...walking continuosly along the busy jinnah avenue used to be fun.... This continued for 3 months..... Did i lose any weight.......No.!!! .... really??.....Yes.!!!...Why???Wasnt it too much of a physical activitiy.???... ......Oh!!..! i guess i forgot to mention that there used to be a stop in my walk.. Accidently at Rahat Bakery.. It 'somehow' happened to be exactly in the center of my walking route..... So a stay at Rahat Bakers for half an hour simply balanced the equation..and so i remained in my shape even because of the 3 months of walk..

My walk ended with a foot infection that made me rest on bed for 2 weeks.. :(

After the foot infection recovery, i joined a Gym..October 2004... Gave some 4000 bucks for 3 months period.. went there for only 4 or 5 times in those 3 months.. It was really boring ...and when there is anything boring .. i have to keep myself happy....you know the rule 2..which results in rule 3 ..which results in rule 2...which results in rule 3..which results in...............................

The story recently had a new episode .. I joined a Martial Art club ( Its called Kyo Kushan).. and i also started wearing a weight-reducing-belt regularly.. I had seen its ad on TV... The ad shows a houswife working in kitchen and mysteriously a sales woman enters into her kitchen and asks her to try the new belt.. The housewife wears it and after an hour of wearing it , says she has lost an inch of her waist... so now I am trying the belt..and mind you..this is different from the infamous Suana belt whose ad is shown a lot these days on TV.... The very idea of Suvana belt is quite pathetic...One is supposed to sit near a power plug all the time while wearing it as it is not battery operated.... I heard some people got burns on stomach because of it...

Anyways, i was narrating a story...The story now tells you about this weekend ...25th and 26th Feb..

FRIDAY NIGHT (24th Feb)

After my kyokushan class, I made a visit to SUBWAY on the firday night.. You know!!!..they bake their own bread..they happen to have a board of neon lights saying so.. It was the first time i was 'trying' it.. When i ordered, the guy asked..Which bread will you like to have... At first it seemed a stupid question.. then i got the idea that they probably serve different types of breads..and i just guessed that if there are different types of breads then there will be a 'plain' one among the too....so i said.. the plain one.. it was a fluke...a correct one.... They guy took a long bread from oven and asked me wether i would like to have 6" or 12".. The question had the potential to offend an innocent person like me....but i remained kool and told him to give me 6"..He cut the bread into half and made me a 6" long burger.. (and i was thinking of having a burger 6" in height..:( .. )..It was really fun watching the guy fill the chicken roasted burger with a chutki of chicken pieces and then flling it with all kind of vegetables and sauces. The act of picking precisely three slices of tomatoes .. then putting only two in the burger .. throwing back one..then picking up three cucumber slices..putting two in the burger and throwing back one..and then repeating the same act with all vegetables .. did not make much sense to me..but i guess thats an art of burger-making which an amateur like me can never understand..

Anyways, i had the burger..It was good..really tasty... though i believe that with all those vegetables and sauces, it would have tasted the same had i ordered someother burger... The burger didnt really fill my mighty stomach..but i liked it...and it did gave me an idea of starting the search of this new type of food.. The diet food..

I went to DWATSON.. had a look at the shelf of diet foods... bought skimmed milk powder..and an expensive cereal (It was Bran Flakes:Post Healthy Classics) that promised to make me lose 10 lbs... :) ... Later , i read that it promised to do so in 12 weeks.. :(.....i.e if you eat only and only this cereal for that long.. along with increased physical activities...

SATURDAY (25th Feb)

From morning till night , I had the cereal some 6 , 7 times..though it is supposed to be taken only twice a day..and that too as a complete replacement of food.. Good dieting right!!!.. but i suppose it is rich in fiber so i wont be putting up by overeating it.. At night, i had another Subway burger ..This time i ordered a different burger and as expected had the same identical taste...this time i looked at the ingredients carefully.. On my way back , i brought frozen shami kabab, brown bread and some vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, salad kay patay, onions, Shimla mirch etc)...and at home i made a real wonderfull Subway sandwitch .... ate two sandwitches...(reminder: i had just returned from Subway).... Good diet right!!! .. and then I had a cup full of cereal before sleeping..

SUNDAY -(today -26th Feb)

Sunday morning..I changed the whole shape of my room.. How!! Oh i just cleaned all the mess..The process took my whole day.. Had the left over Shami Kababs and a lot of Diet Cereal as lunch......... At night , i went out and brought some more vegetables and 'K&N chicken patties' assuming they wont have any fat.. ....Made and ate two mighty SUBWAY style sandwitches..Made two for tomorrow ..which i will have at lunch ...

And i forgot to mention that i bought two sauces to help me continue having this diet food ..These are Mustard sauce and Mitchells Mexican Salsa ..Mustard Sauce is my all time favourite...I didnt like its taste ealier but there was a time ...a GIKI time...when i made it bound on myself to eat the 'Double Hot Dog Burger' ...Since it had double i.e two sausages so i always opted for it..As a result I got very much familiar with the mustard sauce which was alway more in the Double Burger..

I didnt like the Mitchells Mexican Salsa..yukh!! its a mixture of onion, garlic and chillie cooked up in vinegar..

OK..now i am leaving to make a cup full of cereal ..with the Skimmed milk of course ...i will have one now...This will be my night cup...and one in morning before going to office.. that will be my morning cup.

May God bless me and my dieting.. May my story have a good end..

And yeah!! i really hated the Mitchells Mexican Salsa sauce so you can have it from me anytime...

Protests in islamic world against the cartoons

2006-02-20T16:39:00.000+05:00

This is the first time i am writing about my views on something..It might be somewhat difficlut for me..as the thing i am going to write about is very sensitive and i do not want to hurt anyone.. I believe in freedom of speech but not in insulting people.. All human beings should be respected..

One very important thing: I am not going to comment on the act of the Danish News paper.. Whatever they do is their act.. My views are about the reaction to it.

Ok.. here it goes..

If any body ever disgraces me or my beloved... then this is my nature to get angry.. so i do get angry...Every human being does...but , if i love the targetted person, than i try my best to keep the insult secret..I will not go out in the streets yelling and telling everyone that i or my beloved has been called with such such words .. This will mean that i am adding more to the the initial insult. What the muslims worldover have done is that they made so much cry that the cartoons become the talk of the town. and thus it became possible for those millions of people to see the cartoons who would not have seen it otherwise. We told everyone that we have been insulted...adding a lot more to the initial insult..

Islam is a religion of peace and it orders the followers to control their emotions at all time.. Our prophet was a great person.. someone who had a very difficult life... Giving a paradigm shift to people is really a very difficult job ..and people always get offended when someone tries to do that..but the prophet kept doing it his whole life...... Moslty he used to go for preaching alone.. ..and this made him face all kinds of people , all kinds of comments and all kinds of tortures.. People said him bad words..people said him nasty words..people threw garbage on his way..on him...People tortured him as much as they could...and it used to be his response that made him win hearts of his opponents...He was able to withstand all kind of tortures and was able to respond to it gently..There was once a time when he went to Taif , gave his message there, told the people about what they never wanted to hear and then faced the most torturing time of his life. When he returned from Taif , he was completely wet in blood....from head to toe.. An angel appeared in front of him asking his permission to destroy the whole of the Taif.. Taif is a valley ...located between two mountains.. The angel offered that he can crush the valley within the mountains... Considering all the humiliation, the prophet could have desired for a complete wipe out of the people who had given him so much pain but..the prohphet did the best thing with the people...He forgave them..

I understand that there are people who would say that there is no comparison in the two situations.. though I see a complete mapping...The incidents of the Prophet (SAW) are there to guide us ..to make us understand the kind of behaviour we are supposed to adopt in different situtations.. Prophet (SAW) would not have responded to the Danish Cartoons.. He faced worse things in his life and his responses were really great . We are supposed to follow his examples and not the wild beast within us.. Religion is all about taming our wild instincts .. If we can not tame it , if we can not make it behave the way the religion wants to then there is no point in praying to God.. He is not in need of our prayers . The kind of people He likes are those who can make his religion prosper by doing good and great.. through their actions...and not through their words..

Preaching doesnt mean standing in the middle of an already selected group of people to talk about the pre-agreed facts of the group to get attention and a temporary respect. In my opinion , preaching is done through your actions in extremely bad conditions... your behaviour in anger shows what you are .. like the prophet who preached by forgiving the people of Taif after all the torture and humiliation....Thats the real act of preaching...the real person hidden within us comes out when we are angry...and it is this person who preaches the true teachings .....It is the sound of actions of that 'real person' who effects the hearts of its audience..

There is an important thing about the difficult situations that we face in our daily lives... the way islam wants people to interpret thier difficult situations is to consider them (the situations) as a test... Its like a question paper in an exam.. He makes easy questions and he makes diffcicult questions.. so no matter what kind of question you get..you are supposed to answer it...you are not supposed to make angry comment on it...cause Cursing the situation is like cursing your examiner... whenever you are giving a paper and you get a difficult question, You do not curse your examiner ...instead, you try to answer it , making sure that you get the best marks for it..thiking about it more than the other easier questiona..but you do not yell on the question.....Parallel: The current situation is something from God for the muslim..with the sole purpose to think of an answer to it.. not to go out in the streets to complain about it.. The rule is that you accept the God's given situation and then you see how are you supposed to behave... ...Complaining never helps.. Muslims are supposed to see the whole matter with an open mind.. They must see where they are going wrong.. What do the cartoons mean.. Why arent they . the Muslims, being respected... .. Based on the analysis , they must correct themselves... They must set their paths straight... every criticism leads to an oppertunity to become a modified being.. so the criticism should always be welcomed..

The cartoons accuse mulims of violance..They do not say anthing against the prophet..(Infact, i believe there is nothing anyone can ever say against the prophet(SAW)...but that is a whole seperate issue)....and what the muslim do is that they come out in the street , burning buildings , cars , markets and killing their own people... Thus, showing violence ..proving the point ..

The whole Islam's philiosophy (or perhaps all religions') is to refine oneself....to get better and to act in the best way possible.. Islam doesnt dictate us how we should be treated..it tells us how we should treat others....so the rules are for us.. The world outside the muslim domain is allowed to do whatever they want, they have not been given the responsibility.. We have been ...We are the responsible ones... It is us who have to set things straight.. Not them... It is expected from them to make mistakes ...but not from us.. 'cause we are the muslims and we come packed with a whole set of responsiblities..

When you properly follow a religion for sometime , a time comes when the religion becomes a part of you.. You start doing the religious acts without even knowing them.. At that time, you dont have to follow the religion... why? because then there is no need to.. You become the religion..

I wonder why we are failing to reach that level.... May be because it requires thinking and the way we are brought makes us stop thinking..We are clearly told not to think on the religious issues as that can make us go stray..in reality, when you think about something with an open mind you become more clear about it.. Seeing something from both perspective makes us see the real thing... It does not really have to take us to the wrong side... And those who are afraid to take such a risk are afraid and are not sure of their religion.. They are not sure that the religion is strong enough to pull them back..

I say..if the aim is to have people having such kind of a religion ...then there is no need of such religion..a proper understanding of the religion is what makes people able to make decision at run time..in their angry moments...in their frustrated moments.. in their down times...thats what makes the inner person behave like a human being ..

I said earlier ..that i wont comment on the act of Denamrk's press..I should not..They are not muslims and they are not supposed to act the muslim way.. but its us who are supposed to act in the muslim way... Islam does not tell us how we should be treated...Islam doesnt dictate to non-muslims about what they should do and what they should not..It is for us.. the muslims...It gives orders to the muslims only ...

One thing that really amazes me is that we are full of hate against west.. ..we are told in our childhood that west is evil.. When i grew up and when i joined a big religious organization , i was repeatedly told that life of the people in west is like some shit packed in a shiny tin container.. The container shines from outside , looks attractive but from inside it is shit... (A lighter note:later i used to think: wow!! so there are people who are attractive.. atleast from outside.)

I am not very much in favour of the west life...or the west people...cause I have never seen how is the life out there...but i am strongly in favour of the realization of the idea that the Muslims are responsible for every thing here.. They are supposed to bring peace here..they are supposed to spread islam by preaching through their acts...they are supposed to show how to forgive and to sacrifice and to win respect for themselves...that is our purpose ...thats why we are here...

Me busy

2006-02-16T20:34:00.000+05:00

In the past few weeks ..time passed like a moving bullet .. Too much do to.. Too little time.. Sitting late in office has become a habit now... A few things that have happened to me are:

I passed my first Teradata paper...There are 6 papers which everyone in NCR has to pass; i passed the first one.. gave a test after a very long time..It was my first CBT (computer based test) ever.....I was EXTREEEEMLY TENSED before the paper..(getting tensed is my habbit since the time i started appearing in exams)... but i got 97% marks..WOW..!!! will be giving other 5 papers soon. After that i will become Teradata Master and i will be awarded with a Jacket (not with my name on it , but 'Teradata Master' on it) by the company.
I was able to 'maintain' my body figure and weight for an year.. I remained 95 Kg heavy and enjoyed a 38-40" waist ...but now once again my weight has become directly proportional to time so i joined a Kyo-Kuschen club as an equal and opposite reaction .It is a 'mixed' martial arts club..where i will be working out 3 days a week for nearly an hour..I have been to such clubs before but couldnt continue..I have been to only 1 class uptill now..and i really enjoyed it...
I am getting emotionally connected to the cartoon protests that are being 'performed' all over the country.. It was shocking to know about the destructive steps that people took in the name of religion. I have developed very strong opinions about the whole Cartoon issue which i will write later whenever i'll get time..
Most important: i finally managed to configure the world's smallest camera (the shop from where it was bought ,claimed so ) after 2 years of buying it in 2004 ...Its not that I had been working on it for all that time ..I just got enough time on the Muharram vocations ...This means that my blog will be having pics soon.

Thats it.. I plan to give the next NCR/Teradata paper on the next saturday so i might not be able to have time again..cause this next paper is more difficult and has 2 books and a web based course to study..Apart from that i have my laptop harddisk full of movies (KingKong, Scrubs Seasons etc.)..so i will remain busy for a long time..

3 cups of tea , partition magic and Papa`mon

2006-01-17T20:25:00.000+05:00

The name of this post has its inspiration from Chronicles of Narnia:The lion, the something-i-forgot and the wardrobe.

But since i always try to make sense with things.. (though some may not agree) so in this case too, i have some sense..I intended to write these three posts at their specific times , but couldnt manage it..so i am gonna write them together with different headings ..

3 cups of tea.

This is the 2nd time i am writing all this thing.. reasons will be explained under the next heading "partition magic" . I had a busy time on the weekend before Eid.. I had planned to shift my place and the plan did manage to wear the practical shalwar (<-- wearing practical shalwar means amli jaama pehnana). i woke up on Sunday , the 7th January 2006. Started shifting at 11:30 am.. prior to shifting i had to get my things organized. The packing had to be very optimized keeping in view a few things like:

The place from where i was shifting was on the 3rd floor.
The place to where i was shifting was on the 2nd floor..............of an other flat....... :( i.e i will be going three floor downs and then two floors up for a complete transfer of a single package.
Each time i will go up or down the stairs i will be carrying my tummy with me. (read: carrying some extra weight)
I will be doing the whole shifthing alone... :(

so based on this criteria, i made packets. My monitor's coverbox came to the rescue by swallowing most of the stuff..I was able to fill my car with the first batch of luggage in evening at 5:00 pm.. I had been continously working on an empty stomach (this was my attempt : to reduce the weight of my tummy atleast for that time) . So i went to the nearby Khooka and had three cups of tea along with the mother-of-potatoe (mother of potatoe = Aaolo Qeema ). It gave me all the energy i required at that time but the real effect was felt at night at 2:00 am when i went to bed after completing the transfer of the 3rd batch of luggage.

I kept trying to sleep till 4:00 am. After that I stopped trying ..had a few warcraft 3 games (againse computer offcourse) , waited till morning.. remained unable to sleep..... went to office at office timing....had some sleep attacks but was able to understand the CMM training lecture completely.... Laughed like hell at the receptionist when she told me about a guy who was absent (i usually keep laughing the whole day if my sleep pattern ever gets disturbed , besides that i usually do not need a reason to laugh) ....... left my car at my cousin's place in the evening.... made it to Daewoo bus stand... managed to get a Chance ticket after a lot of Khuwari ...had an uncomfortable trip to Peshawar but the deep sleep during the travelling made things easier for me..

Moral of the Story: I am never going to drink 3 cups of tea again...

Moral #2. I am never going to travel in Daewoo again..

Partition Magic

I am getting familiar with my laptop and thus i am instlling all the things that i use frequently on it. the list includes Mozilla FireFox and my favourite Google Desktop 2. My increasing familiarity with the laptop made me catch the 64mb unallocated space before the C drive. I decided to allocate this irritating non-allocate piece of space using partition magic and bingo!!! my operating system was gone..

I had written my blog, the 3 cups of tea, in detail and had left it on the desktop...had so much other information stored on the Google desktop's scratch pad.....had some office related things there ....all was wasted.... My plan to complete my SQL courses couldnot wear the practical shalwar because of the OS failure. I did install the OS later but a lot of time was consumed in 'trying to retrieve the old OS again'.

Moral of the story: I am never going to use Partition Magic again.

Papa`Mon

What will be your expression if i tell you that i can heal you by simply placing my hands on your injury... yeah! i joke a lot, but this is a real thing. I learnt Reiki last year while i was doing the workshop of Silva Mind Control in Lahore . I am into such stuff since 2001 . I believe in things which most of the people around me deny. so i usually learn these things alone without a supporting group. My mother is the only person around who appreciates my learnings and on this Eid she made me give Reiki to her mother (my grandmother), the results were good. The next day i gave Reiki to my grandfather's brother. The results were so great that the next day they came to my home especially ...just to get the second treatment. The same day my mother brought my father's sister home for a treatment..and the next day , it was my father's brother who came for it..

so my mother has done a great job as my marketing manager. i am getting popular...:) .. as the family has got a peer from inside the family. Me and my little cousins brainstormed to get a name for me...I wanted it to be a bit modern so we decided the name "Papa mon-they" which is basically Papa-monday with a suppressed 'd'. The word gets its root from the urdu word "peer baba" and my excellent translation skills.

Reiki has given me a chance to be closer to my family after a long time. It gives me a confidence in learning more mind-sciences related things. It is motivating me to go Lahore next weekend to repeat the Silva Mind Control workshop.. It gives me the confidence that the 50K + money that i have already spent on all similar courses has not gone to a waste. I will write a detail of all the stuff that i have learnt in some post later .

Moral of the story: Keep believing in your beliefs even if the world around denies them.

but ...one must take some time in a while to question one's established beliefs... Thats how we refine them.. and that is a very good excercise to develop strong beleifs.

Bonus Track

I planned to come back to Islamabad a day before the end of vocations to set my new place. Since i had vowed not to travel in Daewoo again , i reached the Peshawar bus terminal on sunday, stayed there for half an hour , finally went to Daewoo , stayed there for an hour for a chance ticket, then went to the bus terminal again , stayed there for an hour....but couldnt get any vehicle.

I was lucky to finally find a neighbour who was going to Islamabad. I had a really nice trip with him.

Moral of the story. I am always going to get my seat booked at Daewoo two days before any trip.
Comment on the moral: there is nothing wrong in establishin beliefs but they must be continously revised and changed on getting any data that contradicts your earlier experiences.

A new life

2006-01-06T19:21:00.000+05:00

A new year greeted me with a new hope.. A hope that i will be happy in my new job now..Finally.. A place where i may have temporary mental tensions for a few moments but where i have a long term peace of mind at last. Life has got a fast pace. This week passed so quickly without letting me have enough time for many things..I cant even properly recall as to what happened which day in this week. I cant properly earmark the day when i left the car keys inside my car (Have i written about my princess Subaro in detail..I guess not!!! The car really needs an introduction as it is going to be mentioned a lot in my coming blogs.. For now, i will just give my very frequently said quote on my late arrivals i.e i would have come earlier , had i not been owning a car) and then i had to bring a key maker to unlock it , the day when I had to make two two trips to Aab Para to get the keys for the place i plan to shift and even then i had to go to Sitara Market the next day to get it made again,the day i kept playing warcraft 3 till 1 at night, the day(s) when i left my Princess Subaro on road in front of ZTBL bank cause it was not in the mood .....memories are overlapping....seems i have had a good workload in the previous days...but i enjoyed it...

We finsihed the first major training of our training month today. It was a boring course but our instructor was able to keep us enjoying it the whole time. We covered a good amount of theory as well as practical work in a very fun way. As a class, the 9 of us have become very close to each other now so the time is going really great. The loneliness feelings that i tolerate at nights are compensated by the greatness of the quality of life that i enjoy at my office.. Once again i am having a life that is familiar to the life that i had as a TA in GIKI ;the best time of my life.. The job switching seems to be one of the best decisions of my life.

I plan to shift my place on this weekend (once again ...this will be my 6th place in Islamabad since Dec 2004) even though i havent got any security from current place's landlord... The guys is delaying my money for reasons that are beyond my understanding. I have always hated getting my security back from my landlords..... The new place is going to be expensive as i am not going to have a roommate which i had earlier planned to.. but i hope that either i will get someone as a roommate from office or I will get satisfied by the expenses depending on my life quality .

The query runs

2005-12-31T20:17:00.000+05:00

My early days in NCR are like early days of GIKI.. Too much assignments with no knowledge of what to do and how to do what we think we have to do.. The day we got our laptops , we were assigned some 14 web based courses without enough information on "HOW TO DO THEM".. much of the time (in hours) was spent in "how to learn" instead of "learning".. and there were some other BIG delays (again in hours) which were caused by "OH! how to set up things on this laptop" .."I am having some difficulties in installing the Easy SET UP CDs".. "Do we have to study the courses told by the HR guy or the courses recommended by the NCR University" , "Err.!!! I passed the course test but my course status is still the same"... so in the start things were really messed up.. Now , things are going on a good track , still there is a problem of "OK... i know how to write this SQL statement, but does any one here know how to run the program that runs it..and how do i start the database server on my PC"..there are so many things/tools which we have to use for our learning but we are not very clear on how to use them and it is expected from us that we will not be needing any time to learn the these tools ..and if an instructor uses a software tool in a flashy speed then we are supposed to learn all the configurations and names etc. that he changes in some microseconds..

Anyway, the training is going good.. The teacher is great...only problem is that he says that we are not supposed to believe in every thing that he says..as he can be wrong in telling us many things.. so we are roughly getting the idea as to what is important and what is not by getting the idea of our instructor's amount of knowledge about it. but then there are times when we have to hear "ok.. now this topic is really important but i am skipping it for you people"... argh!!!!!..

The training is not without regular evaluation. We had a test two days ago and then we had a test yesterday..

FIRST TEST

The first test was to write an SQL query.. We had to do it in teams (not of our choice).. I was grouped with the only bearded guy of the batch who bluntly says that he doesnt know how to write the basic SQL commands.. .. The time provided to write down the given query was spent in understanding how to open the software required to run the query , how to run the server for it , understanding the reasons of getting the USER HAS NO ACCESS PERMISSIONS TO USE THE DATABASE error and searching the right table in the database that could give us the revenue generated by the customers...arghh!! We had to find the coulumns that could give us the revenue and we were not sure wether to multiply the product id with its price or the order number with the discounted price...Me and the bearded guy aka Naveed had a tough time together as we started fighting each other initially .. the fight ended when i told him to do things individually.... :). The marks that we got at the end of the test were only the grace marks.. as we were not able to run the query till the end.

SECOND TEST

We had the second test yesterday. Me and the bearded guy , Naveed "had to" team up again..and this time things went great.. We did ok in the verbal testing section..and later My little practice in SQL along with Naveed's efficient searching of the functions used in the end part of the query saved the day ... It was really fun.. Both of us couldnt really believe that we had really executed a query completely written by us... The test was annouced a few days ago and we were not afraid of the test as we were both sure that we will fail it..but in the end the query executed perefectly and not only that it gave the required output , we were also able to give its justification .. The test has given me confidence and it has also made me to realize the importance of team work.

with time i am learning things....and i hope i will do great in NCR.. people seem good.....The daily ranking of all the people in the batch is shown in the class daily and it gives me a real hope.. i am improving... :)

Life is tough but seems under control

2005-12-29T20:18:00.000+05:00

Well.. even though there is a laptop , there are two very important requirements that go along with it to be a regular blogger: Free time and peace of mind...am not having any of these two these days.. so my chronicles from 23rd Dec continue in an integerated from follow :

24th Dec Saturday

I went to Giki to attend the alumni reunion. was accompanied by OC , my Final year project partner who is currently doing an MS leading to PHD degree from Sydney , University of New South WAles..

I had a good time in Giki. The new rector seems to be a good person and it seems that finally someone caring has taken the high post at Giki.. Giki is still the same old peaceful place that made me fall in love with it years ago..

25th Dec Sunday.

Laziness prevailed the whole day. I went to see Champ , Javaid , a batch mate who is suffering from TB. spent the whole afternoon with him . Later i took Vix , who had come to champs place to see him, to Nomi's place as they had to go to Amir Farooq's Marriage. It was really fun finding the way to F11 from G-10 . I had to do some heavy reading on this weekend but it ended too quickly.

26th Dec (Mnday) till 29th Dec (Thursday)

The days pass very quickly once the working days jump in life..with not much social activities , my main focus remained on learning things in NCR... The training is still going on..I had a real tough time in giving the SQL paper.. and now that i have passed it today, i still need a lot of practice work to get it fluent on my fingers. My princess subaru (my car) is giving me real tough as it refuses to do anything at all everymorning. and this makes me make a travel to the office on taxi. On monday and tuesday, i had to leave it near a busy road as it wasnt starting in the morning and i had already availed all my oppertunitites to go late to office. Even now , the princess is there at home and now that i will go home i will try to start it again.. My flatmates have started to call "Suba ru, Sham ru). translation: Shed tears in the morning , Shed tears in the evening.. The name does go with the kind of feelings one gets as the owner of the car.

Islamabad rocked again last night at 3 am. My night was disturbed realy badly . one of the flate mate lost his senses and started shouting..It was a terrible scene..I am not sure what really happened as i didnt get this chance to inquire anything later as my flatemates were asleep while i was coming office this morning.. ..These day I am bumping into a lot of people having psychologic disorders. and what my research tells me is that motst of these cases always have an association with some kind of disturbance in sleep-wake cycle. When human mind doesnt get enough sleep , some harmonal balances occur which make the brain to malfunction.

I too get some strange feelings when my sleep-wake cycle gets disturbed ,these include extreme sensitivity to the weather (i.e extreme coldness in winter , extreme hotness in summers) , pain in knee (coupled with the 'in.travel ' condition ) , and the best one is that i keep laughing the whole day.. yeah! its true. an insufficient sleep really makes my day sometimes.. :)

Life seems to be going somewhat tough

2005-12-23T13:05:00.000+05:00

I changed my job and this became a very big change.. which is effecting my personal life a lot.. After serving in PTA for an year , i shifted to NCR to get my self occupied in work all day.. Since they have provided a laptop now, i guess it will be easy for me to update my blogs.. but then again there is a fear that i might not be able to continue my routine things , let alone this rarely practiced blogging activity...

Anyways, i had planned to start my blogging during this switching from PTA to NCR.. could'nt do it on time as internet access and free time is a pre-req to it. Roughly , i planned to write the following things in my daily blogs.

12 Dec 2005 Monday

Today was my last day at PTA. Am going to join NCR on 15th so i am leaving it 2 days earlier so that i may have some rest .. My resignation has been accepted and my notice period of one month has been waived off as well.. Thanks to the Chairman. I also got this chance to meet the Chairman.. This being my 2nd and probably last meeting with him. I told him a few things that are not right in the PTA He listened to me in a manner that i really felt that he was listening, noted some points and the meeting ended. I was happy that i told him ab out all my frustrations that i had in PTA during all the time there.

13 Dec Tuesday.

Well.. It came as no surprise to me that i had to go to PTA again to clear a few things about my job of "type approval" to Noman Jelani, the guy who is going to get the heay burden of all my job responsibilities along with his own.

14 Dec..

had some rest.. did some important stuff that was pending for long..went PTA at night when every one had left and only Taimoor was there helping Umair in making his presentation on "Network Security".

15 and 16th

Today I joined NCR...along with 6 other people.. All software guys...5 guys two girls.. The first day at NCR was great..No work to do.. We all chatted the whole day.. Topics Ranged from Animals to type of people to Jinns..etc...

17th (sat) and 18th(sun)

In my effort to be very efficient , I Read the Teradata Student Manual 1.. Just read it without understanding. Though i know something goes somewhere and is retrieved later at some stage.. spent my whole weekend on it .

19th.. (mon)

Again some free time at NCR.. setup a laptop for another guy..as they had not provided me mine..
Two more guys joined our batch at NCR ..again...both are software guys...

20th (Tue)

Got my own laptop...It was a real problem installing things on it.. really took the whole day.. also started NCR University courses. which are web based courses and one has to do it through flash based menus that involve testing along teaching..

21st and 22nd

Continued with NCR University courses . Most of the time was spent in learning things related to our login , our laptop setup and courses completion procedures.

23rd Dec Friday

Tera data factory started.. Its a instructor led class..which has got humongous amount of knowledge..an amount that a sane human brain can not store normally ..

The workshop ended near 6:30..and by now all the batch has got the idea that things are not going to be too easy..especially for me as the electronics background and no proper software background is really gonna make me put nights efforts...I guess its a bad time for me to start blogging.. but i guess now that I have got a laptop i should make a real proper use of it by enjoying my writings.

What to speak..What to blog!! ??

2005-05-19T18:16:00.000+05:00

I feel like a person who is standing on the top of a mountain..silently looking at the massive audience.. full of the desire to speak...full of energy...but unable to decide where to start from? unable to give priority to the mental contents..unable to give the very first push....Its been so long that i am here on the blogosphere but cant post anything cause i dont know where to start from.. no idea at all... completely confused

I want to speak..I want to type..I want to see my ideas , my thoughts turning into words through my typing fingures..but then which idea..?? which thought?? Sharing life becomes too much a trouble sometimes ... I guess i am not ready...I want to share things but i am afraid ..of whom??.. i dont know... or may be i am not afraid at all.. Perhaps i am having the same feeling which people usually have before going on a stage in front of an audience..I guess that is the most accurate representation of my position. I am just hesitating... and the only way i can overcome it , is ...by taking a start..

so here I go..with nothing preplanned in mind..i am sitting here in my office ..The official time is over..had been working on an assignment for quite sometime and now I am free a bit ..

but i am getting confused again.. What to write... Whih topic to chose..Should i go about my job..Should i go about my life..should i go about my friends... What to choose and why to choose that.. but then... since its just a start ..let me start with any random thing...

Let me start with my friends.. People i really cherish in my life.. Let me talk about bodi... Kashif Bhatti...Waqar Nabi.. Momin.. Dasa.. Alvi..Rizwan Pirzada..Saleem Gul.. Farhan..Noman.. Yasir.. My mother ,... Aman.. I start thinking and find that there are so many.. Names keep coming in mind.. they keep popping in..although many of them wont recognize me as their friend anymore as much time has passed since we were last in contact... but they remain in my thoughts as people who i once interacted with...and being somewhat unsocial i happen to have a very small circle of people around me..so my relationships become very precious for me..

I want to write about all my friends...and i know when i will write ..i will miss many.. but i must not let the fear of the effect stop me from writing about them..That is a hesitation that i have to overcome..

but hey!! whats the time?? Its 6:42..I have to catch my Taekwondo class at 7:30 ... joined it to reduce my weight..had been two months..and there is no different in that bulk of mass that I carry above my waistline... i guess all those people who were giving my advices on reducing my diet were right.. I should reduce more...i.e although i already changed it from "overdieting" to "enough dieting"...it needs to go one step below.. and that means a decrease in the revenue that Rahat Bakery is generating from my regular visits.. :)

bye..me getting late for my class..
will write again later..

My details

2005-03-28T04:37:00.000+05:00

Ok...now that i am getting some idea of blogging..I am going to start by writing about me.. I have read a lot both in favour and against blogging..and I am going to blog as an experiment to develop my own opinion about it.

My name is Sameer Shaida Durrani..and people have this habit of reading the middle part of my name as 'Shahida' thinking of me as a lady..but let me clear that i am a man..am 25 years old.. am nearly 5'9'' tall...my weight keeps on changing so i dont keep track of my weight very much.. :)

I belong to Peshawar..a city of Pakistan which has been proposed for Nobel Peace Prize.... u can check the link for details.. I have a negative opinion about this proposal but I will prefer to reserve it.. :)

I spent my very early childhood in cities like Islamabad and Karachi but I studied in Peshawar mostly.. ..After 12 years of eduction , i made it to a very good Engineering institute of Paksitan...The Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology (GIKI).. I did Bachelors in Electronic Engineering from GIKI and i guess I really fell in love with the place during my studies... There are some places which you can never get out of your mind..GIKI is one such place for me.

After my engineering, I did different jobs... but most of the times i was involved with teaching...and I guess in future i will join teaching as a career...

Currently, I am working at Pakistan Telecom Authority as an Assistant Director...I am in Islamabad Headquarter... My duty is to deal with different issues in the Engineering Department of the PTA... My boss wont appreciate it if i write any thing about my job responsibilites...

I think that in order to develop a good understanding of life one should reflect one's idea about it more often... I have started blogging with this thing in mind..I want to refine my idea about different issues in life...and i really appreciate getting corrected by people, only if they use the rarely used tool known as logic..

My first blog ever

2005-03-02T17:27:00.000+05:00

This is my first blog ever. so lets see how things go...... am just trying it..............