Philosophy 208

"I cannot finish off a mile-long run right now. Why? Because I need to have run almost a mile just before now, so that I can complete the running of a mile. Yet, I have not been running. So I cannot finish a mile at this point."

Kasam khao? Because I had no clue that you actually had to RUN to finish off a mile-long run.

 If he'd actually spent even half that fucking time running, he'd have completed that mile. Thank you liberal arts, for this semester long mindfuck. I now know what I will definitely NOT be majoring in.
Seriously, what kind of crack do you have to be on to produce this stuff? I'll probably be needing some of it to pass this class.

"If something has to be, then it will be."
"If something will be, then it has to be."


Mr. Conee and Mr.Sider, I regret to inform you that your LIVES were accidental necessities.

Non-existent brain needs to function.

Sitting in the library with readings from four classes staring into my uncomprehending face, I now realize that 3 months of no mental (or physical, but we'll get to that later) activity whatsoever have really decreased my already low mental capacity. If you, like me, suffer from a lack of active brain cells, I suggest exploring options other than Higher Education. If you really, really, really like a certain college, try getting a job there. Become a janitor. Or a dishwasher. Or something. (Since you can't be a professor, cause for that you kinda sorta have to take the HE path too.) They'll make you wash pots and pans in the kitchen as "work-study" anyway (three hours of pot washing on a Sunday morning. And countless more to come). So might as well stick to manual labour and enjoy the perks of a beautiful campus without going to any of the classes.


As much as I love this place, I still have some whining to do. (Surprised? Don't be.)

• The food doesn't taste like anything. Sometimes I want to gag just for the lack of spice. There is way too much food in this country, and none of it is spicy.
• So back home, I'm supposed to be "chubby" (whatever that means). However, here, I'm smaller than small. Now you may think of that as a boost to my self-esteem, which it was for the first two days, it's just plain annoying now. I've been trying to shop for winter and I look like a two year old trying to fit into her mother's clothes. 
• So we all know how the first world countries are out to kill us. We get Red Bull for cheaper. We get cigarettes for nothing. And frankly, I prefer it that way. Please, I would rather die than pay $8.50 for twenty cigarettes. Can you let me reduce my lung capacity in peace?
• Walking. Too. Much. Walking. For a person who's known for sitting on her butt and moving only when the necessity occurs, this is a lifestyle shock. So far, I'm still alive. For how long? I don't know.

• "So, like, how did you hear about Mount Holyoke? Do people there know about America? Do you guys, like, listen to our music? Do you speak English there? So, like, do you meet boys? Is your house flooded?" Alas, the ignorant American. Oh, I don't know, one day as I was wading through my burnt down village, which just by the way also got hit by the flood, trying not to drown under the weight of my sodden burqa, I reached a stretch of dry land. On that fine stretch, I saw a white man on a donkey cart. It was an American missionary who somehow managed to convey to me (through sign language since I didn't know what English was till I came to this country) that there is this place called Mount Holyoke College. When I found out, I swam back to my house as fast as I could, to tell my family of 50 people that I could save everyone, only to be beaten up with a belt and chased out of my village because they thought the American missionary had violated my honour. While I was being chased out, I hid in the forest, on top of a tree, where the man found me again, and applied to the US for political asylum for me, and here I am! It sounds so much better than "Umm, it was my first choice."

Yeah, they're a weird race, these Americans.

Mohome.

Probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in. Probably some of the best people I have ever been around.
=)

On Traveling Alone

Friend: and please..

no matter how hot a guy you find in the person sitting next to you in your airplane..dont bang him in the toilet. . okay?

Me: .......

THANKS MAN

IF YOU HADN'T SAID THAT TO ME

GOD KNOWS WHAT I MIGHT HAVE ENDED UP DOING

YOU JUST SAVED ME A LIFETIME OF REGRET YAAR.

 ********

Mum: DON'T TALK TO ANYONE AT THE AIRPORT. THEY'LL SLIP HEROIN INTO YOUR BAG.

*********

Mikk: Ask them to make you sit next to a woman. I had my butt grabbed by this horny man on a flight, and I had to sit with him for the next four hours. When I went up to the flight attendant and told her, instead of changing my seat she told me "Madame, please don't congregate in this area." 

Me: So was that man embarrassed at all?

Mikk: No, he was like leaning all over me, and then he asked me " Excuse me, aap apni chizz (cheese) khaayein gee?"

Me:...........................

More to come.

Countdown.

It's all rushed by, this whole year. In one week I'll be leaving Pakistan for 8 whole months.

One of my closest friends is leaving on Monday. We've been in the same class for 9 years, had fights, love/hate moments, boy trouble, MUNs, random fits of laughter, weird confrontations, made elaborately complicated plans to sneak out (and suceeded), had the same grades, been completely useless at math together..There's too much we've done together, and it's going to be very, very weird not to have you with me in the same class Pluto.
Another friend is going to the same place as me, so that's going to be 13 years in the same schools/college. That's a long, long time to know someone. But I can tell you it's nice to know someone familiar in a strange place.
 The past two years, as I've mentioned previously, have changed my life. I've befriended a few people who I'd like to think will be part of my experiences and me wherever I go. So will those who I used to know, but no longer do.
 Mama, the sisters, BamBam- The only real family I do know.
Karachi, my seaside love.
Kiki, with her exasperating behaviour about rowing, for feeding me all the time, for all the times I've been at her house sitting around aimlessly, for making fun of me when I play that stupid Exploding Bubbles game on her iPod, for her dad getting worried on days they didn't pick me up for school, for her cats and dogs and boys, and her generally confusing life. <3
 Mikk for, well, everything.
The MUNners for good, good times, for sticking together, for crying through the stress and laughing and spitting through the free fall.
D, for being one of the sweetest people I know, for the chocolates and the smokes and the Gazebo, the rare phone conversations and random bonding sessions.
All those people who I've loved being around, who've made things bearable when my head was threatening to implode.
Thank you. ILY =)

New

There's too much and too little happening at the same time. On one hand life is as still as it could have been in a long, long time. I feel like Dunbar from Catch-22, getting bored just to make myself feel the days are endless and will never pass. I haven't even started counting them down, because it'll happen when it's time, so what's the point of wasting breath over it?
All I know is, forward nine months and I will not return the same person. Everyone keeps telling me that. I will (hopefully) have conquered homesickness, the blues, the sense of feeling lost in a crowd, of being unsure, of never having been out in the world on my own.

It's a fresh start and I'm measuring it out with my clothes. I can take all the ones people have already seen me wear, because there no one will know me. No one will know what I've already worn. And no one will know me as I have been, as I am now.

Bring on the bubble wrap.

R.I.P

I guess this is one of those cliched posts where I talk about the immense shock and grief facing everyone who's family members were on the plane that crashed, everyone who knew someone on the plane and everyone who knows someone who was related to/friends with someone who lost their life on the plane. I belong to the third category, and I found myself wanting to cry at random moments during the day.

Because it could have been any of us on that plane, because it could have been our parents and loved ones crying for us, because it could be us whose spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/children would never see them again, us whose honeymoon was cut short by a plane crash.

I've been on Air Blue flights before. I've been on a plane full of school teams going to Lahore for a Model UN conference, and just thinking about what may have gone through the minds of those students going for the Youth Parliament as they realized they were going to die makes me want to break down. It's not even stress or nervous anxiety because I'm going to be traveling soon. The fact of death itself doesn't frighten me as much as the thought of the pain it will cause those who love me and care about me.

152 is a big, big number when you consider all the thoughts in that plane when those people knew they were about to die. Did they even know?

And how many families were left bereaved?


Edit: Today I received an invite for a " going-away-to-college-party-" aka let's get drunk and have fun together one last time. And I don't have the heart to go and let my hair down when a plane carrying people like me just crashed into a hill and burned the people inside it to death. Something makes me feel that it's just not right. I always have a severe debate raging in my head about these things and I don't generally go to any, but right now I just feel it's downright insensitive to be having a party two days after a plane crash that cause so many people to suffer such a tremendous loss. But then again, who am I to say. To each his own.