A complete day: Action, humor and triumph.

For a start, it was an odd, tingling sensation to be on time today. Now this was a triumph in itself.

Humor. The story that I am to relate now is actually not that funny; call it light family humor, but I laughed over it till I drooled and embarrassed myself.

We were to calculate the average delay at a traffic signal. The equation to be used was quadratic, and as long as the width of the page.

I was the first to solve, thanks to my sharp calculator skills. And yes, my answer was out of this world: a signal delay of 25, 000 seconds, that is seven hours. Sir Asher shivered at my answer.

Nabeel Naseem on the other hand is not a calculator pro. But he began with, “Your brother will first expand the equation manually,  and then solve it. This would leave no room for a mistake.”

10 minutes later, Nabeel was back with an answer:

1,36,000 Seconds

(1.5 days)

A signal delay of 38 hours! I dropped my face on my notebook, and kept laughing for the next ten minutes.

A few people had their Business Communications presentation today. They looked really stupid (and cute) in the informal environment of NED university. Taha looked particularly funny in his black and whites. It was hilarious when everyone would tuck his shirt out, and dance wildly at his irritated face.

Note: This presentation did not take place as the teacher was absent today. One more day to tease our poor presenters.

What happened next was really disturbing.

Dhun.. . .  dhun. Tish.

Soil mechanics class. I was sitting at Imad’s place, since it was unusually empty today. Now Imad is a very sensitive person when it comes to this seat. But he was ten minutes late. In an authoritative tone, he said, “Stand up and move from my place.” In an even louder voice, I said, “I am not moving, your bag was never here.”

So somebody had moved Imad’s bag. Big deal. This news should come in big captions in tomorrow morning’s paper.

Imad blamed Ali for this. (Ali is his long time foe). Ali said that he had nothing to do with it. Nabeel jumped in to inform, “Your bag was on the floor. So I placed it here.”

Imad’s bag on the floor! Again big deal. Where’s the media?

Meanwhile, Imad started swearing at Ali for allegedly throwing his bag on the floor. Nabeel jumped in again to calm Imad down, but Imad kept on with his bad temper, and foul language.

Ali is used to such tantrums from Imad, so he kept his cool. Nabeel was losing his patience. Imad even more. Finally, it was too much, so Imad shoved Ali towards the blackboard. The phone on which Ali was talking dropped on the floor. Imad challenged Ali for a fight.

My oh my. Seconds into the whole episode: Ali was all set for a fight, but so was Imad. I moved Ali a step back and reminded him that it would be an embarrassment for him if he fought here in the university.

Ali got my message. Imad kept swearing and pushing. His tagline: “Come out. Lets fight.”

The climax came when Imad swore at Nabeel. Now that’s breaking news. Five feet tall Nabeel removed his school bag to give the six feet Imad a thrashing.

As the things heated up, the ever cool Sohaib, who was laughing all this while lost his temper. “How did you swear at my friend.” Fahad jammed Imad and Sohaib was paused by Sarosh.

And all this drama, in front of our juniors. Disgraceful. I left them fighting as it was prayer time.

When I returned, Imad was giving final touches to his RCD assignment at his special seat, of course. Sohaib and Nabeel were playing a game with the rest of the class: “What’s in your heart?”

What a turnaround!

But Ali was nowhere to be seen. I called him: “Ali aman ahey (Everything okay, Ali?)” From behind me, and through the phone, Ali replied, “ Aman, shanti (In peace and tranquility).”

Ali is back.

I always get an Alpha* from my soil mechanics lab teacher. Whatever it means.

And the highlight of the day, Ali launched his own blog. Here’s his first post: My worst day at NED university.

Imad’s name is used 19 times in this diary.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 // Mood: High , workday // 0 comments //

About

Arif Samoon is a Junior Design Engineer at Techno Consult International. He completed his Bachelors in Urban and infrastructure engineering, from NED University in 2011. He loves his digital presence. Loves to code, write, and design.