Triple gold medalist

1 minute oath is over

Our position holder

Whose degree is it any way?

Celebrations

Back to the blackboard

Its for the crowd

It wasn’t me!

Flying high

A bit of drinking follows

It’s the end of Ramzan. Its time to cross the bridge, and Eid the three days out. A lot of times, a lot of things hold us back. Holding us back from growing, from being happy, and being a better person. Emotions, commitments, memories. You name it. At times things just seem so stuck.

Mass events like Eid, or in your case, Diwali, Christmas, New Year eve, et al; they come as an opportunity to let go off the rotting past. They allow us to move ahead, to live in today, which is bright, and colorful. Only if we bother to draw the curtains of our past.

So lets do it. Try this out on this eve. Be yourself. Work on things you always wanted to, but. There’s no place for these buts. Not anymore. Just keep moving, at your own pace, and towards your own goals. It might be a documentary that you wished to film, a model that you wanted to build, or a game changing blog that you wanted to write.

Do that. And remember to enjoy with the people around you. Eid the three days out; day one with family, two with friends, and three with foes. Promise to give it that full swing.

Eid Mubarak

Time to cross the bridge, and eid the three days out.

Out of frame | 2011 08 31 Eiding it out

Sharing a light moment. The Samoon brothers | 2011 08 31 Eiding it out

Time for work

Yes it was Eid, and kind of cynical to think about work. Unless, you have your relatives in town, the Eid day looks like a 48 hour affair. Every tick of the clock takes a seconds break, before moving to the next tick. Our relatives are all settled in interior Sindh, far, far away. A hundred and one miles to be exact (101.42 miles, at a bearing of 83.97 degrees).

So there’s so much fun that you can do on your own. Hence, the urge to go back to the real fun: work.

Bus Scheduling

A bit tough to understand when its on a graph, or in a table. So here's the animation of the bus scheduling. Although, I feel, that the representation, is still ambiguous. (Play at least a few times).

Suggestions to make the animation more clear are welcome.

My brother looked at it in a bored way, and exclaimed, "Your own road, hmm? No other cars allowed?"

3D Model of KL Bridge

From Windows Live Writer

I had been working on this model for the last two days. The design part in Google Sketchup was real easy. Talk about fun easy. Draw a circle, and click extrude to create a cylinder; piers in my case. Draw a rectangle, and click extrude to create a cuboid; a road in my case. More complicated models like trees, people and cars, were downloaded from the Sketchup website.

Just yesterday, I found out to major issues with the model: (a) there are three piers in the transvers direction, and not two, (b) the model’s vertical scale is a blunder. The freeboard, the distance from the surface of the water, to the bottom of the road, came out as 168 ft. Talk about a skyscrapper bridge.

Anyways, these issues can be easily resolved. I few more fun hours, may be. For all those into geography, maps, and 3d buildings, take a look at the model. Just download the model, and open it using Google Earth.

17th day of fasting. From friday onwards, the fifteen day vacations will begin.

I slept a good sleep after Sehri (breakfast). Somehow, I manage to get up by half past seven. Actually, its always, like that. No matter how much sleep is still left. No matter how late I have been working, and then hitting bed. I wake up, seven thirty, on the dot.

The problem of course is, that I am left with very little time to get to my first class at university. I could easily add those classes lost, and end up with a terrible grade, and short attendance. An issue.

A quick, bare bones shower, and a bit of deodorant. I am up and running on my way to the university. Its 8:00am. I can imagine: My class full of students. My teacher talking about real important, life changing, or exam related stuff. I drive.

It’s a boring 10 minutes drive.

The first three minutes are nervous. My car’s radiator, is icy cool. At least that’s what the indicator claims. At any moment, the battery may give in, and I would be left standing on the road. Missing my second lecture of the day at university.

More often than not, the car does not give in. So after three minutes, which are full of sweating, and panic, I can safely turn on the Air conditioner. The first monument, is the row of schools, just outside my house. Eager, bag laden school kids, being guided in by their aspiring parents. I have noticed that the boys often have very light bags to carry, while the girls have massive, book laden bags on their shoulders. They walk a tilted walk, and most often, they also have some interesting drawing in their hand. Class decoration.

Next comes the roundabout, Johar Chowrangi. On days, when I am late, there’s a red light, and a beggar waiting for me. I wait for the green light, while the begging lady comes in for a few alms. I have never given her a penny. I always smile, saying, “Sorry.” She replies something back, but since I gave the windows rolled up, I can see her, but not hear her. Plus, the radio is on max volume, with some good tune on.

There was a day, when that window of my car wasn’t rolled up. That beggar came in. I smiled, and said “Sorry”. She replied back.

This time, I could see her, as well as hear what she had to say, “Young man, you can give alms at least once in a while”. (Urdu: Beta kabhi to kuch de dia karo). I lost my smile. That was what she used to say, as I continued to smile, and listen to my radio.

The light turns green. Two more turns, and I am in the university.

I am in the university

First period’s for Law and Regulatory Control Studies. Meet Sir Ravinder Kumar. Ali, and I simply call him RVK, which in turn brings us both to our nostalgic young days, when we used to watch WWF, me in Malaysia, Ali at Mirpurkhas. The trigger is Mr. Rob Van Dam. RVD. He used to start every match with this “RVD” chant, his fingers pointing towards his shoulders at every letter of the acronym.

This was odd, and so was WWF as a whole. It was so awkward. Imagine Undertaker, coming in with the lights out, or Shaun Michaels dancing-in into the ring.

Memories. More often than not, RVD used to get a lot of beating. He was fat, and useless, except for his flying kick to the face. Till that came, he was beaten from his original yellow, to pale, and finally bright red; and yet he never gave up, and that’s why we loved him, waiting for him to give that final kick.

A kick back to reality.

I am in class. RVK, is at the helm of affairs, teaching Law & Regulatory control studies. This whole class, in my view is a farce. For the last two months, we have been studying, the definition of Law, and the last three periods, including the one I was sitting for today, was wasted on deciding which kid was going to take what topic for his Law assignment.

He also talks about how vulnerable a teacher is at NED, but, he says that he has a passion for teaching, and socio-economic hurdles don’t bother him.

A few minutes later, its time for attendance. I was sitting at the back, so I couldn’t hear my turn for the roll call. My friends in front informed me. I shouted out, “Roll number six, sir”, and there came that smile, along with the question: “Dreaming, were you?”

Up next comes the exact opposite. Its education in High definition. Welcome Sir Adnan. Again, Ali and I have a name for him. We call him Adnan Fowkes Model. Since that was the topic of his PhD, and at times when the mood is high, its simply: Addu.

Urban Mass Transit

Urban Mass Transit. That’s the subject. Today we learnt how to schedule buses according to the specified headway, say we wanted a bus to arrive every 30 minutes, then how many buses would be required in the entire fleet? How will they be timed?

Easy stuff. Or may be, that’s because Adnan Fowkes Model, makes it out so simple. Whenever we ask deep, abstract questions, his hand blinks the red-light, where he exclaims, “This is PhD (or Masters) level question. You don’t want me to teach that stuff here (at Bachelors).”

We decided on our 2 week assignment for Urban Mass Transit, “Feasibility of Parking Plaza in Sadr (Karachi). Ali was working on an Intelligent Transport System project. Finally Ubaid came into the mix. His usual rhetoric: So and so assignment to do. So and so task weighs so many/so few marks. He’s never satisfied with the situation at hand.

Today’s news was that the UMT assignment weighed a measly five marks. So Ubaid’s advice to everyone was, “Don’t fret over it, its worth five marks only!”. I gave him my counter-argument, and said that we should do our Projects as they come, and should give our best, irrespective of their scheduled weightage in our Mark sheets, at the end of the semester. I told him, with eyes shining bright wide (I presume), that we could show off our best projects while applying for Engineering vacancies.

Ubaid was disinterested. He gave out a bored yawn. Asra entered the scene. She had that blank face today. Her project title Safety study of Public Transport, was not approved. The teacher said that it was too broad a topic. I told her, that this was exactly what happened to our Final year project: Bridge Hydraulics. It took us a good 6 months to solve the deadlock.

So I knew how to get out of this literary black hole. I advised her to make her project title more specific, say confine it to a geographical area, plus, give it a definite objective, such that at the end of the project, there is a definite output to be realised.

It was a good discussion.

Asra has her own way of disagreeing. More subtle, very unlike Ubaid. She says yes, and then adds the conditional if-statement, or the futuristic, “I will look into it”. Its more digestible.

The day at the university is over. I head home, tell my mother, that we have a Fast breaking ceremony at five, and hit bed.

(The best part of the day yet to come. Just tired of typing for now.)

The fever is on. Time has become a volatile quantity. Two hours, at your work table, and you are craving for even more.

The table is far, far away from the kitchen, and it does not serve nice things to eat. It serves things to study, understand, and finally, learn. I hate the last part the most.

I have this short term memory, as bad as Aamir Khan’s Sanjay Singhania, of Ghajini fame. Its high time, I start remembering stuff; start writing stuff on my body. Start taking photos, and get them printed, to keep knowing, what I had known once. Forget to forget.

Now, what were we taking about?

Exams. Two weeks, or even less, if you are reading this a bit late, and then the mega event takes off. From the student’s perspective, the biggest event of his life, apart from of course, a Pakistan-India semi-final.

Time is short. The one with the better strategy, and better focus, shall win. All else, would have their hands on their forehead, in despair.

Exam fever. Stitched this way back in First year.

The plan

So, what’s the plan. The plan is an inspiration from Cricket, the omnipresent sport. We can applying cricketing logic to almost any situation, and come out as winners.

The plan is to work on the tougher bowlers, Muralitharan, and Malinga, early. Milk them for the cheeky ones and twos. And then, when the Kulasekras, and other part timers arrive: swing that bat like crazy.

Soil Mechanics, is our Muralitharan, while Steel’s Lasith Malinga. We aught not to fall in their traps. Keep that head calm. Remember: Ones, and twos. Nothing flashy. Please.

Let them return to the pavilion, in despair.

Kulasekra, is Hydrology, easy, but deceptive. As part timers, we have got Environmental engineering, and Advance Materials. Go on, take out your anger. Be the man, and start the show. Give the crowd (in this case, your parents), something to cheer about. Smash! these are high scoring subjects.

the execution

Things are going pretty smooth. I am confident, that just before the exam, there would be surely, some well-baked Concept-cookies. At least, 250 runs by the fortieth over.

Time for hope, and patriotism.

Apart from this education, and cricketing frenzy, we have a life to live as well. See the examples below.

Magazine

I have developed, and designed a magazine for my department. Its planned to be really thin and cheap.

Its going to be weekly. That’s the initial plan. Lets see how things work out, when the masses know about it, and ask for their 50 cents (or even less) to be added into the design, and content part. 

View the magazine, in all its glory, in this flash view.

Reading

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Meiryum Ali’s blog (Khayaban-e-Nowhere) from the Express Tribune. Funny, yet neither awkward, nor rude. And the flow? Its like Brian Charles Lara batting; textbook, yet shiny.

She makes it a big deal, of her being an A level student. That may just be a marketing gimmick. It is childish, but not irritating.

Highly recommended. If you know how to subscribe via Google reader, add this author. If you don’t, then youtube: “Google Reader in Plain English?” Learn how to subscribe, and then add this author.

Tip

If you look up a lot of images, but are irritated by the tough-to-use, Google images search. The solution is here: Google Images, itself, but the mobile version. I presume, that it has been developed for Android, but I works well on my pc as well.

http://www.google.com/m/images 

It feels a bit like viewing photos in facebook. Very natural, and easy on the eyes. Plus, if you zoom in twice (mouse wheel up), the images look even better.

My fan page

It was odd, first: creating the fan page, and then promoting it. Asking friends to support, a’ la political worker of an unknown, weak party. Great people can have fanpages. Stars, can have them. Brands can develop them. But me? Odd, very very odd.

The idea was not to proclaim celebrity status. The concept was more of a personal nature. I needed a way to share, and organise, (great) stuff that I created. I also wanted to share interesting stuff I found. And, hence, the Fanpage.

Ali always laughs with his hands on his stomach, when I share my fanpage stats with him. He always says: “Very sad to hear that (Urdu: Bohat dukh hua, Arif.)”

• 83 fans.
• One fan from Africa.
  • One from Indonesia.

For all my fans in the world, and the one from Africa, and Ali, great news. You can now view the fanpage, right from arificial routine, itself. Excited, huh!

Spring festival. 17 departments, one celebration. Today was a party day. Only thing we missed this time was 'a good sound system'. The singing competition was so lame, we could hardly hear them. Except, Sheila's appearance was really funny (not in photos).

And then, the vJ competition was pretty cool; Ali Safina, and us (NEDians). As always, I was without cash today. Luckily, Ali, Faraz and Rizwan sponsored me drinks, and games.

(Will be updating with more insight on this day once I finish my pending schoolwork. Till then, catch the snapshot, and the story within.)

Snapshots

Mayo, and then munasib treat for the non-position holders. A select few people were present at the event, but all those who came, had come in to enjoy. It was the long awaited party.

(Will be updating with more insight on this day once I finish my pending schoolwork. Till then, catch the snapshot, and the story within.)

Snapshots

January 16 has historically been a party day. It was January 16, on a Sunday. So today was fun, except that Junaid (the birthday boy) had a broken feet, the one he had been carrying for the last week or so.

We started from McDonald's, then Millennium Mall Food court, and finally back to McDonald's. Ali was our CFO. We also had planned to go to the first Flood light test match at National stadium. But we were late, and the match was already over. Junaid got a gift as well.

Snapshots