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.

I think I should firstly put this up on my About page: Sleeps long, and at odd times. Today, was just one more day, where the author of this rocking blog, spent an entire day, sleeping.

The counterargument arrives later at night. When I speak to myself, “Its all good, if I can work at night.” All good? Maybe yes. I do a lot of work, but the way the night is designed. The darkness, the silence, it all eats you up. A few nights like this, and the feeling of emptiness looms all day.

And the reader might raise his hand, and say, “Me, too”. Its lazy Ramadhan. A lot of people get into the Ramadhan mode. Pray a lot. Spend a lot of time reciting/understanding the Koran, and even more in the mosque. For those who don’t, it’s a time to start the fast early morning, hit the bed, and wake up at the time when its all over, and one can restart eating.

This has been the fate of a few of my fasts. Where one feels like a million, a few, is one too many.

Again, there is time at hand. 5 more days of fasting left. Its time to get things straight. Tomorrow morning, and all the way till Eid.

The urge to study, to succeed is at an all time high. I feel that I can go as long as 5 hours a day, working on hard core engineering stuff. Yet, what I end up getting, is a badly scheduled 2 hour work day. This is not the way Champions work. The game has to be improved. Strategies have to be pinned, and plans have to be implemented.

The journey from man to human

I got a haircut yesterday. The event was interesting: The last few hours of the fourteen hour fast, me under the barber’s aggressively moving scissors; moving dangerously over my head, and then over my lips. Trim, trim, trim.

From the caves of Gulistan e Jauher, to the heights of NED University. The emotional tale of a haircut From Arificial Indulgence

Like always, there’s this smart, influential guy, also under the same hair treatment, chanting out his own story, to a forced audience, of course. Like always, this smart, influential guy, had a Great past, a turn of events, and he is where he is, at a cheap 100 Rupee barber shop.

He talked about this charismatic 65 year old friend, a Principal at St.Partrick’s School. “Man, this guy was sixty five, but you should just look at him. He still looks fresh. Gets his exercise done daily. May be that’s why”, and then he talked about his apparels, “He wears those dashing English boot house shoes. Man! Sixty five, and still….”. (Here, I thought, about my shoes, English Boot house as well. Bingo! I smiled to my self, as the barber kept on working on my hair).

At this he stopped his story, as the TV was airing some railway related news. Some sad news.

This moved him back to that terrible journey from Peshawar to Karachi, via Pakistan Railways. It took him a good 52 hours, plus a mineral water bottle for the toilet, to get back home. “Imagine, the horrors”, he stared at the barber, and wailed,  “Alas, the Pakistan Railways!”

By now, my haircut was done. The barber asked me to check myself in the mirror, which I hate to do, especially after a haircut. I gave a half-hearted side look at myself, and played the recorded message for such situations: “Its fine”.

Kis ne kaha tha Coke painsath key kardo?

There was Pizza to be had at home. I was going to get us some Pepsi, but there wasn’t any. So I got Coke instead. I asked for the price, and was shocked to hear: Sixty five. I almost let out: Kis ne kaha tha Coke painsath key kardo? (Who told you to sell Coke for just 65 Rupees?).

This was 13 hours and many minutes into the fast. The ultimate test of patience, and hunger. Not a time to share jokes. A punch or some hard object could come my way, with no one having the last smile. So I refrained from playing the ad.

Saying sorry

Two more amazing videos to share, one about the idea of saying Sorry. I watched the video, and said sorry: To all the Pathans and Memons. I always thought you less bright.

What are you sorry about?

Intel Visual life (documentary)

The second video is about this Photo Blogger, Scott Schuman. Scott gets 70 000 views a day. Yeah! I would get there in a century. Hopefully!

A stunning 7 minute documentary. High definition, and Intel sponsored.

I was sick today. In fact, from last night. That bad feeling, where your body dies out. There's weakness, extreme weakness. Fever is just around the corner.

And today, it arrived. 39 degrees (Celcius), the thermometer read, when my brother dropped by first with an exclamation: "Boy, you are hot!", and then with a thermometer.

This was nine in the night. I had been diagnosed with fever. Actually, what was bugging me more, was this headache. It was a pain, and I had been sleeping all day, to get rid of it, but in vain. Hence, after a days pain, it was finally, time to break the rules, and take a pill: Paracetamol.

Medicinal magic

Thirty minutes later. The headache vanished. I was rid of this pain, by this magic pill. Anyways, the weakness which had been running from last night, still prevailed. Even at the time of this writing, I feel extremely weak. Then there's this tendency to throw up. But I have my lessons learnt. From my days of Malaria back in 2004, I had learnt that vomiting was not an option, never. It was always a disaster. First, post-vomiting, you feel 'dead' weak. Its like your energy, going down from the bad 30% before, to 5%, afterwards. Certainly, not ideal.

Second. Vomiting, creates a mess. Its a headache in itself, if you have to clean it up yourself. If somebody else has to clean up for you, its a total embarrassment. And the stink. Its the third, most deadly dimension of this process.

So, here's the lesson: Do not throw up. No matter what!

Time for meditation

As was on my rest bed, waiting for things to normalise, I had the opportunity to think over a lot of things I had left pending:

• - Final year project: Bridge hydraulics
• - This blog
• - Our magazine
• - Our shirt
• - Our website
• - My fanpage on facebook

So, when I get up tomorrow morning, all well and healthy, its going to be action time. Its about time to get things done. To start work, and stop vacationing.

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!

How about starting the day, when half of it is gone. Four in the evening. My so called ‘good morning’. I had spent last night: reading, and solving stuff; engineering stuff. Going through Schaum’s outline, and then, Soil mechanics, and some problems from the last class.

I wake up, feeling lazy, and useless. Its a crazy routine that I have created. I hate to live it.

Enough.

Lets wake up to reality. Let us take things the way they are. So, after wasting a few hours, first in hunger, (since my mother had nothing cooked for me), then on the bed. Staring at the ceiling, while listening to the radio. Flipping channels at a frequency of 0.5Hz. I finally rise.

I take a long, hot shower. The hot water burning my scalp.

More water. This time, for the garden. The news from the greenland (my garden) is that the grass is not growing. Only a half of my garden is covered with grass. The rest, died off last year. We were lazy gardeners, then. You know what it means, when the greens lose their glow. It implies negative growth. The journey to extinction begins.

I don’t know whom to blame this time. The grass has been cared for; I have watered them. Things looked good initially, but now, its all gloomy. Maybe, its that huge, mango tree, drying out the grass. Taking away both sunlight, and water. Taking away more than its fare share.

On the plus side: this year, we shall be getting lots of mangoes.

Entertainment

I return from the park. Junaid is busy watching cricket. Sri Lanka vs Canada. He is actually in a state of extreme boredom. Do we care, who wins today?

Finally, Junaid tunes into Atv. Its airing a soap. Yet another, conspiracy ridden story. A sigh of relief. Its a thousand times better than watching Sri Lanka pelt Canadian bowlers; where the Canadian team is actually a pack tired looking, South Asian immigrants.

The drama continues: one woman conspiring against another. I take to my books, but start with the more interesting part of my work: designing a shirt for Final year. We shall be leaving our university, next semester. The shirt shall be our souvenir. Names of our classmates at the back, and “Urban engineer” logo on the front.

An hour of study follows. I focused on Soil Mechanics.

My game

I shall be taking trials for our department’s table tennis team. I am the self proclaimed captain of the team. Captain, on the basis of my seniority. Lets hope that we smash our way to the finals, or, in the worst case scenario, at least enjoy being part of the game, and then being knocked out.

Smash.

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

An earthquake of magnitude 7 struck us. It struck at 1:30am. The epicentre lied in the Quetta belt, hundreds of kilometres away. Did we get the tremors in Karachi? I was dumbfounded. It was around this time while I was surfing the internet. There was not a hint of earth movement. No plate tectonics taking place.

Yet

Yet, when Ali arrives in the evening. He tells me of the horrifying earthquake of last night. And we live, just a kilometre away from each other; 2 minutes drive for a motor biking Ali.

Ali has had a tough night. When the earthquake struck, he was socializing on Facebook. The sofa started shaking. The printer was moving to and fro. He shouted for his two sisters, and his brother, and logged out of facebook. From then onwards, there were hours of panic. They were now on the road, shocked, and scared. The girls weeping.

In a matter of minutes, people started leaving their flats. It was so late in the night, but the road was congested. It was mayhem, all over. That is what Ali saw, that night.

And the News Channels had something to report on (breaking news).

On our side

And what was I doing last night. I was creating a chrome extension, an app to be exact, for our Final year project. Our tasks for the project show on the right, and our research files to the left. The header shows the number of days left.

Download the app here  (22.9 KB)

Today

They say that the earthquake’s going to strike again. Anytime around 11pm to 1am. If it strikes the way it did last night, then I am least bothered.

And then, the day passed. Did nothing much today, except, this blog, and a change in the look of the Urban Engineer’s forum.

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

Geographically challenged son. Born in that part of the planet, whose weather does not suit him. Flu is ever green; the sneezes keep coming all year round. Winters mean difficulty in breathing. Asthma. Early morning, and late night, the lungs keep wheezing.

Things have actually changed for the better over the last two days. I have seized my one month vacation in favour of a course in Geographical Information System. It appears that I don’t need that ‘much needed’ rest; the one advised for, after extended periods of work.

Extended period of work. Sixty days of rigorous examinations. Two months of high intensity, selfish work. Its interesting how the otherwise chatterboxes, the sport-freak, and the book-haters, are left with no choice but to study intensely for two long months. And these are those people who would swear that, “Studies. I hate them.”, or the more apt, “Engineering sucks.”, and for some, even, “I am more interested in photography.”

Plot. A grand heinous plot to push unwilling students to the wall. Make them study.

Three, two. one, zero.

Back to me. Yes, the exams have been unending, but they have not been tiring. My friends (although I prefer the more accurate: classmates), have been bombarding me with texts, mails and calls, trying to instil fear and anxiety within me, for the exam season. They are burning with anxiety, while I take a chill pill; watch ‘The Social Network', three times over; create, design and popularise a blog for my sister; help Ma in the kitchen; play a few cricket matches. Sleep, wake up, and then sleep some more.

Create a javascript calculator; a forum for urban engineers; and keep reading. Keep reading all the technology blogs, and the book: The Black Swan. And did I miss telling you that I edited a video based on the exams, during the exams: Post Examination Ceremony, with vivas still lurking around my neck.

The only thing I didn’t do, or should I say, that I wasn’t successful in doing was the creation of a logo. Under normal circumstances, the creative me is able to create an appealing, yet effective logo every month. I drew a few sketches whenever the numericals, the equations, or the test topics got boring. Yet, all I got in the end were some embarrassing scribblings of old ideas trying to look new.

The good news is that the draught has just ended, and I managed to milk something out of that artist living in one corner of the old, heartless, and predictable mind.

Geographical information system. That is where we started from. Life’s taken a positive turn ever since I joined the GIS workshop. The asthma, the flus, or those xyz pains cropping up after that abc ache, have all ended. At times, it feels like AIDS: acquired immuno-deficiency. One illness after the other. Or maybe, I am just listening too much into my body; a slight twitch in one part of the body should not be diagnosed as an illness. Billions of cells in the body. At any given instant, all of them can’t be in perfect condition; probability. Physiological probability.

And then I have coined a theory: the more frequently sick you get, the prettier you become. (I am fond of pushing in new theories into the media, then double checking them; taking my words back, or putting down new laws.)

Geographical information system. Ever since the course, the Arificial vitality has returned.

So what have I got, for a change. I wake up early in the morning. Sleep’s over at seven, and I am out of bed by eight. My mother is usually sipping tea at this time, and has to reluctantly rise, and make breakfast for me. She’s a perfectionist. Her breakfast is the best in the world, but we only get them on the occasional, lucky days.

Its a cold morning, but I am brave, as I look for ward to the steaming hot bath. I usually overdo this shower, and hence arrive late for the GIS session. Just 20 minutes late. I am thinking of placing a watch in the bathroom. Timed shower. That’s more like it.

We are a team of three in the GIS workshop; the three idiots, actually two idiots. Usama’s good at mapping, while Rizwan and I suck at finding places on the map; the map of Karachi.

The task.

Accident data for Karachi, (and for us, specifically Sadr Town), is given in Address form. Say, Fatal accident at Avari Hotel, Sadr Town. We have to find that location on Google earth, and note down the exact coordinates of the accident, into an excel sheet.

Simple, but boring.

Everybody else was typing in the Geographical coordinates manually. I created a a program that did the work, automatically. That is what computers are meant to do. Everybody was so envious. They were in awe. Just press a button, and voila. Rizwan was proud of me.

Every time we had to note down the coordinates, Rizwan would begin with, “In the name of God,  . .. . . “, and then hit the magic button. It felt like such an Al-Qaeda project.

But we suck at maps. So, Rizwan and I only managed to note down sixty accidents, working all day. Usama was absent today. He was receiving his brother; returning from Germany, completing a his Bachelor’s degree in Mechatronics. Whatever that is?

A strange friend?

On facebook, have befriended this stranger, Ali Sheikh. He had reqeusted to be friends. The online world is such a paradoxical, fishy place. Now, this person is peculiar. The name clearly makes him a male, but he says that he is a female. Ooops, she says that, she is a male. And then this stranger friend drops funny comments under my statuses, and today, sends me a message: “Are you online .”

Probably, its a boy, trying to be funny on facebook. I don’t mind that, since I take facebook to be a fun place. Pranksters don’t annoy me.

Happy dreams.

Father's back. 10 minutes later, found Ami as well. Awarded Papa rose petals. Both have returned from Saudi Arabia, happy as ever.

Once again, dad had so many pictures to share. And he had this narrative 'on' for each picture. It was a good show, as our relatives stared in awe at the magnificence of the House of our Creator.

Served tea.

Mami Sajda was amazed with my tea making skills, "Perfect. Especially the sugar," she said. Others just took the tea, and continued with the Hajj chat. Aneeq and I had little tea, which we spent thriftily in dipping chocolate biscuits.

There's a watch for me. All the way from Saudi Arabia. I like its digital screen, with leather straps. Class with technology.

Tomorrow

Education. Finish incomplete workbooks (shame), and prepare for Soil and RCD viva.

It is as if the harder you try, the tougher it gets. Fifty percent effort gets me to 70 percent marks. From here the relation turns complex:

70% effort		80% marks
80% effort		90% marks
100% effort		95% marks

For hundred percent, one has to go supernatural. Some other special force has to work, always.

I spent hours today planning for the forthcoming exams (October 11). Thirty days. Days when we turn into geniuses. Turn ugly, loose shine.

30 day plan

On day 31, it is what we know that matters, not our hair style, car, or height.

Minimum four hours, everyday. That's my Plan. Keep in touch for the next 30.000 days to see how this experiment goes.

It rained for hours today. Good for my garden. Lizards, spiders, crows. All of them are irritated. Snails move out to one corner, only to be scooped out by me to a place 10 meters away. It would take him ten years, atleast, to return. That is, if and only if it is its mission in life to be back. Else, it is history.

Happy eids

Tomorrow is Eid. Preparing for big fun. Movies, places, dinners and chats. All day to do that, and just that.

I have to sort out, before Eid, my Einstein-ish hairstyle (just one more inch closer to the scientific star), and of course, this flu.