Invictus!!

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)

Re-start!

Some days back I randomly went to Woods Hole Public Library and they had a book sale going on. Somehow, I totally impulsively bought Stephen Hawkings good ol' book. Now that I sit down to reason for it after about 5-6 days, I can not rationalize it. Here is my only possible explanation!!

Its sometimes tough to restart. To begin it all again and think about hiking the tough trail sitting at its bottom. For now, I thought I will try to read through some of the same books that gave me inspiration before. So last wednesday, I bought my 2nd copy of 'A Brief History of Time' by Stephen Hawking. Lets see how many days it takes. I will be starting to read it today. Its fun to listen to U2 and read...

Losses in life..

Today I realized that sometimes you want something so bad that its better not to have it at all. You feel hollow, desperate, lost and feel like falling in to a bottomless pit. And the last thing you want is to let go. But you have to. When that something is done, its done. No matter how hard you try, its done and cannot be undone. We all have such moments in life when we wish we could just go back a little bit and not let that moment happen.

Its not my fault 100% nor it is her's either. But for now, I will live by it, and try to bring the goodness out in everything I can.

Grace
She takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name

Grace
It's a name for a girl
It's also a thought that
Changed the world

And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness
In everything

Grace
She's got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She's got the time to talk

She travels outside
Of karma, karma
She travels outside
Of karma

When she goes to work
You can hear the strings
Grace finds beauty
In everything

Grace
She carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips
Between her fingertips

She carries a pearl
In perfect condition
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings

Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

Grace finds beauty
In everything

Grace finds goodness
In everything

To let my brain work!

Being awake whole night, and trying to study is not a new thing for me now. And I am pretty sure, this thing will stick with me throughout my life. But for most of my nocturnal studying experiences, I have realized that caffeine pills, coffee and other waking methods do not help me as much as being positive and let my energy flow. So what do I mean with my 'my energy'?

Well... basically whenever I feel mentally drained, I let my brain drift for a while about some ambitious creative stuff. Mostly, it is a bunch of daydreaming or trying to create music in my head or some way of motivating myself by organized planning for future, but still, its all in my head. The good thing about this method is that when I am done thinking, and my mind feels all fresh, I feel like really ready to 'do it'. And get done with things like wham bam bam.

I have realized over past several years that I am sort of attention deficit. I can focus lots of energy on something and put in all my effort in to accomplishing something but I cannot linger on with it. 15 minutes of concentration and then my mind has to take a break or I will just waste time. From USMLEs to MBBS profs to other professional exams, I realized this poor concentration ability of my mind, but with experience over time, I have come to realize that I still have methods to use my mind to its best. For most of now, its used in reading lengthy reviews and research papers, alot of which seem dry and monotonous but atleast I do find joy in doing what I do. Even if I have to sometimes push my brain a step further for that.

Time to get back to work!

Spring is here!

So its 23 March today, and I am writing on my blog after about 5 weeks. Its been a long long looonnggg 5 weeks. About a month ago on 23 February, my friend Alexey got mugged and shot. He survived! And he is able to walk now with a limp and also able to go to work.

But that incident put my university schedule totally at a backburner and we had to move to a totally new location in Ridgeland. My research got affected for about a month and I was so much backlogged on a lot of stuff that it feels like I am still recuperating. But all that aside, here is a summary of all the things that happened:

23 February: Alexey got shot.

28 February: I moved to Ridgeland.

Next 2 weeks were all about unpacking and getting settled. I was desparately waiting for the mini-break in mid march and it came by and went really quickly. At least I got enough time to organize things, especially my schedule for the upcoming 2 hard months. During the break, I also did some fun activities though.

Flew kites.

Heard really good news about my fellowship this summer.

Enjoyed like crazy on St. Patrick's Day. My friend Galen came down from Oxford with his 2 friends Anjel and puppy, and they somehow knew Eva, so we all had a blast for 2 days. It all was really good.

Also, Sehar had her CS exam taken care of, so that was also a relief. She went down to Houston, and later stopped at Austin on her way back. It sounds like it was a lot of fun times she had there. Am really happy for that.

Also, talked my youngest uncle, who is more like a cousin, after about almost a year. We talked for almost 5 hours on phone.

I wasn't able to accomplish much on studying front but I am catching up on it. Downloaded tonnes of papers and reviews today for some reading and got some slides to go through tonight.

Things are fine back home, except that the country of Pakistan is unfortunately in the same way as one would expect it to be.

Spring is here, and the weather is super awesome, except for yesterday when temperature went down to 37F like crazy. Its back in 70s today. Sun is out, things look fine and life is beautiful :)

Nations or Corporations

I had a really interesting discussion with my friend the other day regarding nation states and nationalities, borders and illegal immigrants and various corporate political monopolies. The more I dug in to my knowledge of history, the more I found getting angry inside on how things are working in the present world.

No doubt that I love the world in the western hemisphere and the people who live in this part of the world, its just simply tough to make most of them understand that there is no such thing as 'us' and 'them'. My friend I was talking to is one of the wise people here and she is totally against the existence of nation states that thrive on paranoia and patriotic egotism.

The way I look at nation states is that in various units of functional economies around the world that go from village, town, city, district, province, state all the way up to country; nation states are like big corporations with extended financial interests in a particular economic area. And the national flags are nothing more than the corporate insignia. And the whole concept of patriotism and nationalist egotism is part of brand loyalty. Every country is like a corporate brand, and one person usually pays a certain brand (taxes) to thrive in the corporate race.

These corporate brands would sometimes fight each other for economic survival over petty issues such as area of interest (borders) or disloyal customers (illegal immigrants). Usually when a brand has too much monopoly in one particular area and its customers (citizens) get really blinded by all the corporate advertisments (mass media makeup), they willingly agree to any injustices committed by their corporate brand (country) against any other corporate brand. And when one brand gets too much power, money and monopoly, it would go to any extent to make sure that its customers are very loyal and obedient. To make sure that they are obedient, some of these corporate brands use sophisticated means to make sure that brand loyalty is stricty maintained (IRS in USA).

These corporate brands have paid employees (army) who fight with employees of other brands over egotistic sentiments that have no ground and only lie in thin air. To give meaning to their egotistic patriotic sentiments, most brands use the local differentiating point to garner up support of employees (soldiers) and customers (citizens). These points could be language, skin color, religious ideology or just a fake idea of so-called glory.

The concept of nationalism and 'belonging' to a particular cast, color, creed, religious, political or economic ideology is so lame and outdated that I am surprised people still agree to it and consider borders drawn on maps as some real geographical landmarks that you can see. Most of the average people believe in the corporate advertisement (patriotism) so blindly that they willingly agree to not to look at the larger human history. Most of the people would never sit down and think that these corporate brands (nation states) and their areas of influence (borders) are more fluid than any other thing and they have never been static and will never be static. But in their short lives, most of the customers (citizens) do believe in all the (nationalist) crap that is thrown at them. And this larger-than-life image of a corporate brand (country) makes these people even die for their brand without thinking in the first place that its not the ordinary people who benefit from their 'valor' and 'bravery' but actually the corporations who thrive on strife, turmoil, political chauvinism, war and destructive showdown. In the end, people are just a fodder in this grand struggle for corporate monopoly.

Nation states and religion are literally the last standing barrier between a true human and humane society on this small planet!

Back from New Orleans.

I came back from the Mardi Gras weekend yesterday. It was an awesome 2 days in New Orleans. Saw the great city! The jubilant people celebrating life and having good time. Saw some really awesome street musicians who did not budge and leave their place when a big police SUV honked to pass through. Saw some craziness on Bourbon street and saw the beauty, life and colors on canal street parades. It was one of those pilgrimages you do once in your lifetime, just like going to a U2 concert or spending a night out on the ocean beach.

Of all its misgivings, America has been the one that provided me with all the above-mentioned things. And one thing that I would definitely it provided me was my freedom. I was shocked, and still am in shock because of the compromise I had to do for the level of freedom I am getting, but then this world is not a Utopian dream either. So, I live happy being here, and to have reached here with Sehar is like a dream come true.

I have been really lazy in writing this blog. I did start writing a hand-written journal daily, and I am glad I am carrying on with it. I really need to make a good time table for my guitar-playing I do not want my finger calluses to 'melt away'. In fact, I think I will have some coffee and than play some guitar before I work on my paperwork today for the Massachusetts thingy. Its already 11:44 pm and I am soooo drowsy! Hmmm... I think I will just sleep for a little while and than make coffee, finish my paperwork and than play before I leave for university at 7 30 am in morning.

Haha... it feels like I am thinking by writing. For a second I felt so lazy in writing today's blog but its really easy to write your thoughts only. Because it does not require extra effort to think. You just think on your laptop keyboard! Alexey is right now listening to an awesome 80's powerballad and really like it. Those rock ballads were so monstrous and awe-inspiring. They still give me shivers and jitters sometimes. And so does any good music. Oh yes!! Eva came up with a really awesome song for the chord progression she had thought out. I think it is an incredible song. In fact, when she showed it to me, I thought its like U2's 'I won't go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight'.

A lot of these thoughts and talk looks disjointed but its because I did not write a lot of stuff for a while, and I feel too lazy to write it all down. So many new people have come in to my life. So many things are changing with time that sometimes you are yourself surprised. It takes a while to even fill up a journal if I miss 2-3 days, so it definitely would be tough to write the chronology of everything since I came to US last July. All I can say is that things have been pretty fast but pretty good!

:)