I'm going to die.

Reading week was a waste thanks to yours truly. I got next to nothing done. All the bio that I was supposed to do, the writing project, the geography essay, Human bio ki assignment and neurobio. OH MAN and the tops of it all...I realised that march the 2nd was indeed this friday and NOT NEXT WEEK. This meant that my eversohard and uberlyimpossible genetics midterm is this week. Yes, I, the dumbass, forgot that february has 28 days and NOT 30 damn days. March starts this week. wtf?

Total Dumbassness. Its not bad enough that I have a Haemoglobin lab kal subha, I have to prep my midterm too.As the famous Sadaf panic line goes, " I am going to DIE".

Monsoon.

She sat in her bed while watching the glass window in front of her sweat. Condensation in this chilly winter afternoon caused the glass to be all misty and grey. It was a sad shade of grey that the window became. It acted like a filter and everything seemed grey through it. It was beautiful, in a blurry, depressed way. There wasn't much you could see but the sound of honking and the loud noise that the pouring rain would make against the steel roofs of the houses next door. After listening to the same sounds, she picked up a pattern of sounds amist the madness of the Pindi traffic.

She was smiling after a week. It had been a week since it last poured like that. She hadn't slept in a week and the laid back ambience of the warm room in the cold afternoon made her drowsy. Ambreen loved the silence of the appartment on a rainy day. It reminded her of her mother. She had fallen sick in the monsoon season when Ambreen was thirteen. She had caught malaria when she left Pindi to see her family in Bagh. Since she came back, she had been sick for the whole monsoon season. Ambreen remembered sitting by her Amma's bedside and telling her about what happened at school everyday. She would talk her heart out to her mother, who lay in bed quietly. The room would be quiet as Ambreen paused between each story/account of the day she told her mother. All she would hear in those pauses was rain on rooftops, the traffic and her mother’s slow but sure breaths.

Asif, her dad knew of his wife's approaching death and he was shattered by that fact. He couldn't have afforded to buy her medications that she needed to get better. He could barely afford Ambreen’s school fees and house rent. Living in the big city was hard, much harder than the simple life in Bagh. He moved to the city with big dreams and hopes of making it big and giving his family a good life. He had a daughter and he wanted to give her the best future ever. He wanted to educate her and have her choose a life partner that she could be proud of and not some middle aged villager who was interested in dowry and a young(er) wife. He refused many proposals in the village knowing the men were the kind who beat their women, had multiple wives and spent their days ordering women around/objectifying them.

Ambreen smiled at the memories that rain brought back_ The memories she still liked to visit once in a while. She saw her reflection in the mirror and it broke her heart. It wasn’t bad enough that she missed her mother or that her habits resembled her. She was also a mirror image of her mother when she was her age. She was tall and slender, had long brown hair that she always wore in a black paranda and wore the nose ring that her mother had passed down to her. It was the same nose ring her grandmother had given her mother. It was the only thing of her mother’s that she got after she passed away.

Ambreen put her head down on the bed for a little while. She was tired of all the nostalgia and didn’t want to cry yet another time that she decided to go down memory lane. She was about to fall asleep when she heard the door bell ring. Ambreen ran to the door while covering her head with her shawl. She was in such a rush that she knocked over a vase of her way to the door. She opened the door to Karim, her husband, who had just come home from work. Upon seeing the broken vase on the floor, he threw the water in the glass right across Ambreen’s face. He grabbed her slim self by the arm and pushed her on to the bed, where he kept his cane. What followed next was not pleasant. She spent another afternoon getting beaten up. Her semi-healed bruises became sore again. This time, the pain was just a tad more than the last time.

After Karim was done, he would go and take a shower while she dragged herself to the kitchen to heat his food.

Yes, she found it ironic how she ended up being with the same kind of a man that her father had refused to get her married to in the village. He was no village fool but rather her (smart?) husband from the city who still picked his cane over any conversation with a woman.

Postsecret.

Postsecret hit a home run with this postcard. I check the site once or twice a month and never has anything felt so close to heart. I find a lot of the 'secrets' posted to be very different from anything in my life. Most of the times, things that people confess here scare me but not this time.

This particular postcard is basically everything rolled into a one liner that describes it all- nothing more, nothing less. As good as it feels to not be alone in this feeling, its also sad that someone else is going through what I'm feeling. Its sad that I still haven't learnt to be able to say it on my own. Its hard when you feel this awkward in your own skin. Everyday, I live a life that I could've never imagined. Even with all its posiitives, its still a life very foreign to me. Yeah, its a strange life and this strange feeling that I've never felt before.I do miss the way I used to feel.

Cinamon Dolce.

The kitchen smelled of spicy cinnamon and warm espresso under the blanket of snow on Christmas eve 1976. Alex had finally arrived home from a long six years away in Vienna.He remembered leaving Milan while he was a young boy - a mere twenty year old. He had big dreams of seeing the world outside Milan and outside Italy. He wanted to be the Italian chef in the foreign city who people talked about for miles and miles. He wanted to be the Italian that the whole of this foreign city dined with and now six years later, he finally got what he wanted. He was on fire in Vienna with everyone loving him and his food.

In Vienna, he was the champ, the Iron Chef of the country but back home was a different story. His mom, his mentor, his Tita-bella made more miracles in the kitchen that Alex had ever seen. She taught him to cook, to love food and to bring life to seemingly lifeless ingrediants. She was the only keepsake that he took with him when he left Italy and the only one that he came back home for.

He had a smile on his face when he entered his mother's kitchen. Tita was sitting in chair by the shelf and mending dough for her special christmas pizza. She had her toppings worked out. It was going to be red onions, olives, prachuto, mozarella, a hint of feta along with spinich, sun-dried tomatoes and pecans. Bruchetta with cheese and a garlic drizzle were on the side pan while her spiced cinnamon flan was baking in the oven.

Alex watched his mother while she finished the dough and finished putting the tomato sauce on the pizza dough. She got up to wash her hands and was walking towards the sink when She saw Alex walk towards her with open arms. She ran towards her son with an open embrace and tears in her eyes. She cried louder now that he hugged her. Without saying a word, she sat him down on the chair, poured some him some of her home brewed espresso and cut him a piece of his favourite flan. Her damp eyes sparkled when he called her mama. She had tears of joy in her eyes when bit right into the heavenly flan that he adored when he was growing up.

She just saw him eat and sobbed silently. He couldn't help smiling. It was great to be home. He could smell the cinnamon dolce in the air around him. There was silence in the air which smelled of cinnamon from the flan.So what if she was a mute, he could see all she was saying and wanted to say in her eyes.

Since christmas eve 1970, this was the first time that Tita didn't throw away all the christmas food that she had prepared. The flan had never tasted sweeter. This year was the first year in six years that her flan didn't go salty because of her saline tears. It was a nice, warm christmas even amist the mounds of snow.

I am an ass. She is my best friend. Poor girl=p

says:
shama
shama says:
hello
. says:
when do you have off this week?
shama says:
all week
shama says:
working on weekends
. says:
as in work
. says:
ok ok cool
. says:
kal miltay hain thorncliffe mein
shama says:
y thornecliffe?
shama says:
y not my house?
. says:
I need to get a doctor's appt so I will go there and get that done and meet you at the same time
. says:
come over to my place:?
. says:
haha
shama says:
nahi...get ur appointment and then come to my house
. says:
nai, tu meri taraf aa
. says:
this house thing won't work hah
shama says:
y not?>
. says:
why not my place?
shama says:
i've already come to ur house so many times and its been over a yr u didnt come over
shama says:
u know my mom wont let me come over to ur house
. says:
honey, you came to my house once and that too for aunty
shama says:
but i did didnt i?
. says:
i dont want to come to your place(not to sound bitchy)
shama says:
u hvnt even come for me or for anyone else
shama says:
then fine am not coming to thorncliff either (not to sound bitchy either)
. says:
okay
. says:
another place or we just not meeting?
shama says:
first tell me wht problem u hv wid my house ?
. says:
its not your house
. says:
i have no problems whatsoever
shama says:
then?
. says:
guess
shama says:
hes my dad sadaf
. says:
i know
. says:
and i just wouldnt feel comfortable there now that he is here
. says:
it sounds really aweful of me to say that but thats why i didnt want to bring in the house thing
shama says:
he wont be here all day tomrro
. says:
I would love to see you but I don't feel comfortable coming to your place
. says:
its not much to ask. i will just say hi and go
. says:
you won't even have to waste your day with me
shama says:
fine then tomorrow i am going downtown to proncess margaret hopistal and will be back arnd 10:30ish
shama says:
so i'll meet u in mall
shama says:
is tht ok?
. says:
no
. says:
what time do you get home?
shama says:
10:30
. says:
what time should i come by?
shama says:
u said u hv to make doctors apontmt na
shama says:
so i'll be at the mall by 10:30
shama says:
come then
shama says:
coz ek bar ghar chali gayi toh i wont be able to get out
. says:
come by to your place bandi
shama says:
oh
shama says:
change of plans???;p;z
shama says:
lolz
. says:
unless you want me not to
shama says:
come anytime
. says:
understandable hai
. says:

shama says:
he wont be home til late nite arnd 10
shama says:
shut up
. says:
yaar, i was playing with you
. says:
tu mujhay serious samjhi
shama says:
ya ya
. says:
kassam
shama says:
ne need
. says:
i m sitting here laughing
shama says:
i hate u
shama says:
then
. says:
i was like yeh kab break hogi
shama says:

. says:
i was waiting for something like ' sadaf, you and i dosti khatam speech'
. says:
HAHAHA
shama says:
khadi duffer
shama says:
lolz
shama says:
u think i am like tht?
. says:
I have your birthday present too
shama says:
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
shama says:
my b'day present
. says:
no, but i was making my bitchy move
shama says:
u remembered???????????
. says:
aur tuney usko bi pick ni kia
. says:
dumbass I have known you for seven yrs
shama says:

. says:
you expect me to forget
shama says:
u do
shama says:

. says:
pagal
. says:
why you going to the hospital?
shama says:
u forgot th year b4 last
. says:
are you living there aaj kal?
. says:
psycho ward mein?
shama says:
haan yaar
. says:
hey, i m not perfect okayy

I think Shama needs new friends and soon.HAHAHA <3.

Frankie is my homeboy=D

Frank Lombardi(aka Frankie):

Frank Lombardi, a 27-year-old contracting company founder from Bronx, New York

Frank was raised in Bronx, New York, attending Westchester Community College and graduating from the POHS Institute of Insurance. Eager to make his mark in the world, he launched his own company when he was just 21 years old and turned it into a multi-million dollar construction firm. He also helped launched a high-tech computer company that can connect remotely to any computer on the internet to fix personal computers in minutes without consumers ever having to leave their home or office. With a true passion for construction, Frank spends his spare time looking for new real estate development opportunities, and also enjoys spending time with friends. "I should be the next Apprentice," Frank says, "because I possess the confidence to rise to any occasion and my charismatic personality allows me to handle any situation with ease."

(NBC)

He will win!He better win!HAHAH I love online TV. Watching 5 episodes of Apprentice in one day still having time to clean the dusty ol' room. Ahh, Reading week is a blessing!heh.

And Tim and Nicole=So cute, so very cute.

Set the fire to the third bar.

He poured some cognac into his glass. It was third drink in the last hour. Memphis was a lonely place on summer nights. Bars would be empty past 11 and this night was no exception. Frank was the first one in and the last man out every july night.He would look at people walk in and walk out of the bar whilst he waited for Christine.

She was a dancer and he was a US Marine. He would spend summers in Memphis where he would bask in Elvis' everlasting music and see his sweetheart. He was a musicain at heart and a Marine by profession. He was a tough soldier and razor sharp with the gun but he was a sucker for Christine. She was his highschool sweetheart and his 'girl back home'. She was a ballerina and taught most, if not all, of aspiring dancers in town since she returned from Julliars.She went to Julliars Dance Academy in order to leave town and go away when he was concripted into the Army. She was nineteen and he was twenty one when the war changed their plans of getting married and raising a family.

It had been six years since the july they were picking out tuxedos and wedding gowns. Even after six years during which they saw each other for a total of only six months combined, they were still madly in love like before. Jerry, the bar owner, remembered their youth and he always said that for these two, 'it was as if the war had never happened'. They would meet every fourth of july, skip the fireworks and meet at Jerry's bar where they would recap the whole year, share christmas and birthday presents and listen to Elvis. July four was like new years for them as they would rejoice with each other to their heart's content. They would talk for hours and then finish the night by playing to an empty bar. He would crack open the old piano while she strutted her stuff around the dance floor with a mic in her hand. They would go through classics like 'she's not you' and 'Who I am' while the whole country celebrated independence day.

The night would end with them setting fire to the third bar as they would dance under the starlit july sky. He would give her all the love she missed all year and he would get to be the same nineteen year old Frankie with Christie in a bar.

listening to: Set the fire to the third bar by Snow Patrol

Hollow.

“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.”


- The Count of Monte Cristo

this is it.

edit:(<3:$, thankyoooo)
When you are living a very hectic academic week which is also the week right before reading week, you can't afford being lazy or tired. After being on campus for over 25 hours in the last two days, my mind is toast.You commute for two hours. You come home, you say salam to everyone, you dump your bag and books down and you run to change out of layers and layers of clothes you wear to stay warm. You eat, you take a painkiller, you wash your face with cold water and settle down onto your laptop. You pull up the Bio Primary Papers and print it off. You read, you highlight, you type notes. You 'try' to understand. You then do your lab which is bound to keep you up for the night(again). You hate your computer now, it gives you a headache.So you take a break, minimise your word documents, close excel and you rest. You lose all the fatigue when you see the man, GlennMcgrath on your computer background. You smile now. You are happy(er). You wish for the most badass world cup ever, you day dream about hatricks, centuries, boundaries and larger than large sixers. You can feel the crowd and the adrenaline. Thats the sport. He is the sport.

You look back to being twelve and watching him on the screen for the first ever time. You liked his hair back then. You didn't understand the sport but you watched, quietly. You didn't know you would live to love cricket for the next seven years and more. He inspired you to watch and even want to play cricket. Alas, if you had a brother, he probably would have taught you but Sarah and I are fans nevertheless and will remain. All because of this one man! He will retire this year though, no more ODIs with him. Test cricket will always miss him. We will always miss him. He will always be the man we always prayed for even if he could make or break our very own home team. He is a star, a superstar=).

One more day and this week is over!and 25 days till greatness!=D

Normal Days.

I still think Teri Deewani by Kailash Kher is one of the bestest love songs I have ever heard. I love his voice, the words and ofcourse the video. I am not one who has stories of romances to tell, nor do I have stories of romances gone 'bad', but I do beleive that when love will happen, it would feel like the song. Pure and powerful. It sounds foolish but meh, I stand by it.

Till then Valentines is just a day. Any day. Any normal day.

Love will tear us apart.

When the routine bites hard
And ambitions are low
And the resentment rides high
But emotions wont grow
And were changing our ways,
Taking different roads
Then love, love will tear us apart again

(Love will tear us apart / Susanna and The Magical Orchestra)


Breathtaking. Must see/listen.

brave days.

I am so uninspired today. It better not ruin my monday. I have a zoo lab report along with a bio pre lab to finish before I hit the sac tonight. Lots to do! Mondays are brave days. To sit through an hour of Zoology followed by 3 hours of Bio in the same room is the mauttt. ESC1024 is the devil. I live in the earth sciences center from 5-9 on mondays and the 2 hour commute after so is evil. evil.
I want massala fries for lunch!Mayo+fries+chaat massala+big bad glass of coke=YUM. I eat like a 'man' as Aila says. So untrue:$

Muniba is off to Sydney in 8 days. She is from the UAE. She came to Canada and now off to Australia for 4 years. That kid has rockets under her heels hence she is perfect for her aerospace engineering program. May she find Glenn McGrath and steal him for me. Amen!

World cup next month!OWNAGE month:D
(despite the assignments and other 'stuff')haha.

Sunday nights.

Sunday nights are such a lonely time in the after hours. When you can hear the radiator's rythm and hear your breaths under the silence of the night, its a daunting feeling. School work isn't much company. No No.

Sorry seems to be the hardest word.

Elton John said,

It's sad, so sad
It's a sad, sad situation
And it's getting more and more
absurd
It's sad, so sad
Why can't we talk it over
Oh it seems to
me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word

I beleived him when he said that so I always found it hard to ever apoligize to anyone(despite of being right or wrong). I always thought that I was right in my way. I followed it for long(almost 20 years of my arrogant life) and then suddenly today, something in me changed. I said sorry, not once but three times to three different people. People that I had been hurtful to and for a long time, over and over again. I am not a bigger person today because I said sorry to them. I have a lot more apologies to go before I reach home, reach closure. Its a long way to go but I wll live. I will kill the hurt I caused or try to mend it somehow.

I don't want to live in my regrets anymore. I won't always live in regrets. I won't.

For once..

I wish, I wouldn't get angry.

:(

vintage times: in the name of love.

I just found my journal from six years ago and it brought back such a bitter harsh reality. Although it seems like I have grown so much since that kid who used to write in her own journal in third person with an alias to cover her own identity, afraid someone found the book and read it.

Sarah, my sister, did read it though and it was bad. It was worse today though. I thought that I was all grown up for that 13 year old. I was supposed to laugh at that kids's confessions, entries, her header(Dear/dearest diary). Hah. Its the complete reverse though, the almost twenty year old in me is jelous/envious/some what embarassed of that 13 year old. Its like looking into a mirror that tells you the truth and shows you all your short comings.

I used to be that girl in that book who let all her secrets out into every page of that book despite covering herself under that alias. Even after almost 2 years of blogging, I haven't conjured half the courage that that kid had.

Resolution for future blogging: No more secrets.

I am glad that I found it today and that I read it. Now, I don't need anyone to tell me who I was/am/supposed to be, its all there.. in my little green book with yellow pages and blue ink. All of it and I won't burn it. No, siree!

edit: wow, it does feel good :)

Feb. 7, 07.

I put pins on my knapsack. Thats how important this is!
Its the day to make changes. I am off to Queenspark. Voting, campaigning, petitoning and freezing to freeze tuition fees. Its one heck of an important day for us in Toronto. For all of us students and more, lets get this freeze on!

Italian.

I want to go to Italy sometime in my life. The sooner, the better actually. I will apply for a few journalism or FAO internships for the summer just so that I can have a (tiny if so) chance of breathing the air under the Italian sky. Its technically the same sky that we have here in Toronto, or that we had in Nepal or Kashmir but something about Italy is so welcoming.

Abu says its gorgeous but its very expensive. He says that the food is awesome and people are so well dressed. People are more well-mannered and cultural there. Its about time I go there and find out for myself and ofcourse part of that gorgoeus tour would be renting a car(any car) and driving it through the streets of Rome, Milan, Naples and ofcourse Venice(sigh). I want to see The Vatican before going anywhere else though.

I wish I had money though to afford all the stuff that I want to see in Italy. Either I get one of those summer internships or I am starting to save lunch money and go for my perfectest European Vacation. This time I want to see more than London and Paris. I want to drive all through Italy and then go to Southern france and walk through a vinyard with my brown fendi scarf on my head(for fun's sake). I want to make homemade cheese and window shop at all the Chanel stores in Champs Elysees.

Or .

Maybe I should quit dreaming with my eyes wide open and sighing at the thought of Italy and Europle. Forget about the summer now(Godforbid who knows the number of atrocities that might bring/may be followed by). I think its the weather thats making my mind wander or just the fact that I have a hyperactive imagination. For now, I will settle for ceaser salad with italian dressing but I am not giving up on Italy just yet:)

Somehow this is the only way it doesn't seem to be overdone.

back to basics.

rock n' roll, baby!?!

I love my haircut and I will brag about it because I am, from what I beleive, a mutant carrier(with 100% penetrance) of the premature balding gene. HAHA I have thin hair but Uzma Aunty's scissors are awesome.The hair looks half decent. I have short hair but its very rock and roll. Fringes ftw:D

It has so much more insaniyat in it. Yay.

And midterm one for the semester in less than 2 weeks. yikes!:(

Mantra: I wish.

"Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as this is all there is."

- Mary Anne Radmacher