My blogs are starting to follow my academic calendar. I haven’t been able to blog (again) during the semester and I guess its probably cause of all the pressure u r in and has nothing to do with finding the time which is a ridiculous excuse by my standards.

Anyways this semester was tough and I mean really tough. We had such boring courses and on top of that we had the horrible instructors. I ended up screwing up my GPA and that’s all I have to say about my studies cause I don’t want to look back at those horrible days. We had a few new people joining our class and they are the ones who did their BCS from IBA and are now back for their MBA degree. Most of them are nice but there are some with whom I as well my group members don’t get along well with.

These days Im enjoying my vacations or atleast was enjoying them but now Im getting tensed as we have to do our Internship this summer and so far I have been unable to find one. For the first time in my life I have been rejected in an interview and it’s a real morale breaker. I always had this inner confidence that if I get an interview call, I’ll get in but all this is changing and I don’t like it one bit.  I guess I just cant run away from IT as I still think like a software engineer and still love that world.

Anyways herez a list of memorable things that have happened over the past few months:

• FIFA 07 PS2 championship: that’s how we relieve pressure, by playing FIFA on PS2 all night long with each other.
• Went fishing with friends after the final exams and man that was fun and boring at the same time.
• Nadal closes on his third consecutive Roland Garos title and the final is this Sunday and he is going to kick Federer’s ass…again :)

Don’t think of my life as boring, a lot of other interesting and important things have happened but I want them to stay private :P

• August 1, 2006 Orientation Day - Missed it thanks to the rainfalls and the sucky KPT underpass designers...there was knee high water outside my place and there was no way I could have made it to IBA
• August 3, 2006 Day 1 - It was raining outside, my car wasnt working and I got all wet by the time I reached the bus stop...so I headed back home, changed into my suckiest t-shirt and put a good one and a towel in the bag as I planned on changing it once I get to IBA but what do u know...there was a taxi waiting just for me downstairs I didnt get wet when I reached IBA and my hair and T-shirt were a total mess and I roamed around in that condition the whole day...yea I know it sucks no need to tell me :P
• Week 1 - By the end of the first week my memories of the first few days were gone when I had a misserable time at the IBA...but at the end of the week I had adjusted and found good company to roam around with...
• 1st Hourlies - I ended up messing most of them up as I didnt paid much attention to them...hey they were all n-1
• BITS Elections - The studnet body that we MBA-MIS students belong to is called BITS (Business and IT Students). The elections were being held and the campaigns were on but at the end the VP, Treasurer and General Secretary were elected and so far they have proved themselves to be incompitent...havent done a single thing...morons
• 2nd Hourlies - all of them went superb in a sense that they were a lot better than the first one except for the Marketing one which was a disaster and I wasnt the only one on that disasterous ship.
• 3rd Hourlies - The pressure was really getting on, last hourly and u had to score good marks if u ever want to see ur GPA go above 3. but thankfully they all worked out for the best... got the highest marks in Marketing and IBF (Intro to Business Finance).
• Welcome Dinner - Finally we got our welcome dinner... it was fun in its own way but not as much fun as we were expecting...
• Projects Time - the toughest few weeks of my life...we had to work day and night just to meet the deadlines and projects were the worst of them all...every other day we had to submit a term report due and that week just drained all the batteries...but we did it, met all those deadlines.
• Finals - Aaagghh finals are here...so much to do, so little time...when the hell are they going to end... just end... 3 hours paper... and all that shit was all I could think about and when they finally ended I couldnt even enjoy it cause of one riddiculous thing that happened in the last hour of the last paper... it sucks

well thats most of all that has happened, results have already started coming in and so far they haven been that great thanks to IBF...for the record I hate Finance...the next semester starts from Jan 4, 2007 and this time I'l try to blog more often...

Have u ever felt that what u r doing is just worthless and that u r meant for made for something bigger…like its ur destiny to do great things in life...

I guess its just one of those days that makes u feel that way…you are waiting for something bigger to just appear, something bigger to drop by and like its just around the corner… Im just tired of waiting and want it to come now

March 18^th, the tour begins. Im at the airport on my way to attend a cousins wedding in Lahore, the wedding is on the 19^th and valima on the 20^th. I took a weeks leave from the office just to be there. It seems as if I only get to go to Lahore for weddings cause the last time I went there, it was to attend another cousins wedding and that was more than 3 years ago. Anyways I reached Lahore early morning and spent the afternoon & evening at my cousins place. I did went to my khalla’s house for a short time in between and to Liberty aswell (went with my mom and went there to roam around and kill time). A dholki was also planned for that night which was okay but the real fun was after the dholki when we all sat down and talked and talked for hours and than went to Purani Anarkali for kulfis and that after 2 am. We came back home after 3 and I straight away went to bed.

The wedding was next day and I ended up spending most part of the day at home and hardly needed to do anything as far as the wedding arrangements were concerned (they were all taken care off). The nikkah was scheduled for the afternoon after Zuhr and my afternoon was spent there. The guy who gave the khutba was really impressive. Hez a professor at LUMS and came only cause my cousins requested it to him. Let me tell u, the guy was really impressive he holds a degree from Columbia University and has spent the greater part of his life in the US and came back after graduating and spent 7 years in a Madressah and learned about Islam (and here we are who take this religion of ours for granted). That guy surely has the knowledge and the commitment towards Islam. Anyways back to the wedding, the venue was nearby and it was good (I mean the whole wedding was good) and I played the role of a driver to some extent and let me tell u one thing, the traffic there sucks…seems as if the city is filled with jangli’s with no road sense…and people say the traffic here in Karachi is bad…lets see them drive in Lahore and say that again. The food at the wedding was damn good. People say that therez something in the water there which increases ur appetite and that’s exactly what happened with me, I ate a lot more there than I usually eat here and those who have seen me know that Im not a big eater and have a less than average appetite (don’t count my appetite for Pizza’s). Therez a strict ban on serving meals at weddings here in Karachi but no such strictness seems to be in place over there and serving food at weddings is a common spectacle there. I have nothing to complain cause I enjoyed eating those meals J.

Monday 20^th March: The valima was tonight and again I spent the whole day doing nothing while I should have been out roaming the city. I couldn’t do that cause didn’t have anyone who falls into my age group to go with, the only cousin of mine who could do that was busy with his studies. Finally the sun and valima time was approaching. We all got dressed and went to the valima, all had a little chit-chat and again fed our self to the delicious Lahori meals and again the food was damn good especially the kabab’s.

Tuesday 21^st March: The wedding scene ended and my mum and sister were going back to Karachi in the evening. This was the first day I really went out, went to LUMS with my cousins and was totally impressed with it, the campus is just too good and u don’t really need to check out the studies there, u can hear applauses about it from everyone in the industry. My cousins gave me a tour of the campus which lasted for more than hour including the time spent at the lab burning the pics taken from my camera to a CD. Once that was all done I was back on my way home. After an hour of getting home I went to drop off my mom and sister to the airport. Oh I forgot to mention that there was another dinner at my mamu’s place (that’s where I was staying) and I after coming from the airport that’s where I was.

Wednesday 22^nd March: There was nothing much to do and I spent most part of the day at home watching TV. Later in the evening I went out for dinner with my mamu, mami, cousins and their kids. We all went to the food street, not the Gwalmandi one but to another food street at Purani Anarkali.

Thursday 23^rd March: I had a long bus ride waiting ahead of me. I was going to Islamabad through Daewoo Bus Express at 12. I reached the bus stop at 11:45 and just imagine my luck, I got the last seat on the bus which was at the end. There goes my comfi ride…well that’s what I thought but it wasn’t that bad. The trip from Lahore to Islamabad took 4 and a half hours. I was in Rawalpindi by 4:30 pm and from there I had to catch a shuttle to Islamabad. I ended up waiting half an hour for that cause I missed the first one. By 5:30 I was in Islamabad and my chachi picked me up from there. I went over to my Taya’s house. I saw their new home for the first time and it deserves every praise u get to hear about. The last time I was in this city was 7 years ago and back than I was just too young (and stupid) to enjoy being there. Even though I was born in Islamabad and spent the early years of my life there, I never enjoyed being there however this time it was different, I loved being there. Anyways back to thursday, my cousins at whose place I planned on staying were in Karachi (my home town/city) but luckily another cousin of mine reached Islamabad from Lahore, a few hours after I came so I went over to their place and spent the night there, watched a movie and stayed there.

Friday 24^th March: I woke up early (11 am is early for me on an off day) and after breakfast went with my cousin to pick my chachi & cousins (they were also in town from Karachi) and had a fun time teasing my cute little cousin who was just shocked to see me (wish I had my camera with me to capture that look on her face). After that it was Namaz time and I was on my way to the Mosque (don’t give me that shit about using the word mosque). Once we were back from prayers, we had dinner and it was after that when the real trip to Islamabad started (all thanks to my cousins). We went for a drive in city and I took loads of photographs (thanks to my bro for sending me my own digi-cam). We first went to Quaid-e-Azam University from where we picked up another cousin of mine (yes I have a lot of cousins). After picking her up, I was showed all the major buildings and monuments that are in Islamabad and I took a picture of each and everyone including the Margalla Tower (the building that fell down in the tragic earthquake that struck our great nation last year). We also went to Damn-e-Koh (that’s a mountain / peak) in Islamabad and that’s where I took a lot of photographs.

Later that night we went out for dinner and till that time, I had it all planned out… I was going back home to Karachi early morning from there but as soon after that I got a call from my cousin in Lahore, who came by road all the way from Karachi in her car, that his son is sick and she’l be going to Karachi by air and someone has to bring her car back with her husband and that someone is me…so I immediately cancelled my seat and started planning for the morning. Went to bed early as I had to catch an early bus to Lahore.

Saturday 25^th March: Woke up very very early at 5:30 am… my cousin dropped me off at the bus terminal and I took a 6am bus to Lahore… it wasn’t full so I got a seat in the middle and spent half of the trip sleeping and half of it watching a movie which I had already seen it… I reached Lahore at 11am…took a shower, had a breakfast cum Lunch and we were on our way to Karachi by road. This was perhaps the most adventurous part of the whole trip. I drove almost 40% of the trip and the road was better than okay, the average road speed throughout the trip was more than 100kmh. It rained heavily on the way for almost an hour and only because of that we lost 3 hours of the trip in the flooded streets of Multan. Once we were out of Multan things went smoothly as u can expect, we didn’t cover as much distance as we were expecting.

Sunday 26^th March: The road trip continues… at 2am we were in Rahim Yaar Khan, we were 4-5 hours behind schedule (didn’t have one). Over there we had a cup of tea and finding a place for that was tough, everything was closed at that time in that small city. We also planned on spending the night there but instead decided to drive at night as well but people there advised us not to travel at night as the area from Sadiqabad to Sukkur is very dangerous to travel on at night. That’s because a lot of robberies take place over there at night. We decided to listen to there warning and stopped over at Sadiqabad. Since we only had to sleep for a few hours as it was already past 3am and sun was about to rise, we decided not to get a room and instead spent those hours sleeping in Mosque adjacent to a Total’s Petrol Station. We only slept for a few hours and were back on the road at 5am…covered a lot of distance in the morning and crossed Sukkur, Hala, Hyderabad and a few other places and reached Karachi at 2:30pm. It was good to be back home, the dugged up roads, garbage dumps, hot weather, etc. were all the sites I had missed over the past week.

The conclusion: The trip was more than an adventure I could have dreamed about…had a fun time in Lahore and Islamabad. The only regret I had while in Islamabad was that I didn’t get to drive my Taya’s Mercedes but don’t worry will do that the next time Im there. The drive from Lahore to Karachi was the best part of all…Iv decided that Im going to do this one more time and will drive from Karachi to Lahore and beyond…soon

Lets make it a night to remember… that’s exactly what it was, a night to remember in Karachi. It was the 29th of January 2006 and for the first time a notable western singer performed in Pakistan and it was no other than the Canadian Bryan Adams. That’s right Bryan Adams rocked for a cause and I was there. I wasn’t ready to miss this show but I wasn’t ready to pay for the show and I didn’t, got the tickets free of cost from a friend of a friend. Thanks dude. Anyways the show was just tooooo damn good. Bryan Adams performed for a cause and it was Shahzad Roy (who we all know sucks) who bought him to our town for a charity event. More than 10,000 people and I was one of them rocking to the beat of Summer of 69 and loads of other tracks. He performed for around 2 hours live and boy did that guy had the stamina to perform for such a long time without a break. Our local Pakistani singers need to learn something from him, they can hardly perform for an hour and most of the time its not even live. Those phonies have a recording running in the background and are only lip singing.

It was a sight to see, the Karachities showed that they can handle such events. More than 10,000 people and no phadda’s or anything and there was hardly any security personnel in the crowd. The notable comments came from none other than Shahzad Roy at the start of the show when he said “We have proved one thing here that Karachi is a safe city for events like these” and he is right about that. Now I cant wait for such events in the future and lets hope that U2 comes and performs here.

So how did my journey to the far off place started. Im not joking Country Club is a far off place. I drove 140 KM that’s day. It all started a night before the concert when a friend of mine (Saqib) told me that he was unable to arrange tickets for me. I was disappointed but believe it or not I knew that something would come up. So the very next day (the day of the concert) Saqib comes up to me in the morning and says “ho geya” it turned out that a friend of his wasn’t going to the concert and gave 4 tickets to Saqib and I got one of them. We picked up the tickets from his friends place and than our journey started. Came back home, got dressed and we were on our way to the Country Club. I picked up my car and was the one driving. Had to pick up a few people on the way that led me to the 3 corners of Karachi. First picked a friend from DHA Phase 1, than another friend from SMCHS, another from Gulshan and than drove some 30 km to the Country Club. It took us more than us approximately one hour and 30 minutes just to get there. At 19:00 we were finally inn, standing inside the venue along with thousands of people.

The show started a little later than the schedule time and Shahzad Roy came and sang a few of his looser songs. The only thing worth noting is that he didn’t performed for his personal glory and only performed for a half an hour a little less or more. The real show started when Bryan Adams came up to the stage at around 21:15 and immediately started rocking. We were expecting that he would start of with Here I am but instead sang a song from his new album, which by the way I haven’t heard it and didn’t recognized the song. Bryand Adams than shared 2 song with Shahzad Roy and after that it was all Bryan Adams. The crowd was going crazy and the way they made the stage was just too cool. The lightings were superb (the couples really enjoyed themselves :)…) the arrangement was extra-ordinary, a superb job by the management. Bryan wasn’t ready for the Pakistani public cause they refused to leave even after he left the stage. They kept calling him out and the poor soul came out 3 times just for us. He didn’t came out the 4^th time infact on his 3^rd time he started off by saying “this is my last song after that I have to go and eat something…” and his last two songs came without the support of his band and that was perhaps the best performance of the show and Cloud Number 9 was just too much to handle. The concert finally ended with a fireworks show and that too was just too good. The event was superbly managed, organized and held and the final fireworks knock with the fireworks was totally unexpected.

At 23:30 we were back in the car on our way home but decided to make a pit stop for Karhii and after that I dropped off my friends at their homes and at 02:30 in the morning I was at home, exhausted and lying on my bed.

The pics here have been taken from my cell which arent that good. For more clear pics visit http://diaryofawicked.blogspot.com/2006/01/bryan-adams.html

4 years ago in Fall 2001, a bunch of young men and women enrolled in the Undergraduate program at PAF-KIET. All trying to figure out their place in the universe. Yesterday most of them bided their farewell to a place that has been their home away from home. 17^th December 2005 was our convocation day, the day when we got our degrees and can claim to be graduates.

The time we spent at PAF-KIET will surely be remembered by us. We saw the institute rise from its infancy to a center of learning. We hated that place for as long as we were in it but now looking back at those years, I realize that they weren’t that bad. I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. The friendships formed there will surely last throughout my life time. There were 28 of us in the first semester but regretfully only 7 of us graduated that day, some were enrolled in a shorter version of the program and graduated last year while the others are yet to graduate. A class of 28 saw its numbers reduced over the years with some of them leaving the institute while others were kicked out.

The only thing I regret is that our class was never a class. We never really connected in a way that you connect with the people you are studying with a spending a great portion of your day with. Our group was a group, we did everything together from sitting together in the class, hanging out during free sessions, going out to the Dhaba for chai and Anda ghutaala, going out for dinner, study nights, projects, etc. you name it and we did it. If it wasn’t for my group mates, I would have gone insane over the years. We were all ready to go out on a short notice, no excuses. Our group was of Me, Khurram, Owais and Arsalan. We had a few other people that came in and left Kashif and Asher. Kashif still hangs around with us and like us is always ready to hang out but unlike us hez never up for studies (no offence dude). It would be selfish of me to miss out on the other class mates of mine who were not always but most the time with us and deserve to be named here, they were Umair,  SAM and Muzammil. Apart from that Sanya, Sadia, Sana, Nawaf, Asad, Ali, etc. hanged around with us inside the campus.

The other thing I wont forget our my teachers, we had great teachers like Sir. Usman Waheed, Amanullah, Arshad Baig, Sohail Imran, Emad Abdullah, Rauf Malick, etc. Some of the others were SOB's and unsincere to their work and their only aim in life was to get some respect the only way they could and i.e. by being teachers. I do feel sorry for KIET, when we joined it, the Computer Science Department was the best, it had a damn good faculty who was sincere to their work and wanted to make us something. Then we saw its decline with our Head of the Department leaving and the good part of the faculty followed his steps.  Im really thankful that I had the opportunity to learn something from them before they left. Regretfully now going back to the institute and looking at the students make me feel sick, what the hell are they teaching them, those assholes dont know anything.

Now, coming to the last part of my blog: The Convocation Day

The day didn't started like everyother day, it was my convocation day and had to be different. I reached the institute around 17:00 (30 mins late, and it was all worth it). Upon reaching I mingled around with my batch mates and the other people who were in the convocation with us. We followed the program schedule that was handed to us on the rehearsal day which included a group photo session. After the photos session we formed the Academic Procession and stood in it for hours before it finally marched. These are the kind of things that make you hate PAF-KIET. Anyways the procession marched on with the arrival of the Chief Guest Dr. Hamida Khuro, Education Minister, Sind. The chief guest was supposed to be the Governor of Sind but he couldn’t make if due to the PM being in town. We settled down on the chairs next to the stage and waited for about 2 hours for the boring, never ending speeches to end and our names to be called. Finally the speeches ended and they started calling us on the stage. The convocation was not perfect, nothing is. They messed up here and there with the biggest being our names being called out of sequence. During the rehearsals they kept on saying don’t change your seats once you are settled as this may lead to your names being called out of order. Well it seems those idiots didn’t need our help to mess it up as they messed up the names list and we were called out of sequence. The convocation was so damn boring but what really pissed me off was the way our names were called up by Arshad Nadeem. He was calling our names as if someone had a gun up his ass and would shoot it while the nozzle was still inside his ass. He was calling as if he was being forced to call the names. Anyways coming back to the point, my name was finally called and I went up and collected my Degree from the Chancellor of our institute, who also happens to be the father of a good friend of mine. I walked off the stage leaving all the worries behind for the day and waited for the graduation ceremony to end and the academic procession to leave and finally it did. After all this we now had the time to meet our friends and families who were there to see us graduate. Owais, Kashif, Umair, Saniya and Sadia were also there and Kashif was the most usefull of them all. He was holding numerous cameras (one of thme was mine) and was taking our pictures throughout the event. On a rough count he must have taken atleast a thousand pics that day. Soon after dinner we (me, Khurram, Arsalan, Owais, Kashif & Umair) left the institute and went to indulge where we had sheesha & drinks and talked about the old days and the convocation day :p. We sat their for like more than an hour and our day wasn’t over yet. All of us except for Umair came over to my place to spend the night and we watched a movie, The Dukes of Hazard and finally went to bed at around 4 in the morning. Our day finally came to an end and with it came the end of our undergraduate life. They came and went by so quickly. I wished they would have lasted a little longer. I wished I could correct the mistakes I made during those years. I wish those years never come back again as I only want their memories to remain and nothing else.

7 days to go... My CISA Certification Exam is on 10th and from today I wont have to worry about office for a week. My leaves are supposed to start from this monday and will last till the end of the working day of the week (friday)...

Im hoping to capitialize these days and with full commitment prepare for the exam... lets hope I can do that... I didnt go to office yesterday cause I had a mock exam in the morning for which I hardly studied the way I should have studied. I was hoping to test all that I have prepared over the past 3 months and try my luck and see where I stand... I know Im making excuses trying to convince my self that its okay if u r not ready... I heard somewhere that writing about something you have no control over makes you feel better, but that doesnt exactly fit over here as I did have control over it and I simply choose something else...damn u Hashim

Well anyways the mock went okay got 138 out of 200 which as per my instructor is the average score one gets in the mock exam...I should have dont better than average as the real thing is much bigger than the mock... I only went through the first 3 chapters (the 3rd one was just a read through) and based on that I think I can clear the real thing only if I study hard... lets hope I can do that...