Friday, April 30, 2004

Procrastination is an art in iteself, when done properly. I mean, how many people can wait almost literally to the last minute before they actually do something?

Also discovered a very cool fan comic strip of the megaman characters. Ah, nostalgia.

Click here for the strip

The great thing about this particular strip is that this exact situation (except the part about the person in front of me using catchphrases) has happened to me so many times. Mostly there used to be a few of us in the old class that would get these references while nobody else would, and we'd be left asking each other if it was just us being perverted.

Misha at Friday, April 30, 2004

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Thursday, April 29, 2004

Nowadays as I work on my projects, as a long standing habit, I put on a random playlist and barely notice the songs till the playlist ends. Generally, I begin to enjoy the music even if it wasn't one of my favorites before. Anyhow, these days, I've had on repeat a playlist of Tool songs Huma (not TD) practically forced on me to listen to. I think Tool is growing on me, much to Huma's relief, I'm sure.

At the uni, a certain group of people have begun to struck me as being decidedly two-faced. If there's one thing I cannot tolerate in a person, it's a person who bitches about someone behind their backs instead of to their face.

Oh, and just for the record, FN's being a complete bitch because our group members actually speak our mind and do things our way instead of sucking up to her like some people. I wouldn't even care unless it started affecting our grades, which it now is.

Misha at Thursday, April 29, 2004

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Wednesday, April 28, 2004

At last, its the final lap. The past two weeks have reminded me of exactly how much I hate finals and projects. Why is it, though, that now every damn teacher demands a 'formal presentation' with a 'formal report' and a 'formal Viva'?

Instead of studying for my DBMS final, I enjoyed several packets of two minute noodles accompanied by Douglas Adams' A Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Good stuff, and I'm still tension-free, unlike most of my classmates who are probably at the uni swotting in the library at this very moment. Guess it's high time I join them and learn something that will come in handy in the exams. It's wierd though, Patel Sadaf and I were just talking about the fact that neither of us feel any sort of tension about the exams now, just a sense of mild relief when they're over.

Damn, just burned breakfast. This cannot be a good omen for the rest of the day.

Update, four hours later: Yep, as predicted, the exam sucked and I am stuck doing the one thing I absolutely loath: waiting for other people.

Misha at Wednesday, April 28, 2004

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Monday, April 26, 2004

Same old dream thrice in one month. Zombies and baseball bat and all. The cause? Role playing? A result of two-minute noodles for dinner? Latent hostility towards society? Desire to play pro baseball?

Song of the day: Joe Cocker's I get by with a little help from my friends, which was the theme for the class today. Everyone helped everyone else out with the project and we managed to do a decent job of them, strangely enough.

In news of the strange at SZABIST, you would think that if the end result of a man shaving his head would be to have his name replaced with a childish nursery rhyme for the duration of his stay in the university, it would stop him from shaving his head. Not so for mister Patel, or should I say "Ganjoo Patel, teri khoppree main tael, etc etc". My God the man craves attention.

Misha at Monday, April 26, 2004

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Sunday, April 25, 2004

Been working on a Vb.net project for a week now and it still doesn't do much, but at least it looks good while doing nothing. Project due tomorrow and I don't know what the hell I'll be telling the instructor when I basically submit a program that only adds records into a database as a final project. Bring on the F's!

The only bright side of having a birthday the same day as two final exams (read six almost-consecutive hours of staring sleepily at the exam room walls wondering what you did to deserve this) is that if I can get through that, I can probably get through just about anything.

Since I'm already going to be here in this lovely university an extra year, I'm hard pressed to care about flunking or getting D's in subjects that are not prerequisites for other subjects nowadays, as proven by the fact that I've been visiting the local cineplex every weekend since my finals began.

Viva la procastination!

Currently Playing In The Pod: Coldplay Playlist on Repeat.

Misha at Sunday, April 25, 2004

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Thursday, April 22, 2004

Bad finals, okay day. Although having my name plasetered on half the walls at the uni is more than I'm used to. Still, some appreciation is better than none.

Misha at Thursday, April 22, 2004

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004

The custom of saying "many happy returns of the day" just "happy birthday" is severely outdated. In today's modern, fast paced world, what we need to start doing is treating a birthday not as a day to grunt a customary greeting, but to set time aside for the person and listen to what they have to say. In other words, if you can't take out time from you busy schedule for a person one day of the year, then you deserve to go the whole year without anyone asking how you're doing and actually being interested in the answer.

Misha at Wednesday, April 21, 2004

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Monday, April 19, 2004

The trouble with having a prevailant inner child within you is that it makes you come off as rather bratty. The most primitive part of yourself that reacts to everything with candour and innocence takes over and all hell breaks loose. However, there's also the bright side of being ruled by a placid inner child: being able to take childlike joy in the most ridicuous of things. The older I get the more prone I am to enjoying the simplest of things like walking about at night staring up at the stars, marvelling at how the entire night sky seems to be moving in step with me. In fact, I'm going to go do that right now.

Misha at Monday, April 19, 2004

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If misery loves company, does esctacy crave solitude?

All sensible people are selfish is still one saying I stick to. I suspect it may have been an Oscar Wilde quote but even if it isn't, what does it matter? Even people who are really religious, they're selfish too. They do all these good deeds to garuntee themselves a place in heaven. Even people who do you favours and ask for nothing in return are just accumulating 'I owe you one's from you to use later on when they need a whopper and there's no way you can refuse. So what it comes down to is this: Nobody can lecture anyone else on being selfish, especially not me. Everybody is selfish, period. We all look out for number one. Even if we commit acts of bravery, say your house is on fire and you save someone you love without caring for your own life, heck that's selfish too. Because you save the person simply because you need them in some way. Emotionally, mentally, physically, financially, or in any number of ways, you're dependent on that person. Even if you save someone you hate or are indifferent to, you do it to show what a big man you are. 'Look, I hate/am indifferent to said person, yet I risk all to save them. Admire me now!'. Still selfish.

So what I'm getting at with all this is that nobody has the goddamn right to call me selfish. If you choose to exist in the delusion that you are Mother Theresa and as selfless as they come, fine. Just don't force your crap on me and I won't force mine on you.

Another thing that exasperates me is when perfectly logical, sensible people drag religion into every argument/discussion. 'My religion teaches me ABC hence I must do ABC. No there is no room for discussion on this becasue my religion tells me to do ABC..." and so on. People like F. Any discussion going on, God and religion must be dragged into it. Highly insensitive, especially since there are many people in our class who are not Muslims. MAK is a similiar example. He's a teacher and I admire his zeal for his religion, but the height of unprofessionalism is preaching on class time. We're not paying for Islamiat lessons here, we're here to learn some programming. I can see why religion is banned from schools in some countries. I know if I weren't a Muslim, I'd be pretty hurt at the constant jabs reminding me that I'm different from the rest of the class in this one respect and always will be.

Misha at Monday, April 19, 2004

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Sunday, April 18, 2004

What I really hate is when certain members of the male species presume to 'educate' me about my cell phone and how unwise it was to choose it, and how I should have gotten a Nokia instead. The reason they consider themselves such experts? Because they're boys and I'm just a girl, and what would a girl know about cell phones? She's need 'her man' to guide her when he comes home from a-huntin'. It's not like I have a problem with everyone who gives me advice though. If someone actually knows shit about what they're telling me, I'll listen. But not with morons like Mr. H, who comes and checks out my phone then casually asks me 'So when're you going to upgrade to a Nokia already?' in the same tone as saying 'When're you going to grow up already?'. I laughed in his face and told him all that while mine offers me a 65,000+ colors resolution, a Nokia set of the same price range would offer only 4000+ colors. While mine offers 16-tone polyphonic ringtones and supports WAV files, a pricewise-equivalent Nokia would barely support 10-tones. Via Infra-red, I can upload new tones and gifs and jpegs on my phone to use as wallpaper. And yet the idiot doesn't get it.

"What else?", he asks. "What the hell else do you want from a phone?". Having no answer, he rolls his eyes and gives me a patronizing smile. At that moment, I wanted to kick his ass severely and thoroughly. As usual, I didn't. I loath my tolerance/cowardice.

Misha at Sunday, April 18, 2004

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Saturday, April 17, 2004

An extract from the blog that documents the darker side:

I am pathetic, but that's curable as well, I hear. All you need is a shitload of money. In fact, all my problems would either go away or diminish in importance if I had all the money in the world. When they ask you to make a choice between love or money, in all fairness, I cannot. I have never been on the giving end of love. The closest thing is my cat, but even when he was lost, I knew I could wait a bit then replace him with another cat and I would be mostly happy again. I would have occasional jabs in the pit of my stomache as I would wonder what ever happened to that poor innocent creature whose hunting and survival skills I had diminished to practically nothing by providing for him day and night. All in all, though, I would survive. In time, I would forget.

Misha at Saturday, April 17, 2004

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After a good long time, I have come across a subject that I can rant about, namely people who sneak around bitching to the whole world and their uncle but will not confront the subject and talk about their problem like adults.

This happened very recently when Arsalan's group thought my group and I had gone to one of the teachers to talk about something when we had all agreed that all of us would go together if we decided to talk to him again about something. However, I learned this from a third party and, choosing the path of directness, I took one of the members of the badmouthing group aside and explained my side of the story. Why can people not come talk to me directly if they have a problem with something I do or say? Is it so hard to take someone aside and be honest? I understand it may be a foriegn concept for many people, but it solves so many problems right away, I wonder why it isn't more widely adopted. God only knows how many other backbiters there are that I have not heard about yet.

People are such fucked up morons sometimes, it makes me happy to be an animal lover.

Misha at Saturday, April 17, 2004

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Normally, as I stare at my face in the mirror (an act I usually avoid) I don't think to myself 'hey, you need more responsibility!'. Apparently a great deal of other people do.

Mum thinks a summer internship would make me grow out of my still-bratty, irrational 'want-this-want-that', mood swinging ways. Sadaf thinks making me the group leader for SEC (hence making me answerable and responsible for a screw-up) will teach me to be responsible. The BCS Coordinator seems to be insisting I should take over CR duties for a while to give Arsalan from having a nervous breakdown. Why me and not some already responsible person? No idea.

Speaking of which, I damn well saved everyone's soon-to-be-ganja asses yesterday and I've yet to hear a thank you. People are fucking ingrates. No matter how much you try to do for them, they want you to do more, or they think you're wrong and they're right, or they force their beliefs and perceptions on you. It's a good thing I'm not supposed to go to the uni today because I'd probably yell at at least one person before the end of the day.

Misha at Saturday, April 17, 2004

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Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Had a day full of excitement. First of all the coordinator decided he would accept reports from the groups that were delayed but only if one member of the group got his head shaved and arrived with the report in his hand. Patel, of course, was up for it, as was I. Hey, it's not my hair. Nauman was willing as well, but Arsalan was not. Finally, for the sake of peace, we all agreed that as an act of unity, if we give in our reports as bald men, all of us will, otherwise nobody will. I'm more of 'every man for himself' kinda gal but i'll ride this one out.

Misha at Wednesday, April 14, 2004

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Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Got shocked out of my complacency today. The BCS Coordinator takes our SEC course and today he really gave it to us because of a late report. Never heard him be so harsh. Half the people whose reports got rejected think he's being unfair and the other half (myself included) think he's got a pretty damn near irrefutable method to his madness. We used to be the class that actualy worked, but now my influence seems to have rubbed off on pretty much everyone. "Dheelapan is contagious", to quote one of my classmates.

The good news is I have been offered an internship at the bank of Oman, mostly due to an uncle who works there but it's good to at least have something to bank on (a pun as bad as that one can only be completely unintentional).

A seminar that the coordinator 'recommended' we attend got me thinking about my future, although that's nearly two years away still. What after graduation? Since the market is alreay inundated with graduates who know more tools than I do and had better GPAs than me, what chance would I have? But then since that's a while away, I resort to my old habit of putting worries for the future away in the corner of my mind to worry about when the time comes. In the meantime, I have a goddamn Vb.Net project to make.

Misha at Tuesday, April 13, 2004

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Monday, April 12, 2004

Things there should be words for:

1. The last conscious thought before you fall asleep.
2. The pre-activity exhaustion you feel at the thought of work.
3. The condition of automatically prioritizing non-platonic relationships over platonic ones.

Misha at Monday, April 12, 2004

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Sunday, April 11, 2004

I'm so sick of worrying about the damn CS project groups now. Sadaf may or may not accept Yasir's offer to join his group, and she's too irritable these days for me to actually give her an ultimatum to decide already. Patel may or may not stay with us if Sadaf leaves. It's just a matter of will his ambition to be in the 'best group' win or his fondness for working with me, his female counterpart. Sana and Sadaf have been bickering as well now. Sana's mostly super laid back about stuff but with all the khwaari she's been put through thanks to her inflexible coming and going, she's bound to lose it now. Next semester, if I still have a group, we need to take someone whose coming and goings are just as flexible as the rest of us.

Just spoke to Nauman as well and he wants to change groups now too. Next semester, if nothing else, I'll know he and I can make a group together and hopefully get an easier project because neither of us are workaholics a la sadaf and the grades reflect that. First i have to speak to Sadaf and tell her to give me a desicion already because we can't all stay hung up like this. Then Patel's next, then a confirmation to Nauman.

The forgotten member of the group, Rizwan, has actually been quite handy and always punctual. I'm thinking we should keep him in as well, if nothing else then with me and Nauman.

Everything is so complicated now. Politics, not breaking up friends, not putting enemies in the same groups, yadda yadda yadda.

Misha at Sunday, April 11, 2004

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Saturday, April 10, 2004

everywhere i go today, all i see is bickering. people insist on bickering over the most ridiculous issues and they all come to me to bitch about each other in the end. tempers in my group have been flaring and eventually i lost my own and told everyone that we shouldn't bother doing any more work for the day and just yell at each other and sulk all day. then i come home and there's bickering over yet another insignificant issue.

its times like this i would just spend the day at mehar's to chill out. what i wouldn't give if everyone would just shut up and let me sleep in peace.

Misha at Saturday, April 10, 2004

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caught in the act

Misha at Saturday, April 10, 2004

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Friday, April 09, 2004

Net was down all of yesterday so I spent the day fiddling with the iPod. Happiness is fitting your entire music collection into one portable player and still having one and a half Gb left.

On the downside, Sheru's getting 'urges' so I have to be on guard duty everytime someone enters of exits the house. Sometimes my duties include running after him in a desperate race to get to the main enterance of the building, head him off, then carry him the two flights of stairs back up. Sometimes in my jammies since it offends my mom and aunts' diginities to run down flights of steps in their nightwear chasing after a horny cat.

The workload is starting to build up. Two major projects due early next week, hence reports to be made, coding to be done, work to be checked and rechecked. Two finals on my birthday as well. The number of finals I have in any given week is inversely proportionate to my laziness/procastination/boredom.

Misha at Friday, April 09, 2004

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Wednesday, April 07, 2004

zero to sixty in two seconds flat

Felt feverish all day and was just about down for the count in FAT class, when I got a message from my aunt saying that my iPod was finally home. Mood went from asolute rock bottom to elation in two seconds. Woo-hoo! :D

Misha at Wednesday, April 07, 2004

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perspective

There's nothing like watching people wierder than you having seriously horrible scenes on public television to make you feel better about the crapfest that is your own life. No matter how your day may have sucked beyond all known definitions of sucking, watching "Honey, I'm really a woman!" on Springer can make you feel better about it all. At least your boyfriend isn't confessing his 'dual nationality' on Jerry SPringer, right?

After an entire day of challenging BB members to a game of Rock Paper Scissors, I have come to the conclusion that while I may not be as bad at games of pure chance as some people (someone had a -5 score), constantly getting ties is no consolation. I must've played about 20 times and my score is still stuck on 1.

On the plus side, some serious hourly butt was kicked today, despite my conviction that I knew nothing.

Misha at Wednesday, April 07, 2004

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Tuesday, April 06, 2004

revenge

Top pastimes for Ep Fans

36% Openly discussing how hot Fawad is.
15% Secretly thinking about how hot Fawad is.
10% Raving about Tool and APC.
21% Dissing Fawad's vocals.
100% (overlaps other groups) Dissing Ahmed Butt's raping.
14% Dissing Irtiqa as a Linkin Park/Limp Bizkit rip-off.
1% Still asking random people what the meaning of Irtiqa 1,2 and 3 is.
3% Dissing Noori fans.

Misha at Tuesday, April 06, 2004

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the way you make me feel

The only time I ever hated someone this much was when the time I wrote a poem called Hatred.For a while after I had cooled down, I couldn't imagine that sort of hate since mostly I'm quite stable, quasi-normality levels of stability even. Today, however, the dark mood returns. This one's dedicated to the same person as Hatred.

i could pierce your eyes with hot needles
then remove the blank eyeballs with chopsticks
i could slit your forhead open with those damn car keys
see how much you can possibly bleed
i could jam those bottles in your mouth
six at a time if i can
i could cut off one toe at a time
watch you scream and smile
i could do all that and then some
but it wont make up for all you've done


Graphic, yes, but necessary. I feel much better now. Quasi-normal again, even.

Misha at Tuesday, April 06, 2004

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Monday, April 05, 2004

post office blues

All hail the assholes at the Post Office. They send me a challan-like document and summon me to I. I. Chundrigar in the afternoon heat, make me walk up and down the stairs, then ask me a hundred questions about 'yeh iPod kia cheez hoti hai?' and then pack it back up and say the earliest I can take it home is tomorrow and that too from their Shahrah-e-Faisal branch.

Plus they're banging it around like its a stuffed toy. You do not bang around sensitive electronic equiptment, dammit!

*deep breath*

More khwaari tomorrow. Talal, as is to be expected, is dancing with glee like a little girl. Note to self: Kick his ass when I have five minutes to spare sometime.

Misha at Monday, April 05, 2004

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The Switch

Initially, I had planned to use this blog as my 'private' blog, if there is such a thing, but after spending the better part of my morning on making it better looking, I have decided its too damn pretty to be stuck in the shadows. I tried livejournal for a while, but it just doesn't give you the freedom to mess with the look and contents the way blogspot does, plus I had to change the damn font size every single time.

This is much better. Bring on the ranting!

Misha at Monday, April 05, 2004

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