So the invasion continues. Bobardments of phone calls at home, people asking the same questions, and I got sick of parroting the same old fact over and over again. Regardless of what the shrinks will tell you, it does not get easier with every telling.

Mum's stable now, the doctors are very optimistic as she was recovering nicely from her previous stint, and will be doing an endoscopy procedure today to figure out the source of the latest attack.

Yesterday, though, the absolute last thing I needed was encouragement to seriously start thinking about death, and that was exactly what I got. Two students from my university, Imran Habib and Hamidah Mansoor, passed away recently in a car accident. I didn't know Imran, but Hameedah was a casual acquaintence from my school days as we had been in the same primary school. Just one of those people who look familiar but you never get around to renewing acquaintences with. And now it's too late. The university had a mostly-impromptu dua for Hamidah, who lingered on in a coma and passed away on monday, unlike Imran, who died on the spot. Unfortunately, the dua consisted of staff, juniors who happend to be nearby in the same building, and teachers. I was one of the juniors, technically, since both were seniors to me. The teachers related stories about how studious and generous the pair had been, how Hamidah would take out time from her own studies to help out juniors and how Imran had been a scholarship holder and gold medalist during his academic career. And that was it. Very civilized, the funeral was, but I would be hard pressed to explain exactly why that word should irk me so, since normally, I hate the hysterical display of emotion in any public gathering. Save the tears for later. In fact, save the tears period. Anyhow, it got me determined to avoid death while at my university, since I have no real academic talents to speak of and the funeral would probably consist of teachers shrugging and hurrying it all along to the actual recitation of a dua. Two decades reduced to a gesture: *shrug*