January 2009
20 posts
I'll Have What He's Having
Once again, I find myself contemplating relationships. Increasingly, I find the people around me getting themselves involved in GREAT relationships. A long-time friend of mine, AD, is a perfect example of this.
I’ve been friends with AD for awhile and have seen him go through his fair share of challenging and intense relationships. I remember being present during a particularly difficult...
The Perils of Productivity
I haven’t found any yet.
Perhaps I should adjust my life accordingly.
sigh.
Hookers Can't Have Facebook...Can They?!
So you know how girls are supposedly NOTORIOUS for coming home after a night out and analyzing to death every detail of what just happend?
I know you’re all nodding your heads - the boys who are the subject of these horrendous dissertations and the girls who are subjected to the agony of dissection.
Get this - in real time, I am currently sitting in the cafe with RK when six guys pile in...
Help! I Think I'm In Love...
I’m consumed - totally and utterly wide-eyed with devotion which inevitably leaves me in shambles. Is this what love is supposed to feel like? Are you supposed to be spending half your waking life dreaming about the rosy future and the other half spastic about its imminent, morbid end? This can’t be any way to go through life.
Barack Obama and Amy Winehouse have completely taken over...
Wandom
25 random things you may (or may not) want to know about me:
1. Umbrellas terrify me. I always picture my fingers bloodied by the little snatch at the top that you have to push in order to close it. I know, I know, quite the imagination, Zahra. I know.
2. I remember my dreams sometimes more vividly than my actual conversations.
3. In fact, my waking memory is deteriorating so rapidly that I have...
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?
In class the other day, we were shown a short clip from the movie “Colors of Paradise.” If you haven’t seen this movie - you must, for too many reasons to list here. I saw it years ago, but seeing this one particular scene again in the context of my life today shed some much needed light on my stagnant state of heart.
Briefly, this Iranian movie is about a young blind boy who...
“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the...”
– Courtesy of RK
The Things You Can Learn From Silence
This evening K4, RK and I decided to take advantage of this wonderfully unique city. The London International Mime Festival is currently in town and considering we know next to nothing about them, the three of us booked tickets and ventured off to the Barbican to see one of the performances associated with it, called “L’Ecume de L’Air.” Afterwards, we got to sit in on a...
I'm So Exhausted I Can't Even Think of a Clever...
I had a long, long day today and I don’t feel too much like philosophizing about it, so I’ll give you some random thoughts:
- I went to Day 2 of a workshop on facilitation and realized:
1. It feels really good to be confident - through and through confident - about at least one thing in life; mine is facilitation/leadership. I am 100% sure that I have amassed quite a lot of skills in...
Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks, I Suppose?
I had a new experience today - I walked a dog for the first time…ever!
K4’s cousin is out of town for the weekend and has asked her to take care of their pug, Camacho. (Cool name, huh?) Poor K4 was dreading the walk this evening and so I accompanied her to the cousin’s flat about 15 minutes away. The wind was blowing like a champ and it was raining a bit, but the temperature...
New Term, Same People?
Today was the first day of our second MA module and I must say that I am quite looking forward to classes this semester! Now that we have a grasp on history - a topic that doesn’t leave much room for discussion beyond the “well that source is bias because…” or “Islamic architecture uses this template for a city becauase…” or my personal favorite,...
Thank God I'm In My 20's!
I used to get really nervous about being in new situations with people I had not met before. Those of you that know me even semi-well know that I get along quite well in group settings. I can usually rely on my humor and if that fails, I fall back on current events, a good book or movie, or sometimes music. But what you probably don’t realize is that all of these work for me IF I know at...
A True Story About Perceptions
Thanks for the forward SE!
A Violinist in the Metro
A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. Three minutes went by and a middle aged man...
Thank You
Recently I’ve been feeling a lot of negativity about life. I tend to sometimes complain more and appreciate less and I’m having a tough time figuring out why. One thing that I notice about myself is that while I am normally intrinsically positive and happy, I do tend to feed off the emotions of others, sometimes more than I would like. I can resist negativity for awhile, but...
How to appreciate every second of life? Shocked... →
After that last rant on traveling and my under-appreciation for life, I feel kind of crappy and am wondering what the heck happened to my starry-eyed look on life. So I googled “how to appreciate life.” Silly, huh?
When meditating in the mornings and being productive are not doing it for me - there is always the internet. I read over a few websites. No, I’m not depressed, and...
I Don't Like Sushi...There I Said It!!
Listen all you sushi-lovers out there: you think you’re cool because you eat raw fish and then crave it every day afterwards? Hm? Some of you fools don’t even it eat raw, and worse, you get it with chicken!!! So don’t be tellin’ me…
A few years ago when sushi was just hitting the streets as the new cool thing to spend money on (and boy do you spend money on that -...
You Can't Steal My Identity If I Don't Have One
I was celebrating a friend’s birthday last week with her parents and a few colleagues when I mentioned something about making daal chawal (rice and lentils). At their surprise, I exclaimed, “Well I am Pakistani!” To which one of the girls, who just moved to London after having lived in Pakistan her whole life, said “No you’re not, you’re American!”
I was...
“Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth,
‘You owe...”
– Hafiz
To Living in "The Grey" in 2009
The past year has been an interesting one - filled with new relationships, adventures and experiences and old habits that die hard (very, very hard - like Rasputin who got stabbed, shot 4 times, beat up and still didn’t die). It took a considerable amount of energy to pursue my dreams and juggle some very important responsibilities at the same time. I don’t think I’ve ever worked...