Current Status.

Reading this.

Humming this.

Watching this.

And that story still swimming in my head.

An Ode to David Cook.

I really honestly don't care if I sound like a headless teenager, I don't care if there's enough controversy to make American Idol seem more-scripted-less-live a show, I don't care if it isn't politically correct for psychologists and sensible young women to enjoy these shows, I don't care if people think I'm being over emotional (I bravely confess that I cried when Amber died on House's finale) but I did cry over the announcement of Cook's final win (I've been up all night trying to make it to 6 o clock to watch the show) and I don't care if all these things make me look 8 and it makes people doubt the things I write here henceforth. It was never about you people anyway. It is about me, me, me and me is on a high right now, as Hufsa says. I don't even care that I've taken a quantum leap into hyper reality that I've always found myself deeply aware of.

But.

After all is said and done.

We all have our guilty pleasures.

And. This is mine.

I am totally and absolutely ecstatic that this guy won. After repeated idiocies like Taylor Hicks, Jordin Sparks, Fantasia and kicking off Daughtry, American Idol FINALLY gets something right.

The guy's brother's got brain cancer, he's never responded to Simon in the girly way most contestants do (hint = Danny Noriega and Sanjaya whatever) and he's got more grace than most of the people I've witnessed on the show, has got that mesmerizing huskiness in his songs and is now, much thankfully - your American Idol.

Here's an interesting link and a hitting-home perspective on the finale.

On Literature.

"Literature must be taken and broken to bits, pulled apart, squashed then, and only then, its rare flavor will be appreciated at its true worth and the broken and crushed parts will again come together in your mind and disclose the beauty of a unity to which you have contributed something of your own blood. "

- taken from an interview with Nabokov.

Muqaddama e Blog.

Misery does love company. Read blogs if you don't believe me.

For the past four years I have spent the majority of my blogging experience limited to my own blog and all things considered, I like writing more than I like trying to read what other people have to say about my life. Logical as that may seem, it's supposedly the opposite for most of the people who want to start blogs. They actually write because they want their miseries to be heard. They want to be repeatedly told how wounded they have been and how the world would stop if they stopped telling people how confused and miserable their truly are. How the fast, crazy, rat race isn't stopping to listen to their tears and pain and it is only this sad, lonely, crying-for-hope domain that will give them the salvation that they truly need. That the cosmic purpose fo blogspot was to encourage the hidden, shy, secret genius within them to emerge and start a revolution with their cries that would change the world.

Do these people lack real, 3D friends or is it just histrionic behavior? Just not happy until it's all about me eh?

Most Pakistani bloggers seem to be suffering from this core dilemma. Talk about me, whine about me, comment about me and of course, tell me what a hero/heroine I am. Then there are those who write about lurv of course. Lost love, imagined love, betrayed love, secret love, perverted love, the works. They actually think the world gives a damn about the people they've lost and the guys they've had crushes on or the women who were out of their leagues and the pseudo relationships they thought they had? Their lives are show cases to random losers who don't have a single clue about their lives, their personalities, their needs, wants and desires, and what is amazing is ... that these imbeciles actually find it ... exhilirating, refreshing, relieving ... to share their deep, personal and meaningful experiences on a place like blogspot which is more of a public forum than a personal space. It's amazing, isn't it? Write something personal, expect people to read it and expect them to say exactly what you want them to say? They really have their own little world, now don't they.

No sympathies though. The world isn't handing out doggie bags. If you're healthy, educated and comfy enough to write a blog, you shouldn't be complaining about things like a lost soul or whatever crap it is you think I'm supposed to shed a bucket of tears about.

The good news is that these decrepit morons aren't the only ones I'm laughing at today. There are plenty of intelligent wordsmiths out there who blog just because they can. It is in their power to string words together with a curve of the imagination and come up with something only they consider brilliant and thus expect a new growth in their garden of grandiosity. How can you possibly get any more self-involved than this? What's even more fascinating about the mindsets of bloggers today, especially the ones who are immensely popular, is that they have a small horde, nay, phalanx of defenders, readers, admirers, who will be there at their constant emergency helpline to be at their rescue. Well, makes sense, if you don't have any real life friends, consider it totally sensible to talk about your private experiences online with strangers, why wouldn't you have keyboard allies. Bravo.

I prefer going back in time and not ever making the decision to blog hop. Because life was simpler. People were less idiotic then (mainly because the number of idiots I knew online was limited to the ones I didn't have to read) and I cared less. But now as some of the writers I have gotten to know, some of them actually write pretty well but waste themselves on stories of blood and gore that never took place, some of them are just plain stupid, whining about women they supposed they loved or imagined romances that never took place, some of them think religion is for dumbasses and find it so cool to mock society and culture and religion just because it's the next best thing to being a real intellectual, some of them like to make sure they're read but cleverly avoid being understood, some of them are just plain childish while some have grown up - but insist on being fixated on a stage so ancient, I'm just going to call them primates. I can't stand whiners in real life either and to find them abundant (and so abundant) online is becoming even more of a pain.

The dearth of good writers amazes me. Writers that surprise me, make me think about what they've written with an indelible impression rather than a sour taste in my mouth. Writers who actually give a damn about the world aren't just obssessed over being non-conformists. Writers who have a flair for charming the reader into going beyond text, and actually visualizing a world of their own, their own existence lives wherein and thus becomes completely permanent in the reader's mind. Writers who are actually witty and funny and have a social and psychological context to their words at the same time. Writers who are powerful and musical in their language and hold a command over English enough to be worthy of the word 'writer'. There are no such people present, I'm afraid, that I am reading these days, except maybe the one or two I regularly look forward to. If I want melodrama, I'll go watch an SRK flick, for crying out loud.

Blogging is becoming a misnomer and soap operas are the theme for writers. How charming is it going to be in the next fifteen years of Pakistani blogging, I can only dare to imagine.

Students' Quotable Quotes III

• Nuclear Family: the nucleus of the family upon which other family members takes place.
• Deviance: a person don't have normal behavior. They are violets and highper and crazy person. They do anything for his own purpose.
• In personal power leader convince them to 'due' their work instead of giving punishments.
• Slavery is a achieved status, those people who are doing hard work and there is greater social mobility and slavery.
• Power a leader can use: legal (court), police, army and marshal law. (Correct answer was person and positional).
• Laissez faire was an economist.
• Laissez faire is the 'faire' decision of any particular need.
• Laissez faire is the change of economy from capitalism and socialism.
• Self-actualization is a job description.
• Self-actualization is when you feel that you are the best and you don't listen to anyone.
• Self-actualization is a kind of unemployment.
• Vested interest is a 'keen interest that a person is having'.
• Vested interest is 'to visit someone'.
• Vested interest is 'a thing which I can say that a interest which is vested or which is not used in a proper way'. The case study regarding vested interest told the student that 'we should not vest our money and time in our interest'.
• Unilinear evolutionary theory is when evolution strikes from one side and multilinear evolutionary theory is when evolution strikes from many sides.
• Multilinear evolutionary theory is a change which is accepted by everyone and cannot be changed. It is also a scientific law that is accepted by everyone.

• Economy is the graph data that how government is progressing.
• Economy is the 'rate of people whom things are supplied'.
• Division of labor is 'that if you take care of your labor they do work properly'.
• Executive means people who have 'a power and they use that power in different ways, for example, fauderal lords'.
• Executive is a 'sense of state'.
• Divorce is a 'mental' separation of marriage.
• Bureaucracy is a standard of living who enjoy high education and avail all life chances.
• Bureaucracy is used ot higherity of authority.
• Bureaucracy: capitalist who are interlinked with democracy and plays a role in the government.
• Social change is increasing because every people are 'captured by other societies'.
• Social Change: the type of change that comes due to changing in their mood. It is something that happened a few years back.

Students' Quotable Quotes II

• Slavery is defined as the organization in which people open their business by their own money and selling things to earn money.
• Slavery is the group of peoples who perform bad deeds.
• Household is something that is used in houses. For example, household products.
• Household was: person living together without any relationship, for example, in a room there must be more than two people.
• Household is also 'a person living alone in the house. For example, my uncle lives alone'.
• State was a 'friendly and family villages where everyone talks with each other. It comes from the Latin word stutes re pulish' (for the reader's benefit: status republicae was thus mutilated).
• State is any land that has a government. For example, Rajistan.
• State 'shows us what we are, what we are doing. For example, State Bank of Pakistan'.
• State is a 'cultural integral part of society which differentiates people from class norms and values'.
• An example of a state is 'rural areas' and obviously the young man was oblivious of the state of affairs of the country since he described the judiciary where "people are very good to one another".
• Social closure means that society becomes close.
• Social closure is a system in which one society is related to another society and they are close to one another.
• Social closure is when people come close to the society. For example, Benazir Bhutto was very close to Pakistan.
• Seasonal Unemployment: it is the weather of the market.
• Seasonal unemployment was found to be "a state which does not have much employment, for example, rural areas".
• Seasonal Unemployment is the 'overload of work where many people come at the same time, some get work, some don't. This usually happens in the summer.'
• Legislative consists of people who protect the country from 'attacks'.
• Legislative gives a 'report of Pakistan' and the same student feels that 'seasonal unemployment is when you work for a year and then go away'. All this was discovered in one paper.
• Legislative, writes another student, is 'the commodity of the law'. Example of judiciary is that "Justice Iftikhar has the power to take the seat of Musharraf".
• Relative poverty is in which people are absorbed by the family members. For example, person cannot eat much in a joint family because he is noticed by the family.
• In the answer to the question "Pakistan is a melting pot of global faultlines, explain" the student writes, "Yes, I prefer this statement. Pakistan is a very dangerous line."
• Self-actualization is a person who believes in himself, and thinks that he has done nothing wrong. For example, leaders are always self-actualized because they believe in their power.
• Self-actualization was also 'the identity of self, for example, Hitler thought I am king'.
• Self-actualization "shows your confidence in your culture. For example, if a girl goes where there is not any girl but because of her self-actualization, she faces everyone there."
• Bourgeoisie is used for 'hi-figh' people and often many students used Bourgeoisie and bureaucracy interchangeably.
• The bourgeoisie were also blamed for suppressing the 'subjective' class.
• The changes in Pakistan, writes another one, are not 'interesting because we do not follow Islam'.
• Nuclear Family was 'the power of any country and it is highly found in China and has been used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki because of which the abnormality of nuclear is such dangerous for that country'.
• In a free market 'opercunity' is given to everyone and they feel powerful and 'balanced'.
• Previously when we wanted to talk to people we 'went there but now we can call him and meet him with a big 'time of distance' thanks to technology'.
• Judiciary is a 'government based functioning party which is lead by the Chief Justice with several number of lawyers working under him'.
• Caste is a brand name given to you which shows from where you belong.
• Collective behavior is voluntary and gold collective behavior.
• Social inequality: difference between socioeconomic activities which is deviant for the society.
• Executive is a 'department there will not allow people to go. For example, executive department of the university'.
• Social stratification is the 'technology to change our pattern of life'. We live in a 'global world' and Pakistan continuously 'deincrease in world rankings'.
• These were the concluding remarks of a student in a long-answer that made no sense: 'As I am from the 21st century, I can think more than enough". He or she felt that 'life in the next 20 years will be easy and complex'.

Student's Quotable Quotes, I.

The fact that teachers have a very limited range of entertainment from their jobs when it comes to drilling concepts into the students' heads, God has strange ways of providing for the manna of the soul.

Lo and behold. I am past my grievances that I couldn't teach them anything at all. This just is too goddamn funny.

Presenting: The Students' Hall of Fame, May 2008.

• "A state is a community of less or more numerous of people where government takes an active part in decisions." A state was also "a capital for anythign for example you see the country that had a capital is known as the state." "A state is a place where we find population, problems and solution to their problems."
• Judiciary is how we 'make law of different 'asspects' of society". One student writes that judiciary is the 'custody of the law'.
• What was the social change in French Revolution?
  Women take much interest to take jobs.
• What is status situation?
  "According to the man Weber, your market situation tells you about your class, and your status situation tells you about your group because in classes we have got groups due to their status."
• A student also spelled soveriegnty as "selvigingry".
• "A post modern society people will not work because all the work will be done by technology". A student also wrote that it is "those scoiety in it is the scoiety where we are living where all peoples are rich and try to popular themselves in society." A thinker said, "PM society has no sense of right or wrong, no technology exists in post modern society. It is people simply living in societies." And "a society which is governed by a government that does not exist".
• Technology, according to him or her, was somethign that 'takes place in a newborn country'.
• Social Change is "an aferation in society has exist in human being where early in mankind history."
• Power elite is 'seeking of power', capitalists thrive on 'prophit' and technology "comes through the country or anywhere" and life would be very 'hart' without it. Judiciary is a 'political party' and democratic socialism is 'investing money in the government'. One student felt that democratic socialism was 'when people socialize in a democracy'.
• The five rules of modern society were:
  Different living style
  Standards
  Special Food
  Wearing
  Good image in society.
• An example of power was "German Hitler" and resistance was "something adoped in our society or some munufacuring follow they absultly destroyard neighbors are hanged on factory discourage in our plan".
• When asked to define extended family with an example, it was reported to be "in the simple word, a person have children, and her children got married, and they had children. It is also when a person has more than one or two children. In Pakistan it is very common. It is the most important example."
• Another explanation was "Families day by day to increase and extended. It's good for our country but also bad because families are extended and peoples are jobless."
• Joint family was found to be "too many people living together".
• Technology is anything 'which do work easily with wasting human power'. It is also defined as "to built up countries is called technology". An example of social inequality is when 'a person first learnt this lesson from his family, like through age factor. He was treat very important but as he grows up the state change." Democracy was detailed: 'democracy cannot happen because political parties do dhandli".
• My friend, A, adds her own experience of paper checking, "Collective behavior is the action done in order to prevent society from havoc" and "when norms are copied by teh group members this causes a state of collective illness." She also swears she read this in a paper that "Mob is a person with many heads and no brains."

Her apt reply was ... "The person who wrote this had a head but no brains".

:D

This is such a cute link.

Given the fact that all Muslims are thought to be vultures or pedophiles or terrorists in the "modern" day and age, this article is a thoughtful read all on its own.

Plus. For all people married and in love such as myself, this was downright great. Even though most of this stuff is really just common sense, with all that goes on around us in life, sometimes those day-to-day trivialities make a lot of difference.

I love my Miaan to death and there isn't anything in the world that makes me happier than he does. It's always good to know how you can find ways to make people happy whom you truly and meaningfully love and care about so much.

So read away, married and to-be-married alike. Here's to the power of luuuurvv.

Sigh.

I have died and gone to haute couture heaven.

"A Beautiful Mind".

It may not be accurate to Nash's biography, the course and nature of schizophrenia or to real life as we know it ...

... but these feel-good movies really do hit the heartstrings.

The Wizard of Id.

"Do you have minorities?"
"Yes."
"What do you call them?"


"The wealthy."