no one seems to be very interested in blogging these days, except for chij, so the internet, as a whole, is not a lot of fun. Even without blogging, there was always someone online, but not anymore. I'm just so damn bored... I also just came back from giving my first presentation in lums...i wonder why people seem so irritating when u stand up in front of them? All i wanted was for the ones who were looking at me to stop looking at me, and for the ones who were looking down to look up :P and more than anything, i just wanted to get the damn thing over with, though it was fun...that's my whole attitude towards this bloody institution-its fun, but at the end of the day i just want to go home, even tho 'home' now means nothing more than another place to study ur ass off. I remember the times when no one could hear my voice when i spoke up in class...no teacher could remedy this in school...and over here, my voice simply booms out without my trying. What the simple name of university can do to u... But i am glad to be back. studies keep my mind off what's happening to the rest of my life. It's going through major changes-and not good ones. Ever since my khalo was dignosed with cancer, 'life has simply been unpredicatble. My parents are rarely at home, and i don't expect them to be. My cousins are simply scared, so scared that they start crying at the littlest provocation...they're the same age as i am, so to see them crying like that, simply uncontrollably, is more disturbing than anyone can imagine. I don't have time to think, and Eid? This was the worst Eid of my life, of our lives. I can get over my taya passing away on the morning of Eid day, as he really was in such pain that death was the best thing for him in the end...of course, my dad is so depressed that he's just joking around all the time. So no one's talking much anymore, and i dunno why i've typed all this down when i should be in the libraray rite now...*sigh*...hope no one's gonna read this until i update again

A Soldier’s Letter to his Sister

This is one of the most common titles used when assigning grade 10 students the topic of war to write an essay. A soldier’s letter home may or may not reflect the bitterness or war and its true form, but of all the fictional letters home from war I’ve ever read, this is the most…what do I call it? It just leaves a lump in my throat whenever I think of it. I found this in one of my old school magazines (Mashal 1996)—I was in fourth grade when this was published, and the writer, Amina Hassan, must have been in the 11th—this should be one of the texts they make you read in composition writing classes. No Gettysburg Address can be better than this; the very style it’s written in makes my heart clench. I’ve been meaning to type it down for a long time, and I finally got around to it. Tenth grade—the author must be about 15/16 when she wrote this—a bit of immaturity can be seen in this letter, but it doesn't really matter...I have no idea where she might be now, but hats off to you, wherever you are… Dear Anne, There was a time when I had faith in people; in their goodness and compassion. But war has shattered all my beliefs. It has shown me power-hungry animals hidden in uniforms. It has given birth to a man in me who, when the boy I once was, liked to believe, did not exist. A man who has died so many times that he does not hesitate in taking lives. He shoots blindly, till the black shadows looming ahead of him are red. He does not flinch or regret, but keeps staring into the nothingness around him, waiting quietly for the answers to his unspoken questions. During the endless nights when I’m suffocated by the red sky and black procession of promises from the lips of hidden faces, my colleagues tell me I’m fighting for honour. Yet, none of us here really know why this foreign soil has become home for the dreams of so many blue-eyed youths. But I have not let this war defeat me. Tears streamed down my face only once when I carried an infant’s blood-soaked body to his mother. I made no effort to control them and from then on tears abandoned me. Yesterday, as my best friend was going back home, he was shot in the back. A crooked smile was plastered on his lifeless face as I carried him to our camp. I did not cry. I couldn’t cry. So, I laughed; laughed a hoarse, dry laugh at nature’s sick sense of humour. There are times, princess, when while waiting for death to pierce the think silent air, I feel I’m running out of memories. Red and black and purple taint the fresh blues of my eighteen years. I feel bitterness settling into my soul. So I recite; I recite without rhythm and passion the old country songs. They think I’ve gone mad, but I don’t care anymore. I see myself in the lifeless eyes of the dead. I fear never seeing you again. I fear being blown into so many pieces that you won’t recognize me. But death itself cannot threaten me. I’ve battled death and laughed in its face because I know I’ll always live in you. My dreams will find room to dance again in yours. Our affection is eternal and of the many songs carried by the wind from te blue-eyed country roads, some will always be yours and mine. Yours always, Usman.

Life has just been going on for me for the past few days. Presentations, midterms, assignments, research...just one vicious cycle, with not even the upcoming Eid holidays perceived as a breathing space. But then, as life rarely does, the general course of things suddenly took such a turn that its left me breathless. Suddenly, i'm not the person i thought i was. Why? well, isn't a person known by the company he or she keeps? and when ppl u kno and love turn out to be so different, where does that leave u? I'm very different from all of my friends, but i thought i knew them, and i knew what to think abt them...at least uptil now. Now, when i love them all no less, but find out that THEY don't even like each other... am i being too naive?? This has happened before, but i always handled it with what i thought was maturity. But i've let myself become so close to one person, and admire another so much that when i found out that one hated the other's guts --i never really knew what the word 'shattered' meant...not until now, when i can actually feel my mind, my heart, and my soul breaking simultaneously. i thought there was some truth in my life... have u ever been dealt a blow so shocking that it seems physical? I'm literally seeing stars on front of my eyes... great...crying in the uni computer lab...what next?

A lone bulb flickers somewhere behind me, making the shadows dance without moving. There’s not a hint of a wind; the dust is thick on the leaves that brush against me as I walk by. Heaven know how long they must have stayed in one place to gather so much dust. But it all floats around me now-- I take it away with me and continue walking. I’m walking…in a completely straight line, head down, hair covering face, bare feet kicking a rusted old tin can in front of me with every step. Alone. Above all, alone. And living an existence that maybe even God doesn’t understand. I’ve had this image of myself for quite some time. Who knows why, and what is there to know? Unneeded, unwanted, unloved. That’s all that’s left of me, of anything I might feel. I simply close my eyes and walk my own road with the flickering bulb never dying, the dusty leaves never rustling, so alone, so alone that I don’t even feel my own existence. My walk is strong. My feet are cut and bleeding, but I am not limping. My hands are steady, as is my path. I am not meandering yet I never was headed anywhere. But my face is shrouded, and I can’t see whether any tears are running down it or not…

I remember the sweet ol' innocent days when i used to visit the Strings forum on a regular basis...i made a lot of net friends there, had a great deal of fun talking abt music, poetry, movies and stuff and nonsense. Alas, that i should live to see the day when my allegiance is to another forum...now the word forum never conjures up happy memories of fights between Sahar and Deepti, Joy's poetry and his merciless critiques, Sunil's craziness, and Waj's poetry and her lovely compliments...i can go on and on abt this forever...*sigh* but now the word forum means...the Computer studies forum. this is where the batch of 2010 get together and whineand complain and cry on each others' shoulders abt the torture that's been inflicted upon us. Now i do not copy-paste poems from posts to save on my computer...but i do copy-patse every command that could help me understand Visual basic, that CRAPPY compueter language that's just getting harder and harder. I thought i was a genius last week when i finally managed to make a computer game using it...but that was the easy part.... and now i do not exchange jokes with ppl from across the border, and across the sea...but i am getting teased by one of the computer instructors who claims that they haven't brought out all their torture tools yet...LORD HELP ME. i never know when i have it easy...

So I’m trying to type a new blog post on my laptop, and my little sister’s attempting to cover this large screen with her tiny, tiny hands—I’m just cracking up every time I sit down to write something serious nowadays. So don’t expect this to be a confusing, serious, bitter jokes-wali post, I’m much too tickled at life to do anything like that. So Eesha’s finally learnt that I WILL type away even if she uses her feet to cover the screen-and I am left in peace at last. Yesterday, I was kept in stitches my older sister, who read out her horoscope to me. It was more or less like this: LEO: you are very lively and active these days. You are learning a lot of new things, are being more and more creative and vigorous everyday. What is more, you are keen to share these new things with everyone around u. Why is this funny? Well, Noor (sis) has been doing NOTHING-and I mean nothing but eat and sleep for the past few weeks. She has a mild case of jaundice which isn’t going anywhere, and all she does is lie on her bed, drink juice, and eat bland food. She’s even withdrawn from her quarter at university for heavens’ sake! She’s not allowed to read much, or watch TV, or even sms—yep, she sure is learning new things and being lively all right! No one can understand just how funny that was---she gets exhausted so easily that she even got tired laughing at this. I always looked down on horoscopes…lollllzz. But she is getting better-enuff to give me moral lectures on singing at the top of my voice during Ramzan. Or maybe she just doesn’t like Kelly Clarkson… University can give me all the work it likes-as long as my sisters and cousins and friends are there, no matter where they are-I think life’s gonna be just fine…