Leaving… Leaving for good. (Freewriting)

So I am leaving…

Leaving for good.

Look forward to the greasy food,

That my Mom shall prepare.

–

I am leaving,

Leaving companionships on a pause,

Hoping I’d come across,

All the treasures that I have collected in friends

–

I am leaving for a higher purpose, a greater good,

So, I keep telling myself.

Try not listen to cynicism,

Working  to protect my “self”.

–

A freewriting exercise…

What if I don’t want to be that free bird.

What if I want to be a prisoner of my mind,

And my pursuit,

Of reality that exists in a far land.

The reality that I have to discover for the world.

[Pause]

I know I am fine and  not out of my mind.

Maybe I am changing, being metamorphosed.

Maybe I am just waiting for my calling.

[Pause]

Believe strongly in existence of The Calling.

The purpose, The “Usefulness” of my existence.

The existence which, more often than not, is taken for granted.

Sometimes

Sometimes you don’t know what you want. You go down a certain thought of thinking, acting, contemplating about a certain situation. You think of yourself as a certain person — the person your mind creates, but it need not necessarily represent the real you. The real you kind of alludes you. .

Sometimes.

What can one ‘do’ for education in Pakistan?

A friend asked on the other day, “What should I do, being  the Pakistani graduate student studying at a top US university, in order to help the cause of education of Pakistan?”

Well, I became silent. Because more often than not, we dwell in rhetoric which amounts to no action and what he asked for was a pragmatic step-by-step solution to the education problem. I recommended – and I strongly advise you to add if you may -

1. Be truthful to whatever it is that one is currently doing. It could be either the grad-school or the undergrad. Acquiring knowledge would prepare for the future challenges.

2. Champion ‘a’ very specific cause. Pick a charity, donate money if you can. Just pick some online cause and start talking about it. It is good to have a broad vision but solutions ‘happen’ only when we get specific.

3. Help with your own expertise. Build a project. Tutor somebody in your area of interest. Help spread awareness of your field.

Career Counseling Session in Ghotki (Report and Photographs)

Following is the account of the career counseling session that we conducted written by Vishal Khatri. This note also includes some photographs of teachers and students we spoke to and at Duaa Education Academy, which is a aptitude test preparation organization here in Ghotki being executed by the forward-looking teachers of the town.

Also included at the bottom is the data of the students who attended the session and the presentation we used. Please feel free to use the data to contact any students if you want to help them out on career issues and the presentation if you want to replicate the session in your capacity in your towns/localities.

Special thanks to Saiin Hafeez Dayo who helped us organize the whole session, he is a Mathematics teacher to the pre-entry test students at Duaa Education Academy. Should anybody want to contact him further about providing help to these students, he can be reached at (hafeezdayo67@yahoo.com)

–
Rakesh

P.S: Criticism is more than welcome.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Vishal Khatri
Date: Fri, May 29, 2009 at 3:42 PM

On 26th June 2009 a career counseling session was held in Dua Academy Ghotki with the name of EducateSindh by Rakesh Kumar, Vikash Khatri and Vishal Khatri. The primary objective of this session was to aware students about career options other than typical engineering and medical. Moreover it was also goaled to listen to and suggest solutions to student’s major problems especially Financial problem.

The session starts in a Govt class room with broken benches which were even short as the students’ quantity was huge. Few sat on windows and many stood up to listen to us. Overall the class was fully packed. After introduction we started with a punch question ‘ What is education?’, this made students and teachers think for a while. Though it was not from the main objective of the session to convey what is education but our group found it preferable to discuss such issues which are never thought. After a brain storming einstein’s quotation was taken as help and audience agreed over.

Then we discussed the scholarships available by HEC and other institutional scholarships like given by NUCES, COMSATS, IBA etc. Moreover a demo was also given of how to apply as we had internet support with us. After this discussion, various careers were discussed. It was because students of interior perceive as there are just two careers for them i.e. Medical and Engineering. We explained few other careers with the personality traits required, service markets and Institutions offering those. Those careers include media sciences, Sociology, Computer science, and Commerce.

Further few of the major problems faced by us was loadshedding, overheating of projector, and projector screen management. The facilities provided by us were, two PCs and projector. Moreover, Students were provided with a collection of megazines and gmail ids so that they can stay in touch with educatesindh group.

In the end, A question and answer session was held in which students had various queries which were solved as under

QUERY: Career options for a pre-medical student
Answer: BDS, Pharmacy
Q: Scholarships in medical
A: Cuba Scholarship, Agha Khan Scholarship, Endowment and other institution scholarship
Q:Why to go for those careers in which there is low market like media sciences?
A: firstly media sciences has a good scope and 2ndly if there is low market or no demand then be the one to create it. an example is that of Hacking in 2003.
Q: Any scholarship for foreign qualification?
A: Fullbright
Q: How to analyse which profession is better for me?
A: firstly identify ur best performance in subjects and then filter it out on your likes and dislikes and also the demand for it.

and so this session was concluded with the words that dont quit your education just because of financial problem as there are many options of scholarships and identify the best profession for u, dont just follow the crowd.

——————-

Photographs:

http://picasaweb.google.com/gopchandani/DuaaEducationAcadmeyCareerCounselingSession?feat=directlink

Student Data File:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/16008443/Dua-Education-Academy-Data-

Powerpoint Presentation Used:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/16008332/Career-Counseling-Presentation

My memories of Mingora (Swat Valley)

I was there in the summer of 2006, traveling with my family in Swat Valley. Mingora is like the largest town in Swat Valley and most of the population is clustered around the area. There is this road which flows with the Swat River from Mingora to the town of Kalaam, which is also a popular tourist destination.

We arrived in Mingora at around 9 pm in the evening and the town itself was still humming with activity. A lot of restaurants in the main street of the town were open. We got hotel rooms which were awfully less expensive and similar in service to what we had in Murree in the same summer season like a week ago. After settling down, I went outside for a stroll with my cousins and actually found an internet cafe.

Being the geek that I am, I tried checking up on my emails et al. but the connection was awfully slow, the internet cafe manager claimed to have a satellite down link connection which I still fail to believe today given the speed of it. But I remember being outside until 1 am, walking around safely and back to hotel.

In the morning we embarked upon our journey to Kalaam and then beyond to the Glacier and it was one of the most beautiful rides I’ve ever been on, the river and mountains and people on the way were all beautiful. We would stop by at many places for photoshots but couldn’t stay for very long because the road was single-lane for most part and was not secure for two-vehicle crossing so we had to keep moving. I also remember getting stuck in a traffic jam on our way back to Mingora and that was the only part I hated about the journey.

Also, I remember eating Pakoras (snacks) at Kalaam before we returned, right in the river on cots. Most of memories of that trip are peaceful, enjoyable and scenic. I did notice a lot of poverty in the region and somewhat less developed tourist sites. It seemed as if the area was neglected even with all the beauty it encompasses.

I feel sorry for all the people of Swat today, who have to leave their homes and run for their life .I am sure most of them wouldn’t even understand what goes on in policy meetings here in Washington but nevertheless, I still hope that they will get their lives back.

Characterizing ‘Love’.

This post has been triggered by Lubna’s post here. Lubna argues that one is not capable of controlling their feelings, i.e. love for somebody and that one cannnot choose between being in ‘love’ or not being ‘love’ because it just happens which I disagree on some level because I’ve always felt that the way we feel can be modulated by what we ‘want’ to be feeling like.

As fantastic the concept of being in love with somebody is, I think it has been over-hyped and mythicized into this abstract set of feelings and this larger-than-life concept which it is clearly not. I’ve always thought that one just has to be in a proper state-of-mind to be able to sustain as well as get rid of this feeling. It is our experiences with some person and the ‘context’ of our reality which constantly interacts with our mindset to have us feel the way we do.

But again, that’s just me.

Writing down the obvious.

I have some five drafts in my wordpress dashboard, every time I embark upon writing something, the words seem to loose my hand. I feel this unusual guilt that I am probably writing down the obvious, writing down what does not matter and creates utterly no effect.

Pen is mightier than sword is what I learnt as a kid but my pen – or keyboard in this case – seem to be saying things which do not matter. The insignificance and powerlessness against the system’s inertia they encompass seem to have bogged me down.

Have your ever thought that you are just writing the obvious? Has any word you wrote made any difference? If so, share the recipe!

Off to a Spring Break.

I am thinking passing by Chicago and landing in at Boston and then training out to Providence for the spring break. Please don’t my deliberate usage of inconsistent verbs, it is just that I am too excited about the whole idea of a ‘break’.

The seminar @ Providence is organized by Institute of International Education for Fulbright scholars in United States from all over the world. Yours truly being one of them was assigned to a team which is supposed to create and pitch a social enterprise about improving Education system in the world and yes as you may have guessed the seminar is themed about Social Enterprises.

Anyway, the other new thing about this trip is that I’ll be couchsurfing at Chicago and Boston at people’s places – people I have only come across through this website and never met – yes as weird it may sound, I have had a prior experience just like this at New York for a night and it was GREAT. This time I am trying it for longer times and can’t wait to meet my couch-buddies!

On the academic front, I have been indulged into hacking ns-2 for quite a while. It is a pain yet an interesting learning experience, we are supposed to be submitting a paper whose deadline is right on our head but let’s see how THAT goes given my spring break. To be honest, this time I have promised myself that I’ll do this deed during the break, I have been bad at this before, let’s see how it goes!

Umm, that’s about it. What’s new at your end?

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Have you ever seen the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Gene Wilder says to the little boy Charlie while giving him the chocolate factory: Have you heard about the story of little boy who suddenly got everything he ever wanted?

Charlie says: No what happened to him?

Gene Wilder says: He lived happily ever after.

 

Excerpt: The Last Lecture Video by Randy Pausch.