No longer F!rosh!

So I passed first year of Engineering school. I don't care what you all say. I think its an accomplishment and I shall stick to that opinion regardless of anything anyone can ever say. Yes, I actually do feel that strongly about this. Its just that... you know how when you're referred to as "cream of the crop" in high school and then you hit first year of university and its like none of your previous accomplishments matter and you're mainly just struggling to get through. Yep, story of my life!

I have now left TO for the summer and am visiting family in the city of Lahore, Pakistan. From the -30 degrees I survived in TO, I figured a little bit of heat couldn't hurt. I'm a desert child after all, right? Lahore's summer is entirely different than the summer I've endured during my sweet childhood days in my hometown of Jeddah. For those of you unaware of it, there's an invention known as the Air Conditioner, which is greatly complemented by something called electricity. Where electricity is as cheap as it comes in Saudi - it pretty much loves to fluctuate throughout the day here in Lahore. Due to which the combination of humidity and heat can sometimes become unbearable leading to severe headaches that carry on through the night. OK, so that's an exaggeration. But I never get headaches and Lahore's turbulent electricity patterns invoke some seriously regular ones.

Its awfully strange to not have deadlines for projects and assignments and presentations. Something I have become quite accustomed to during my short time spent at U of T. Don't take me wrong though, you know its not like me to not have something to do at all times. I have taken over the Engineering student newspaper on campus for next year and I've pretty much been transitioning since I got the position. Its a pretty tough job, as can be implicated. Apart from that, there's the Mentorship Program for which I am the director. Super psyched to be doing that next year. Its gonna be soo cool!

For now, all I want to do is relax and try and not have my brain boiled out of my skull. Pretty direct aims, don't you think?

Till later!

xoxo

trivo_gurl

Seizing Opportunities

Recently, I've been very apprehensive about the future. Just because I've taken so much on and now I'm afraid of making a decision I might regret. In the past few weeks, I've actually found my head to be quite a mess. And I don't know about you, but I find that very very distracting for my studies. A little clarification is all that's required at such a point.

So I'm a strong believe in fate. Everything that happens, happens for a reason and there's a whole string of events that are connected together to place you in the moment you are right now. Even if one little thing were to change in that course of events, you wouldn't be doing what you're doing right now, I wouldn't be typing this up maybe. The point is, this is how everything is meant to happen. As humans, we tend to think of ourselves as the controllers of the universe. Its ours to play with and destroy, is pretty much our motto. We usually forget that we're nothing, considering how little of our own lives we can control.

There are certain people that I tend to talk to when I can't set things right in my head. Recently however, all these people failed to set anything straight. I was just about ready to have a nervous breakdown when it happened. I had a nice, long chat with one of my profs - and that just did it. He didn't have to say anything specific, I didn't have to ask him any questions - the conversation just automatically steered onto the right topics at the right times and I came out of his office feeling completely clear in my head. It just happened that way. I didn't see it coming, I didn't have any control over it, I didn't even have control over how it happened - but it did. And if we could all learn to believe in the fact that if something is meant to be, it will be, I think we can all lead better lives with fewer stress-related health issues.

Speaking of seizing opportunities, they don't always have to be regarding something that directly affects you. In a forever interactive environment that we live in, we have the power to seize opportunities that have an effect on other people. Today, I was on the subway with a bunch of my friends and this guy comes up to us. He was scrawny, probably in his late 20s, wearing clothes that were 4 sizes too big for him - and he had an empty Tim Horton's cup in his hand. He casually walked up to us and asked for change. Due to some of the experiences my friends have previously had with weird people on the subway, all four of us decided to ignore this guy. He simply sat there, opposite us, and we avoided making any eye contact with him. Halfway through this ignoring thing, I realized that I do, in fact, have change in my bag. But did I "believe" him for what he was? That's often the case when we see people on the streets - asking for change. We always question their genuineness. This incident just made me wonder how many truly deserving people don't get any sympathy from us just because we think them to be "fake". Granted, there are a number of frauds out there, but what about the ones that aren't frauds? Have we ever thought what happens to them? Maybe if I would've given that change to him, he could've gotten something to eat, he could've slept better that night. But I chose not to. Why? I think it was the inner cynic in me that prevented it.

It's worth thinking about...

Follow the yellow brick road...what if my yellow is your red?

Happiness is relative. People find happiness in the strangest of ways and in the tiniest of things. How do you define happiness? You don't. It differs from person to person. That's what makes it so special in the first place. It's something we all want, yet we don't all want the same thing!

When I was 5 years old, Chocolate was happiness. I had my whole life planned out around it. It wasn't a very good plan, of course. I was 5, you see. What I did know about my plan was:

a) I loved chocolate and planned to continue to love it just as much in the coming years
b) what I would eventually end up doing which would then give me eternal happiness

Now, the former was a given. As for the latter. I planned to open up a chocolate factory that would produce "Twix" - the carmel/biscuit chocolate bar by Mars Inc. Now don't ask me why I wanted to produce somebody else's candy bar instead of developing my own. Once I put up the factory, I would have individual "tunnels" leading out to all the houses of my 5 siblings. These tunnels would provide them with a lifetime of Twix supply, which would *obviously* provide them eternal happiness!

@ 10 years old happiness was getting the latest game station.

When I was 17, getting the perfect SAT score was happiness. Long way from Chocolate, don't you think?

Point is, happiness is relative. Its not only different for different people. Its also different at different stages in the same person's life. How does life get so complicated? How is it that we go from sand castles to sky scrapers in terms of what we want from life? Is it peer pressure? Is it society? We've all heard how we should find happiness in the smallest of things and that happiness can't be bought. Words are just so much easier to put out there than actual actions though.

Think about it though.
xoxo
trivo_gurl

All's well that ends well

So does that mean when all's not well it doesn't end well either? 'Cause if that's the case, we can look forward to a crappy crappy year. As we can see, it didn't start out too well. There was the war on Palestine, the Tamil's situation in Sri Lanka, the economy crisis - everything's pretty much going down hill from here, if Shakespeare was right.

It didn't start out extremely well for me either. For one, I was "sick as a dog" as my doctor said, and refused to see a doctor until I actually started coughing up blood! Now, I can't go skiing 'cause my parents have forbade me to. I had a weekend pass to Mont Tremblant and I had to give it up. It's sad, I know. Back to how crappy the new year is probably going to be - as if 5 courses weren't enough, I have 6 this semester. Just what I needed!

We have this design course that we get divided into groups for. Now, each group gets a project. What I didn't now was that the work load of the project would be humongous this semester. New semester, new definition of "hard"! Like I said, crummy new year. Sadly enough, I'm team leader for the group. Which, in simple words means: I'm screwed for the rest of the semester. I was happy enough taking it on (not that it was my choice to begin with, but I didn't back off either) I just didn't know what I was doing. Now, I can't be chicken and run away from it!

So for this design course, we have a project where our client lives in Barrie. Which is roughly 2 hours from Toronto by bus. A long procedure preceded the actual trip which involved having to reschedule a Mechanics quiz. Which I now have to take coming Monday - which means I should be studying now - but what the hell? So we get to Barrie, have an hour to spare, reach where the map points us, turns out we have the wrong address. Just spiffy!

So we catch a cab and we go down a half hour from central Barrie to a road no one in Barrie knows of. We got a plain and simple "That's not in Barrie" from the cab company. Boy, did that freak us out! Anyhoo, so we get there (turns out it was in Barrie) and our project is to get the scoop - go back, and think of ways to improve the energy efficiency of the building. So we meet our client, who is a very nice, warm lady and she transfers us to some guy who gives us a tour of the building. Honestly, I've never seen a more energy efficient building. Now why would they do that?
A. It was a mistake.
B. It's a trick project.
Mind you, both the options are highly likely, since the client "moved" to another place in the province from her original address provided to us by the University. What sucks is, I have to report on it next week and get started on a plan as to how we should go about improving the energy efficiency of the most energy efficient building we've ever really seen!

And oh, Barrie was really cold. Like really really cold. When I got back to Toronto, I actually thought it was pretty warm - and that was when it was -18 in Toronto. Who knew a desert child like me would think -18 was warm? *sigh* how times have changed!

What's crummier about 2009 is how crappy its going to be for the automotive industry. Not that its not going to be so for all the other kijillion industries. Its just that I won't even bother going to the car show this year. Which breaks an 18 year old tradition (yes, my dad actually took me to motor shows as a baby too) - which is mighty sad if you ask me. Its not like I'm in any position to purchase one of the fancy things, its just that I really wish the rest of the world's population wasn't in such great debt so as to not be able to purchase delightfully expensive cars! 'Cause that means I don't get to see some great releases until the next year! Kiss goodbye to the Alfa Romeo and Camaro eye candy this year, carshow-goers. Its not happening!

There was a career fair at University for students looking for summer jobs. I won't be here in the summer, so it doesn't matter to me. I'm hopefully working for my dad this summer =) Yay, to summer all year round! Which reminds me, I watched "Body of Lies" when it was released and one of Russell Crowe's character's dialogs stuck in my head. He says to DiCaprio "Trust me, no one wants to live in the Middle East" Boy, is he wrong! I can't friggin' wait to get back!!

I'm not sure about you guys, but I didn't set any New Year's Resolutions for myself this year. It's probably because I never work hard enough on them anyway so it doesn't matter. One of last year's I actually did fulfill - getting into Uni!! ^_^
So I know I've been whining about how crappy this year is, now for some good stuff. I went to this mind-blowing presentation about Engineering Without Borders this Thursday. I honestly still haven't stopped thinking about it. Did you know that with the help of EWB, Canada has actually decided to untie all its aid by 2012-2013?? I sure as hell didn't. That just went to make me realize how completely confounded my brain has become thanks to the societal pressure we all face every day of our lives. Get a job, make money, spend money. That's our entire life in a nutshell - when it can be so much more! I felt like such a moron sitting there amongst all these people who knew - and I was the dumb one. I really haven't gotten used to that yet. I probably should though. There's so much that's waiting to be learned.

I have like 5 deadlines to meet in the next week. Feb 4 is officially deadline day for me right now. So I really should go.

Till next time,
adieus,
trivo_gurl

Terrorists - Hamas or Israel?

All of us have been brainwashed. There's no denying that. We believe what the media tells us and find it hard to change our minds once they're set on certain things. I'm not one to dwell too deeply into politics, but I do recognize when something wrong is happening. Such as the war on Gaza.

What I cannot fathom is how the world can sit back and let this happen. If you've read more than just what the "big" media sources will tell you, you can tell who's wrong here: Palestine or Israel. One article that a friend posted a link to, caught my attention. Frankly, I'm surprised it was allowed to be published in NY times! Click here to view the article. It talks openly about what's really happening and leaves the reader to decide what's right and what's wrong. Definitely worth a read.

So this whole Palestine problem started right after the fall of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. Palestine was the unfortunate territory that never really gained independence and has since then been involved in acts of violence with Israel. In the Resolution Act 181 (II) of 1947, the United Nations - in simple words - drew a line for the Israeli and Palestinian territories. Israel - clearly not OK with the deal - decided to send out troops and occupy 77% of the Palestinian territory. Isn't it so ironic that they still want the tiny bit of Gaza strip that's left over? And for the silliest reasons in the world! Israel claims that Hamas has "weapons of terror" that the Israeli army is trying to demolish - for world peace I'm guessing? When Egypt negotiated ceasefire, Israel broke it first and began attacks. This morning, Israeli air forces dropped leaflets down to residents of Gaza stating that they will be escalating military action.

Honestly? Nobody sees this. As angry as I am about the Arab countries not doing anything about this... none of the "bigger" forces are doing much either! Canada's claiming that Hamas is a terrorist, obviously not looking at the number of deaths since the outbreak of the war at the end of last year. Over 800 Palestinians are now dead, as opposed to a handful of Israeli soldiers. Why do you think that has happened? Who is the terrorist here, Hamas or Israel? How does nobody see this? What's wrong with the world that we live in? No one is ready to do anything to stop this massacre!

Its like the entire Jewish community of the world is adamant to seek revenge for the Holocaust! I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that nobody thinks the Holocaust to be fair in anyway. We all agree that it was an act of injustice and shouldn't have taken place, but why are the Jews taking it out on the Palestinians? As far as I can recall, Adolf Hitler was not Palestinian. Then why the animosity towards them? What did the Palestinians do to Israel to deserve this? Freedom of choice? Electing Hamas? Everything Israel is doing right now does not only violate everything in the Geneva Convention, it violates the Resolutions set forth by the United Nations, and pretty much every other basic right of humanity there is out there. How is it, despite the fact that Israel was to look after the welfare of the people of Gaza, that they are the very ones stopping food and medical aid to go across its border?

A Muslim's view of an Anglican Church

*So this little piece right here is something I wrote over Christmas break '08. It just never got posted then so I'm not going to finish it, but ... w/e!*

Close to Belleville, the Canadian "Endora", is the even smaller town of Stirling. We have friends up in Stirling who live in an 1887 farm house. It has quaint little walls that are about double the width of regular walls. They own 40 goats, 4 ducks, 100 hens and other animals I lost track of. They're a very very nice couple. Very hospitable and very friendly indeed. We attended a community dinner not too long ago at the St. John's Anglican Church and that was hosted by the nice lady I'm talking about. Both, the husband and the wife are very involved with the church. The husband's a lay reader, the wife teaches at Sunday School. She's also a PhD student along with her farm responsibilities and church duties. Don't ask me how she manages everything, for I ain't got a clue! I consider myself the unluckiest of souls with my 30 hour week schedule in Engineering school... silly silly me...



Anyways, so the couple I'm talking about invited us to attend the Christmas Eve service taking place at their church. Since there isn't much to do anyway, and I honestly don't mind going to the church, as long as I'm not forced to do anything that I don't want to, we agreed. She picked us up from Belleville and we were on our way. Its quite a drive up to Stirling and since darkness falls a lot earlier than usual in the winter, we pretty much drove in the dark. I'm telling you folks, if M.Night Shyamalan asks for suggestions as to where he should shoot his next legendary movie, tell him "the area between Stirling and Belleville"!! That place could give anyone the spooks driving through like we did, in total darkness...



We reached the church around 5:30, received bulletins for the service, were greeted by several people who seemed to remember our "hijab-ed" selves from the Christmas dinner, and were handed candles. Thin, white, wax candles about 15 cm in length. Around the candle was a circular cardboard cut-out. The candles was poked through it. Now, I come from an Eastern background. We don't do candles. Apparently here in the West, they're big on candles! I realized the circular thing was to protect our hands from hot wax, but what were the candles for? Anyways, I thanked the people handing them out and went on to take my place in the pews. Now you can imagine what it must have looked like - a lady with a headscarf in a sea of people without headscarves. Its obvious enough in a faculty like my own, where there are quite a few Muslim students. Let alone a church! Boy, was I easily spottable!



I had so many questions in mind though. Nothing made sense to me: the Minister was a lady, what was the bread for? What was with the steel cup? Thankfully, the lady I've mentioned before chose to sit next to us. I pretty much bombarded her with questions and she tried her best to explain them to me. Now, for those of you who don't know me, I'm Muslim. And I try and practice it as much as possible. I wear the headscarf, I have pretty clear ideas of what's right and what's wrong in my religion and where everything stems from. I realize why most of the things about Christianity didn't make sense to me: it was the complete opposite of what I've grown up with. It would be the same if I tried explaining about Islam to someone who had gone to Sunday School all their lives.

Christmas Break!

Yet again, I apologize for not keeping touch. I couldn't help it. I had five exams to sit starting from the very beginning of the exam period to the end. Thank God for that though, for I needed the break in the middle to study! As you can tell, I'm not one to study everday and so the breaks in the middle of all my exams are the only reason I'm still in university!

Anyways, so I caught a cold - due to eating ice chips according to my sister. I know better! I've been eating ice chips since a baby. If that were true, I'd always have a cold. Which is not really the case. My exams didn't go as well as I'd hoped. *fingers crossed* I'll pass! I would die if I failed first semester!

Things have been well... annoying lately... I kept thinking of signing in and writing something and I actually had so much to write about, I just never came online enough. I spent most of my time off lazing around in front of my laptop watching TV... great investment of my time, innit? I'll be lucky if I can remember half the things I wanna talk about on here.

I probably wanted to write summat about the weather. Its started snowing. Its getting brutal actually. A snow storm hit Toronto on the 19th of December. It was crazy! I looked outside the window early morning and all I could see was a white moving blur. VERY scary! Thankfully enough, I didn't have a paper that day. Most of my Engineering Science friends did though, and they had my sympathies. Poor kids had to walk across the worst areas of the storm to get to the University Campus. They should totally get sympathy points for that! So I dunno if I've mentioned this before, but my residence kicks all the students out for the winter break. Where all of em are supposed to go is the least of their concern. I understand where they're coming from, but that doesn't make any of this less unfair. A lot of the students at the residence are international students from as far away as Thailand, which is a 22 hour flight from Toronto. Makes the 16 hour flight I have to take to get home seem like nothing!

A friend of mine decided to leave res to live at a friend's on the 19th itself. I'm not sure if it was because he was sick of the food ('cause he hates it anyway) or because he just couldn't wait to get out of res (I wouldn't know why!) - but he braved the storm to get to another part of the city. And that brought on a whole load of bitter comments to his facebook page. It was almost funny seeing how mad he was at the weather!

Its like a whole new world for me. I come from a desert. Well, that's what Saudi Arabia is at its core. If it weren't for the ultra super hot weather there, you wouldn't be able to tell, for the city is very well developed indeed. Its just that I'm so not used to snow! I come over here and I see white in the air and I panic! Its not so bad now that I've gotten used to it. I actually like walking in the snow. Despite the fact that I'm extremely clumsy with it. Just the other day, my first day in the city of Belleville actually, I tried climbing over a snow mound to get to this cafe and instead sunk knee-deep in snow! Everyone got a big laugh out of it. I couldn't help laughing myself... I went under with my backpack slung over my shoulder and everything!

So I obviously forgot to write about the obvious. For winter break, our original plan was to go to Montreal, the famous city of the french province of Quebec. Plans changed every now and then until we settled on staying at friend's in Belleville for most of the time. We might head over to Oakville to visit another friend, but its all in the works right now. Belleville is a two-hour train ride from the city of Toronto (which I love, is what I've realized recently). For those of you who have watched "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" - the great movie starring the likes of Johnny Depp and Leo DiCaprio, Belleville is like the Canadian Endora. And I'm not even kidding. I'll upload pictures of the hoisted water tank and the lone roads with a lack of pedestrians. For those of you who haven't watched that movie, I strongly urge you to. Its pretty old, I believe it was release in 1993, but its still available in some parts of the world wide web. Surf The Channel for instance. Its really worth a watch! Really makes you appreciate how greatly gifted DiCaprio is!

To be fair, Belleville is not as depressing as the lone town of Endora. It definitely has a little more going on. There's taxi services, motels, cafes, bookstores, cinemas etc. We're visiting a friend who owns a cafe downtown. Its called the Organic Underground. Its a quaint little place with an atmosphere of its own. Its really cozy and warm and welcoming... has a nice feel to it... I'm sitting in it right now writing this blog entry. Last night, there was a 10-cake birthday party for people who missed their birthday parties in the year of 2008. It was really funny how they were all identical with names spelled wrong on all of em!! How hard is it to spell "Annie"?? Nevertheless, it was loads of fun.

Its snowing like crazy outside right now and I can't even think of going outside. To everyone else, its nothing! They're so used to it too! And I'm the idiot who starts shivering everytime the door opens. Oh well, I believe we've already established the fact that I'm a desert child, haven't we? This is probably the longest I've ever took to write one blog entry. I've been on and off for like four hours now. Did I mention I trekked my way over to the Organic Underground from my motel this afternoon? Yep, I stayed at a motel. How rockstar am I? At least I like to believe I trekked. The snow has just started so its still kinda powdery. You can go knee-deep without even falling in it like I did!

OU has closed down for the day today. Its a Sunday so everyone's taking it easy. My sister was actually hoping to catch "Yes Man" today at the theatre but nobody else was really up for it. We met a whole lot of really great people here. They were all new to me, my sister's actually met them before. They were all involved in a play called "My Name is Rachel Corrie" and I didn't go to see it 'cause well... I wasn't very interested. Plus I had a paper to write so... But I met them all yesterday at the 10-cake birthday party. They're all very very nice and I just had a blast talking to them all. I actually invited them over to the University campus for Godiva week. That would be awesome! More on Godiva week later...

Now that I think back, I really miss going to University everyday. Its just such a nice feeling to be part of a large community and I can't imagine life in Toronto without it. In Toronto's defense, I haven't really accustomed to the city as a resident yet. You'd think five months would be enough for that, but when you're doing two jobs and 30 hour weeks at school, there's little that you can do! I know I whined about how much I needed a break when University was on and I had to sit my exams, but right now all I wanna do is get to attend class again, meet my friends everyday... ahhh!!

So Godiva week huh? Its always advertised as being F!rosh week, but much better! This would be my first time, but if it really is as advertised then boy am I in for a ride! Read back to find out how amazing I thought F!rosh week was. If Godiva week goes as promised, you can expect a much more excited and hyper-active me, writing another blog as soon as its over! If we're lucky, it'll get published like my F!rosh blog! =P

What Godiva week is, is basically a week of fun and games before the students in the Engineering Faculty indulge themselves in their rigorous schedules that doesn't allow any room for entertainment. We have the F!rosh hardhat competition, which I haven't really got around to doing... I'm not sure if I'll enter. The craziest one wins and I don't know if mine'll be crazy enough. There's also the Chariot Races. They take place around the King's College Circle in front of University College. The annoying part is, the F!rosh chariot can't win. Its actually in the rules so its not even like we're incompetent... we're just not allowed to win. As crazy as that sounds!

I'm kinda sick of typing right now, so I think I'm just gonna stop and wait till I get more ideas of stuff to write. There'll be loads more, so be on the look out for later!!

Adieus,
trivo_gurl