Also, I am one lazy sloth.
I have lots and lots and lots of things to do, and too little time, and I am trying to stay away from facebook and not call my mother as I got a REAL dressing down from her this morning so this blog is the perfect hiding place.
I don't know what I was searching for, but I landed on this fellow-man's blog who studied at UWM and man, was it full of juicy snarky commentary on people's lives even though he claimed to be such an introvert and a pursuer of literature and philosophy and poetry (duh!).
It also set me on the path of reflection about my life, my current situation and my metamorphosis that happened in Amreeka. Which isn't much, except that I told my friend that if I ever go for a PhD and feel that I need someone in my life, I will formally ask folks out.
As I see, I am destined to remain a spinster who writes 3rd class poetry all my life, a very weird amalgam of East and West who doesn't fit anywhere nor ever will, and who will only be left with Mustafa Zaidi's line as one of the precious few people and ideas that remain true:
آندھی چلی تو نقش کف پا نہیں ملا
دل جس سے مل گیا وہ دوبارا نہیں ملا
ہم انجمن میں سب کی طرف دیکھتے رہے
اپنی طرح سے کوئی اکیلا نہیں ملا
These eternal lines have stuck to my mind for a very long time, and I have always wondered, did Zaidi actually feel this? Because this is just what I feel. Can two people feel the exact same thing, with such high accuracy?
A couple of weeks ago, I read another nice work by him titled 'barafbari' that mentioned:
زندگی اک بے وفا لڑکی کے وعدوں کی طرح
آنسوؤں کے ساتھ آئی، آنسوؤں میں بہہ گئی
This, again, rings so true. So damn true.
Anyways. He was obviously a very talented man and his ghazals were way better than mine. The way the society treated him makes me sad, man.
I am going to read more of his stuff.
Back to my life.
I have mentioned quite a few predictions about myself, but they don't bother me in the least.
The only thing that gets me is that I am never, ever, ever going to get how matrices behave.
The semester is ending, and I am wrapping up my life, my MS and my graduate applications. I have eliminated nostalgia and regret from my life completely [except for regret minimization, an interesting technique it seems] and if someone would ask me how I was feeling, my reply would be, 'meh'.
There are a lot of conditions for this to happen. Someone must care to talk to me, care enough to ask this of me and then have the courage to ask this to my face. No one fulfills a single one of these conditions, let alone all three. There is something in my demeanour that used to make people behave in a very cautious and reserved manner with me, and it has come to Amreeka with me. It lingers in the background in every encounter, even though my outward appearance has turned by 180 degrees[ something on which a guy much higher than me in my ex-office was quick to comment on, and something for which I will get back to him one day] with my truly few zulfain flying loose and what-not, and me as sweet and smiling a thing as ever, but I guess I don't deceive anyone.
I don't wish to deceive people, but I wish everyone was not able to see so quickly through me, or through my poetry, but duh, and whatever, and I really truly don't give a damn.
The extent of me not giving a damn is one of the very few things that scares me. As I have often told an acquaintance, I don't approve of women being called bitches under any circumstances, but I guess I have the liberty of proclaiming that I have the ability to be such a cold hearted bitch at times that it frightens me and I wonder if I should really feel bad about it. To be clear, this is not my default mode, not even with random guys since coming to Amreeka, and this is something that I try to control. It is extremely difficult to provoke me, and very time consuming to do so. When I like people, I simply adore them. I go out of my way to make them happy, and since I am observant on a level that very few people are, I do it on a very micro as well as macro level, and never expect anything in return. Their happiness means the world to me, and I gladly sacrifice my own for theirs, and I never take them for granted. They can hurt me, and I am willing to forgive that, and not even in a teary-eyed broken-hearted 'x hurt me but I love x' kind of way, but in a very grown-up
x was tired and did not really mean it, duh!' way.
However. However. However.
If I ever suspect that X does not want to have me in X's life, then it is story over, the end, the game is done.
And at that particular instant.
No, there is no breaking of the heart, or welling of the eyes. No ideas for revenge, for getting even. No considerations.
I just stop caring for that person, completely, in an instant, and I don't feel anything about it, because what has to be, has to be.
I have done this quietly to three very important people in my life, in the recent past. One of them I'll probably never see again after a month. One of them I have met a very few times. One of them I'll have to meet after one month.
None of them practically did anything to me, they just said things that made me realize that maybe I wasn't as important in their life as I thought I was.
Maybe is my life, and might prove to be my bane. I don't care; skepticism and incessant questioning are the essence of my being and intellectual honesty is one of the rare things I believe in.
To be clear, this did not happen the exact same moment or the week or even the month they said those things. It happened much later, when I was cool and calm, I like to think.
Anyways.
By all usual markers, my life is sedlyfe but duh, who cares.
The sheer enormity of my not caring, again, gives me pause at times.
I change. Like a lot. I laughed it off when my FPGA professor from 1st and 2nd semester mentioned it to me twice or thrice but my mom has been telling me since forever and I think my derivative is really, really high here.
Anyways.
When I came here, I was quite obese and had all the usual troubles like not being able to fit in the right dresses and the right chairs and the right circles. In retrospect, I had some nice curves, but you can never control your fat deposition and consequently burn-off pattern.
So I did not like it and tried to alleviate it, like half the population back home always seems to be doing and only gets ridiculed, instead of being guided and motivated.
I haven't ever been ridiculed, but neither do I want to be guided.
So one day I saw this cute Chinese girl in the university center in a grey crop top and with a very nice mid-riff and I decided it'd be nice to wear a crop top and that I wanted that sort of midriff.
Of course I can't ever have that exact type of mid-riff, because duh, genetics! Somehow I never get exactly what I hanker after in life, but I am cool with that, like I wanted to go to MIT but I was sent here to Carnegie Mellon, and now I absolutely love Carnegie Mellon.
Must be the arranged-marriage enabling gene that runs in mashriqi khawateen.
Anyways, I can have a nice though different midriff, and I tried for it, and it payed off far more than my efforts, although there is still some work to be done, which I'll have to defer to a PhD.
My weight is still exactly the same, though I can do stuff like push ups that I only could dream of. Deadlifts and squats, again, I have deferred to the future, if ever there is one.
Anyways.
Strength training changed my life. It changed my freaking life. I don't use obscenities, because I don't like them, but it took away the fat from my midsection as well as my personality. The scientific aspect alone deserves a blog post of its own, which I'll probably never do out of laziness.
It is kind of addictive, though, and easy to overdo so be careful, my dear reader.
Anyways.
I don't think I have ever been inspired by anyone in Pakistan and definitely not by a scientist but here you come in touch with people who have pioneered fields and won Turings and Nobels and who are an authority on their subject. This makes you think about the state of your ignorance and stupidity.
Till yesterday, I had too many discussions with people about the sheer idiocy that was happening back home and finally I had enough and I decided to shut my mouth once and for all and to focus on the stuff that matters.
Anyways.
So even here, you come across different categories of people, and when you meet someone who is a class apart from their peers even in the CMU CS department, you can easily tell.
One such poor guy, who has something of a skill with-you guessed it-matrices-landed here after some adventures post-MIT and landed in the spot of my teacher for a particularly beautiful but strong-headed course.
My observations:
-His luck MUST have run out. No other explanation.
-I would KILL to have his level of skill and knowledge. I honestly suspect I can NEVER match the level of his intellect, or talent.
-He makes SUCH an effort to make me understand stuff that it moves me to pity. Like really. You can tell that he loves his stuff, and teaching it to the world.
-His level of sweetness is something that I don't want to match, ever. Still, when he finds an idea bogus, he says that outright, with no mincing of words.
-I suspect he encourages me in some part due to the women in STEM thing. I am one of two girls in his class, and the other one is one parhi likhi larki, whereas I struggle and struggle and struggle and do everything much later than the deadline. Outside the academic environment, I guess he wouldn't even talk to a girl of IQ level when highly intoxicated.
-If I live and work in some area with focus for fifteen years, I should revisit thus blog and comment here about whether I have achieved 20% of his level or not.
-I really really really wish I had a paper with him.
-He emailed me to ask if I wanted to discuss my project with him after the usual office hours, since those are often crowded, and I went and wasted his two hours straight, and honestly it is a crime against humanity.
-I suspect I am actually too stupid for algorithms, and have often exclaimed that I should be shot if I let their name come to my tongue one more time.
-I absolutely love CMU.
In conclusion:
- I am going to die a friendless spinster after spending my life writing low-class poetry. Fine with me.
-I am going to die without sound knowledge of algorithms and linear algebra. Not fine with me.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have two projects and one application process and one winding up of life in a lovely, lovely city where I spent a lovely, lovely time to do.
My mother says that I should look forward to spending some lovelier time in the future in a lovelier place but I don't think that is possible. Luck runs out, and I for one always expect the entropy to increase with time.
I used to be a cynic, man. Hell, strength training has cured that to an alarming extent.
Most importantly of all, I have to make a phone call to my mother.
I never grow out of my habits, do I?
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