AC's in Office

Our Lahore office is HOT. i mean you start walking around and i atleast start sweating. And this without any heating being on..

 

Me n Emkay have started turning on the AC in our glass box to keep from melting away into mush. sigh sigh... then it gets too cold.. and the vent is right on top of my half of the glass box so guess who gets the brunt of the cold north wind..

 

i've been re-reading my Enid Blyton collection... just read The Enchanted Wood, The Magic Faraway Tree and The Folk of the Faraway Tree. It was delicious... the land of goodies, the land of take what you want, the land of tea parties, the land of treats, The land of birthdays, oh joy oh joy... i loved going back to all those places again... now im reading the Wishing Chair, The Wishing Chair Again & The Wishing Chair Adventures.. its not as much fun as the Enchanted wood series... a little bit more of trouble and tension.. but its nice as well..

 

Also i go to Sunday bazaar every week trying to located my lost collection of Enid Blyton that got lost when i lost my crate of booksies all those years ago.. sighh...

 

I miss abu.. his face flashes before my eyes all the time... his strong jaw.. his eyes.. his smile.. i miss him so much.. i consciously stop myself from thinking too much about him not being there anymore... so it always feels like he's still here... i cant believe he'll never hold my child in his arms.. i cant believe it wont be him saying the azaan in its ears.. what am i going to do without him..

 

i feel numb sometimes and sometimes i feel like reaching out and hugging the world.. i miss my friends... we're all so busy all the time.. its always nice to meet up with sara.. its like being back in college...

 

the ultimate irony for both me and fais is that both our best friends have gotten married and are off to greener pastures.. its seriously unsettling.. like being set adrift in a stormy sea and having to reach out to unfamiliar floating twigs to try to stabilize yourself...

 

sighh... Lahore is great... it ws foggy when we landed.. i ran into someone i had worked with when Als and i had done the very first internship of our lives in 95 in SCB.. after 12 years... can you imagine.. life really moves on and just carries you along with it..

 

its kinda lovely that way.. i have soo many little little things to take care off on saturday... DACC bills to pay, earings to pick up, NADRA to visit, DHA, PIA, Registrars, darzi, state bank... sighhhh.... i like having a to do list, but it can be overwhelming sometimes, when you basically have only one working day to get it all done and a supremely sleepy hubby..

 

:) oh well.. how does readers digest put it.. All in a day's work ...

Cheerios

 

Princess of the GemWorld

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Fariha's Thoughts of the Day:

GoogleName: Fariha GemWorld

From Pakistan: http://www.pkblogs.com/gemworld

Int'l : Blogspot: http://gemworld.blogspot.com

MSN Space: http://gemworldfars.spaces.live.com/

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I want to do nothing.

 

i want to be a nothing.

 

i want to cease to exist as an entity that requires food and nourishment or has responsibilities.

 

I want to be free of any sense of urgency, or stress.

 

i want to do nothing.

 

i want to just live... and die.

 

i want to go to heaven in the end.

 

i dont think thats an unreasonable request.

 

If i do nothing, i cant do anything wrong. hence everything would be right.. which equates to heaven.

 

i want to go to heaven and be with abu and thats it.

 

i want to do nothing else.

 

i am done.

 

i have nothing further i want to do.

 

except see rome. but i can live without that if i have to. i'll see it from above the clouds after im in heaven with abu. aerial views are better anyway.

 

i am tired now. i feel old and worn out. mentally and physically. i can keep deluding myself into thinking theres more to life and living, but it would be a delusion.

 

i am done. enough. now i want to do nothing.

 

but i want my data files, a computer and an internet connection. i guess thats not quite nothing.

 

why am i such a paradoxical being?
do i like confusing people?
do i derive some kind of sadistic pleasure out of it?

 

im not a sadistic person. i just want to do nothing. i'd like to exist in a bubble.
which never bursts. is that too much to ask?

 

i just want to feel protected and secure and at ease and safe and at peace.

 

i can be happy that way. i have nothing left to prove or any desire to prove it.

 

i know im good. i know im fragmented. its a legacy from abu. we have thought progression at the speed of light. i believe they call it ADT in todays fancy terms. Attention Deficit Disorder. i have a medical condition that has been officially diagnosed in other parts of the world. Here they call it being de-focused. or disrespectful.

 

i miss abu. my sanctuary. my safe haven from all the wrongs. my definition of all thats right. i could hug him and life would be filled with sunshine and daisies.. and everything would be hunky dory..

 

i dont want anything now. i dont want recognition and progression and success. i need money for meeting sustenance needs, but Allah mian should direct wire transfer that to my bank account.

 

i want to do nothing.

 

The end.

 

Princess of the GemWorld

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Fariha's Thoughts of the Day:

GoogleName: GemWorld Fars

Blogspot: http://gemworld.blogspot.com

MSN Space: http://gemworldfars.spaces.msn.com

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cold days and hot showers

KHi is fine. in my estimation its still cold. im trying to be regular in my aerobic classes. run into soofia there sometimes. it'll take me atleast 10 years before i can even dream of being that fit.

 

i keep looking forward to piping hot water in the shower. when i go to LHR i usually loose all interest in showering at all. too damn cold. its a good thing most of trips one day trips. ive been eating smoked chicken and smoked cheese that i had brought over for me from dubai. i have a sandwich of that every day, twice a day. other wise i just had a bun kabab.. well half a bun kabab that my receptionist had bought for lunch. he had an extra one. :)

 

i went to sunday bazaar this sunday and bought two chicken suits, peach and pink. i called sara if she wanted to come but her cute little one had the flu systems so she was tending to him. so i went home to amis, had qeema sawaiyaan and then went to sunday bazaar with them. i had a plate of dahi bara with aaloo and chutney yumm.. i find myself craving dahi bara aaloo papri chat all the time. the other day i went to aerobics and on the way back i made faisal stop at chatkharey and i had that.

 

my legal troubles are in full swing. ive sent all the paperwork and am following up diligently with both citibank and union which is now standard chartered. geez. lets see if they end up taking me to court over this. life can only get so interesting yes.

 

i hate credit card companies. but i so far like Alfalah. They have been very good to me so far and their service is very good.

 

still doing the regular DHA & DAD works follow ups. Its a good thing i have a job and am not strapped for cash to put food on the table everyday. otherwise legal process takes a lifetime. 

 

sigh sigh.. i like cold weather but somehow im feeling colder than usual these days and thats not fun. 

 

ok.. catch you guyz later. ive lost interest and have nothing more to say. 

 

cheerios

Princess of the GemWorld 

 

 

********************************************************************************************

Fariha's Thoughts of the Day:

GoogleName: GemWorld Fars

Blogspot: http://gemworld.blogspot.com

MSN Space: http://gemworldfars.spaces.msn.com

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it's all good

Dear all...

 

:) Life's good. you know i finally feel it. after a whole lot of winters, of being filled with a feeling of dreadful anticipation on whatever front was open at that point in life, this winter was surprisingly sublime and well relatively peaceful.

 

This entire week was chock full of weddings. First my hubby's best friend and then mine. so it was glorious popping out all of my super glitzy shadi outfits and dressing to the hilt even when it wasnt required.. my obsession with sparkly things continues unabated and i wonder sometimes in flashes of introspection, what i will do when i'm 50 and still wearing blaring red orange and gold organza outfits... because well .. i like it. :)

 

i can imagine embarrasing my kids to death and being labeled that crazy old lady with no regard for her age. but man really... i love my glam sparkly shiny super duper glitzy outfits and everything else that goes with it.. if i had my way i would have glitter paint on all my walls.. my hubby shubby would probably lose it but hey thats me.. hasnt happened yet, :) but its still early...

 

i'm still in the developmental process of shrugging off all the shackles of societal expectations. i spent my youth struggling against them to establish my own individuality and to protect myself from the pain of judgement. i think i'm there now. but everything comes with a price. there are many moments where you still sit there and say to yourself, "conforming is so much easier". But at the end of the day, its still all between me and my God.. so the rest of the world can go take a hike. :)

 

My best friends abandoning me and moving to HongKong. to tell the truth, shes just as freaked as i am. but it means serious lifestyle changes on my end. for one, while she was around i felt no compulsion to make time for anyone else in karachi. as it is life was too hurried and too much had to be taken care of in too little time.. especially after Abu. But through her i would always have a connection and updates on all our other friends and sometimes we'd meet up as well.. now sighhhh.. i'll need to make the effort on my own. we have good friends that go back many years.. we're blessed.. because its difficult finding people now with the same value systems as ours.. the conservative middle class is fast eroding and losing all the things that made it what it was.. the lines have started blurring between whats evil and whats not.. but with the people you went to school and college with, the beauty is that you will always know their true self. you may not like some of it but if you didnt like the most of it, you wouldnt still know them..

 

i feel good. in a mental, physical and spiritual sense. this time seems to ready for a new beginning. i spent the last 3 years of my life in transit. always feeling like i had one foot in the air... that feeling of being unsettled doesnt let you take charge of anything in your life because if you try and fail its very demoralizing.. so you just learn to let go, go with the flow and just do however much you can.. but sleep becomes a priority :) and you let go of alot of things that used to make you feel very very good because of the sheer lack of time... people included.

 

i think its time for a wave of change.. its time to reclaim my life and my self.. its time to make the effort to feel more settled and less all over the place. its time to maintain good friendships and to learn to give and receive and God meant us all to do. its time to learn to juggle all the good things in my life, my family my friends my work my passions and keep all the balls merrily in the air. Its time i returned to my soul started to feel again fully rather than in bits and peices.. Inshallah by the grace of Allah, i shall start now..

 

cheerios

 

Princess of the GemWorld

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Fariha's Thoughts of the Day:

GoogleName: GemWorld Fars

Blogspot: http://gemworld.blogspot.com

MSN Space: http://gemworldfars.spaces.msn.com

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Travel & Cheerios

Just landed in the US. Johannesburg was pretty. All green green with sloping landscapes, slightly dull blue skies.. a couple of days were overcast but natures vibrations could be clearly felt throughout the land from the elephants on the open range to the earth worms on my bathtub. Yes, i also have no clue how they got there.

 

But it was a once in a lifetime experience and i am thankful to Allah mian that he let me experience it. although i feel the natural beauty in Nairobi would be far more raw than SA which is far more developed in comparison. But it was nice and our people were also nice.

 

ive been on planes for more than 24 hours now. seven and a half hours from joberg to dxb.. 4 hours in transit and another 17 hours to JFK. once we landed theres an additional check which is done which took another two hours post immigration in which we were asked exactly the same questions as on the immigration counter. but it was a slightly more detailed data entry protocol. Once through with that i walked out and located the emirates chauffer drive service. this was around 430pm.. i'd landed at 230pm.The funny part was it was already sunset time. and there was a definitive chill in the air.

 

The good part is that im packed for the chill :) the bad part is i didnt know the days were quite this short. :) oh well. The sales have also apparently started so maybe tomorrow we go shopping. The only thing is i swore i wouldnt buy anything this time :) heheh.. so im going to have to exercise some serious self control.

 

i kinda fell asleep as soon as i got home at around 530pm.. then i got up at 11pm and had a nice nice bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios :).. i felt like i was seven again :) theres nothing quite like cereal to get nostalgia going :)

 

Now im sitting here going through a multitude of emails. Thank goodness my cousins have wireless internet :) Its dark outside. I know it must be cold. im looking forward to the morning. im also looking forward to a hot bath and washing my hair after 24 hours of airline containment. :) im also looking forward to regaining bowel movement post planting my feet on the ground :)

 

So thats that. i think i want more cheerios. Afterall it noon back home.. must have lunch.. :)

cheerios

 

Princess of the GemWorld

********************************************************************************************

Fariha's Thoughts of the Day:

GoogleName: GemWorld Fars

Blogspot: http://gemworld.blogspot.com

MSN Space: http://gemworldfars.spaces.msn.com

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Life sucks..

i seem to be stuck in delirium.. i feel kinda nauseous all the time.. i dont know if its because im sick of life.. cause im not... i just think i need to exercise. seriously. except i dont qualify for a club membership yet... life sucks..

 

i feel like a chicken, graded and de-graded.. there are so many little things in life which can sneak up on you and make you feel silly.. like everything... my new found vagueness doesnt help me much.. i cant seem to break the mould and say i will be honest... because i cant find it within me to lay all of out on the blog page to be judged and drawn and quartered.. i think i want to eat chinese.. theres nothing wrong with wanting to eat chinese. except i dont know if i want to eat it at home or outside..

 

i dont meet my friends much anymore... everytime i get up from work i feel the call of hunger calling me to the closest eating zone.. whether its home or outside, doesnt matter.. each day the call keeps coming.. and then once you eat u want to sleep.. its natural.. all the blood rushes to your tummy and its sleepy time..

 

so my socialization is at an all time low.. soon everyone will forget i ever existed and then i can die in peace and no one will even come to the funeral.. people say we should look to the future.. i did.. it told me i had 20 yrs left to live and i suddenly realized that wasnt really enough time to undo all the wrongs i had done in the past 29 and go to heaven and be with abu. i dont know what to do.. as it is its all downhill from here.

 

i find myself waking up in the middle of the night... i pray.. started with tahajjud prayers and manage to do fajr as well. then the morning comes and Allah and his haq somehow slips the mind until its night again. and life goes on..

 

when will i grow up.. when will i do my own laundry? when will cook a meal on a daily basis? when will i ever grow up? is that what growing up is?

i pay the bills! is that being grown up? i try to do stuff around the house. kinda. mostly i just lie in front of the TV feeling unfit and sleepy and asking mums for supper.. sighhhh...

can i ever be grown up ... somehow i doubt it..

 

Princess of the GemWorld

********************************************************************************************

Fariha's Thoughts of the Day:

GoogleName: GemWorld Fars

Blogspot: http://gemworld.blogspot.com

MSN Space: http://gemworldfars.spaces.msn.com

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Eid time

Eid time... 25th October 2006
-----------------------------------
its eid time. we're not celebrating. but i still asked ami to make qeema sawaiyan.. i like those.. i eat them allll day... :)..
Uzmchi, shahcha, hamid and sidra are here for eid.. its going to be so great having them here. it gives everyone an excuse to get together every day cause we have visitors from afar... like the olden days when you had to travel days to get from one village to the next.
we're going to go to sunday bazaar and take uzmchi so she can browse old books.

 

Post Eid Time ... 31st October 2006
-----------------------------------
i seriously took my time didnt i :) yup.. eid was nice. the whole family came over for lunch one day and all the men spent the entire day watching cricket. people kept visiting us the next day as well and generally ensured that the house wasnt empty even for a little while. it was wonderful..

 

my life is moving slowly.. i can hear the rickshaws outside on the streets of Lahore. it gives me a warm feeling inside.. generally because its cold inside the office :) i love the warm feeling. we're going to start getting alot of that now since the weather in Lahore is turning chilly. I slept really really well yesterday. i dont understand it. i sleep sooo bloody well in Lahore, its not even funny. i dont know if its the bed or the weather or the fact that me and funanie went to zouk and had mushrooms and soup and salad and felt very healthy afterwards.. i dont know. i just sleep really well in Lahore. mashallah..

maybe its the novelty of a different geographic space.

 

Office was good... went around saying Eid mubarak to everyone yesterday. and today :). funanie was off to the site so didnt see her all day today.. but managed to get alot done. so im happy.

 

i find myself at a loss for words each time i sit in front of the screen. somehow i dont seem to have much left to say. i have a lot to thank Allah Mian for. my family mashallah.. my friends.. my workplace.. my life in general..

Granted there are somethings i would changed.. like Abu not being here.. like some logistical difficulties.. like my mum missing abu soo very much all the time...

but i know that when Allah Mian sends trial, he also inshallah sends strength..

 

thats what im counting on .. lots of strength and rehmat and panah from all evil for all my loved ones and myself.. i thank him all the time for all the people in my life at home and work that i can turn to in times of confusion and when i just need to vent and talk..

 

Thank good for good people..

 

Princess of the GemWorld

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Fariha's Thoughts of the Day:

GoogleName: GemWorld Fars

Blogspot: http://gemworld.blogspot.com

MSN Space: http://gemworldfars.spaces.msn.com

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lost for words

i have been at a loss for words for many many days now.. i dont think theres anyone left who really cares..

 

frankly our lives have become so busy that no one has time to think of anyone but themselves anymore anyway.. so its not surprising..

 

orkut.. the new breeding grounds of human contact... i know how much we crave human contact... whenever i go to Lahore, my colleagues have to stuff cotton in their ears cause i talk non-stop.. apparently i dont get my fill of human interaction in Karachi...

 

somehow the city is too rushed for my liking and i find myself generally drained of energy and usually sleeping as much as i can to recuperate..

 

the ramzans are treating me well though.. as much as i tried not to eat... who are we kidding... :) i find myself looking forward to the next buffet table as much as the next person..

 

it was anies birthday on the 28th of Sept and we took her to Freddy's.. so we're all sitting around the table (me, funainie, furqi, sallo n mk).. and suddenly sallo goes i just realized im at dinner with 4 single people.. for a second we all looked back at him trying to comprehend who the FOURTH single person was since i'm already hitched and that only left THREE single people on the table.. after about a minute of mesmerized silence sallo realized that he had mis-categorized me in the singles category... to which furqi goes "you can take that as a compliment... you havent changed an ounce from when you were single. no signs of maturity watsoever"... lol... i dont care as long as i can keep laughing...

 

i laugh alot in lahore.. i guess its because they humor me more.. its alot of fun... i love the shopping there too... Liberty rocks.. i bought my sparkly slippers in even more colors.. lol.. i think i've been Comely Shoes's single most lucrative customer...

 

went to the shoot for the Mountain Dew Survivor Pakistan Finale last week... as far Survivors go, i can safely say this was the most surprising vote count in recorded history... i fully agree that there is no mapping of human thought and action.. you will never know whats going to happen till its happend and over with... the entire cast, crew and spectators watched with bated breath as the vote box was literally hacked open (someone forgot to bring the keys to the big fat locks on the crate :) and then the votes counted for the very first time since being cast by the jury.. and as the count happened you could see the stillness steal over the whole set.. lol..

 

that was followed by biryani... (i had two boxes since i hadnt had iftar properly in my mad rush to get there).. and then waved farewell to my courageous survivors... i dont think i'll ever forget these 16 chaps.. it was truly amazing to see them do what they did...

 

My director told me that he was up north shooting something else and he was practically mobbed by the locals in chitral, gilgit, peshawar, etc. since they all recognized him and kept chanting Mountain Dew.. lol... even the PIA staff was really happy to have him on their plane and he said he felt treated like royalty...

 

The show was for the masses... i guess its reached out to them in all the places where PTV has a captive viewership... amazing... :)

 

went to the Arizona grill iftar on saturday with als and fais.. my god we felt stuffed... i couldnt even eat half of the dinner menu.. sighhhh... soo much money spent and it felt like a waste... i think i need to go back there again... must get rid of the feeling that i missed half the food... besidz if my stomachs so small why do i keep feeling fatter...

 

furqi the merchant of doom keeps trying to convince me that i'll be an overweight cow by the time i am 35.. to which i wish back at him that i hope he gains as much of a tond as i do in totality... theres no hope of him getting fat all over, but a beer belly is something most men end up with anyway... hehehe.. he'd better take his horrible predictions back or else...

 

ok i go sleep now.. catch you later bloggy dearest... :)

 

cheerios

 

Princess of the GemWorld

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Fariha's Thoughts of the Day:

GoogleName: GemWorld Fars

Blogspot: http://gemworld.blogspot.com

MSN Space: http://gemworldfars.spaces.msn.com

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silence

silence... in my soul. my advertising agency just told me that two dots at the end of a sentence dont mean anything. its either one or three. u learn something new everything day.

ive been silent for a long time. was too busy to be able to say anything. once u start typing u cant go back to writing in a copy coz u know eventually u'll
have to type it. thats enuff to take the joy out of it. ive been telling people that ive been having dreams that the time has come when all i have to do is think and it converts into words. i cant wait for that time to come. it just proves even further that i am supremely lazy.

i havent been 100% in terms of health. my bilirubin was twice wat it shudve been. went to a liver specialist and he told me that i had gilberts syndrome and one of my enzymes was lazy in clearing out the dead red blood cells. damn. now even my enzymes are lazy. its a system wide error. sigh..nowmyspacebarhasstoppedworking.imgoing.

google happy

on an extremely solid ego trip, i decided to go googling myself to see what cropped up..

so i tried fariha shah... the two things related to me were my old press releases on the Philips website and the following article i had written for NetXpress many years ago on the proliferation of technology in our lives..

 

Technology Sucks

and basically thats it..

i tried "realm of the soul"
i tried "gemworld"
i tried "gemworld fars" AND I HIT THE JACKPOT!

Gemworld Fars combination popped up all my links to my blog, my yahoo profile, my flickr photos... i mean everything..

Basically that means i have been effectively re-christened "gemworld fars" by cyberspace.. or atleast by google.

interesting... from now on my name is GemWorld Fars... lol..

ok .. i'll catch you all later...

 

Princess of the GemWorld

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Fariha's Thoughts of the Day:

Access from Pakistan for Blogspot  http://www.pkblogs.com/gemworld  

Outside Pakistan just type http://gemworld.blogspot.com

MSN Space: http://gemworldfars.spaces.msn.com

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