Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Grad day

Ok a quick one from me coz loads to do!

Hmm... it was DE GR8 Day of my life! but had my sorrows tingling with me all the time which i'll discuss later.

Anyway as u all know i live in Bradford now and am car-less so it was a real hassle to plan a day!. And can you believe that there wasnt actually anyone to come with me on my ceremony? NO GUESTS!! isnt dat sad? ofcourse it is, after all those years i thought i made some friends around but look at them now, no one was willing, everybody had to do something:( , well i dont blame anyone im sure they must have more important things to do :)

Anyways, i commuted to Huddersfield with one of my mates on wednesday eve. Went to my old place where apparantly i do have some people who know me!, so the plan was to stay night at there place as i was supposed to be in the town hall for ceremony at exact 9:30am, believe me it is early!. Well it was the worst nights in my life, i was totally sleepless, dont know what was wrong with me? may be it was excitement? i dont really get that much excited anyway, or maybe it was because of the fever (sickness) im carryin through since last week? ( its too cold these days!!!), so as i woke up in the morning i hardly had couple of hours sleep but there was a day ahead..so things to be done! so had shower and all that and i was ready in an hour and now what? the guy who was supposed to be goin with ( which i actually managed to convince once last night only) betrayed me on the spot! he was kind enough to drop me off to uni but said i'll catch you after the ceremony as supposedly he knew it gona be boring and apparantly he needed bit of more sleep and u can imagine what happened after that....

Well went to services building, got me self registered and all, where i got 2 guest tickets as well, i wanted to return it but thought should just keep it as a souvenir? so then i praded with all the other celebratin troops towards sports hall where gowin was takin place. I was feelin so lonely all alone coudnt find anyone from my own batch as well:S and what to do ? how to do? where to go? anyway managed to get myself there, had to find my registration number in long lists they had, i never knew i had to note down that reg. no. from the email gowing firm sent me:S wierdly some people had dat ( why i cant be dat clever?? :'( ), anyway after all that, i was already feelin bit proud:D wid that stupid hat which IS really hard to control as u dont want to it fall infront of everyone? and really oddly shaped gown u had to wear on the top of your suit was actually a good experience.

Atlast, i saw couple of my friends...actually one arabic and a chinese taking each other pictures while there way to town hall, which i fondly joined. Haaaan, i had a bag in my hand written "Awards" which was actually given at time of registration and was supposedly to be given to your guests as u have to be seated on the ground floor and you shoudnt be carryin anythin with you, but what was the point? where should i keep it? suddenly more worries captured my over boggled mind! thanks God, my chinese mate had few friends coming over so i gave that to him ( btw i knew there was'nt nythin imp in it, just a magazine or so:P ) so by 10:30 we were all in the hall seated at marked places. Everybody talkin about: hey u lookin great, congrats, what u doin these days? manage to get job? wow u got scholarship? bla bla bla..lol suddenly anouncement came through:
please switch off your mobiles and handheld devices as the ceremony is about to start lol!

Well they had really beautiful, traditional way to do all those things, and that orchestra was just so awsome and finally ceremony started, had to clap for all of those non-engineers :P thankfuly that day only two schools were having there ceremony. and hey did i tell you is the chancellor of our uni? ITS THE GUY FROM STAR TREK!!! Patrick Stewart, as he is actually from Yorkshire, the county under which huddersfield come into so they made him chancellor i think last year:) and the best thing is he usually just comes to the very first ceremony of the season, i.e. the Grad ceremony week started on Monday and mine was actually the last one, on Thursday but there we go he was there and i got the chance to shake hand with him on the stage:D yes i have the pic ( i paid lot for that :S ) soon should get it scanned btw and will post it! but overall it was great.
After that we had a reception in university's refectory, just some light refreshments ( yes had vegetarian stuff :P ) and free DRINKS!!! ( obviously not interested:) except orange juice(A) ). so it was the time to take some pictures with old fellows and teachers u had good AND bad memories with so i did manage to take few although by that time my head was kinda exploding but still had to stick with the moment of day... so did manage to get few pics and btw not gona upload all of them as i messed up my gown in few of them and really dont wana show dat! and my stupid who was takin my pics never noticed that while we were there:S

Well, after that, me and my mate Doctor Saab, who actually bunked his lectures just for me went to town centre to have something proper to eat! and well obviously treat was on me :$ , so we headed to 'Kebabish Original' , okay now i wont into menu details here but food was good, i always enjoy that place. Then back to my old place, got changed and all, had bit of laugh/chitchat around with guys and it was time to go home! so had to take bus. The road i used to live is called: Bradford road, so got bus straight from that road to bradford city centre, it was freezin cold, i do reckon temperature wasnt more than 2 C, and u see what...Christmas lights in your town, there was such a cool show going around but my physical+mental situation didnt allow me to go anywhere else apart from that i was holding a really big bag with me, with all my stuff in it so headed straight to home, which is good 20 mins walk from city centre.

So here is the story, tried to explain in my best:P i will surely put some pictures soon and in 3 weeks time i'll get my ceremony DVD as well so might Stream it over the net for who are interested:P. Time to sleep now :)
gd nite!

P.S: Okay i managed to get few pics online, Click Here! and go to slide show.

Please do sign the guestbook;)

Monday, November 14, 2005

Big day comin

17th November, Thursday, 2005!

Ahh, dont know where to start from, it was a long journey! I started my BE in 2000, the university was: The University of Lahore, 1-km Raiwind road, Lahore Pakistan :). It was supposedly 4 years program with 9 semesters of regular study and 3 summer semester for CISCO study.

My first year at uni was okay, never knew what i was getting into, particularly I enjoyed first Cisco semester, which in turn just boosted my passion of doin BE degree:P anyway things werent as going as smooth as it was expected neither from my own side nor from the university. The courses listed on course prospectus weren't offered, supposed labs never came into existance, and more over most of my friends transfered their credits to US universities and moved...and yes i tried as well :D but all those visa complications for no reason...but Alhamdullilah the alternative worked well for me and I came to UK for BEng in 2002.

I was quite scared at first because never thought of coming to alien country all alone ever, but was in such a situation at that time...had to share house with people i never knew before, cook for your self and people around you, do dishes and laundry and all that, find/do part time job, and study as well huff life was so hectic but its kinda gone now. Did okay in that year, made so many friends, learnt so much of Real Life ! anyway passed all the exams and everything and it was time to find work placement...

After sending atleast 60 CVs out did got one job, that was first achievement of the year or of my life if you wana say, dont know what happened but you know what, I actually cried once I was refused job which I was so sure to get, well longtime :). Anyway had really nice year of my life, it was quite a magnificent experience. Such a lovely people I worked with, very very helpful, just cant forget all that. Well it was september 2003 when finished my project at Standex Electronics (UK) Ltd, Tonbridge,Kent. Can you believe that, I never took my annual holidays that year, had to finish the project so wasnt much choice so coudnt go back home.

Started my last year late september, it was all very hard, back-to-school situation after a long 12 month holidays from university :P so took me a bit long time to get used to it. Anyway it was all fine, used to work part time at Tesco Supermarket on weekend and a day or two in university :P life was quite good till got final year project to do! and pata nahi, i didnt do well in it , thats the worst part of this 5 year long story, i was told that i could have done much better than that as during work placement my project was one of the best and most challenging amongst my class mates, but well passed my degree somehow, it was during June time i came to know that its all cleared and it was time to apply for jobs! Tried abit, not really hard dont know there was something i didnt like about england, or may be it was my own progress at uni which de-moralized me somehow, I went back home without applying for further studies or jobs on 1st August 2005. Just to see market situation in pakistan, which wasnt that healthy apparently, after few suggestions from friends and cousins waghera, decided to do Masters.

So after another wave of sending applications and waiting for responses here i am back to UK, sitting in my room, with 1C temperature outside, writing this blog.

My this course is from september 2005 to september 2006 with 2 taught semesters and summer semester entirely for project. These days we are into suggestions for final project, inshAllah i'll do much better than before ( i just have to :$ ) . The other problem is that havnt got any part time job at the moment which is adding to my worries... well hopefully things will be sorted soon.

Well well well, its graduation ceremony on coming thursday, 10 a.m sharp, Huddersfield Town hall is the venue with complemetry lunch at university refectory late. It would be nice to see all those people, huddersfield isnt far from here btw, just 10-12 miles from bradford anyway but im car-less now so will see what to do :). Still under consideration who should get the privilege to be my guest on ceremony day :P ( i got two tickets supposed for my family:'( ) so will see, and will try my best to post pictures once taken :)

Wish me good luck!

Thursday, November 03, 2005

yes it was Eid here..

ok here i am in Scotland right now..yes u heard it right Scotland! and obviously what else wud you do other than visit your relatives, its a beautiful town near Glasgow called Whitburn, and im in kinda fam house at the moment....woo scenic view is just exempolary and best of all im with people i somehow know.... this is the first eid since last 3 years im spending with sumone from my family so its all nice been playin games whole day on xbox:D ( btw im crap in it :$ got beaten couple of times:$ )

anyway it was really a Eid day starter as all woke up pretty early dressed and all that then went to the mosque where the parking traffic was is cious! wat else u can expect from pakistani community anyway...and interesting bit was after readin the namaz there was a 3-4 yrs old kid crying his head out( apparantly he was lost ) and when my uncle asked him is he knows his dad name, replied: Baba ! lol he asked again, do you know your dads REAL name and again he goes: BA BA....awww poor child , wierd person came from a crowd after a long time and without showin any gratitude started on his child: How come u cant stick with ppl! excuse me hes just a child :S
anyway i'll be goin back by saturday inshAllah hope whole my stay and way back be good as my journey here wasnt dat good, horrible british trains gettin delayed all the time for no reason:S anyway long story.