How Red Sneakers Changed My Life

So I've moved on from watching Gossip Girl to The Vampire Diaries. When I told one of my old school friends about my current interest in TV shows (mainly GG, TVD and Glee), his reaction was 'WOW, what happened to you?!' But I need a break, and indulging in chick flick teen dramas can't be all that bad! And anyway, The Vampire Diaries is nothing like Twilight, thank God. I'd pretty much given up on vampires after finishing the Twilight Saga and (painfully) watching its first three movies. Thanks to Stephenie Meyer (the author for all you lucky people who've been fortunate enough to not read the books), the prospect of any sort of relationship between a vampire and a human just made me sick. Seriously Bella Swan is the worst female protagonist EVER. She's supposed to be smart, and she reads impressive books like Wuthering Heights but she doesn't have a personality!!! And any hopes she had of actually getting one are ruined once she sets eyes on the myste...

I stir up dust particles swirling lazily in the sunlight as I hurry down the hallway. ‘Late to class again’, I think triumphantly. Since the second term of school started-make that my final term in this educational establishment-I’m no longer the nerd I used to be. It’s been a gradual change but aren’t those the ones that are the most permanent? I no longer study days ahead of a test but prefer cramming the night before, taking back-to-back classes makes my brain rot, and I look for reasons to bunk at least once a day. And I’ve got one now. The door to A2S4 is firmly shut, and I can see our Physics teacher enthusiastically drawing another of his detailed diagrams on X-ray equipment and the like on the soft board. ‘Whoops, too late’, I think happily, assuaging the slight nerdy twinge of guilt with a well-I-did-try shrug, and turn around to face the empty school hallway. For once, all is quiet. There are no shouts from the throw ball crowd that normally dominates the court througho...

Um, David Guetta looks so in the moment here, doesn't he? :P I'm not a big fan of his...how can I after he's helped release something as tragic as Where Them Girls At (Go get them, we can all be friends! Yeah, right), but this is so beautiful, it makes me cry. 

What astonishes me the most is how nothing around me seems to change. The world goes on unfeeling, unmoved, the way it's always been, oblivious of the changes that occur inside us. Most times I don't notice it because who even has time to think given the busy busy schedules we've made for ourselves? But sometimes, when my brain is stuffy because of the suffocating Karachi heat or my family arguing over something or the other, I escape to the rooftop. It's not much of a view. Just a whole bunch of old apartment buildings towering above me, a deserted mall missing some of the glass panes in its roof on the street opposite, my favourite neem tree that just grows and grows regardless of the weather and my neighbours' palms, the Commecs sign blinking blue and white from far away. That's pretty much it but it's beautiful enough for me. I start thinking about where I am, who I am, and what I've become in the past couple of years and I can't believe it. I ...

This is just part of a story I'm working on. Hopefully I'll get back to writing as soon as these exams (ugh) are over.  It's a coffee house; just another franchise that's about half as old as the country we live in. But this is Karachi and every time a new brand name opens up, whether it's a restaurant or a sporting goods store, Karachiites will faithfully flock to it in droves in hopes of discovering something-anything-novel. This one is no exception. Never mind if the coffee is drab and shockingly overpriced, the place is upscale enough to brag to your one-dimensional friends about. And it has some redeeming points. The parfaits. The ambience. The décor is perfect. If I were an architect, I'd probably describe it as a fusion of the classic and the contemporary, or something equally fancy. There's a wood-paneled wall across from me fitted with a bookshelf housing covers ranging from Charles Dickens to Herman Melville. I'm tempted to go over and c...

I shot for the sky, I'm stuck on the ground. So why do I try? I know I'm gonna fall down. Down - Jason Walker

It's that time of the year again. You know when the semester comes to an abrupt and sudden end, leaving you stranded in the midst of a flurry of notes and handouts at the photocopier's, wondering why your life's become the kind place where exams are always just around the corner? Yes, I'm on my study leave. Again. Well on the bright side, now I've only got 4 more end-of-semester study leaves to live through (including this one), and then I'll be done with undergrad! That's as far as I'm aiming right now. The future should be best left where it is at the moment. So I've been wasting a lot more time than need be. While reading about cache memory principles and bus interconnection structures and 32/64 bit computer architectures, I have managed to finish Season 3 of Gossip Girl (I know, Season 5 is out and I'm way behind), continue working on a story I'm writing, rediscover a David Archuleta song on my iPod, and well, blog. (Okay, so he ...