Saba Imtiaz: Everyday is a winding road..

This song has been playing in my head on repeat for the past few days. I don't know why I suddenly remembered it, but the past few nights have been sleepless, punctuated with panic attacks (which I haven't had since the pre-JNC stress) and this song helps me relax. It reminds me of my childhood too - so the vivid imagery it strikes is sometimes beautiful, and reflecting on my current state of mind, sometimes haunting.

Time after time - Cyndi Lauper

Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick,
And think of you
Caught up in circles confusion -
Is nothing new
Flashback - warm nights -
Almost left behind
Suitcases of memories,
Time after -

Sometimes you picture me -
I'm walking too far ahead
You're calling to me, I can't hear
What you've said -
Then you say - go slow -
I fall behind -
The second hand unwinds

Chorus:
If you're lost you can look - and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall I will catch you - I'll be waiting
Time after time

After my picture fades and darkness has
Turned to gray
Watching through windows - you're wondering
If I'm OK
Secrets stolen from deep inside
The drum beats out of time -

Chorus:
If you're lost...

You said go slow -
I fall behind
The second hand unwinds -

Chorus:
If you're lost...
...Time after time
Time after time
Time after time
Time after time

#1: The electricity goes off just when you click 'Save' and the usually reliable Word that recovers all files can't recover this one and corrupts it to hell.

This weekend is ME time. I am staying at home, watching seasons of my favorite TV shows, reading, listening to music -

Spending so much time alone has given me the chance to evaluate my life. Looking through old pictures last night, I've realized that every place I've visited in the past two years - I have left a little piece of me behind, and discovered something new about myself. Over the past two years, I've left cities having resolved my feelings, or discovering new ones for new people.

You know when people use that cliched line - 'you seem different' after you've just returned from a trip? Its true for me - I've come back home as a different person - whether I was depressed or calm or euphoric. I think I really believe that travel changes your spirit - even if its a 5 hour road trip - saying goodbye, saying hello - maybe it has had more of an effect on me than I ever thought possible.

So while the entire story of our 5 hour EB meeting is on the LC blog, after the meeting, when I finally gave Haris, Naveen and Sharmeen the 'blessing' to go home - Taha, Rabia and I started a different discussion - about our plans for next year. Whether we're applying to the MC, what portfolio, the application process...and lots of random bits thrown in the midst.

It seems like such a short time ago that I was standing outside the LUMS building on a cold evening in December with Nicole, at Lahore's elections, talking to her about whether I should apply for LCP or not and applications and presentations.

Anyway, back to our conversation and meeting. I have spent such a long time with this EB - we've known each other personally, traveled to different countries and cities together (Sharz-Lahore/India, Haris/Rabia - Poland, Taha/Haris/Rabia/Naveen - Lahore/Islamabad), have worked, cried, laughed and yelled at each other - but we're a team.

And I knew I wouldn't want to be anywhere else, when even though Taha and Rabia tested our collective patience to the limit during the meeting, I still didn't want to get up and leave - thats how I knew how much they mean to me. Love you guys!

I am having an incredibly rough week.

I finally figured out how my email multiplied the past two days.

3 AM: Saba goes to sleep, after sending out 10 emails
Around 4-5 AM: Taha wakes up, replies to all 10 emails, sends out 10 more
9-10 AM: Sharz goes to work, sends out 20 emails
11 AM: Rabia wakes up, sends out 20 more. She and Sharz decide to have email conversation, inbox collapses under madness
MC also starts sending out emails at the same time
Noon: Saba wakes up, has mini heart attack. Spends 2 hours answering all email
4 PM: Naveen comes online, replies to every email
9-12 PM: Haris replies to all the emails of the day

Anyway, thats still manageable. I just feel alot of emotional stress, especially with Eid coming up. Its a holiday I have been unable to enjoy since my mom died, and every Eid has progressively become worse and worse over the years. Despite the fact that I am so pressured, as soon as Eid approaches I start missing my mom more and more, and I feel depressed all the time. I wish I could wear a tshirt that says "DON'T TALK TO ME!' but obviously, thats not possible. I can't even remember the last time someone called me and asked me how I was doing, genuinely. But I am used to that by now, and I think if anyone does ask me how I am and actually waits for a response, I will die of shock.

So its been a horrible day, but Dalia really brightened it up :)

Dalia is on the MC in Egypt, and we met last year at You Can. I think I have had some of the best conversations at IC this year with her, because somehow every time I needed to 'question' something she'd be there. The morning I was leaving Warsaw, she was supposed to drop by my room to give me a gift and first I forgot she was coming, and yelled out 'no one's here!' when she knocked at the door, and then had a very sleepy conversation while I was still in bed.

I looked at the postcard she gave me when I came back - it is on my room's wall now, and I still smile looking at it. Anyway, she brightened up the evening by sending a ton of IC videos, including one from the DLD session - :) Thankyou! :)

Anyway, Sohaib called after that and we had the most ridiculous phone conversation, combined with murder/jail/future MC plans. Despite the fact that its been just over a year, I still connect best with the 2005 IC/YouCan delegation. I think after you travel on all imaginable forms of transport together, and share hotel suites and small apartments, there's really no way you can't get along!

More later, email beckons.

human beings are designed for many things.
loneliness isn't one of them.

An interesting line from an episode of Desperate Housewives I was watching today.

Today has been a bad day. I find myself unable to explain my point of view coherently, or to make other people understand how I feel.

I wish I could blame other people for being unable to understand. Its always the easier option. Its always easier to say that it was their shortcoming, and not mine.

Its not always the right thing, and its not always wrong either.
There are just some things we'll never know the answer to.

What do you do when someone asks you a question you have absolutely no answer to?

What do you do when 12 hours later, you're still blank?

What did I do all weekend?

• Creating conference bid sections, LBoA documents, proposed legislation and portfolio choices lists
• Listening to music from dusty cds, burned and filed away years ago
• Editing my resume! (This was difficult, as I last did this in November 2005)
• Reading books, and poetry, and watching TV
• Smiling at the thought that there are still people who want to hire me, there are still people who believe in me, and my grades are finally improving this semester!
• Spending time with family =)

And then Monday morning - woke up to the sound of the phone ringing (the ringtone is Massive Attack's Teardrop, also the theme music for House MD, so waking up is always nice) - and remembered in a split second that I'm scheduled to have a chat with Emad which is why my phone was ringing. Got myself to wake up, stumbled to the PC, and then really woke up at the sight of the 20 something emails that had accumulated since 3 AM. What made it worse that during the chat the emails kept multiplying like an out-of-control plague.

Anyway, its 4 PM and the emails are finally under control. I just sent out 6 though, so I'll probably go insane in another hour or two.

We're a Google-obsessive EB, but when I logged into my Gmail last night and saw that Google now had Google Documents..I went a bit crazy. This is the series of emails that followed:

Email subject: I LOVE GOOGLE!
Email#1: Saba:
They have SHARED documents now. I think I'm going to die of happiness.

Email#2: Saba again:
AND we can save documents as PDF.

Thats it, I'm going to faint now..

Email#3: Sharmeen:
Kyaaaaaaaaaaa!!

you know i read this article about google and I'll show you guys pics of their workplace, you will want to quit everything and go there!

Email#4: Taha:

Email#6: Taha:

I have been working nonstop since the minute I woke up. I have lost track of the number of emails I have received & responded to, or the amount of documents I have created to make basic frameworks for the work that needs to be done this month.

Yet, with this exhaustion, I am also excited - our first incoming trainee is being realized tomorrow, after endless visa/passport details. I cannot wait to meet her!

As I tried to fall asleep around the early hours of the morning (4 am, 5 am - what does it matter to an insomniac? :)) I started thinking about the kind of culture we create for our LC and country, because of our own personal behavior.

What I was thinking about was how that culture defines the way we work and communicate with other people in the country - its something you get to observe at national conferences a lot. If we are warm and friendly, our communication reflects that. If we are cold and aloof, thats how everyone will then act with each other. Our personalities are a reflection of what our culture is - isn't that weird, the kind of indirect impact we create?

My thoughts were probably influenced by my own personal expectations, as we head into our third national conference for the year, which is less than a month away. My learning curve in terms of national conferences has not been so great this year - its had its highs and lows - though I need to take some time out and write down everything to rationalize this thought to myself first.

I just flipped through an old notebook and saw a note scribbled on 31st Dec 05, written while I was sitting on the steps of Badshahi Mosque in Lahore. It was weird. The sun was setting, there were scores of people milling around, and yet I felt the same sense of peace that I did when I visited the mosque alone, two days earlier.

The last line that I wrote there, the next day, as I sat waiting for the plane to take off was, "I'm so glad to be going home."


Years from now, will I remember why I wrote that?

I was just randomly flipping through TV channels, failing yet again to understand why weekend programming is just horrid beyond words..

..when this line leapt out from me from a show..

"the most interesting stories are the ones we end up not telling anyone"

There's a post on the AI blog by Gabiza as well, about the power of sharing personal stories.

What are the most interesting stories in our lives we haven't told anyone? The ones we only remember on quiet nights alone, while reflecting on our lives?

Despite the fact that I talk a lot and share lots of personal examples about everything, I still find it difficult to share a personal story or incident that I have forgotten about and is reawakened by a song from long ago, meeting up or talking with an old acquaintance or friend, reading a book that has taught me more about the mystique of poetry than volumes of it.

We had a meeting a few days ago, where I shared a story of how I acted in a certain way to demonstrate integrity towards what I believed in - because to me it was a matter or principle before anything else.

When I finished, there was an odd silence. I didn't know what to say afterwards. I think thats the reason I have often found a comfort in sometimes not saying anything at all.

I love story telling. I love blogging, and thats why I've been blogging for 3 years now, and have 3 separate blogs - and have such a great bloggers network - because I love how we can connect to everyone's stories. Everyone's life, in some way or the other, relates to our own. Its only a matter of realizing that you are always not alone.

These days, everything seems strange and beautiful to me, in equal measure.

Life becomes much simpler once you start seeing people for who they are, and instead of talking about what you wish they were doing, you start talking about what they are, and what they mean to you, in your life.

Life throws us off-balance all the time.

This inability to cry is frustrating. Even the 6 day headache, the worrying balance sheet, the frustrations of solving inane everyday problems - nothing. Not a single tear.

How do people go through life not caring? That is what scares me - the fact that people have forgotten to do simple things like say thankyou, or sorry, or ask their friends whats wrong when they seem down or even say hello with a smile. What has happened to humanity? To laughing with people and not at them or crying with them and not being the cause of tears.The cynical part of me knows that at the end of the day, nobody really cares - but deep down inside, even I know thats not true - because there are people in my life who care. I wuv you guys :)

I'm listening to this song by Michelle Branch & Santana, which has taken me years back to when it was first released, and I'd stay up till 4 in the morning listening to the song on repeat.

Music has been such an integral part of who I am. There's always a soundtrack playing in my head depending on how my life is going - and I think I chose the right career path when I started writing about music. I haven't been writing a lot for the past year or so, and I'm just really getting back in the groove. A publication I love and that is very well known in marketing/advertising circles is publishing a piece I wrote about the radio scene in Pakistan, and my contact there just texted me saying 'great article!' The familiar feeling of excitement is building up again - I can't wait to see it now :)

I've just gotten back home after our first induction session for our new members and a brief shisha outing. I'm so exhausted, yet so happy - the fact that we have excited, interactive, talented new members in the organization - an increasing number of AIESEC experiences :) - is making me smile - am so very proud of Sharmeen, Sara, Saher & Omar and everyone else who helped make recruitment a success, and the PD 'its all about the people' girls - Sharmeen and Sara - for making today's induction sessions so brilliant :)

I'm looking at my email inbox and the amount of work that needs to be done in this month is kindof overwhelming right now. With great power, comes great responsibility (bahahahah - this quote from Spiderman has been overused the entire evening!) - but its really true. I have meetings with Board members all this month, and their support is so fantastic. An email I sent during IC about my conference experience to our uni rep on the Board was forwarded to pretty much the entire faculty at uni and every teacher I have met in the past few days has asked me - "so, how was your trip to Poland?" - which is great, because they're really interested in how AIESEC is making such a huge impact in the lives of university students in a country where such opportunities are so limited.

I was sitting with Saira today, asking her opinion on when the best time would be to run LCEB elections, and we got talking about SDC, and Dhanur's long-overdue email ;) and how a year passes by so quickly. I cannot believe that its that time of the year when I have to start thinking about turnover so very seriously (Puneet, I know you've been preparing for months, but we're all not as organized!) - anyway, thats a blog post for later.

I'm also really missing being in conference mode. I miss everyone from Lahore - especially Nida, Batool, Adeel, Sohaib - even Aqeel, and his absolute randomness. I can't wait for NYDS really - and to sit through legislation with my very organized & highlighted copy of the Compendium and legislation booklets, organized section-wise. Sohaib, if you're reading this and rolling your eyes, continue to do so :) We shall probably end up killing each other at the post-compendium 4 am debate. :P

I'm really exhausted these days. Yesterday I landed up at my cousin's place, with a headache that had been persisting for 6 days. My aunt saw that as an opportunity to feed me with all kinds of advice and food. She has been a surrogate mother since my own mother died, and I have to take everything she takes rather seriously (except when the talk turns to my plans of getting married-sigh)

My cousin is expecting a baby. I sortof grew up with her, and spent countless hours debating the merits of Cornettos and other mindless conversations - she was my support system when my mother died, I was hers when she was getting married - and she is probably the only person in my life I really consider as an elder sister and confidante. To realize that I will become an aunt for her child soon is kindof funny, and makes me realize that I am getting older, and every step in my life and my relationships are getting more complex, which is not always bad. Its just different.

I'm looking at the amount of emails again. Sometimes I wonder if I have taken on more than I can do - I have been pushing myself to do more and more since this term started - and there are times where I wish I could just have someone look through my to-do list for the week and tell me off for working too hard. I remember talking to Brodie about it when he had a meeting with the EB on his visit, and yes - there is a balance in my life, and there are certain priorities I did create which I have stuck too - but things aren't always as easy as they seem. And its rather unfortunate that we live and work in an environment where very few people seem to realize that, or even make an effort to understand.

Anyway, the best thing I've read all day is what Erica posted on her blog - this line really hit me:

"Sometimes, the best things in life are the ones we choose to miss. :)"

I wish - for everyone I know - that they don't miss the best things in their life because they thought it wasn't important.