Trends and Disceptions

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    It's kind of sad to see how life has turned out to be when you finally grew up. I think it's the way people decided to live with what they have, they blindly inflict what they never thought would follow as children. No rational thinking has been performed, you simply hear them say over and over again "Everyone's doing it, it's the new trend."

    That scares me all the time, it's a shame to want to go find a proper shirt these days and find none. 

    Where have all the decency went? It's just a shirt I'm looking for, a simple shirt nothing fancy, just a plain shirt, but it's really scary to admit to find none. Literally none, all you find is a piece of cloth that barely covers up what a shirt used to cover completely. What if I didn't want to show any skin, what if I wanted to keep my skin to myself, what if I just wanted to wear something normal? Where did I go in that customer demand market?  Producers have neglected us and saw as the minority that will not make any revenue, so instead of satisfying our desires, they simply erased us from their target market.

    It's only 2018, and no decency is displayed. I fear for the day where a lot of skin starts to become the trend and I will have to stay at home to save my family.

    I fear for that day everyday.

    How will my nephews live in that era, how will my nieces grow to be? It's all from the family, but still you can never let them grow under your wings forever, the day where they start to blend in the environment will come, and that is when the real battle will begin. I believe it will be a hard one, only those strong will make it, but I wonder if parents at that time will be as strong as they say they will be.

A little effort would do

"If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.” Mitch Albom

    Over the past few weeks I've been keeping myself busy with all sorts of things. There's been a lot of reading for sure, writing, and many more. I've enrolled myself in a few online courses to broaden my knowledge in a few technological fields to keep myself updated and on the go for something new. This past week was supposed to be the very first week of work, however that had to be postponed for some confidential reason we should not worry about. Moving on.

    There are a few things that sometimes inspire me, impress me and shock me. What I'm going to write about in this post is surprisingly a mix of all three. There was this workshop about teamwork that I have decided to attend during this past week. The best parts about attending such workshops is the experience of sitting in an auditorium with a multi-major audience who's got so much to say and so much to argue about since everyone's literally got a different point of view. Some can agree, other can disagree, and others can simply negotiate in a friendly manner. Anyways, this workshop usually spans a 5 day period, yet it was narrowed down for a 4 hour session so that was understandable and quite beneficial. We were given the opportunity to dig in with the talk and ask whatever we wanted to ask. On my personal preference, I simply enjoyed listening for this time, and from that I came to learn a lot. I did not have much to say though as a participant because everything was being said by the speaker and agreed upon by the audience so that was great. The thing is about being part of an audience is that peaceful act of sitting back and listening to what the rest of the audience has to say, how they feel about what's being told and the fun part is, nodding to what you agree upon or simply saying " No that's not really it.". That's what I love doing at workshops of such kind.

    Anyways, right at the introduction, the speaker was introducing the topic in a very relatable manner since the audience was 99.9% college students. For that he really knew how to kick off his workshop really well. That's  when he started talking about GPAs. Everyone joined in with their experiences, thoughts and miseries. I never knew how GPAs were more like nightmares to everyone, though they never really mattered to me. How was that even possible? I never really thought of it, I just studied and whatever came out came, thankfully it was always satisfying.  The speaker was a certified trainer, an honour student and a very qualified speaker. What a grand mix, he was proud of who he was and where he stood, I bet it took a lot of hard work and sweat to stand on that stage,  I don't blame him because I know what it feels like to reach that moment after hard work. The process of reaching that goal is a private matter between you and yourself because no one really cares about it more than yourself, you should not bother and explain how you got there. It's part of the plan actually to keep the fruits of obstacles to yourself because you had your own way of overcoming them.  However, you do have the choice to share, but in the end you'd be thinking 'Why bother, let's just keep it to the final moment.'

    Throughout the introduction, GPA was a hot topic amongst the audience and everyone shared their thoughts. There was this one thought that drew me back and caused way too much tension and whispers in the audience. It was that one that took me aback for a second. The moment was centered around a Chemical Engineer student that basically hated what she was doing. She simply hated the fact that she has to do Chemical Engineering and just wants to get it over with and get a job. All she cared about was maintaining a GPA above 2.0 and getting ahold of her final bachelor's degree. Now I know what you must be thinking "Why? What made her speak up like this?" That's what I thought exactly, why bother spend the rest 5-6 years in misery just for the sake of a bachelor's degree? That's not going to buy you a job is it? That was simply the speaker's answer " Your degree is not going to secure you that job you always wanted" Yes you do have a bachelor's degree from one of the world's leading universities in the Middle East, but that doesn't mean you get a job because you might as well fail your first interview questions.

    What got me thinking was quite a lot. The speaker had the perfect reply to that one student "You're making the biggest mistake of your life, you won't secure a job like that." he said.

    "If I were you, I'd try to dig up and find the simplest acts that'll make me enjoy and love what I'm doing today" that was it, just like that, trying to find something that makes it worth the time and effort. This reflects on the fact that whatever time you spend in misery is not going to do you no good anyways so why not find productivity in that time span you spend?  That's split second you spend in anger and unworthiness will never come back, it turns to wasted time in basically nothing so why?

    This is very debatable but from a personal perspective I find it awful for people to live their lives that way, it's their life there's no doubt, but that's not the way it should be lived. Especially when you're given all that it takes to live it well and only a little effort is to be done on your behalf, then I don't think you have the right to nag really..it's just a waste of breath.

An act of discourage..?

     As human beings, when we're surrounded by people that are older than ourselves, people that are more experienced and more skilled than ourselves we tend to forget that they are just like us. They face ups and downs in their lives, they always do. Being older and more experienced does not take humanity out of the context because in the end of the day, they still have that little human instinct that makes them nervous and hesitant at some point.

     Earlier today, a group of people had to pitch in their innovative ideas and gain the judges trust and appeal. The hall was filled with people with different passions, different ideas, different goals and levels. There were employees, professors and students. However, in that room, everyone had that goal of wanting to be "it". Personally speaking, our group had no intention of really being "it", we were too busy trying to comprehend how we made it this far and its quite astonishing to this instant. The only reason we decided to go with this weekend's program is to continue what we started and see where we go from there. Luckily, it was one of those grand experiences that you do not get to experience everyday. The best part of it, we were presenting in front of different groups of people, with different backgrounds and different perspectives.

     The one thing that got me worked up after our pitch presentation was that one of the professors was devastated and already pessimistic. Man, that was not the idea. You're supposed to stand strong regardless of what your pitching in front of the panel, well at least have that solid confidence that you made it this far so that's more than enough . Looking at the bright side, you actually made it to this level, so personally speaking that's quite impressive, but for you to fall weak and suddenly discourage yourself right before pitching, that wasn't the best approach.

     The biggest shock of the day is that person making it through to the top x people, that got us thinking maybe the entire "discourage" act was maybe a game? Nah, it was serious and it was sincere so there was no act in it all.

Poor man though, he got himself worked out for nothing.

Bless you have a little more faith. :')

Life's an echo

 © twitter.com

"Why the sadness and shock when that is what you give." Echo Bliss

    Growing up as a child, my mother always raised me on the basis of  "you get what you give". Nothing more, and nothing less. At that time, a child at such a young age would not really know what that meant, but as I grew up into the adult I am right now, done with high school successfully and now almost done with college, I came to learn the fact behind it all. My mother always knew what she was doing, she was that type of person that drew her life's path and goals clearly and worked to achieve them, no matter what obstacles and set-backs she faces, she got over them and go there. That' what I admire about her so much.

    She always said, if this is how you're treating people, then that's what you should expect from them in return. If you're nice to them, then do expect they would be nice to you at some point. If you've got a temper and threw out on them like it was their fault, then they'd throw their temper fists at you in return. However, the catch in it all was not to really expect anything, but to give and move on. She used the give and receive paradigm as children to make it easier for us to understand what she was aiming at, but as we grew, she emphasised on our Islamic principles more often by saying Allah will give you what you deserve and he always knows what your intentions are. As a senior at college, I cam to learn to do what I want to do and help people and respect them if I want to and not expect the same from them. Just do and move on with a smile on your face. You feel good about you do really and the best part of that little pleasure is that no one knows about it except yourself and Allah.

    When it comes down to someone hurting you and disrespecting you, you do not do the same, yet you do not keep it quite and just nod your head. There are always other way to express the hurt that's been indulged on you, and that's where most people fail. Their tempers always get the best of them, my temper gets the best of me sometimes, but I always revert back and try to deal with whatever it is in different ways.

    It all falls back to what you really want to do and what intentions you have, have them good or bad, you will - and I guarantee you with a 100% confidence - get what you give.

Think well of what you do because you only live once, so make the best out of it.

Halt

I just noticed that I haven't written a post in a while although I've got a lot going on that I wanted to write out here.

Let me start it off.

This week marks the beginning of the Spring semester of 2015. After a week of rest and mental stability, things had to get back on track and I had to get back and get my degree progressed. Although it's just the first week, I've experienced a lot of things that got me thinking and actually made me want to speak out..in some way.

Usually, just like in any other place around the world, students love to volunteer and they love to do extra curriculum tasks that are going to boot their social skills as well as strengthen their CVs. However, the problem I have been noticing for sometime is the fact that people can not get their eyes of their phone, nor pass an hour without checking their phones. What I'm trying to say is, it is 2015, the uproar of the digital world as they say but there has to be some sort of commitment and some sort o taking a few things seriously. We , as humans, we all have our own problems, our own lives, our own everything, but that doesn't mean we do not take our work seriously.

One of my elective professors impressed my the other day and just filled the void.

He was in class about 10 minutes before the lecture's scheduled time, and believe it or not he was empty handed and his pockets were empty. No cellphone and I think no wallet either. The only thing he brought with him to the lecture hall was the Syllabus, he printed it out and distributed it to all the students...I mean a professor who , more than us students, is super busy and has all these scheduled meetings preparations, responsibilities, life, problems..he just came empty handed.

What does that make us?

Regardless of who you are or what you have going on in your life, just remember that everything has it's period of time. Meaning if your here to learn, keep your cellphone away for that period and learn. And the lectures last for like what about an hour and 15 minutes or 2 hours max? What's the problem?

Just take things seriously and push yourself to discover your capabilities.

Distance is not to blame

First of all I'd like to praise the Piano Guys for their awesome tunes!

The Journey  that starts without choice and ends without choice, you're just a passenger on board.

These days I've been reflecting back on all the memories I have so far  of my friends and I'm really blessed for everything. It's already 2014, and I'm proud to say that I'm still in contact with most of my friends back in school. Some of them had to leave the country and finish their studies abroad, some remained here and go to the same university as I do, some moved to other cities, others went on doing their own thing. The thing is, it's just a trait in me that I myself can not change, I just feel like I owe something to the people that know me and the ones that I know. I mean no matter what we did have something that kept us together right? Like there was a reason for us meeting and a reason for us to share those laughs at that time. 

The reason I'm writing this is to express my happiness regarding a tiny post I just read. One of the people I knew just gave birth to a very healthy baby boy. She was - I can say - a family friend. She used to go to my college, we knew each other , no very well  but I was always so excited to meet her because she had her internship in Korea , a place very dear to me.

It surprises me how time flies by really quick. It's just human nature really, you make friends, they grow up, they have their own families, they move away sometimes, but what's really nice about this whole cycle is the fact that they do not forget the people that influenced them and that left a spot in their lives.

It's a pleasant feeling.