Ramadan mubarak!

I couldn't miss out on such an excellent opportunity to put up a colorful picture on my blog to celebrate the month of Ramadan! For those who don't know, this month is a very special month for Muslims. We fast from dawn to dusk and then... as soon as the muezzin starts the call for Maghrib prayer, we stuff ourselves - like a pack of hungry hyenas - with all the food lying within a ten mile radius! Haahaa! No, that's just me kidding. Ramadan isn't about keeping away from food the whole day and then binging on samosas, jalebis, chicken tikkas, fruit chat, dates, juice, pizzas and all that food you daydreamed and drooled about during the day! It is about much more than that. Yes, believe me :) even though it might seem to revolve around just food if you happened to stroll into a 'all-you-can-eat' restaurant at Iftari or Suhoor time. Some people make it the month of eating only and that's kind of missing the spirit and meaning of Ramadan. Ramadan is about much more than just food, as I elaborate:

Self-restraint, cultivating good habits and lifestyles (not just in the matter of eating though :)), being extra generous in your donations and zakat (many of the hospitals, NGOs and charity organizations go the extra mile to advertise their work so that people looking to give donations know just where they can give where people will be maximally benefited) , learning to control your anger/frustration while in a hypoglycemic state - which tends to make you a tab bit more cranky than during most times of the year actually :) and the overall feeling of charity and goodness that accompanies this month. The extra acts of worship that Muslims perform during this month because the reward for doing good deeds is not only tripled but quadrupled and five-rupled in many cases. My favorite act of worship is Taraweeh because listening to the Quran being recited in a loud voice in a huge congregation is an absolute treat. So calming and liberating. Lifts all the burdens from one's life!

And I just love the serenity and tranquility of Ramadan evenings. Just no comparison to other evenings of the year. They are so cool and calm despite the fact that the weather in Karachi is normally quite hot and humid. And the last ten days of Ramadan - the days in which one can attain freedom and refuge from the hellfire by maximum worship. Aisha (Ra), the wife of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) reported that: "With the start of the last ten days of Ramadan, the Prophet (pbuh) used to tighten his waist belt (i.e. work harder) and used to pray the whole night, and used to wake his family for prayer at night." (Bukhari)

Something to think about...

“Say (O Mohammed) “If you do love Allah, follow me, Allah will love you, and forgive your sins, as Allah is All-Forgiving, All-Merciful”. Surah Imrân (3:31)

Real happiness

Amazing video, MashAllah! I love the message of it and I came across it at just the right point in life. Regretting about what happened in the past will do nothing to change your future or make it better. Feel liberated and light after listening to it :)

Feeling tiny

This is an absolutely amazing video! It compares the sizes of the planets and the sun with stars of other solar systems. The figures are staggering. You're head starts to spin after a few seconds of information, both because of being boggled by the sheer scale of our planets and by the realization that we're just an itty bitty, teeny tiny being in this vast universe! Feel extremely diminutive at the moment! Truth is definitely stranger than fiction :)

Busy, busy, busy!

My third semester of BDS (Bachelors of Dental Science) was extremely busy, so much so that I wasn't able to upload anything on my blog after the exciting, explosive cricket match of the century - between India and Pakistan (unless you happen to live under a rock, you might have heard about it. The excitement and tension was tangible - impossible to miss!). As I mentioned previously, I was extremely busy this semester doing all sorts of things. The following are a couple of things that kept me occupied this semester:

1. Studies for one was the last thing on my mind this semester - which was pretty pathetic (yes, pathetic! I felt absolutely pathetic by the end) since then there was a huge pile of stuff I hadn't studied by the end of the semester and time was, well - obviously - not on my side. For the first time in my college years, I suddenly found myself cramming things/concepts/theories/teeth size/pharmacology at the very last moment - like an utter m-a-n-i-a-c. I entirely went against my own study mottoes, beliefs regarding studies... it was a huge fiasco and things got very tricky when exams suddenly popped up of nowhere a week or two earlier than expected and our oral biology department - crazy and utterly disorganized as they are - suddenly decided that this was the opportune moment to suddenly load us with a research project that required a lot of running around and taking impressions of patients - who we had to summon/ conjure up out of nowhere! And if that wasn't enough, we had a whole platter of other things going on at the end of the semester which are quite a lot and jumble-y to explain!

2. Secondly , a research project (other than which I previously mentioned) was assigned to our batch by the community department of our college. Alhamdolillah (Thank God) , however, it was assigned at the beginning of the semester and we had ample time to deal this research thingy. It was also, unlike the Oral department research project, organized and well-thought out even though it too had it's share of problems - but every project does come with it's portion of problems so we didn't mind much.

This was the first time my fellow students and I had come close to anything research-y. We got to learn the ABC's of research. Also, our batch was divided into groups of ten with each group being given a particular topic to focus on. My group and I were assigned the topic of 'Oral health practices of mentally handicapped individuals' which was a very interesting, but was a bit challenging because we had to do a lot of literature review and then gather our information from a special school for mentally challenged individuals, in Karachi.

This research project was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed doing it. But like any research project it was time-consuming and had its own share of problems, ups and downs, unexpected turns and twists - at unexpected times! Sometimes, all our work was done and the head of department suddenly felt like making a change - out of the blue - and then we would start from scratch. In the end, our whole group got really tired of the work - not because it wasn't fun or interesting but because it got so hectic that we hardly found time to study. All in all, I'm still glad we did it because a learned loads and my first visit to an institute for the mentally challenged individuals was absolutely amazing, eye-opening, humbling and energizing.

3. Visiting relatives. It's funny but somehow relatives always end up visiting at the peak of your exams. This has been happening since my very semester. I'm learning to get a hang of it now and know just how to adjust to exam time relatives.

4. Other activities: I had not participated in a debate competition since my school years and I suddenly felt compelled to take part in one. A month or so was spend in trying out for a couple of inter-college debate competitions. It was a really refreshing experience. Studying purely science and making that your subject of focus is tricky gamble. On one side, you do gain a lot of knowledge related to your body - but the overall process can make you a bit dull and drain your creativity - especially if you're attending a government college where most of the time the learning procedure and the exam layout is based more on the rote-learn principle, rather than learning through interaction. Sad really. But one has to make the most of everything in life. I rarely quote singers, but some of them can wittingly - or unwittingly - utter (sing) words of great wisdom. As Avril Lavigne says (I can't believe I'm doing this! lol) :

"Life's like this, you
And you fall and you crawl
And you break and you take
What you get and you turn it into
Honesty Promise me I'm never gonna find you fake it."

Fireflies

This is such a cute song. One could never get tired of listening to it. It reminds me of quirky Timon from Lion King and his 'expert' opinion on what fireflies are:

Pumbaa: Hey, Timon, ever wonder what those sparkly dots are up there?
Timon: Pumbaa, I don't wonder; I know.
Pumbaa: Oh. What are they?
Timon: They're fireflies. Fireflies that, uh... got stuck up on that big bluish-black thing.
Pumbaa: Oh, gee. I always thought they were balls of gas burning billions of miles away.
Timon: Pumbaa, with you, everything's gas.

Haahaa! Cuteness has reached it's peak.

A fun week!

(Abstract art. We created great masterpieces that day)


(It's alive!)


(My six year old cousin's paintings were just amazing. She has a very creative mind - mashAllah!- and has a good idea of the right color blends. I couldn't help but save all her drawings. That rainbow thingy drawing in the background was painted by her!)


(...battle scars?)

The week long holidays following the last day of my final exams - yes, sadly, we only got one week off but since we get so many surprise holidays in Karachi anyway these days, I figured it was maybe better this way and tried to be happy. I squeezed in all possible non-study activities that I could possibly stuff in that week. From baking to painting, from watching movies to entertaining cute six-year old cousins on sleepovers (and being entertained back with lots of funny and witty comments!) It was a fun week :)