6.30.2008

Bloggerwave

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6.19.2008

Bank account stuff

So today I walked in to a decent local bank branch to get a bank account. Given the tedious new sequence of documentation and endless number of forms to be signed the whole process took about ninety minutes. Interestingly, the person handling my application failed to comprehend why I want to open a bank account when I am niether a student nor a working woman. He suggested I put in my status as house wife as in that case there will be no need to account for my income. Now the problem is that I am not a house wife - no more a student and I have not started work yet. So I am not able to give a tangible source of my income. And I MUST give a source of income in order to get an account.

Finally, my father put himself in as my source of income. And now I have a bank account. Thanks to the whole new state of affairs surrounding flow of funds in this country.

6.11.2008

My people

You know you are on a flight from Bahrain to Lahore when half the people in the plane decide to stand up a good ten minutes before the plane actually lands.Whether the seat belt sign is on or the Gulf Air staff plead that you sit down for your own safety is irrelevant. Again you know you are on this very flight when cell phones start ringing before the jet wheels hit ground. Lastly, you know you landed at Lahore airport when more than half the people in the ladies queue for immigration are men.

6.05.2008

Home

They say 'home is where the heart is'. My heart is not in London. It is not the city with its archaic structures or dreary skies it is the person within me who is reluctant to associate with this place as yet. I feel I am in transit.

I have switched houses every few years so moving is not new to me. With the exception of my four years at college I have never lived in a city for more than three years. Yet somewhere in a hidden closet I have nourished the desire to find home in one place and settle down. There is no time line and there is no specific place set down. It can be any time and any where just so long as it happens.

I was happy in Lahore. Happier in DC. I am not sure if I will be as happy in Lahore as I was before. Association stems from people rather than place. My parents are still in Lahore but my friends and siblings are not. More so, the newly found husabnd is no where near Lahore. Lahore is stripped of association for me. It is a city - a nice - that used to be home. For two years DC was home away from home. Now, I feel stranded somewhere in the middle.

6.03.2008

Calm before the storm

After two years of toiling towards a graduate degree I finally have a few days with nothing to do. I have the degree. I am done with school. I have a job that begins a few weeks from now. Till then I am living in the void of being idle. Somewhere along the line of going from school to college to work to university I became a restless person who just cannot be idle. I like keeping busy. It makes moments go by easy and the demons stay out. Having time with nothing to do is no virtue it is a sheer burden. A burden I am trying to ease by writing random words for now.

And it's raining

It is raining - again! What is with rain and clouds in this city. Whatever happened to a sunny summer and warm afternoons. Where has all the sunshine gone?

I so do not like London. It is dark and dreary to the point of being depressing and it is plain old. This city is old in a not so fancy traditional ancient old way. It is just old. The roads are narrow, the buildings barely standing and the rail tracks dirty.

Constant overcast

London is...not DC. They say home is where the heart is...my heart is not in London. Hence, London is anything but remotely similar to the home I left behind. I am alienated from the overcast here. My home is closer to the hot and humid DC summer.