Backkkkk ( for now )

So it's been a while since my last post about that summer from hell. If you were following things, you probably would have known that I was still trying to get to my target ( med school ).

I will happily report back that I did it and I was accepted into a very good and prestigious university.

I just finished my first semester which was full of work but I still managed to enjoy it. I am more than grateful to be where I am now, I am at a stage where I am content and happy with my life. I never thought that I will ever get there but I am. Even with the endless readings/tests/exams, I still find myself without much stress. Nothing like my undergrad where I was literally scraping for every bit in order to increase my chances to get in. 

I am in med school, United are world champions. Life cant get any better.

Hopefully I can go on a run and add afew more posts  :).

Enjoying the summer....NOT

And yes, my fears were finally confirmed. After about a month of taking on the unbearable mission of MCATing and working, I came to the conclusion that I am basically stupid. I was foolish enough to that I can manage such a heavy load after a tough second semester of second year at university. MCAT for those not familiar with the word, stands for Medical College Admission Test. Yes, I want to go to medical school and now that's the admission test for it. I am preparing for it by going to class 4 nights a week. If that's not enough, I am currently doing research for 40 hours a week. I think my ego made me undergo this endeavour. It has been nearly 2 months in research and one month of MCAT, that's the midpoint of the summer. I am already exhausted,tired and despirited.

Being too proud and relishing to reach greater heights can be detrimental to one's life. I am not enjoying what I am doing at the moment. I just think that I need a break out of all of this. Why do not I like to give myself a break? Why do I want to be challenged every single time I do a thing? Why can't I take the easy route for once? My simple answer is because I am just stupid with a big ego.

It has been truly a summer from hell.

My fanatic love

It has been a weekend of sports for me. Whether it was watching, playing or betting, they all gave me an injection of excitement, joy and relief in different doses. In terms of watching, I had the opportunity to witness Manchester United move ever closer to securing a record ninth league title. This was one hell of a relief after a rather uncertain period of unconvincing displays. After being glued for two hours infront of that TV screen, I could not but only reflect on the emotional rollercoaster I went through in those 120 minutes. My heart and mood were ever so consistent with the scores of the match and turn of play. I felt so happy at the end, with my team finishing on top and winning a difficult match, but I could not but feel weak in terms of being so affected by the fortunes of a football. How can a goal make me so happy and cheer me up for the whole day and how can I miskick or a goal for the opposition makes everything looks so gloomy and sad. I even noticed that lately I stopped taking joy in watching football as a sport, I am too concerned about the wellbeing of my team now, everything else does not matter now. Let the others team play their football, good for them but I am losing interest. It is either my team that is playing and better be winning or ..sorry but not interested. I am losing the appreciation for the sport in general but at the same time becoming more of an extremist with regards to Man Utd.

Friends always told me that I have the material to be a hooligan given the right circumstances. I think they were right to an extent. I would just need a bunch of other fanatics, some beer and tickets for the weekend matches. A scary but still plausible scenario that came across my mind lately.

In terms of playing, I am as passionate as ever and I proved it this weekend. Playing through the pain-barrier is not enjoyable for many but it gives me a sense of weird satisfaction at the end. I was never afraid to get stuck in and commit myself to the tackle and thus the frequent bruises after some football. It is supposed to be ‘ fun ’ but sometimes my desire to win overrides that and find myself taking things too seriously and overly competitive.

And for betting, I lost but my friend made some good money. All part of the adrenaline-rush package but not as enjoyable as watching and playing sports. I am saying that probably because I did not predict the scores right.

Enough about football and my fanaticism for now, more serious stuff to follow :).

Done and Dusted

So another semester is over and hence I have time to add something to this blog. It has been one hell of a ride full of challenges and obstacles. I was always a person looking for a fight, something to stimulate me and keep me on my toes. This semester has been exactly that. I still remember Dr. D’s words in one orientation session in first year ‘’Students are like balloons, the more we pump them, the higher they rise. The higher we turn the heat, the more they inflate. ‘’. That did not mean much then and I don’t deny thinking: What the hell is he on? What balloons, what heating? What’s with the physics from day one?

So two school years on and in a different faculty from Dr. D’s , I know exactly what he meant that day. My first year was when I got pumped, heated and truly pushed to the limit. The process was controlled by a traditional faculty that is built on feeding you facts that you are expected to memorise. My second year was the main turning point, I switched faculty probably for the better. Now , I am not being pushed, hassled or fed knowledge but rather given the choice of control my own learning and education. Quite fascinating to say the least, I was given the choice, and I did not look back. My year was supposed to be hell in terms of academic load, and I thrived in the fires and flames of that hell. It needs a considerable amount of self-motivation and determination, luckily I was never short on neither, otherwise the whole year could have gone to utter waste.

I sound like a true nerd, but switching faculties opened my eyes towards a whole new world of learning, opportunities and invitations for continuous improvements.

CS follow-up

I have mentioned ‘complexity science’ in an earlier post and promised to follow up. Away from the boring explanations and the tedious words and expressions, I think I found a complex adaptive system ( yes, one of those tedious words ) existing in individuals. The term was supposed to fit a system that is composed of interacting variables, to my surprise, this term seems to apply to individual cases as well. Finding most of those individual complex adaptive systems to be of female gender is probably not a coincidence afterall....

'Red'

Whilst waiting for my friend to present our research findings, I found a photocopied piece of writing titled ‘Red ’. First, I thought it was another one of those inquiry triggers that I got used to after a year of inquiry. I was wrong and simply because I am not caught up with the latest celebrity trends, fashions and PR stunts. It took me 2 minutes to read it but 5 second to realise the hidden message behind this campaign.

‘Red’ is a business idea that involves labelling different items as ‘Red’. So we have a Red iPod, a Red MasterCard…etc. The process is simple, you buy a ‘Red’ and some of the profit made off the product is used to buy drugs for the epidemic Africa. What a genius idea, my friend commented, after learning how poverty will be solved through Red. I don’t blame her as the whole Western society feels abit guilty for not helping the needy in other parts of the world. We are hearing about those celebrity pilgrimages, volunteering students and missionaries all seeking to help Africa. I may be generalising here but I am still to meet more than a handful of people who truly care about others, people who truly feel for suffering millions and willing to take action and make a difference. So ‘Red’ is giving us the shortcut to solving the problem. Just choose the Red products and Bingo, there will be no more haunting footages of poverty, genocide or disease on CNN. How lovely!! Only if we were not living on earth and were not called humans, such an idea would work.

The argument is that you are buying the products, for the same price but it is only called ‘Red ’. Unless you have some kind of a phobia for the colour itself, then everyone should contribute towards those Red items. I am for the idea if it would actually work, excuse the cynicism but how would it work if the people claim that Red is a business idea that is looking to make money off Red products. Yes, some of the money will find its way to some drug company that will donate some expired drugs to those in need. Who will receive the money, who will buy the drugs, who will administer the drugs, who will identify what drugs are needed, how viable are the drugs, how will the drugs reach those in real need, what proportion of the money will be used to buy the drugs? These are all negative questions and full of scepticism but I simply can not trust Bono & co. who are trying to make some money off the suffering masses in that black continent.

I am for helping Africans, educating them, Doctors without borders and everyone who is truly willing to take action. I am totally against and truly despise a bunch of wealthy, immoral, and shrewd businessmen who are trying to make a few extra millions off such a sensitive subject. People who claim to be merciful, self-conscious and kind but are as ruthless and cruel as you can possibly imagine.

I hate being morally abused and bribed and especially by someone who pretends to be a saint. A saint as holy and as merciful as the greatest saints of them all, St. Saddam Hussein.

Finally, a breather

It has been such a busy semester, I had the intention of adding to my blog every week, but school work has been very unkind to me. I ended up not having much to do since Arab GLBT other than researching about cancer and diabetes. Researching is not the difficult part, but actually learning the information from the primary source ( research article) and communicating/teaching it to other people in the group has been the challenge.

I thought I was in for an easy semester, full of researching and group work but hell I have been wrong. Inquiry as an educational method encompasses many processes and one of them emphasises knowledge communication within a group. This has been quite a challenge so far. But I am making improvements, my teaching methods were spot on the other day when I helped a member of the group understand some stuff about insulin receptor. The person I helped felt good and I had this weird sensation of satisfaction. I never thought teaching was that rewarding. Maybe that’s how you feel when you have truly learnt something. When you know your stuff, thoroughly understood it and can apply it, dissect it and explain it from A-Z.

We had a snow day yesterday, that means university was closed. I had a good day of shovelling, relaxing and relaxing. I needed the break after three busy weeks. I have a week off soon which is something I am really looking forward to. Skiing is one thing on my list of things to do; buying a car is a priority and hoping to get that done during that much-awaited break.

Oh by the way, happy valentine’s all. Hope you all had a good time. I spent it alone and without a special someone to send flower or chocolate to. It would have been nice to have that someone this time of the year. I am not utterly concerned but my friend told me that I need someone but I am in denial. Do I want to be in a relationship? Yes, I do, I won’t deny that and would never do. But do I need to be in a relationship? I don’t think so, I find myself relatively stable when it gets to emotions and probably not going to change in the near future. ‘ She will make you forget everything and leave your bubble of ‘ emotional stability ‘ ’ one friend told me once after hearing enough of my banter about how I am satisfied and how I currently classify as a ‘ not-looking single’. Did I say that but I am emotionally stable and don’t need someone in my life, at least for now.

Hopefully, I will get time to post some more stuff soon, the break will give me some spare time. Till then, enjoy the snow. :)

Arab GLBT

One of the biggest taboos in the Arab world is finally coming to the surface, thanks to the internet. GLBTs ( Gay,Lesbian,Bi/Transsexuals) have been denied existence till this day in Arabic countries. Whilst some of them are finding a breathing space outside, the Arabic world is still struggling to accept this important sector of the community.

Initially, I was very sceptic about the idea of GLBT. Maybe my upbringing had a factor in that early attitude towards people with other sexual orientations. But it was in England when I gave these people a chance, tried to understand how they think and actually read abit about the subject when I came to terms with GLBT. Before that, I was a homophobe who thought gays were simply sick. I would leave my thoughts about Bi and Trans for me as they were not very pleasant.

So one obstacle is gone, now I am quite comfortable dealing with non-heterosexuals when something happened. I never gave the idea of ' Arab GLBT ' a thought, I was not even curious. I probably made the connection of Arab = No GLBT so I foolishly thought they were not even there. I was asked once if they existed and I was like : yes of course. But deep inside I was not entirely sure. But when I met them face-to-face, that was the turning point.

It was one summer night, I was walking down through downtown Toronto when I heard some familiar Arabic music. I was happy and thought : Yea, finally found an Arabic nightclub, let's go in. So I paid the cover and went inside. What I saw left me gobsmacked. It was a gay arabic nightclub. I stood in the corner, ordered a drink and watched attentively. My friends just wanted to leave, they did not feel comfortable. They started to get worried with the inviting looks they were receiving from the dancing guys. They were bugging me on and on but I did not care. I was enjoying myself, it was this new unfamiliar world. It had the touch of mystery, it was something I never bothered to think about. It was like that my brain kept everything regarding Arab GLBT locked away in my unconscious. The flood of questions, the mystery vanishing and the joy of seeing the ' underworld ' were too much for me to leave early. All my senses were on alert, I wanted to get as much as possible from my new surrounding. The fact that I suddenly felt excited and happy did not go down too well with my friends who started to become really annoying. I had to finally buy them each a drink so they can get off my back for a second. Something that I still recall is how happy those people in the night club were ( except my friends ). Everyone was so free and so spontaneous and trying to enjoy their lives. They were all living the moment and relishing their new status in the society. They finally existed and no Arab leader, political or religious , can deny them their lives and their dreams.

One hell of an experience that will stay with me for a long long time.

More on the subject soon.

Any comments cirtiquing the style/content will be greatly appreciated