When I’m at the Gym

what happened on day 3?

Can somebody read it aloud for me?

Why must you think So Loud?

Sameena !
Your gym diary has me smiling :) by the way, i am gay and always ponder why all the men who look good at the gym are straight and not gay. (the classic case of the grass always being greener on the other side eh )
by the way, go with your heart and change your major. better than waking up 20 years down the line and wishing you had done so
cheers
vikram

Raw_Dust,

You`re right it wasn`t Hemmingway, it`s Falkner. I really enjoyed how random, confusing thought can be portrayed in writing. And about your question about what makes writing...writing, as opposed to random gibberish. I regard writing as very artistic, and in taht sense writing can be very abstract. So it`s hard to draw the line. However, there`s always something hidden, something more meaningful in the piece...do the use of these stylistic techniques do serve a purpose.

Personal journals can be very rich, depending on how they`re written. A lot of people that write memoirs, great memoirs tend to rely on them heavily...due to the detail of images and emotions perserved by them. And poetry as self serving?...hmmm...I think most poetry is probably self serving...lot`s of poets such as Akhmatova risked a lot by simply writing about the stuff they did. marquez is good, I haven`t read presidente, but I did read a chronicle of Death...i love the whole mirror idea behind that.

fresh/first of the boat...what`s the different?...it`s been established the subject is from the boat to begin with :)

I guess my focus was on the ``gym`` vs. what was going through the writer`s mind. I would agree with Raw Dust`s take. In addition to that, the writer has put way too much focus on a ``treadmill`` which was kind of annoying. She has mentioned treadmill 6 times throughout the article. I guess I glanced through this article in a different stride. Those who liked the humor and light heartedness are more than welcome to appreciate it. I did not take it in the same stride. Since the adventure was not in the writer`s ilog and was posted on the Front Page, therefore I expressed my take. No big deal. The month of March has special significance for women. Chowk`s Admin must be appreciated for their due diligence to keep everyone informed about the latest and greatest happenings in our women`s lives. Keep it up, guys!

as i lay dying is hemingway and not faulkner? and by the way... isnt FOB meaning fresh off the boat... ? Gill Sahib .. this americanFOB is putting you on.. beware ;)

Seriously,
that is one of the problems (that i had wondered in the past) in writing of what you said in #22....
what is it that makes a piece of writing, a work of fiction and actually take it beyond mere documentation of trivialities ala. personal journals/ilogs/crappy-self-serving poetry, you know stuff like that...

this method of creating a character by charting his stream of consciousness is done by many.. obligatory reference goes to joyce bhai.. whose ulysses` last chapter is legendary in this regard... but i guess.. that is the beauty of the masters.. their rendition of haphazard thoughts, broken dialogues, fragments of memories blah blah seem too random but i suspect this is done to serve the larger structure of a novel etc....
there is a marquez novel in which i believe he did this thing for a character who was your generic El Preidente....

cheers!

When I wrote this piece, I was slightly inspired by Hemmingway`s, As I Lay Dying. I liked the idea of thought on paper exactly as it enters the mind. Of course he idd a much better job at it. This piece wasn`t really about the gym itself but the mindset of a person relating to being in a crowd or alone. That I remember trying to establish by trying to work in the weak mirror image of the two days compared next to each other. So the take away message is this article isn`t about the gym, but the human thought proesses as they take place in the gym, as HP accurately mentioned (along with many others) that while exercising the mind does tend to wander. trust me, I could have made this piece much long but the owrd limit on chowk is very small. I also think that soe of it may have been ut out from the original version, which I deleted off of my computer a while ago.

Thanks for the comments, food factory sux...ravi kabob is awesome!

HP why bring food-factory in a gym article? I used to love that place..there was this pan-guy in the grocery store..very gay with much surma (kohl) in his eyes. If you ask him a zarda pan, he would comment, ``Zanab Mardana Shouk Framatein Hein?``.

one thing that most american univs seem to be doing is really upgrading their gyms. my fob experince was showering with dept. chairman..

Re: # 18
oh i forgot, u cant think too hard. it may hurt ur teeny little head

ignore the mistake and understand the message

There`s a lot more that goes through my head when I`m on the treadmill or cycle.

I can`t help but comment regarding ZahraJ`s response to the article. Agreed its content is disappointing because a lot could have been added, considering the amount of meaningless thoughts which my brain comes up with when I exercise. (That`s where I burn most of the calories I think.) Anyway, such wandering away and day dreaming while doing a work-out is natural to most people.

There`s no point in copy/pasting the physical and psychological advantages of the gym. This is just a piece of sarcastic humor, which needs improvement. I don`t think it insulted the gym at all. We do look around the place from time to time and end up joking about it - in our heads.

Don`t be discouraged Sameena.

[why dont you right something more exciting and elightening for all of us.]

...absolutely right....;)

You are at least lucky to be at a gym without being haunted out by men. Ever been to a gym in Lahore by any chance?

A nice little light hearted article. Thanks for sharing it.
To those who find it necessary to criticse, why dont you right something more exciting and elightening for all of us. I`m sure the admins at Chowk do a good job of posting only the best of articles.

Sameena:

Thanks for clarifying. I was a little concerned because `fob` also stands for `full of baloney.` Wishing you well,

Mohammad Gill

freethinker:

FOB means first off the boat. In northern VA, FOB is quite common term in the south asian community. It`s a general term for new immigrants trying to adapt to american culture. I don`t know what I was think when I selected this name.


HP:

Hookah bars aren`t actual bars. Everybody reers to them as that, very few people call it the sheesha place/bar, besides the arabs that work there. They`re actually restraunts that serve hookah. I went quite a while w/o nowing about their existence, and I used to pass by one every day. Usually they tend to be in ethnic grocery stores.