Confessions of a She-Driver Nice try!!.. But .. somethings in this world never change!!!

Engineering One’s Passion into Profession One day my eight grader niece came to me and asked...Uncle, I am in big trouble. I need to decide...

Decide what ? I asked

Decide that what I am gonna do in my life. How should i decide that? she said.

For a moment I laughed inside..then I was amazed and I wished I had a clearcut answer for her but it was something that after all these years I don`t have an answer for myself either...

But hey....May be life is more interesting when its like a rolling stone...

Heidi Fleiss and Shahrukh Khan – Spot the Difference! What a waste?.... You need to interview some women before making solid assumptions...

Ch-ch-changes Nice piece!!!

However, I feel that it doesn`t fully cover the aspects of change and its impact on our attitudes...
Agree with # 7 that construction and destruction represent change BUT there is no generic formula to outline and weigh both...

The Argumentative Amartya? Although I don`t know much abt prof sen`s work, however, i have one generic problem with the one of the above arguments... and you said ...

``Some people do well because of their sanity. Whereas insane people -- and I use the term to include those with idiosyncrasies -- succeed because they do not care whether they do or don’t. It must be taxing to spend a large part of your life wondering whether you will be rewarded or not for something that the prize-giving world will not even be aware of. ``


well.... due the linguistic limitations .... we do not have separate words to define the levels within brilliance... Dostoevsky, Maupassant, Sylvia Plath, Ayn Rand, and Ghalib, all these ppl you compared with prof. sen are at a much higher level of brilliance...and one cannot compare a normal Nobel laureate with these ppl ...prof sen could represent the usual Nobel laureate community ... which are creative but at the same time could be politically correct and there would be many example of such kind

What will I teach my daughter? All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don`t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don`t take things that aren`t yours. Say you`re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Source: ``ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN`` by Robert Fulghum.

Advantage, Men Enjoyed reading the article. Elaborates some interesting facts about the behaviors of both genders…

But I do believe the title is misleading to the nature of the article. It generalizes the whole gender into a piece and leads the reader to generalize the whole situation into one direction; which I guess is that “when it comes to sex the man shows the advances and woman is at the receiving end” and on that basis it heads to define them as “pervert”…

However, if you want to generalize, I believe there is another perspective, which is more scientific and logical, however due to its scientific nature it lacks the sociological aspects.

Though I do agree that “when it comes to sex the man shows the advances and woman is at the receiving end” is mostly true … it confirms the natural instinct common to most of the species. And every male has a different critical barrier (in terms of attraction that male feels for a certain female) for him to show his intentions. And he must feel the higher level of attractiveness to cross that barrier and show his feelings…

Similarly for example “teasing done by women” is also a way (among other ways) of females showing their attractiveness for a certain male. Every female do have to feel a different level of attractiveness to show their feelings by these means….

These critical barriers vary in every male and female… So in other words what I am implying is that “ if you met a very nice guy who showed no signs of being a “pervert” it might be that due to any reason he does not feel the higher level of attractiveness than his critical barrier.

Similarly it can be said about women. If a women doesn’t reciprocates to your advances. It could just be that you are unable to reach her critical level.

I guess that’s why the word chemistry was used to define the natural attraction between two individuals of different genders.

Boom-Box Mentality Just to add a little tint of fun in the whole discussion...
A colleague of mine told us this a few days ago (probably he was making it up but anyways)..

An athiest came to Pakistan, and when he returned he was fully converte muslim and a true believer of GOD by heart.
the people in his country asked. How did this happen... and he was like..

``Every thing I saw in Pakistan was against Islam and the very principals of transparent society, I just couldn`t see that how the country is running and able to keep itself together``

You dont have to agree with it. but call it a coincidence or what ...but every time we are at the lowest end..something happens that just gives the higher end of the bargining table...

Boom-Box Mentality Well ... One can do all the analysis ..and look for all possible intelligent ideas that can help and you can do the all the hard work to make them work... but the bottomline is that all these intelligent ideas and collective hardwork cannot replace the sustained political stability and sustainibility. I dont wanna blame any kind of rulers in pakistan whether its Military, Political or establishment... but I do believe that ``we probably have to go deep down beforer we can start coming up``..... Establishment or military rulers can`t just provide the kind of certainity required in today`s world... The whole political system is built against the very idea that military sort o govt. works on...and you can also infer from the above statement that the kind of worst political govts. that we saw in 1990s (and due to which we gave up too early on the political process).. we proboably have to see that kind of govts. for a very long period of time till the system starts refining itself... if we want the long term political stability

Regarding the effects of remittances or geo-political situations... i do believe they have an effect..i wont go into the detail... however, We experienced such situations many times in Pakistan history when due to geo-political reason we had an edge... however, these effects would have been much more sustained, if there would have a fully functional political system in place (with developed mechanisms of transperency) ..

So sooner or later we have to decide how we want to go about it ... The sooner we decide...the better...

Rolling Stones A nice one!

I recall an old Greek whom I met during my first week in NY... he was living there for 35 yrs.... Being new to the foreign culture and out of my curiosity, I asked him about his feeling about the comparison between life in Greece and US... I still recall his words `` Its like adoring two women at the same time you can’t compare them cuz each of them is unique and different and you just like them for what they are.... and so you cannot compare ...so in the end it comes down to the fact that what do u want``

You don’t have to agree with the above statement but one thing is for sure…. they say that every person is unique... then “WHY ALMOST ALL OF US WHO LEFT THEIR HOMETOWNS INSERACH OF BETTER LIFE, OPPURTUNITIES OR FOR WHATEVER REASON, FEEL THE SAME WAY” ... I mean if we are different… then why our feeling are common... why do we feel the same way..

Sounds depressing…I know… we like to be different…atleast wanna feel that way…

Great Empire or Grand Illusion? Hi I am just wondering if someone knows any book or reading material regarding US economic & financial policies and its relevance to GAME theory...??

Goodbye Hollywood, Hello Haalivud? 1. ``Pakistan, on the other hand, has recently woken up to the huge potential in this area``.

But we are again late, just like electronics and computer science boom...and again we are missing the next BOOM too...which is in nano technology and biological sciences

2. ``Ironically, because of this very boom we have ourselves a cart put before the horse situation, where although the medium is there, the trained creative lot required to run the show that includes animators, film makers, script writers, producers, ...``

Creativity isn`t something that you can create overnight

3. ``Taking the cue from our local tech leaders, the Ministry of IT&T has started to collaborate with NCA Lahore to launch six month certificate courses in animation and video production``.

Another attempt of Pakistani govt. to create amateur talent, which without proper consumption will not flourish and die down. just like 1000s of MCS graduates.... by the way, how many or our talented teachers stayed in pakistan due to government`s EDUCATION FRIENDLY policies

4. ``Are we lagging far behind? Technologically yes, but we haven’t missed the boat yet. Pose this question to anyone involved in the animation business and they’ll tell you very optimistically that with the right kind of investments and well thought out plans based on long-term strategies, we can catch up with global animation hot spots in just two to three years. Hope floats.``


AGAIN...Creativity isn`t something that you can create overnight, and you just cant produce good talent by having some good schools or centres... you need the whole system that is rigorous and challenging...

May be I sound too negative but there is no short cut to success... WE need to learn that and honestly that is the basic rule that is being forgotten at every level in Pakistan


on the other hand ... we have to take initiatives ..may be not for today or tomorrow but for years to come...

Avant-garde Pakistani Women 1. The Comment: ``In my alternate life, I could have a 4 year old child by now, doing the wife/husband/home-thing, but we don’t get parallel lives.``

I guess each of us in our life faced some situations where there were many options, and each of us has to chose one among those. So this statement is a generic one which applies to all human race...``not to the working women only``

2. The Comment: ``its not the adults that end up pressuring me, its married girls my age who say, you should think about settling down or, don’t worry you will find someone someday”.

Peer pressures are always the hardest to sustain. But each of us makes our choices differently, and we should be able to let nobody tell us what to do.

3. The Comment: “I think women’s expectations have evolved, they can now see more to life than making chapattis and rearing children. But society’s views have remained stagnant, and a home-maker bride is still more desirable than a wilful career woman”.

This is something that is not going to change easily, but by sitting at home things are not gonna get better.

4. The Comment: ``When women are no longer dependant on their husband for support, because they have their own careers, marriage becomes an option. ``

Ideally marriage and career shouldn`t come across, one relates to your emational welfare and maturity and other to the physical welfare and maturity. Each of them are sperate issues and could not replace or decrease the importance of other.