Happy New Year
To all those far and near a very warm new year wish from Moiz.
Posts
Rumor in the air
Guys there is a rumor in the air that Akunet is going to provide us free internet from February next year. How good is this. I say awsome I can't wait to be in February.
BitTorrent site raided
Most of my hostellite friends will find this news very upsetting. Finnish police have raided a famous bit torrent weebsite and have brought it down. Along came some 30 moderators. The rounding up mission was construed because these networks are used to share files that have been illegally copied. Screw all these authorities. Link Via Metafilter
Goodbye Lenin The movie was superb. Though the movie chose to deal with the changes taking place after the fall of the Berlin wall in a comic manner, the message about the confusion in the minds of the older generation was very clear. The reality was much worse than that and a huge majority of party members and the older genration simply couldnt reconcile to the fall of communism. There was this pervasive despondency and sense of failure; a high unemplyemnet rate all leading to an alarmingly high rate of suicide especially among the professional middle class. Anybody who is interested in the history of communism and the plight of party members after its fall, should read this novel, Fear of Mirrors. The author is of Pakistani origin but displays a tremendous command over the events that shaped the last century. It is a great read. I loved that scene in which the mother leaves the apartment building and a statue of Lenin is being carried away by a helicopter. The scene was intense; it i...
Kara FIlm Festival
Happened to drop by 4th Kara Film Festival this Friday along with the rest of the bunch. two movies were aired in the prime time that day. The first one was from Iran and not interesting at all. Enough said about this one we move to the second movie of the night. This movie came all the way from Germany. Started rather ordinarily but turned into an interesting watch fifteen minutes into the movie. It dealt with the immediate post cold war era in Germany when the wall had fallen and communism disappeared into the overwhelming wave of capitalism thus bewildering many in the process. The movie deals with the change at a more personal level and in a very delicate way. Tells us that both systems of governance are rather false and try to keep the people in a false hope of progress and security. All in all it was a movie worth the money we paid for.
In my opinion, the Aga Khan Board is a step in the right direction. All of us, who are the products of the F.Sc. system bear witness to the fact that the current system is outdated and inadequate to meet the needs of the modern era. The syllabus is decades old and unfortunately its revision is in the hands of those, who want us to be taught the same way they were taught. The entire education system is about to collapse and there is no hope for a change, the way things are going. In this scenario, the establishment of this board is like a breath of fresh air. As far as the maulvis are concerned, let them have their fun. It is their life mission to turn non-issues into issues. If they have the balls, why don't they target Mushy over the uniform issue. I sincerely hope that Mushy and his team of corps commanders do not backtrack like they did on the blasphemy law procedural changes issue.
The Aga Khan Board
We have been hearing a lot of fuss about the Aga Khan educational board and the radical change that it will bring into the education system of the country. I personally don't have any opinion at present but it seems that some of the people outside the campus are quite vocal about it. Just five minutes ago there was an announcement on the loudspeakers being carried on the back of a vehicle that warned the people of the adverse consequences of accepting the board in our educational system. There has been wall chalking on all the walls near our university that outright condemns the creation of such a board.
I am sick and tired. I am sick and tired of introducing to you newcomers to this blog. I am sick and tired of introducing to you those newcomers who make a single post and then disappear for good. I sincerely hope Murtaza here will not do this. He is one chap full of spirit and the will to keep things moving no matter how adverse the circumstances. So murtaza buddy let it go_let it go wild into the cyperspace.
The greatest want of the world is the want of men- men who will not be bought or sold, men who in their inmost souls are true and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name, men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall. I think Waheed is one of those men.
Inflight CE As if back breaking burden of work was not enough to keep the doctors bent over there is more news. An innovative company has introduced the concept of inflight continuing education. Hereby the doctors enroute to medical conferences will be able to take CME on their flight to their destinations. Read about it on medical informatics.
A great place to study. Yes this is the name of the article written by the US ambassador in Pakistan and deals with the issue of foreign medical students in the land of the free. The whole article is replete with false claims and assurances that is so characteristic of the US government. At one point in time the honourable writer makes us believe that after the installation of Student and Exchange Visitor System it has become ever so easy for the aspiring students to enter states in peace. The writer talks of foreign medical students and the benefit they bring to the US society both in terms of cultural diversity and monetary inflow. He tells us of new scholarships being given to help students study in states. In the end he ends his essay with the following note, For Pakistanis thinking about your own future, I strongly recommend that you consider higher education in the United States. With more than 3600 fully accredited institutions of higher education, America...
Just watched The Pianist... Holy moly! Quite a movie...shook me shook me shook me...and here's why! We all know abt Herr Hitler. Janab Izzat Maab Sahib Hitler killed around 6 million jews {at least according to American Stats) between 1938 and 1944 under his clean-the-world-from-jews fund drive...and ain't that funny! That was the last straw that broke the world' back...and had everyone clamouring for one place for the Jews to live...and surprise surprise! They ended up in Palestine...funny, huh? Lemme clear up something right at the beginning. I am not racist...or if I am to be brutally honest, not very. I still think no matter what plan God had made for the Jews and no matter how much they've been driven out from wherever they've ever lived, one can't simply kill an entire community just because their beliefs are different. I remember a time when I used to hate them because of what I knew was happening to Muslims in Palestine (it still is! I hate the Israelit...
Faryal Gohar the other day wrote in the Daily Dawn. I normally do not read articles that are longer than a few words unless they are really interesting or really important. Had heard about her and read few of her articles previously so thoght that this one might be worth the time. And it really was. Here is what she had to write Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Prime Minister's House, Islamabad Dear Sir, I write to you today after many long days of serious consideration, wondering whether it was worth the effort, even worth the paper I write on, to speak to you about the things which trouble me, which keep me awake at night, pulsing like a river whose banks will surely collapse with the weight of the water which gathers bit by bit, even in this barren, desert landscape which stretches before me. Two months ago I began another letter to you, congratulating you on your achievement of the highest office in the land and asking you the questions I have asked each time I have had the pri...
And so he walked forth into the Presence of God... I have religious mood swings on and off...although it is true that I also believe in Allah mian (I hope!) perfectly anyway. Last night, I went to my aunt's place since it was a Taq Raat (an odd night in the holy month of Ramadan), and there I listened to a tiny Dars and offered the Nafal prayer Qayam-ul-lail behind my 13-year-old cousin who is a Hafiz (a Muslim who's memorised the Quran in its entirety). It was fun. I kept a copy of the First Sipara of the Quran in my hand as he recited it (kinda beautifully!) and went through the Translation of the Sipara. Then I had an interesting dicourse with my aunt who's by the way quite an Islamic student, and we talked about many topics we picked at random from the Quran. I came back and began reading Martin Ling's Mohammad: His life from the Earliest Sources , exclaimed in wonder (as I did when I first read this book) again, loved certain bits of it, and then finally read...
Love Story I was reading Martin Ling (Abu Bakr Sirajuddin)'s Mohammad: his life from the earliest sources when I came across this paragraph, where Khadija, a rich and beautiful widow of Mecca (and a distant relative of Mohammad) offers herself to Mohammad, the merchant who, by now, is famous all over Mecca by the name of Al-Amin, The Truthful, The Trustworthy. Khadija is extremely impressed by Mohammad's honesty, his fair trade, plus by the stories her servant Maysarah, who accompanied Mohammad on a trade journey to Syria on Khadija's behalf, has told her. He has informed Khadija about the mysterious Christian monk, Nestor, and what he said to Maysarah when he saw Mohammad resting under a tree near his cell: ' "Who is the man beneath the tree?" asked the monk. "He is man of (the tribe) Quraish," said Maysarah, adding by way of explanation: "of the people who have the guardianship of the Sanctuary (Ka'aba)." "None other than a Proph...
Kashif as i reported earlier is in Pakistan and in the male hostel. But it seems that most people wouldnt believe me. The reason being that he has confined himself to his quarters. Thats not a new thing though. We have seen him do that before so people all around believe me when i say he is here because he is here.
Is Evil necessary? Okay fer those of u with no time, skip and delete. Philosophy follows! Those who can spare some, here u go. Jalaluddin Rumi was a Sufi saint who lived in the 1200's. He wrote a lot of poetry on Love and religion and humanity in general. Interestingly, 600 years before Darwin, he came up with the idea of evolution too. (I'm telling u this to emphasise that he was a not a goddamn ascetic, eating leaves and sitting in muraqbah all the time, but a thinker and a revolutionary). Here's what he thinks of what evil is: (Excerpted from ' The life and work of Jalaluddin Rumi ' by Afzal Iqbal) But why, it may be asked, has God created that to which man has given the name of evil? And since He is the only real Agent, who are we to blame for the actions that we are caused to commit? It is characteristic of Rumi that he find the answer to this old riddle not in thought but in feeling, not in theological specualtion but in religious experience. We can feel as on...
Just a post on BMJ Here is what mark twain had to say to the anti smoking groups of his day : You are blind to the fact that most old men in America smoke and drink coffee, although, according to your theory, they ought to have died young; and that hearty old Englishmen drink wine and survive it, and portly old Dutchmen both drink and smoke freely, and yet grow older and fatter all the time. And you never try to find out how much solid comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment a man derives from smoking in the course of a lifetime (which is worth ten times the money he would save by letting it alone), nor the appalling aggregate of happiness lost in a lifetime by your kind of people from not smoking. Of course you can save money by denying yourself all those little vicious enjoyments for fifty years; but then what can you do with it? What use can you put it to? Money can't save your infinitesimal soul. All the use that money can be put to is to purchase comfort and enjoyment in this life...
It has been progress by leaps and bounds on the blogging scene around me. Many new entrants have blessed the idea of blogging and still more seem interested in doing so. Just recently Usman started giving us his regular dose of thoughts that are inspired by his ideas of horror and gore. And now Hammad seems interested in the idea of blogging too. Infact he is so interested that he has started his own blog by the name of cool hammad. All this gives me lots of pleasure because now I know I am not the only one who is out there in the cyberspace rather all of my friends are slowly beginning to realize the power of push button publishing of their ideas and random thoughts. Now we will be more in touch with others when we part after graduation. At this point in time someone might argue that we can do so through emails and stuff but I would not agree. Right now we know each other inside out. Emails only tell you what the writer wants you to know in v...
Impressions of a watcher! I just watched Dr. Zakir Naik's video: The Bible and the Quran in the light of Modern Science. It was a dialogue between an eminent Christian scholar and Dr.Zakir Naik held at the Niles West High School, Chicago, US in the year 2000. (incidentally,I saw our very own Saad Chicago sitting in the audience scratching his head, his mouth hanging open, you celebrity you!) I'll get straight to the point. Dr. Zakir won that dialogue with the audience and the opposition speaker hands down,not only giving sufficient refutations to the alleged scientific errors in the Quran, but also forcing the Christian scholar to admit that 'there are a lot of problems in the bible and I cannot give you an answer right now...but I believe in the Jesus Christ as my saviour and I have firm belief in his father, the God, Yahweh! This was the most incredible piece of religious knowledge that has been passed onto me in quite a while. As a rule, I steer clear of debates about Ch...
The blogging fever is spreading slowly but surely in the hostel. Atleast in my friends. And what do you know what talents lay hiden behind seemingly simple fellows. Kashif is in full swing with his long intelectual posts on his blog that he has so aesthetically and phonetically named vispurz . His long posts are rather cumbersome to read for someone with a temprament like mine but i am sure many online would like to read them with keen interest. He has been touching ver sensitive issues lately. And why not he is going to be a neurosurgeon. Now we come to the mystery writer of all times_yes he is Usman the malik. Since he has nothing better to do he has taken up the task of writing his blog. His delightful style of writing can win any heart. It seems he is here to stay. Who knows in future when he is difficult to find and too busy to take appointments we catch him by his blog. Let the storm come Usman.
First USMLE score in our class.
I must take this opportunity to congratulate Shehzad from '05 who has scored a 99 in USMLE step one with the triple number score of 272 . Before this in my knowledge only Muzammil Shafi of '02 scored 273, a single score higher than Shehzad. This is indeed a great achievement on the part of Shehzad. He has truly been able to prove his mettle.
This score also comes as a blatant slap on the face of our curriculum committees. We all remember that it was Shehzad who was given a resit in third year for minimally apparent reasons. This result also speaks volumes of inability to of our system to judge our students on a truly international criteria.
Well done seized and keep up the good work in step two.Ameen.
As we were very conveniently discussing in my room, the other night, there are two prerequisites for promotion of education in Pakistan. 1)More opportunities to impart higher education should be created. 2)Pakistan should be made a safe place to live. We can think of converting our educational scenario which will then attract potential students from abroad. Pakistan has a chance to commercialize its education industry in similar fashion to USA. Our potential customers being the Arab and the African countries. If that is effectively done Pakistan will command fare advantage in most underdeveloped parts of the world. This advantage can then be used to further our cause of existence. Pakistan can then truly emerge as the leader of the third world countries. This thought is even more practical after the 9/11 incident. Doors of education for students from the third world are closing in the West. We can make use of this opportunity now. We still have...
Grand Round. Lately I have been seeing a drastic change in the grand round culture of the university. Earlier when the giants of surgery were here the grand rounds were a completely different phenomenon. They were tools for discussing all the out of ordinary or non-routine cases followed in the previous week. After brief patient presentations there were discussions over the treatment modalities and the management plans of such patients. Senior doctors used to grill their juniors for different management options and their approach towards such patients. In this way residents and students learned in a manner such that their basic drills were revised and new techniques and avenues of thought added. Now its a completely different story in the grand rounds. The conducting doctors are not at all as good as those before them. Neither do they realize the true purpose of the grand rounds in surgery. They only use them to show off their powers and perso...
Medicine can be mischievous sometimes. There was this patient of mine who happened to present with long standing complaints of bleeding during micturation and high grade fever. He was initially admitted under the medicine team and as relentless as they are they got investigations on him worth fifty thousand rupees and still could reach no conclusive diagnosis. Thus the patient was handed over to the urology team. There he was re-evaluated and was advised further exploration under anesthesia. The plan was to get some tissue from his bladder and see if he had anything sinister. For this procedure protocol demands that he be seen by anesthesia team and declared fit for anesthesia. They got his X-ray chest and incidentally found out that the gentleman had dilatation of his aorta. Things got worse and a vascular surgery consult was sought. They asked for still further evaluation in form of CT scans of chest and abdomen to see the extent of the dilatation. After the tests the patien...
United we stand. I was watching the late hour news on the PTV network the other day. In the trading and economic news section there was this news report on the Sialkot International Airport . This is an under construction project for both domestic and cargo purposes. The amazing thing about the whole affair is that it is being built not by any govt. agency but by the inhabitants of the city themselves on self help basis. The Sialkotians are indeed coming up to the expectations of their great philosopher and poet Allama Iqbal. Since Sialkot is majorly an industrial city with major exports in sports goods and surgical instruments there was a dire need for a way of quick delivery of these items to their destinations abroad. As our govt. has decided never to take the right initiative the people of the city took it upon themselves to build an International airport which could cater to their needs of cargo shipment. Thus a group of industrialists got ...
Concentrate. I simply can't concentrate right now. Have lot to cover and time is just flying away. Bad day for some amongst us here. In order to take the professional exam, that is due in 10 days now, we have to pass all our rotations individually. Some of the guys have flunked, it seems, in their last rotations and might not be able to take this exam with us. This really is sagging my spirits. I know them well and they are all good at studies otherwise. It is just the failure of the system here. There can be no other justification for their not being able to get through these rotations. I have been bitten by the same snake and did let my anger out in one of my posts earlier. All this just made me think that life so uncertain. You think that you have it all under control and right then something bad and wicked happens and the plan is all a mess. You just can't predict anything. I happen to be pretty close to one of the guys whose future, t...
OSCE. Have Paeds OSCE this Friday. Tough exam owing to the fact that Paediatrics is in itself whole of medicine. At times even more than ordinary medicine would entail. Dosages of drugs and management of diseases changes with advancing age and is not uniform as in elderly. Then again our interns and residents know nothing at all. It seems to me that they are all on a summer vacation or on a honey moon. Just this Monday one of the consultants asked a resident about his patient as to how he would assess dehydration in him. The resident was not able to answer and was completely blank. This is one incident out of many that I have had a chance to witness in my three month rotation in Paediatrics. One thing is for sure I would never advise anyone to bring their children to our ward. But again I know nothing about the situation outside this place it might be worse than this. Atleast here senior doctors care and make amends to the follies of their juniors. Outside ...
Elections 2005 This year has been surprisingly successful in terms of class elections for the male hostellites. We have shown that we still retain the ability to change mind frames and that people trust us for our candour. No one could have even thought of Waheed achieving even second place in the race for EPC yet he won against all expectations. Though margin of victory was not convincing yet his mere win is a pleasant surprise. I must say it took some doing to get votes from fence sitters (fawad thankyou for the term) . Many factors can be attributed to this unexpected success. Firstly Waheed holds a good name in the class (wannabe TA). Secondly his campaign was well planned and worked out. Thirdly his opponents took him too easy. Fourthly he has silver shining in his scalp that makes him look experienced. Finally and most importantly I think we were honest and straight forward in our dealing. Allah came to our help. Hussain was a indisputable winner right from the word...
Forensics There is going to be a seventh CAT this time coz they say this one was flunked by the majority. I hope we pass the next one or we might not be able to take our prof in forensics. This is such a terrible thing because forensics is supposed to be an interesting subject but our teacher makes it so terribly boring that no one is inclined towards paying any attention. So it gets increasingly difficult to get good marks. AAKU is a place where studies are already very competitive and stressful in these conditions subject such as forensics which don't generate any interest in the students tend to be neglected and thus in the end students suffer. I can be pretty sure when i write this entry that almost 90% of the class doesn't know even the ABC of the subject although today is the last lecture. The Question is who is to be blamed for this bad luck. I guess blaming it all on the bad luck would be sufficient but we must look beyond that. I think the blame goes on all of u...
Sports Complex Insult.
Sports Complex row has taken a final and decisive shape in the wake of the events of yesterday. Certain employees were trying to bully around in the complex for quite sometime now. Reports had been filtering but non single event had been of the magnitude that created sufficient interest. the same employees created fuss over badminton with Usman and few other guys. Usman reported the incident to the Manager of the complex who was unable to solve the matter. Rather neglected the incident completely.
Yesterday the same employees came to the gym and under a preplan attacked Usman with blows and kicks while he was alone for a minute and none of us around him. Matter got worse. The manager was herald in who took both parties to his office turn by turn.
the news reached the Male Hostel. and people were rushed from here to see what was going on. There the manager in utter diregard of just proceedings took Usman as the guilty party. And accused him, quite ina...
Sports Complex Insult.
Sports Complex row has taken a final and decisive shape in the wake of yesterday's events. Certain employees were trying to bully around in the complex for quite sometime now. Reports had been filtering but non single event had been of the magnitude that created sufficient interest. The same employees created fuss over badminton with Usman and few other guys. Usman reported the incident to the Manager of the Sports Complex who was unable to solve the matter. Rather neglected the incident completely.
Yesterday the same employees came to the gym and attacked Usman with blows and kicks while he was alone for a minute and none of us around him. Matter got worse. The manager was herald in who took both parties to his office turn by turn.
The news reached the Male Hostel and people were rushed from here to see what was going on. There the manager in utter disregard of just proceedings took Usman as the guilty party. And accused him, quite inappropriate...
Prejudice. I advise caution because what is to follow doesn't sound very nice to every ear. I have reached a conclusion after many number of traumatic events in my academic life. Words may sound harsh and prejudiced but they are facts simple plain facts so I can't do anything but say them loud and clear. In The Aga Khan University Medical School one can be a successful student only one satisfies three pre-requisites. They are: 1) Big Boobs 2)Bigger Boobs/Nice firm ass to complement ...
Gossip Centre.
As the weather is improving for the sun is being prevented from reaching the hostellite windows other darker phenomenon are setting in. Sinister thoughts are brewing in the distance. Barren clouds are gaining entry into each other till the time their static gains entry into otherwise non conducting air around them and turn into a flash of light all get terrorized from.
Male Hostel
Male Hostel is under strong and very dusty winds these days. Conditions are ot favourable for new comers. Pot is too much to breathe anything else. ecstatic!
The recent incident of arrant barbarity in the city of lights almost stunned every human soul here and around the world. The grief is immense and the action equally reprehensibe. All that is lost in property and material can and will be compensated for but that lost in form of human values and emotional affliction caused to the families of the victims can never be remunerated for in any form of money. The code orange, in the hospitals, will be over soon, mothers will stop crying for their sons and wives stop waiting for their husbands who by now are 6 feet deep under the earth. Children will cry but then they will loose hope too and cling to the chests of their wailing mothers. The mosque will be rebuilt better than before and prayers will start with more fervour and zest. But the psychological scar, i am afraid, will not leave already marred face of our fragile society. It will become a part of our subconcious and in trun give rise to a similar event. All i can...
Finally Finally it seems my ordeal is over. Once the problem lies beyond ordinary human levels these computers can be very difficult nuts to crack. Every once in a while you come across a problem that has no head or tail in ordinary universe. One gets stuck in the maze of circuitary and matrix of numbers, both of which I don't happen to like very much by the way. So it turns out that all this time I have been working with faulty RAM. And this has been giving me troubles all along. Computer has been acting all too weird. files getting deleted, windows getting stuck, many formats, reinstallations, and what not. I think I have seen a broad sprectrum of problems just because my RAM was not fit to function. Well someone can argue at this point that why did I take so long to arrive at this conclusion provided I had such a broad base of problems and that can only arise if there is some basic malfunction. So my answer is that I will ask you once you start getting simil...
Deep Magic. Deep magic is the place for those who like to dwell into fantasy and scientific fiction. Its a relatively new entrant into the arena of e-zines. An effort of a few, dedicated enough, to keep scientific fiction and fantasy alive over the cyber space at no cost to the reader. The home page loads fairly quickly because of very simple yet extremely attractive layout of the home page. Few graphics but those that are present speak much about the quality of the work.