Vote for this Blog for the Category, 'Best Diarist' at 'Pakistan Blog Awards'!

Thursday, November 17, 2011 Heba Moeen 1 Comments


It's the Second Annual Pakistan Blog Awards to be held in December 2011 in collaboration with presenters/lead partners Youtube/Google, Dell, Intel and Djuice. The theme being followed is 'Colours of Pakistan: Celebrating the New Media Spaces'. The official hashtag on Twitter is #pakistanblogawards

So please follow the link and click on five stars just below the title of the blog:


http://pakistanblogawards.com/2011/11/11/diarist-hiba-moeen/

Remember, adding a comment might get a better position and 'sharing is caring (this link above)! :)

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“Nazia the Vampiress” (Season 2, Episode 2): "Respondents, Credit Hour Chaos & Much More"

Friday, November 11, 2011 Heba Moeen 3 Comments



Disclaimer: Ok here we go, disclaimer is at the beginningall characters in this story are imaginary. Any resemblance to anyone dead, undead, haunting or trying to live is simply a coincidence. Don't start assuming things, try educated guesses . . . if you still fail and relate them to real life characters, you are not a loser, you are just trying to live your life and letting others live … besides, your Thesis/Research Report might be playing tricks on you after completely possessing you, you are just a sad, bad, fad data collector.


All these vampire and non vampire friends stepped outside the library in utmost disappointment since it hindered their study plan thanks to the obnoxious librarian who generally didn’t seem to show any respect to any teacher or student inside who would have come to discuss their projects and sign language had not been taught in the school yet. He was now just in the vampire victim hit list but Nazia and Scrooge had an argument about who should impale him first and that Nazia’s idea of a gas chamber would be better for these humans at least.

“His existence makes me feel angrier than you, that’s why he’s my victim!” exclaimed Nazia

“No! Cats and rabbits must live in harmony on campus, he has to be mine …” argued Scrooge.

Nazia being in a credit hour, blood sucking distress herself was shocked, “Where did cats and rabbits come from?! Besides you eat cats not rabbits or is it a change of menu?”

“Qwack! Qwack! I see ducks …” mumbled Scrooge.

This was turning into an annoying conversation when Toots intervened, ‘What the hell is wrong with you guys? What’s with this zoo discussion? Respectable vampires are supposed to go after human blood not these innocent creatures!” said she.

“Oh well, well, well … leave it to the me, the one, the lovely, oh … the, the, the … werewolf!” spoke Shazia, “oh because it’s Friday, it’s Friday and it’s Friday!” she giggled.

Since, a few days or let’s be more precise, since Thesis started Shazia started revealing symptoms of  lunacy often thinking that she was a werewolf and somehow got to have an idea about the real vampires on campus and said she could smell fear and shape shift into various other things, she had been meticulously observing each and everything on campus ever since she and her group did a project on their school a semester before.

“Is Rebecca Black playing tricks on her head or is it her Thesis?” asked Toots
“I don’t know … maybe the realization that this is the last semester so she can afford to lose her mind completely, well as if it was already in place … ever since thesis started she has been biting people and getting away with saying that she is a werewolf.” said Nazia in a concerned tone.

“Aaaaaaooooooooooooooooooooo!” exclaimed Shazia with delight and excitement.

The situation had turned bleak not just for her but for others also by the time they reached their methodology section, some of the potential respondents who had been rude started disappearing from the face of the Earth … why? Because they were in Nazia’s respondent pool and they misbehaved and were rude, therefore, they seemed tasty for what they were … human beings. But those who were very cooperative across social media and beyond gained vampire respect, they were told to be kept away from the consumption among the vampire brotherhood.

“Oh give me a wall! Some of these respondents are Halloween and I am a pumpkin ready to be smashed against the wall!” she moaned and confessed in front of Toots one day.

“Ahhh …well, to hit your head against a physical wall or a virtual wall? Which one would you choose? I thought since your research is about social media you might consider a virtual wall …” joked Toots, “What exactly is your topic?”

“I don’t exactly remember but it’s about the impact of social media in unveiling your true self … you as a brand … our vampiricide (Season 1) that happened a few months ago is a good example … you know coming up with a topic is the most difficult thing to do in this human world.”

“But what’s your hypothesis? What are you trying to achieve?”

“I don’t know honestly … the Lord shall forgive me for the hypothesis shall be devised after the methodology’s passiveness has been dealt with … my advisor still thinks I am a human being even though I have started haunting his email account by now, I still try to pretend that I am more of a human than a vampire … a respectable one in my community though, not like Scrooge munching cats away.” justified Nazia.

Scrooge had been listening and felt the sudden need of adding in his say, “My advisor goes for accuracy, he’s good at what he does, he gave a sample of 10,000 people because he is an awesome man! He’s got experience and we’ve got the sample size … good representation. And he goes for accuracy again, he measures our margins and line spacing with a vernier caliper … not like yours, being content with whatever you have given without a hardcopy submission.”

Nazia who already had a niswar of a day was in fury, after a great deal of passive smoking in the bus and a packet of niswar being dropped on her head by a crow it was turning out to be a bad day, “Yeah, yeah your advisor walks the corridors with a halo on his head, blessing everyone with Harvard referencing virtues, concluding each student with automatic research findings and safeguarding them against the barbeque grilling from the panel yeah?!?!? At least mine is eco friendly, he does not demand stacks of hard copies for reading what I have written and neither does he make me wait for 2 hours before a 10 minute meeting. When he carries an opinion and supports hard work he is even ready to support vampires. And it's never a matter or quantity. Since when did we start comparing advisors?! I impale anyone who has a problem in this case.” blurted Nazia.

“Enough you two kids. Stop it now!” scolded Toots, “Are you going to suck each other’s blood over whose advisor is better or in a worst case scenario CapsLock each other across social media walls? Don’t forget the unity of vampire brotherhood  … so chill, you fetch her some blood, she’ll fetch you some in return.”

Shazia came running again out of the blue, ‘Thesis is a test of friendship too hahahahaha! Plagiarise or plagiarise not, there is no try … ADVISOR WARS!”

“So Nazia whom have you been having for dinner these day?” asked Scrooge.

“Well when thesis is also is a test of one’s temper, I have been having some respondents too for impalement or dinner you can say … for example there was a senior executive from some so called Construction Bank who bashed me when I sent him my questionnaire, his moronic highness told me that I should have asked for permission first before mailing him something in his stupid highness’s inbox and that he would see if he has time … Ever since that night I have not been a consumer of his blood but he has been a victim of rigorous impalement and the poor guy thinks mosquitoes are doing it to him … but I must confess his blood was not good, as bitter as his attitude, he shall face vampire curse.” With that her sharp and beautifully intact teeth reflected light through their smooth and uncanny surface.

Scrooge was curious, ‘Why? What did it taste like?”

Toots interrupted with a mocking smile, “You should know … a bit like iron and but salty.”

‘Ewe! Yuck!” exclaimed he. “Oh well, I can understand, some people while answering questionnaires are not even sure of their gender, it’s better not to waste a survey form than to highlight upon your hybrid gender and yes in a few years there would be a need of a third option.” Replied Scrooge.
“Hmmm … yes … options, you know life is like a closed ended questionnaire, you never know when you might run out of options, next time we won’t restrict people to two genders only or should rather add, ‘I wish not to disclose’, that way life won’t run out of options that badly.” She grinned away rather mocking the findings of the survey, “Hey, by the way do you know the grading break up and how we should be justifying our sample size?”
“I’m not too sure myself and whenever we ask seniors, the only robot like response you get is, ‘depends on your advisor’ … how odd, I had a conversation yesterday.”

 
“Overall it’s just difficult to stay sane. How can people mess up with your survey and not know their gender? Perhaps we should mention in the disclaimer that idiots are advised not to fill the questionnaire or that if you are not filling the questionnaire you are an idiot to have clicked on the link to begin with.” pondered Scrooge.



“Oh common that's rude …” said Nazia almost miserably.



Shazia emerged again like a ghost and poked him, “Hello there!!! Hiiiiiii Scrooge! They are not idiots. That’s because they are genderless or too genderful …zoom! Zoom! Hahahaha!”

Toots was flabbergasted and annoyed at this continuous level of insanity and the situation begged her to say, “I wonder what a researcher’s state of mind depends upon … May God help you before He helps your research.”

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