Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I am bored!

Now this is becoming sadly a habit-well for those who know me knowthat I become bored with something very fast! I guess that it has something to do with my exciting childhood where even going into the garden was an adventure.

I miss that -especially at the end of a day like yesterday where I spent 5 hours in the lab doing biopsy punctures on 16 mice-in which the only "action" part was when I had to wrestle with a few of the resistant mice who did not take too kindly to some one poking their belly area with a 32mm needle.

I have to say that sitting at 3am in the mornign doin an assignment I have no idea or interest in doing pretty much sums up how my last couple of days has been.

Oh well I have to say in spite of this bordeom I still have so much to thasnk God for -so Thank you Allah!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Indeed there is a difference between us human beings and animals.

Yesterday as part of my ongoing experiment I had to put around 10-15 mice to sleep in the chloroform tube thingy that they have in my faculty. I was thinking at that point that the life of a mouse must be very boring and subservient. I mean imagine being bred just so that 6 weeks later a human can anesthesize you and make a hole on the back of your neck and for 2 weeks apply an extract twice a day as well as have to wrestle with the human- every 2 days- who is a hundred times bigger than you just so that the human can take a picture of the wound on your back.

Even if the human is pressing down on your neck all you can do is not move your neck as somehow the human would naturally expect the mouse to hold its neck nice and stiff and pose for the lens of the Canon 5.0 megapixel Powershot Camera after it is nearly being throttled to death. I mean that is the most natural reaction for a creature if it is being handled in such a that manner.

Oh yes!

Occasionally if the human is being really irritating or is not holding your tail the right way you may just get the satisfaction of sinking your teeth into a hand that is covered by a latex glove that would probably leave you with a rubbery taste in your mouth.

After all those weeks of posing for the camera and those dreams of sinking your teeth into the hand that holds you from your tail and swings you around to subdue you before a photo shoot you end up in a tank filled with choloroform in which you run around till you eventually go to sleep! Forever!
To all those people who think life isn’t worth living for or to all those people who say “Why didn’t God make me a bird or a rock” here is your answer.
And also the fact that being a bird or a rock is extremely boring – I mean seeing as how rocks sit around all day either growing moss on them or getting a sun-tan I don’t really see how one could or would want to be a rock or bird which has to migrate every time it gets too cold or too hot.
All praise be to Allah! I am a human being who lives , talks ,walks and interacts normally- by the mercy and will of Allah I am able to live an ordinary and normal life.

“Then which of the Favours of your Lord will ye deny”
Al-Quran, Surah (Chapter) Al-Rahman(The Most Gracious) Verse 13
(Note :this particular line/phrase is repeated in this chapter many times)

Sunday, January 04, 2009

READ THIS EVERYONE!
I speak English as my mother tongue/first language. I literally dream in English and according to psychologists the language that one dreams in is their mother tongue. Now having said that I also have to confess that English is extremely deficient in many ways .For example mother’s brother in English is Uncle and Father’s brother in English is Uncle. However if one was to look at Urdu the language of my forefathers one notices a clear distinction in addressing ones uncles for example. Mother’s Brother is Mammu and Father’s Brother is Chacha. There is in Urdu a word for nearly everything hence defining each object or subject extremely carefully and clearly-however this is not present in English hence giving a lot of people especially the politicians the opportunity to say that “I was misquoted” or a more common one Nowadays “I was misinterpreted” . Not that I am laying the blame squarely on the language used because as we all know dodgy people will be dodgy irrespective of where they come from or what language they speak but definitely it provides them with loopholes for getting away with saying absolute nonsense and then blaming it on third parties.
Having said that one cannot deny that the media has a certain slant towards sensationalist coverage and after all that is what sells. However one does notice a certain bias towards the side that favours the rich and powerful for example the massacre of young,old, male ,female Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. This bias is apparent in the world’s media coverage of a certain “war” that is going on as I type this. Israel claims that it is targeting Hamas and that the civilians are being used as human shields by Hamas. Now while I don’t agree with a lot of Hamas’ policies I have to say that the justification for this attack on Gaza is flawed. It is flawed not because Israel is doing it but rather because the main purpose according to Israel is to wipe out Hamas. Now what they are doing is creating martyrs out of people based in the Hamas organization and hence creating a vision of people dying for the sake of Islam in Palestine. Hence eradicating the threat in the short term perhaps but creating more long term and hardcore supporters of Hamas whose only desire is to “wipe Israel off the map”.
Having said that all we can do is pray for our innocent brothers and sisters in Palestine who are being slaughtered day and night in continuous bombardments . To quote the words of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon “the use of excessive force must stop” and let me add here excessive and unnecessary force must stop today , now ,here and not tomorrow or the next day or the next week .The world has already seen so much blood shed in the last decade –and if we don’t stop it then tomorrow our children will question us and accuse us of being complicit in the dirty actions of a few. Let’s all start the new year with a resolution not to maim each other, not to kill one another and to live side by side in a society where each individual respects the rights of the other and does not impose draconian views upon the other and in a society which does not lead us to an apartheid state being formed in the 21st century. This is a message to all those governmental foreign policy makers who decide not only their countries future but at times also hold the lives of other citizens in their hands and on whose hands the blood of thousands of innocent civilians and bystanders lie if they choose to remain silent. For as we know remaining silent is the same as agreeing with the other party and by doing so being an accomplice in the crime!

An Update-

From an international reputed news agency's website

"The International Committee for the Red Cross said on Saturday its medical emergency team had been prevented for a second day from entering the territory.

The UN has warned that there were "critical gaps" in aid reaching Gaza, despite claims from Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, that there was no crisis and that aid was getting through.

At least 25 per cent of the Palestinians killed since Israel began its aerial assault nine days ago were civilians, the UN has estimated."