Reason#1 Why I miss my old job

I don’t feel smart anymore :( I don’t think I’m learning anything new. I do the same thing day after day after day. At my old job, I was responsible for something I enjoyed and I felt ownership of the work. I believed my manager when she said that I’d grow with the company; it feels like a lie here. I don’t see it happening. And honest to God, I’m not saying this because it seems like I had a lot of time to myself there. I used to work pretty hard there too.

Do I even want to grow professionally? Do I care?

Usually when someone asks me what I plan on doing after I finish school next year, I snigger and say I’m definitely not thinking of a Masters any time this lifetime. But the thought of not having something to look forward to scares me. Like now, I know coming next are our midterm exams and then there’s some time off, then the Study Weekend that may or may not happen, and then there are our finals in May/June 2010. What next? I usually don’t mind having 4 months off for the summer, because I know there’s something coming next; I won’t be able to stand being home for so long if there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.

I don’t dread growing older because I’m worried about wrinkles; my only concern is how dumb I feel, even at 23. There’s so much I want to learn and so much I want to do but I never have the time now. Maybe I can start when I finish? Maybe I should think about that Masters? And maybe if this time, I start studying something that interests me, it won’t be such a pain?

Khair even now, I don’t enjoy my subjects, but I manage to keep up in class. This annoying guy teases me all day long for knowing all the answers (he’s lying). And I actually enjoyed Microeconomics this week. Well, apart from the hour I was depressed. We were speaking to our Professor during break, and he told us that he had a Bachelor in Economics, and he had followed it with a Masters from Chicago, and then M. Phil. and a PhD from Quaid-e-Azam University. I felt a rush of pride because he’s a Pakistani, and then I felt so sad because my family will never feel as proud of me. The degree we get now is ok, and someone said it’s definitely of a higher standard than a regular Bachelors degree, but does it matter when I don’t even want to work in either Finance or Accounts?

I checked the time at some point yesterday and I remember wishing for a 100 minutes in an hour instead of 60. I could definitely use the extra time. I would have more time to read and watch and learn and talk and time for myself. There are so many instances when I just want to walk by the beach or sit and watch the moon or the water, but I don’t have the time. Oh, and just so you know, I choose the most inappropriate times to go to the beach, so if I ever stop posting here without warning, rest assured I have been kidnapped.

Another reason I used to feel smart at my old job was because of all the praise I used to get. I’m not saying I need the constant reminders to how amazing I am (I know), but being told I had done well always brightened my day. It was funny though when I first joined, because they praised EVERY single thing I did, and I would think huh?  All day long! It didn’t take much to get used to it though. And it wasn’t even like I was doing something mind boggling – for example I’d pick a pencil off the floor, and the next thing you know, there’d be a post on the company blog detailing how I had picked the pencil like no pencil had been picked before.

Results

Remember? Yeah, I passed. And Sobia did amazingly well, so congratulations Sobia :)

The Exam Story

As is customary, I left everything until the last minute, and then nearly died of sleep deprivation. I’m still on probation at my new job under the Nazis, so all I got was two days leave – to study for and to attend my exams for 4 subjects. Yes, exactly.

I think I slept for like an hour a day for the last three exams, and I still haven’t managed to catch up on those hours lost. Soon, inshaAllah. Btw, staying up late is definitely not for me. I’m ok at the time, but it always takes its toll at some point. Like I stayed up this weekend – both Thursday and Friday until Fajr watching movies, and I’ve not been able to wake up to my alarm even once this whole week. Not cool. Oh and I saw so many movies in those two days.
Juno – Not as amazing as I expected it to be. I love Jennifer Garner btw.
Not that into you – Not as bad as everyone said it was.
Chocolat – I am in love with Johnny Depp.
Marley & Me – I loved the movie.
Borat – Disgusting but so funny! I can’t stop making ‘not!’ jokes.
Amal – Such a waste of time. I wanted to punch the guy constantly, especially when he said the word Madam.
Rudy – Very inspiring. I’m going to make a separate post on this.

Yeah so coming back to my exams – I swear I really did try to start studying the week before, but as soon as I would open my book, I felt like someone was rocking me to sleep. Maybe its a Pakistani thing. Like our cricket team – they only perform (amazingly, may I add) when they don’t have a choice. When I had some time on my hands, I couldn’t read 5 lines without daydreaming and actual dreaming, but then at the end, I managed without any sleep at all. Because I didn’t have a choice.

Business: I bullshit-ed like no one has bullshit-ed before. I remember there was one question that asked for an explanation on how the internal and external environment can affect business practices in a country, with the help of an example. I chose Pakistan, of course. I don’t usually check my answers (boooring), but because I put in so many examples and just general information I read on websites and blogs over the last year (I heart Five Rupees), I wanted to read this answer once I was done. Which also made me realise I need to check my answers more often. One example I added was how the economy was the best performing in Asia under Musharraf, owing to the stability. My exact words were: ‘At one point, Pakistan was the best performing economy in China!’. I’m a dumass.

Financial Reporting: Never again will I subject myself to this kind of torture.

Management Accounting: When I saw the size of my subject guide for MA, I thought piece of cake, and of course left it until the end. Turned out, all the guide did was refer me to a million different textbooks. So the heading goes Activity Based Costing, and the content? Read pages 259 through 5687 from A Completely Useless Guide to Activity Based Costing by themostuselesspersonever. Each of the textbooks weighed more than me, and were worth their weight in crap. Naturally, I didn’t manage to get much done, and if you had asked on the morning of my exam, I would have told you I was going to fail the subject for sure, but alhamdulillah, I did better than I thought I would.

Oh and guess what? I finally managed to get myself invited to a wedding. How cool is that? One of my colleagues’ friends is getting married, and I’m going woohoo. I just hope its not too awkward, since I won’t know ANYONE. I hope he lets me invite mummy. Do you think there’s a chance Shoaib Malik will come? It is a Pakistani wedding after all.

Owervhelming

In my first year at college, we had a compulsory course called Study Skills – which was the most useless course evvvver. We were supposed to learn how to structure our essays, manage our time and learn the right way to approach every question for the finals, but what we always ended up doing was basic grammar! I normally don’t ever miss class, but for god’s sake of course I’m not coming all the way to Knowledge Village for a one hour session on Pronouns! This is probably the only course where I don’t have 100% attendance.

Yeah so in one of the classes we attended, our professor asked each of us to say the word ‘Overwhelming’ out loud. All of us did. She pointed at me and said ooh good you have all your v’s and w’s right. I was like okkkkk one more thing to add to my ammazing-ness.

Ever since then, I’ve started paying a little too much to my perfect v’s and w’s and guess what? I get them wrong every single time!!

Q. So ven is the vedding?

A. Nowember.

The vitch jinxed me.

Buuuhhhhh

I can’t decide what annoys me the most about my Pakistani professor and I’ve now narrowed down the humungous list to two things. The first is his inability/reluctance to say ‘but’. He keeps saying Buuuuuuhhhhh and every time, I reply by adding a few extra t’s in my buts. Wannabe Angrez. The second – whenever we break from class, he takes his phone out of his suit jacket (definitely overdressed for IITM), keeps fumbling with the keys on it, all the time with this shy smile on his face. To give you a better picture, think of a girl who’s reading a message from her boyfriend. I want to punch his face every time he smiles liek that and ask him if he just got a message from his boyfriend. I know its none of my business, but he should stop doing it. Its very annoying.

Seriously? Seriously.

I was just looking at our Academic calendar for 2008-09 and it says winter break is officially (and very generously) from December 29th – January 2nd. One word (or three?) – wtf?!

And Spring break is again from March19th – March 22nd.

I need to make plans!