The Wire

Moving to….

Ahmed — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:19:02 +0000

discourseofmymind.wordpress.com

Follow me there!!

Freshman Year

Ahmed — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 04:22:16 +0000

Is flying by… I swear I started yesterday, yet we’re already nearly half way through the second semester? It’s absurd how quickly time goes by, and its not necessarily when you’re having fun.. Next semester during the fall, I’m going to be applying for transfer AND I’M PISSING MY PANTS trying to keep my grades up to keep up with this cut throat competitive mess of a world. If you know me, I’ve said this many times before… I just want to “fast forward” through this part of life. Yet, now a days, I feel though as if I could and did do so, I would miss a great experience that will eventually and hopefully make me the person that I want to be. So far, I love college aside from midterm and finals week, and the papers can be a little hectic, but overall its great experience.

Wishful Thinking….

Ahmed — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 04:17:39 +0000

Looking ahead, hopefully one day everything will be alright. We’ll confront one another, and do our best to live on as normally as before, burying deep the truths uncovered. Pretending as if nothing has changed, when everything is different. And only you will be naive to think that we know far from the truth and have bought into your deception.

New Direction In Life, Post Graduation/College

Ahmed — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 04:16:02 +0000

In the four years that go by in high school, when you’re a person like myself, the one thing you can’t wait for is your senior and even more than that, your goddamn graduation. It just seems to take forever to come by but when it does, there is nothing in the world that can prepare for how differently you are going to feel about it. No doubt, the excitement and relief of graduating is still there, but when the time comes, you can’t help but look back and see what a good 4 years it truly has been. And, you know no matter what, no matter how you want to feel about this experience, you truly are going to miss it and it has changed you without realization.

Graduation night… Like I said before, just amazing, relieving, and somewhat depressing. You’ve achieved a significant milestone — believe it or not — in life, and that’s just it, you’ve finally achieved it. You celebrate for one night after four years, and then move on; all of you, in your own separate ways, down your own separate paths. That’s the depressing part right there, no matter who, if it’s just a familiar face, or a very close friend, or just a friend, you won’t see them on a daily basis anymore, not unless you’re lucky or something.

Graduating high school leaves you a little lonely in more ways than one, just a tad bit. Nobody gives a damn about you anymore, there isn’t a counselor or a set curriculum designed specially for your own needs at your convenience in college. Nope, it’s all you from here on out for the most part, either you make it or break it. That really scared the shit out of me at first. Especially since I didn’t get any fancy acceptance letter from a UC or CSU or anything. But I decided that on my own that community college was going to better for me, and I’m sticking to that decision, no regrets. I guess it was because I didn’t get that letter or anything that I had a lack of belonging somewhere, even though this feeling was short-lived it still sucked, and I was being paranoid over nothing. As usual… I knew I was going to college alright, I knew it was 15 minutes down that way, and it was a very good school and all, but, did I really belong there? Of course I did, it was just my damned paranoia stepping in again. You know, the thing is that all the way up into the high school, everyone is given a spot in school, in class, and are expected to attend regardless. Its the law. In college, you earn your spot, you decide about going or not and committing to keep your spot. These little things change immensely all at once, and that’s life for you I guess.

Speaking of change, as much as I want it in my life, to transform it to the picture that I’ve had painted in my mind since who knows how long and get it as close as possible to that very painting in my mind, it still scares or maybe scared the shit out of me. Change for the most part has been rewarding but accepting and confronting is so damn challenging I don’t know why. I just don’t want to deviate from the now, from what I’m used to at all. EVEN IF IT’S BENEFICIAL IN EVERY SINGLE WAY, I become double-minded and some how find a way to back out like an idiot. Hopefully orientation and registration at Mt. SAC changed that for the better and I think it did.

Going in prepared for orientation and registration was probably the best thing I could’ve done. Coming out of there with classes I wanted and received was my kind of acceptance letter. It gave me my first taste of college and I loved it. It made me feel like a bad-ass of some kind and numbed most of my fears down to nothing because I was my own boss in a way, and I had just taken the first successful but short step into my long journey of making my future what i wanted it to be. I welcome the oncoming years not with fear, but levels of motivation, aspirations, and dedication and hard work once the semester starts which I was previously unaware of.

From the little that I have experienced of this new adventure and milestone in life, I have a pretty damn good idea I’m going to love it.

Next 4 Years — Moment of Truth

Ahmed — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 03:15:15 +0000

My head is always so constantly stuck in the future and its possibilities that sometimes I forget to think of the past. My life has been an 18-year-old journey filled with lessons learned from the mistakes of others, and I’ve had my share of those as well. Elementary breezed by, middle school was easy for the most part, and high school was a mixture of all that except that AP classes/tests, and bad teachers made life hell at times.

But, putting all that aside, I feel that the life that I want to lead is going to be either broken or made in the coming years. At least that’s what the system seems to imply, but system isn’t perfect, and success can find and leave a person in the most peculiar of ways. I guess, when it all comes down to it, it is ultimately fate, but then again what is fate without an effort of some kind. You’ll never really know.

Sigh.. Life’s so damn confusing, and it’s only the beginning too. I guess the master plan is just to do something productive towards where I want to go, what I want to be, and let success find me. Yup… That’s it.

Muslims Pray Under Water During Work

Ahmed — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 04:31:59 +0000

Not much to say today, except for that fact that I got a rather interesting e-mail today from my aunt in New Jersey. Apparently, Muslims who work 4-5 hours underwater at an oil company in Saudi Arabia, also pray underwater should the time for prayer come up. Here were the pictures enclosed in the e-mail of the workers praying underwater.

Simply amazing, the commitment, loyalty, and compassion one can have for their religion. I wish it was something that I possessed.

Random Fact of the Day

If any of you caught the Brazil vs. Ivory Coast match today, how ridiculous was the red card on Kaka today? I mean, the guy runs into him, poor Kaka lifts his right arm, and the guy runs straight into him. Not only that, he is hit in the chest, and decides to cover his face. We had some real shady football from the Ivory Coast side today, I’m glad the better team won though, they truly deserved it.

World Cup Ref Under FIFA Review

Ahmed — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:00:21 +0000

I’m pretty sure it came a shocker to most of us when the U.S. made such an astounding come back in the second half yesterday in the match against Slovenia. But the real shock actually came when we were able to score a third near winning goal, except for the fact that it was not counted due to the referee calling some non-existent foul, rendering the goal worthless. To add to that, Landon Donovan, who started the marvelous come back of the U.S. team when he scored the first goal in the 48th minute of the match, was being held in a most uncalled for way. And when he contested for a penalty kick which he undoubtedly deserved the referee would not oblige. In fact, the referee went so far as to not tell them — the U.S. team — what call was made which made the third goal not count according to Donovan in an article on afro.com.

Though shady and unusual, I learned yesterday that the referee in football/soccer does not really have to justify his decisions since there is no can contest otherwise or against them. Despite this, the FIFA is reviewing the referee like every other referee after a match. Also, according to an article at wsj.com it appears as though it will be unlikely that public disciplinary action will be taken by the FIFA board because rarity of them to do so in the past; like the games of 2006 where the final whistle was blown by Graham Poll while Australia was scored the should have been tying goal against Croatia. Poll was not condemned by the FIFA publicly in any way. The FIFA normally deals with such referees by just not appointing them to upcoming matches should their mistakes or calls be a major fault or unfairness to the game.

Also, to further annoy everyone, there is no way the United States can conduct a formal protest either because they are going to be bidding for either the 2018 or 2022 World Cup, and thus cannot afford to make any enemies. For the most part, it seems as if though Koman Coulibaly is going to get away with this injustice after all. All I can say is hopefully in the future we can avoid such unfairness in the good name of soccer!

http://www.afro.com/sections/sports/story.htm?storyid=1585

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704365204575316442793201922.html?mod=WSJ_worldCup_LeadStory

How Did Lil Wayne Get So Big?

Ahmed — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:29:24 +0000

I’ve never been a huge fan of the rapper Lil Wayne, but my brother on the hand loves him. Sooner or later I got caught in the mix up and found a few favorite songs of my own from his group Young Money. regardless, my brother was looking through freestyle raps on Youtube.com and ended up finding Lil Wayne! Do me a favor. Watch the video, it will save me a lot of explaining.

I love how he even admits “[he] don’t even know how to rap.”

Honestly, I think most would agree it’s one of the worst freestyles out there on the internet. I mean my own brother could do better, if not yourself! I lost so much respect for the man, and gained some as well for being big for practically nothing. It made me wonder whether he writes his own material or pays someone to write it for him. I guess only time well tell, or perhaps, we may never find out.

Tony Hayward and Why He’s A BEAST!

Ahmed — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:07:02 +0000

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who watched the CEO of British Petroleum get grilled by Congress at yesterday’s hearings in the morning. I’m probably not the only one who noticed how calmly yet somewhat nervously Mr. Tony Hayward answered the questions of Congress in a circular manner. For that matter, the whole trial Congress conducted was rather circular, because personally I found that we are right back where we started — and to add to that, I’m not surprised because this time wasn’t the first either. There isn’t a thing that we know more about today that will help fix the spill or find out why it happened or how much oil is exactly spewing out of the Gulf of Mexico than we did before. But the one thing that I found strange of myself, that you might not have felt, was that I sat there watching the trial, hearing the questions that were being asked by Congress, and ultimately feeling sorry for Tony Hayward. Why?

Sure he’s the “frontman”, the CEO, but that doesn’t make him entirely responsible for the mess; and I’m not saying he’s entirely innocent either. He overlooked some major things that should have been caught. Such as the final fail-safe which was reviewed by BP’s own engineers, who noted that it had failed on several occasions. Not only that, but the fact that he probably approved of these “shortcut fixes” that have worked so amazingly in containing the spill let alone stopping the it — if you’d excuse the sarcasm. But Tony Hayward is only part of a bigger problem, a much bigger problem. Yet, the sad thing is that when people look to blame someone for a some problem, whatever problem, we point the finger. And then everyone starts pointing the finger and come out after with their torches and pitchforks, ready to take every word you utter and use it against you as evidence for everything. As if it will make the problem at hand go away any faster.

This is and has been the story of mankind. We make mistakes, and we learn from them. Some of these are played out to a very grand and grave state, and Gulf of Mexico oil spill is nothing short of that. Within this mistake, which undoubtedly could have been avoided, was the cost of jobs, marine life, and the loss of 11 innocent human lives not to mention the countless injuries which also occurred as a result of the spill. But the question is, could this have been avoided if someone else were in the same position as Hayward? Given the countless use of the same drilling methods which insured success each and every time with practically no problems at all, the dangers were forgotten of and people got comfortable with the idea that thing are going to go smoothly each and every time… Until we were presented with those very dangers on April 20th. It’s no doubt that BP will hopefully have learned its lesson after they come out of their nightmare, and hopefully they have done a lot of the learning for other oil companies as well who will take more cautions in their drilling endeavors.

As for Tony Hayward, despite his faults and shortcomings recently, he is quite an amazing fellow.

He’s the CEO of British Petroleum

Corrupt? Probably, its hard not to be when you get that high in the ranks. It’s always about the money. But I bet he didn’t just get there off his wits. No one ever wants to be the bad guy and I’d say he’s done a rather mediocre job in keeping his companies as well his own reputation intact. Regardless, what is the likelihood of you or I seeing such a high-esteemed, respected, and for that matter risky position.
The Money
It’s pretty awesome to be making an average of $387,460 a month isn’t it? That’s nearly how much the U.S. president makes annually! All the things that I could do with that money, such as donations, charity, self-interest. It makes me wonder, when you make that much money, where do you put it all? In the bank and hoard it? Hopefully I’ll find out some day.
The Fact That He And Piers Morgan Look Alike
Sorry, this was just too good to pass up. I find that the two look very similar to each other and what’s not to like about to millionaires judging or being judged on TV? Maybe it’s a bit of stretch, but I like the idea of it — it’s definitely got something to do with the hair and some certain specific facial expressions!

I guess I’ll end it on that note. I think I’ve taken a rather opposite stand as to what everyone else evaluates the situation, especially Mr. Hayward to be. I’m just trying to look at the situation from a different perspective. One thing is for sure though, when I become a petroleum engineer, I’m going to do my part to make sure we aren’t taking any unnecessary risks. After that, it’s out of my hands.

Seeking Inspiration

Ahmed — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 08:29:37 +0000

Its funny how inspiration just pops up out of nowhere. And then, if you let it go for a little… Just for a moment, it disappears.

I don’t know if that’s how it works for everyone else, but that’s whats been going on with me. For the last couple of days, and by days– I mean a couple of months — I have been unable to come up with anything. Not in writing, not in photography, and not musically. In fact, my E string broke the other day while I was playing guitar. That was just great, so I went out to guitar center and met the most interesting guy. He was trying to sell me shit I did not want left and right. It got kind of annoying.

Anyways, back to the point. The fact is, that I have been trying to seek inspiration, rather re-inspiration, for the longest time now. And I can’t figure out why I can’t think of something creative to do. I think its because I’m wanting it too much, or maybe not in the right way. I can’t figure it out and it keeps bugging me. I’m probably just over thinking it, but I wish I could have traveled somewhere so things could have been in a different perspective. I miss that and its been too long since my family has gone anywhere. That’s my ideal solution, but that’s not going to happen. What else could I do?