Tuesday, December 5, 2006

The sine wave, Lahori Winter & NLDS

Is it better to live your life half-asleep, floating peaceful, on the calm water surface? Or to stir things up - stir them hard, and look whatever's lying on the ocean floor; float up, find the fisherman?

To be honest, I would prefer smooth sailing all the way, but that's not always possible now, is it? (Lately I have noticed half my statements, my remarks - at least the online ones - end up with a question mark at the end. Am I boy wonder or mister inquisitive? It's probably a little bit of both.)

Coming back to the topic of life, I often say life is like a sine wave. There are elations and there are depressions. Ups and downs. So if one moment you feel like you're on top of the world, you can expect to fall down pretty soon. And if you feel down, there is a definite bit of that silver lining.

I know a number of people who claim their lives are smooth sailing - I just translate that as them having smaller differences between their sine waves' maximum and minimum points. It is certainly a good state to be in, and most people hope to reach such a stage, but the sad part is, they never know it once they reach it. There's a boy whose mother just died and he is at his minimum-most point, and there's another boy who thinks he's at his minimum point because he just had a fight with his girlfriend.

So what state am I in right now? Frankly speaking, I don't know. I'd like to think I'm at my maximum point where I am done with my exams - and they went alright - I'm glad I'm through with them and can party all the heck I want; but I'd also like to think I'm at my minimum point, where all my friends go home to enjoy their vacations while I am stuck here looking for a job or an internship with no luck so far whatsoever.

They say Lahore hasn't been this cold in five years, and although I'm not a winter-loving kind of a person, I still like the concept that God made four seasons for us, and that winter falls at the end of each year. Plus the fact that wearing a sweater under all my shirts in winter makes people give me compliments like "hey, you've gained weight!" or "now that's a handsome boy". During summer it's always "don't you eat anything?" or "have you lost more weight?" or "oh, you look so skinny". Yeah, it sucks being an ectomorph for a guy. Too bad Singapore has summer throughout the year.

Another cool thing about winter is just sitting there, wrapped up in a Razai [a warmer blanket], watching movies and eating dry fruits. And running up to the heater to barbeque our hands and asses everytime we enter the house. Not to mention the beautiful Lahori fog... Driving at 20 kilometres an hour, hazard lights on, all cars moving in a line - the only time that happens in Lahore. And then a brave driver would dare to overtake all the cars and everyone would start following that car just to pick up speed not caring the leading car might crash into something. It doesn't snow in Lahore (thank God) but the fog is beautiful and oh-so-romantic. It's such a pity I'll miss it.

So much for floating peaceful, half-asleep in a Razai, I guess I'm in for floating up and finding the fisherman! The AIESEC Singapore National Leadership Development conference [NLDS] 2006 is right around the corner, and I admit I'm a little excited about it.

There are professionals coming from Singapore Management University, CSR Asia, Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions, DHL, etcetera to talk to us and give advice, and there's a whole line of activities lined up for all the delegates. The slogan for NLDS is "Extend your wings, expand your horizons" and the logo is a big wing, or the extension of our wings, representing the step we should take to get out of our comfort zone in order to learn and experience growth as future leaders. I know the word 'National' in NLDS only refers to a single city being Singapore, but there are people coming in from India, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia and also Nigeria, so it's quite an international conference in terms of the turnout. NLDS is happening this Saturday onwards, and goes on for four days, so I guess I'll be making more posts on the conference later (and with pictures!).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

love the analogy of sine wave... good work...

so u r missing lahore. i m sure we all will once we leave... for all the things that we so carelessly criticize these days.