Deep Dark Thoughts...

Sunday, 23 November 2014

University Life: Week Whatever

Yup! This is exactly how I feel. Days rushing past like the bulls in Pamplona (Yeah! I'm talking about that festival in which people are stupid enough to let loose 1700 pound bulls with horns the size of 4 bananas and let them chase the people around town for the whole day).

Yup.
That's totally how you use 'specs'

Anyways, enough about bulls.

This one and her endless
selfies!

So, university, first off, university is a weird place, you see all sorts of things: People with shorts wearing a tie, people wearing sweaters in 35°C, people whose hair end halfway on their head etc etc etc etc

Studies? Well studies are just 'K' (Please, never use 'K' in a conversation, it just makes you sound stupid). There are piles and piles of books, lecture notes, online notes, self notes to just read, read and read. If you're a person who doesn't like reading: please forget about doing medicine.

#JustLectureHallThings. Double blackout

Lectures? Some lectures are just a waste of time and allow us to catch up on sleep (see pictures below)

He tried to study. He failed.

No. I don't use binoculars
to see the screen.

Much study. Such messy.

The campus is so huge that walking from one to another seems like a marathon. Talking about marathon, we just had a marathon exam. It's where we were given body parts of cadavers (Urban Dictionary meaning: 'dead dudes') which look like they have been chopped at Magram butchery, and we have to answer questions based on them. And well, if you're like me who forgot his gloves at home, you have to touch and poke the muscles which are soaking wet with 'formalin' (Not good, makes nose bleed and eyes burn, might die soon #RIP) and the veins, arteries and the never-ending nerves with your bare hands.

#2amStudyThings

"Anatomy(Or whatever you want it to be) is a lifestyle, not an incident" - Dr Beda Olabu

Such serenity

Nairobi? Well I just went to town twice in one day just to get my laptop fixed (Damn, too much walking involved). IMAX beware, we'll soon arrive with our student ID's to get discounted movie tickets #Maftaus

We also met this awesome dude!
Long time no see.

As I said, time is flying by, let's hope it keeps on going that way.

Sorry for the long post, here,
heavenly ice cream. You may now drool.

Medicine life. Week 'I've lost count and couldn't be bothered checking'

Over and out.

Tuesday, 30 September 2014

University Life: Week 1

Zain September 30, 2014 0 Comments

Ninja mode mobile use

So... Medicine...

The moisture-less Nairobi breeze that violently brushes against your face as you enter the university gates creates an aura of fear. Let me tell you... It is anything but.

Chilling in the garden

As soon as you enter the gate, you are greeted with the beautiful environment, with neatly trimmed bushes, perfectly mowed grass, and best of all: SILENCE (which is very very rare in Nairobi).

So calm, so serene. Greenery everywhere, perfectly trimmed lollipop shaped bushes. The chirping of the birds can be heard from all corners. The grass is littered with purple petals of flowers.

Well, the lecture halls, let's just say they look like a cinema, but instead of thrilling fast paced movies, we have a dude (or a dudette) standing in front with a microphone talking about chrondocytes, lymphocytes, blastocysts, sternum, meh, meh, meh, (you get the point).

Selfie in the lecture hall? Might as well

Well, not all lectures can be interesting, especially behavioral science (This is being written in a BS lecture). The professors are all highly qualified doctors, and well, they have a habit of coming late to class. Also for some reason or another, the professors are fond of cracking butt jokes (seriously, STOP!)

They need Rrrrrrrrredbull

AlhamduLillah, everything so far has been smooth (except the lab-coats given to us which look like miniskirts), and hopefully everything goes well.

Medicine life, week 1: Over

Wednesday, 30 July 2014

Faith In Humanity: Gone?

Zain July 30, 2014 change , current affairs 0 Comments

Let's just close our eyes and appreciate that we aren't living in fear of a bomb or chemical agent being dropped on us any second. Now open your eyes, open wide, and look around you, look wide, look at the state this world is in.

While we are fighting about whether the moon was seen or not, people are being massacred.

That face you make when someone who has
no knowledge of the topic tries to argue with
you

Yes yes, the world has improved progressively over time, but savagery still remains a part of human nature and is still found today, and will continue to take place. We have abolished slavery, we have made great leaps in science, we have landed on the moon. But we still do not have the common sense to stop killing people in the name of some twisted extremist/political beliefs.

Apparently anything you say against Jews is antisemitic and anything against racial colour is racism nowadays and comes with severe consequences but when it comes to other people (Muslims especially) its called something else : "FREEDOM OF SPEECH" (notice the quotation marks?)

Mind you, Jews are just people like us, with their own bunch of extremist nuts. I have seen so many people, especially on Facebook just hurling insults towards Jews in general. If we do that, we are no different from the people that stereotype Muslims as "Terrorists" or Hindu's and Sikhs as "Barbarians".

Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Burma, Afghanistan etc are only few of the places where the savagery of the human species is amplified. We are seeing so much violence and death in the news to the point we are desensitized to such images. We boycott and post statuses but after a few weeks they are nowhere to be seen. The truth of the matter is a harsh reality, nothing is going to change unless we elect educated and unbiased leaders who can take a stand, but sadly that isn't going to happen anytime soon. (So much for Yes We Can, Obama)

The biggest victims of all this
Our next generation

What we can do might seem cliche but yes: AWARENESS. We should raise awareness and educate people, you'd be surprised by the number of people who don't know about the people being butchered in Gaza, 16 MILLION people killed in WWI and 60 MILLION in WW2 8,372 boys and men executed in 2 DAYS in the Srebrenica Massacre (1995) or that the US Gov't was found guilty by a US court for the assasination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (You probably know him as the "I had a dream guy") etc It's sad we don't know such things but can name football teams and movie stars off head.

We should educate first ourselves, only then can we enlighten other people.

Open your eyes, open wide, and look around you, look wide, look at the state this world is in...

Saturday, 28 June 2014

What Now?

Zain June 28, 2014 a level , choices 0 Comments

You know that feeling of falling (no pun intended) you sometimes get when you're sleeping? Yeah that one. That's what it feels like when the sudden realization that 15 years of education are over hits you...

'Dem feels'

They say when you're about to die your entire life flashes in-front of you within a matter of seconds. They never said that the same happens when you finish high school. *Over-dramatic Indian serial music plays*

You are overcome with nostalgia. Those sleepless nights spent flipping pages and staying online on Facebook late night to ask questions; Those classes you bunked with friends and ended up playing cards in an empty class; Those brief but everlasting moments with friends.

All these thoughts start rushing in one after the other and you suddenly start remembering even the minutest details e.g. duck-walk punishments. (Why doesn't this happen in exams!?)

"Vp revision?" - Student WhatsApp greeting 9 May - 24 June

After you're done reminiscing and come back to Earth, that one question pops up into your mind:

"What now?" - Usually you only get this feel when you finish watching a series.

Reaction after handing in my final paper

This is one question that is not to be taken lightly, one only oneself can answer. Each one of us has different paths, different abilities, different goals in life and we must analyse them all before making our decision on what to do next in life.

DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT succumb to peer pressure. Be confident of your choice (be it career-wise or general). People may laugh, people may talk, people may ridicule you. But in the end, that's what people do and won't even remember after 2 weeks. If you know what you are doing, just do it!

Remember:
You are in control of your life. No one else.

How most students spend their holidays. Yaaaay!
-_-

Off topic:
The 2 month holiday that follows the exam(s) is undoubtedly well deserved and I bet people are already planning vacations, prepping up for intense gaming sessions/World Cup matches and downloading movies/series.
2 months is approximately 87658.1 minutes, which is a heck of a lot of time. Time which you cannot afford to lose, especially at this stage. Whatever it may be, do something productive! No 'couch potato-ing'. Make use of this allocated time that you will never get back again.

Best of luck in your results [Brace yourselves, August is coming!] and in the life ahead of you!

#LiveLongAndProsper

Friday, 16 May 2014

Le Exams: How to Pass them (Tips and Stuff)

Zain May 16, 2014 a level , exam 4 Comments

Hmm...

Let’s be honest: exams are bulls**t. On its own merits, a three-hour exam is a pointless waste of your time. Exams are not a test of intelligence, or learning, or recall. Exams are a test of how good you are at passing exams.

The only reason written exams are still there is because there is no sustainable, cheaper alternative to test candidates and advance them to the next level of education on a mass scale.

With that being said. Here is what you came here for:

PANIC. (DON'T!)

DON'T!
SERIOUSLY, DO NOT PROCARSTINATE

Le Exams are here! Students lock themselves away in airless libraries rather than having dramatic love affairs or plotting to bring down the government.
Exams are a measure of how well you can play the system. Some of the smartest people might get poor grades at crunch-time because as soon as they hear “You may now open your papers and start writing”, they panic. The knowledge is there, but the format in which to transfer the knowledge onto a 30 page booklet is lacking (and that's what exams are, really)

PRACTICE.
As they say:

"Practice makes perfect"

It does. Go through notes and past papers. Even if you have finished them all, just go through them again to polish on the areas you are weak in and to correct your mistakes.

PLAN.

STUFF STUDENTS SAY

Most of us start complaining to our colleagues, "Ah me I don't know anything; I'm going to fail; I just started revising yesterday night". It's all because of poor planning! Thinking they still have alot of time and will randomly revise each subject. Plan beforehand what you intend to do and how much time you are going to allocate.

LEARN THE FORMAT OF THE PAPER.
No amount of revision is going to help if you don't know exactly how the paper is going to be structured, and how long you’ll have to answer each separate part of it. You may spend the whole exam writing a Nobel prize-worthy answer to a question about dark matter (Physics stuff), but since it's just 10 marks of of the 100, guess what: YOU FAIL (the exam).

BE DIFFERENT.
Everyone is different. We all have our own way of understanding and visualizing events and knowledge. Some of us can revise at night only. Some of us walk while revising. Some of us can only revise in a group. Don't copy the revision style of another student (no matter how clever they might be). Revise the way YOU are comfortable.

And finally;

CHILL (DON'T OVERDO IT).

Don't be afraid to take breaks (not too long). Be confident once you have revised sufficiently, don't start reading books outside the examination hall knowing the paper starts in 2 minutes. Having a discussion with your friends on some topics before the exam is perfectly fine. Whatever you revised will be counteracted if you turn up to your test sleepy and confused. Pack your bag early and get a good night’s rest.

Once you have learned how to pass exams, you must learn how not to pass exams. Exams are a pernicious, awful hazing ritual designed to produce compliant drones who can give answers on cue, but not doing your best at them only hurts you, so if you really want to beat the system, you have to remember that your real education takes place outside the exam hall. It’s about reading widely, thinking deeply, asking hard questions rather than simply giving the right answers with a smile.

Hope this helped.

Best of luck in your exams!

Sunday, 20 April 2014

A Student's Plight: To study? Or not to study?

Zain April 20, 2014 edexcel , exam 0 Comments

I should really start studying.
Instead I am just here writing this blog

23 days to go to the so called 'dreaded' Edexcel exams.

Students have locked themselves down, left WhatsApp groups, deactivated their Facebook profiles and engaged study mode. SERIOUS STUDY MODE.

Well, that is what would happen in an alternate universe. Instead the last few days before exam seem to the most fun-filled and exciting days: big budget movies being released, the game(s) you've been waiting for released, you're (grammar Nazis, attack!) favorite TV shows episodes aired(I'm talking to you Arrow and GoT fans), family planning vacation out of nowhere.

Even the smallest of things becomes distracting. Sleep becomes you're best friend and laziness takes over.

"Ahh I'm too tired today, I'll start revision tomorrow. First, let me take a selfie" - What I guess goes on in the minds of most students.

That makes me wonder, why is it that we can spend the whole day on a gadget and apps (WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram etc), but when a the thought of study or doing something productive comes in, all mood goes down and we feel like we need a coffee/Redbull injection.

Let's make sure we don't end up like this

Not that I am perfect, I used to be a "FB addict" a few years ago, but when I look back at that time, I realize how silly it all was and how I could have used that time to do productive work. (spilt milk my friends, don't cry over it)

Are we so naive that we prefer to do stuff that has no outcome on our lives and sacrifice our studies/passion that will eventually decide our future.

I just hope other people realize this sooner than later so they are not forced to do the 'run-around-panic- last-minute-revision"

23 days to go... Make them count...