Year: Five

Abstract
This paper evaluates and compares five time wasting algorithms which have become popular among today’s studentkind: idling, sleeping, strolling, movie-watching, and web surfing. In order to assess both the strengths and weaknesses of these algorithms, a set of carefully selected real-life benchmarks was used. The amount of time wasted, alongwith the quality time enjoyed while […]

A tag about the three sentences after the fifth sentence of the 123rd page of the nearest book.

When I was first introduced to the concept of essay writing in 1st grade, I had taken it as some exercise for memorizing and then reproducing a certain amount of text. Technically, this was not different than other “academic” things at that time — literally everything that we were “taught” in those days was meant to be “learn[t] by heart” and then reproduced in the examination without missing a single comma or a full stop. The only thing that changed as we moved to higher classes was the length of the essay, which in 1st grade used to be 5 to 10 lines, and by the time we reached 4th grade, two and a half pages of a foolscap sheet used to indicate a highly articulate (or as we then used to think, 8/10) essay. Of course, we never dared to improvise on our own except that one time in 2nd grade when I thought to impress my teacher while writing an essay on “My Country”, and added “Karachi is the biggest country of Pakistan” before ending the essay with “I love my country very much.”

Have you ever listened to a maniacal laugh? Like Mark Hamill’s when he portrays the Joker, except that the laugh I am talking about will never amuse you, but will cut through your spine with its icy chill and its razor sharp edge.

There’s a very peculiar feeling attached with being a Pakistani: you see it all. You grow up in this country — land of the pure — and the amount of purity that you see around you is simply tremendous. You see hate, violence, greed, corruption, restlessness, and death — all in their purest forms. And you see them all so many times that whenever you see them again, you nod to them in polite recognition and even smile at them. A smile, which doesn’t warm up your heart, but rather makes it hollow every time. And when your heart reaches the point where it can’t be more hollow, it stops. You cease to exist as a citizen of land of the pure, and start to live as a citizen of land of the dead.

As always, another tag comes up to rescue this blog.

The interesting thing about tags is that sometimes they provide you with a very good excuse for being narcissistic. Probably that’s one of the reasons why I regret not answering a couple of them in the past. (My humble apologies for that.) Other reasons for not answering them include procrastination and, well, procrastination. This tag, however, may or may not fall in the category of narcissism. After all, how self-loving one can be while describing seven weird things about oneself?