It was almost 3 years ago that I was working on a college magazine article and had the privilege of speaking to the father of a very brave girl who is no more. But I still remember what he said then. He said, " your true strength only comes out when you are really tested", and "at those times, even you'd be surprised by how strong you are". At that time , I was impressed by what he said. But today, I can finally appreciate the truth of it. of course his words were for a graver time, and a more important time. But I'm being selfish enough to use them for my own petty little woes.

Just because something happens, and lets be fair to life- we can hardly hope to control everything that happens, that doesn't mean we cannot control anything at all. Sure, you're thrown off-balance, sure it isn't ideal, sure you want to blame people, and you want everything to go your way- but guess what- it doesn't and you cant make it. So here's what you can do- you can reassess the situation and you can adapt, in fact, you can even grow at times like these. And that is because your future has still not happened, and therefore you still have some say in it.
That is point one.
Point two- love yourself.
Sure they talk about giving, and they'll tell you that takes you to heaven, and that that's the best feeling you'll ever have. They're wrong.
You cannot afford to put yourself out. Do and give only as long as you've done for yourself and given to yourself first. We can't help it- so its best that we give in to our most basic element- we are the centers of our own little universes, and if you change that you'll be sorry.
Don't underestimate this funny little universe of yours- point three
the universe does balance itself. You are only given as much joy as you deserve and no more, and you're only given as much pain as you can take and no more. So if you feel that fate just gave you the short end of the deal- its probably because you're strong enough to deal with it. So get on with it. And on your way to getting on- you'll be surprised at where all you find the strength from and the support from. More often than not it comes from the most unexpected places.

This is what Ive learnt in the very recent past- and so its been blogged. There!

So when I joined VOA and on my third day, the edoitor gave me a practice piece to do, I thought ' Piece of Cake' - writing is what I do and of course I pooh pah-ed it. I sat at teh computer, my fingers flew across the keyboard and I typed out my first practice piece, proudly printed it off and handed it in to my editor. She- did not seem as impressed with me as I had been with myself. She basically thought my piece was fairly boring, bland, complicated and full off technical nitty gritty wrongs- only she was too kind to sya it in these many woprds. POint of teh matter I sucked! But wait a minute I thougt, I've had all this expereince interning and stuff at Mint newspaper and all, then what the...!

What I clearly missed out was that VOA is broadcast. Newspaper writing doesnt work here. To top all that my really nice professors had further corrupted my writing. Handing in all those academic essays at uni and having teh profs tell me taht I need to write in a more formal, academic way, basically kicked bits of teh little miserable half baked journalist within me. what I ended up with was a blah style of writing a news story taht nobody in tehir right minds would want to listen to. Broadcast is sooo different from anything Ive ever done. Of course now I totally kick ass at it ( or so Id like to beleive), but it took me a month and several frusterating practice pieces where I jsut didnt get it right, to finally get there.

10th September- confirmation of (thus far improbable seeming) employment, 21st September- start date... ten days to look for a house and move. So I began my search at google- the first point of information, and after my potential participation in Internet accommodation scams, I finally decided that estate agencies are the way to go... and by the 19th I had the perfect apartment (which is where I stay now). What makes it so perfect you may ask, after all it is in zone 3 of London and clearly not as savvy as what zone one Londoners boast of their places. It does take me 35 minutes on the tube and 5 minutes on the bus to reach central London... and I do have to clean the place myself. BUT, walk out of that apartment... take that bus, and reach the tube station and just round the corner you'll find a small shop that serves the best waffles in the country (better than covent garden ones by the way). That, ladies and gentlemen, is what makes the place so perfect. A perfect warm waffle with thick chocolate smeared on its surface and loaded with fresh sliced strawberries- you know life cannot get better than this.
It was a year ago that I discovered the joy of waffles at the Tocil kitchen: I'm drawn out of my room and to the kitchen thanks to this amazing sweet warm aroma emanating from the kitchen. The culprit- Omer Ali- conveniently standing in front of the toaster removing these delicious smelling but plain waffles and loading them onto a plate. The love began at first bite and has been going steady since.
And now at this tiny Belgian waffles shop, waffles get a whole new meaning.... with their marshmallow, nuts, sprinkles, fruit, chocolate, jam, ice-cream, and so many other awesome toppings. Even though there are no chairs or tables so you have to keep the disposable plates on the trash bin's granite top.... its all so worth it down to the last bite.
And THAt is why my place is perfect :) So there Zone one-ers!!!!

The same old familiar feeling is back again... I really wish there was a name for it, because it's happened so often now and I have no idea what to call it. If there was a word or a phrase fro it it would probably be a synonym of 'life moving on'. The warwick year is coming to an end, and people that were thus far together in one place, are very soon going to dispersed in all corners of the world (which is actually a strange expression given that the earth is round...). When I first landed in England, got the keys to what was going to my room for the year and I opened my first suitcase, I felt alone- homesick, I missed everything that was not with me here. And now when I am shutting off my suitcases, once again I get that same feeling. Only this time the difference is that I'm staying on while others are leaving. Its a strange feeling, because you reminisce about things that you'd hardly heeded when they they were for real, and you miss experiences that you probably vehemently disliked (like walking from tesco to heronbank!), and most of all you miss the people that made it all part of your life. But then as a wise man said last night (Shivi)... "life is long enough for you to meet these people again.. and you most probably will". So well, Amen to that, and I'm leaving for the Duck now.

We officially get kicked out of campus accommodation on the 12th of September. As rationality would dictate, I am spending hours at end house hunting (or in my case, room hunting thanks to property prices in London). But this wasn't the case two days ago. Because two days ago I seemed to have found the perfect place- with the perfect rent. It seemed that I was the only lucky soul on earth to have got it all. Then I found another prefect place, and then another,and then another. This was insane. I knew someone was watching over me. Little did I know, I was in the middle of a potential internet scam as a potential victim. I like to believe it was my special sensibilities that it didn't take me long to figure out these were all fairy-tale apartments that never existed. The series of events that led to this rather intelligent conclusion would just take too much space, time and effort to explain here ( plus they would uncover some of my own embarrassing unthinkingness as well). Lets just say, I could've been robbed of my (very very little) money.
While I was lucky, some others haven't been so, and BBC just yesterday devoted some time letting us know of those other unfortunate souls who as a matter of fact did get cheated.
Sadly, what is also true is that a lot of these 'victims' end up being students who barely have anything to begin with.
I hardly know whether to blame the internet, the people of this world, or London ( after all I have been robbed of a handbag in London as well, but that's another story), but the fact is- WE NEED TO BE ON OUR TOES ALL THE FREAKING TIME... and it is not fun!!!

Yesterday, the Financial Times published news stating an apparent shortage of skills in the UK. I, a postgraduate at the university of warwick, sitting unemployed (technically), am reading this and wondering why me and all the very many other fresh graduates are invisible to the job market. It is understandable of course in a away that we are unemployed, considering we just decided to graduate at what is clearly a hard time world wide, but this still appears as a paradox- we have skilled unemployed and a shortage of skilled workers coexisting. So where does the problem lie? The problem, from my (student) point of view lies with the fact that employers would rather keep a vacancy unfilled than hire someone without or with minimal full time work experience. And to be fair, why should they- training costs, and its preposterous if a 'rival' firm benefits from your investment. And for the fresh graduates, they are just stepping into the labour markets, and would obviously like to get to their pareto optimal place, which would mean job hopping, discovering themselves, and developing their skills , for them. But in this, the expectation of the employer that the vacancy shall soon become vacant again, leads to them not hiring out of the available pool of workers and thereby keeping the vacancy unfilled.
This is part of the story. The other part pertains specifiaclly to international students, who unfortunatley, not only have the recession to deal with, but also their lack of English nationality an 'student' visa status. Invariably, the first thoughts in an employer's mind are- OK, so this guy/ girl does not have full time work ex, and to top it Im not even sure if they can work here on their visa status. Some of them choose to cut out on the uncertainty and simply hire someone with a proper work permit. While the fresh international graduate waits on to get a job, so that he/ she can afford to pay the Post study work permit fees (out of their expected income). It almost seems that if life full of ironies, most of them happen to be in the labour market.
I've been here for eleven months now, and the next 15 days is a black uncertain box for me.

The titles are in, the countdown is on and the deadline is near. The deadline for our dissertation plans to be turned in. I chose to cross into the "other side" - the theoretical side of things, the historicist analysis side, the 'discourse' side. I chose to write about Marx adn Smith and labour. This does take me away from ftom I liked calling teh practical side, the real issues that matter. It takes me away from debates that are current, taht are relevent. After all it is " history" of economic thought that I shall now be getting into. That by virtue of its own subject field makes it an archaic discussion. Or does it? Is it really irrelevent. Dr Watson insists untiringly on 'theory', how tehory is important, how perspetives are important, an how debates in literature are important. I would be lying if I said, I did not roll my eyes half teh times, thinking " ,I am studying political econoy fro crying out loud. Im doing this for one year. Do I really haev to bore myself to dealth with theory.". Often I would add sullenly- ' besides, not everything fits into these alleged tehoretical perspectives'. But now as I read of Marx and Smith - one and half and two and half centuries ago work respectively, I am forced to think back. I am almost compelled to agree with Dr Watson. Theory is as a matter of fact teh issue itself- one drafted out so it may not remain relevent to the year alone, but may continue to hold its relevence in teh years andin our case centuries to come. The debate between tehory and practicality is not a debate at all. When Marx wrote he wrote from within the contemporary English, german, Fresh and Belgian society and it was very much practical. Today it is hardly dead either. When Smith wrote it was very much contemporary economics that he wrote of. When he wrote, if television existed, teh Americanb revolution, the navigation laws and corn prices that he writes of would have made headlines. Today, too his work stands far from irrelevent. The matter is merely oneof adaptation. Where, however, we perhaps to lack in studying political economy, is in believing that we could use one theory to explain our point of view. That we must decide on our leanings and then follow them through so as to not expose ourselves to allegations of any implied contradictions. These need not be the shackles that a political economists works bearing. It is not pertinent at all to be a liberalist or a marxist or a critical theorist or a nationalist or a globalist or any other 'ist' for that matter. It in fact is pertinen that we understand all the ists together. That we see tehir complementarity. Becasue the reality of the world is not gridded out so that we may only fall within one grid at all times, nor is it so simple and unchanging that we can follow one line of thinking all through. I think it is myopic to believe that. Just as it is mypoic for a feminist to never agree with teh hard core economist or the 'evil' banker just because her stand syas so. Or for the free market liberal to never agree withe the Marxist jsut because he has proclaimed his belief once. To adapt is not be fickle minded. It is to grow. Theory is important. A theory is not.