Fareena Aslam

I got asked this question by a very close friend of mine, Tessa Santoni.

She is currently a fine arts undergraduate student in the Fine Arts Faculty of Concordia University. Her option is textiles designing. She speaks better on the subject than I ever could. This semester she chose to do her fine arts project based on the Islamic method of veil (called hijab). I have been telling her to put up a website to describe her work, but since a) she’s busy and b) I am impatient , I am going to talk about this project of hers outloud in my blog.

So when she asked this question to think about what does wearing a hijab mean to me, at first I was stumped. Then I got thinking and the following little paragraph describes what I think of hijab personally, socially and spiritually.

Hijab is my reality check, my confidence, my assurity , my haven, my security, my submission to the will of God, my right, my identity, my filter, my rebellion to conformity, my modesty, my ethics, my muse, my inspiration to higher thoughts and ideals,my act of feminism, my prevention from objectification, my life. All in all it is my choice.

On its own, hijab is just a piece of cloth. But when I wear it, it defines boldly to the world my principles, my values and who I really am. It is an extension of who I am and who I am growing to be. Without it, I am still me. But with it, I can reach beyond my potential.

This is what hijab means to me.

I am a firm believer that what ever is written on wikipedia should be taken with a grain of salt. When you have multiple contributors of facts, it is chaos. Because as humans what we take as facts tends to depend on our geographic location and culture and language.

Wikiality is really reality based on wikipedia. And I completely agree with what Colbert says  in his segment “Word” . Reality in our day and time really has become a commodity. If you wish to manipulate people’s view or harbringer some doubts on longheld convictions, use wikipedia. This is an immense show of how one’s ideas and thoughts can be manipulated with a click of a button, a stroke of a key. Probably not of people of my generation but the newer generation that has practically lived on the internet. That is rather a scary thought. Children doing reports or basing their knowledge on what wikepedia says…
As long as people do not verify truths, they will be keep living in wikiality.

And that my friends is a place for fools.

A friend of mine invited me to watch this new movie playing in AMC called Partition, based on the partition of colonial India into Pakistan and now India.

Being a very nationalistic Pakistani, I am trying to keep an open mind about the point of views about the partition. But with all movies that I have seen on the subject, and they are mostly done by Indian descent people, tend to put a favourable light on Indians (now current) and villanous casting is depicted of the pakistanis (muslims mostly).

I can’t say I am excited, but lets hope it is good enough for the 8 dollars I am going to spend on it.

After my laptop left me to visit the technician, I found out I had a lot of time on my hand.

So I was sifting through the pile of books on my study table. Here they are:

French In Three Months - A simplified Language course by Ronald Overy & Jacqueline Lecanuet

Neil Postman -  Amusing Ourselves To Death

Joel Ibrahim Krepps - Snakes And Ladders; Aphorisms for Modern Living

Hamza Yusuf - Purification Of the Heart

Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart

Charlotte Bronte- Jane Eyre (a re-read)

J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter And The Order Of Phoenix (a re-read  to get in shape for the new book on its way)

Woah, its been a month since my last post and the things I have done… Okay, it sounds lascivious but I did no such thing that I have to hide the evidence, as long as no one finds out the bags under my desk filled to the brim with…but I digress.

Things that happened to me in order of precedence…

My faithful companion, my partner through thick and thin, day and night died out on me last week of January.  My partner helped me on my projects, kept me abreast of the worlds happenings, cheered me up when I was down and kept me informed of all my friends, just decided to have an internal hemorrage. Oh when I get my hand on the manufacturers of faulty RAM chips, I’ll :argh:..

Yes, my laptop died out on me. And cost me a pretty penny to have it done up. And do you know the irony of ironies. Before it got difficult, I was having a conversation with a friend about how perfect my laptop is, and how I have abused it very much and it still works pretty good for a 4 year old model. That’ll teach me to trust Dell laptops even one which have stayed a long while !

But since, I am back it appears that my laptop is good to go. Lets see for how long…let the countdown begin.

Am I truly such a negative cynical person who expects things to go bad? Hmm, I think I found the next topic for my blog.

When this sort of question comes up, the appropriate response is more to question what personality type you are.

And this is by no means to generalize oneself or so they say put you in a box. When one implies what type are you, they are asking in accordance to Isabelle Myers, she of the famous MBTI test (one half at least). Ms. Myers inspired by Carl Jung’s theory of human psychology devised a test with the aid of her daughter Mrs. Briggs. This personality tests typecasts people into 16 different personality types.

There are 4 Scales.

• Where you like to focus your attention: E-I Dichotomy
• E Extraversion: You prefer to focus on the outer world of people and things
  
• I Introversion:You prefer to focus on the inner world of ideas and impressions




• The way you like to look at things: S-N Dichotomy
• S Sensing:You tend to focus on the present and on concrete information gained from your senses
• N Intuition: You tend to focus on the future, with a view toward patterns and possibilities




• The way you like to go about decideing things: T-F Dichotomy
• T Thinking: You tend to base your decisions primarily on logic and on objective analysis of cause and effect
• F Feeling: You tend to base your decisions primarily on values and on subjective evaluation of person-centered concerns




• How you deal with the outer world: J-P Dichotomy
• J Judging: You like a planned and organized approach to life and prefer to have things settled
• P Perceiving: You like a flexible and spontaneous approach to life and to keep your options open

Your perported type comprises one of each of these scales to be a 4-letter personality type.

It is theorised that all human beings are one of these 16 types. But one thing should be made clear is that these scales do not imply you are supposed to be clearly one or the other. These scales are just that, a continuum as you age and gather experience you can change from one region to another. It is just when you take a MBTI test it is shown which regions you show a preference for.

Take my example, My MBTI Personality is ENFP.

But when it is seen how they depicted my scales it is seen that

From my test scores, on the scale of the two extremes E-I I show a slight preference towards E. Visually it can be interpreted as

|————|-~————–|
E          I am here                  I
That can mean while I am predominantly extrovert, there are times where I can revert to introvertism.

So this can go on to explain all the rest of the types.

And this is what I mean that you can’t be boxed by the letters but rather it is just a tool for self-discovery and knowing more about yourself.

And once you have figured out what personality type you are you can start looking for the answer to the question of What Type Of Leader You Are!

By the by, MBTI personality test that I took was done by Concordia Counselling and Development.

I know, I am a week late in making any sort of announcements, blame it on sheer laziness due to the part of…now that I think about it my I was just being lazy.

I haven’t had time to be lazy for a while, so it was nice to stay in bed, do nothing just catch up on my stuff that I had to read. Ah my classics were feeling so left out.

But now, I am my awake and not so lazy self and notice, its been a week after the 1st of Jan and time appears to be running on swift wings (as I once read someplace, can’t recall).

Now that I am done with college, up comes the more important question. What do you plan to do next?

When I was in university (previous semester, that statement sounds as if it’s been ages since I have been to university) all I wanted to do was nicely categorized in the following manner:-

* finish school

* find work

*work for a year

* go back to school for masters

* blank

What I forgot to do is something I always bug my younger siblings to do, make alternate plans for when things don’t go your way . Lastly lets not forget, how utterly vague the above written plans are. Also apparent from the manner of the plans, I appear to have no long term goals. Nor short term ones either if we get down to tear the nitty-gritty of my above written plans.

So my new year’s resolution for 2007 appears to be: Write better plans… which can be taken to mean, find/formulate/define goals, long term or short.

I just found out, my favourite uncle Saeed Khokar passed away this past Thursday morning 16 November, 2006 in Karachi, Pakistan due to oral cancer-related complications. He was in his early 40s.

I am heart broken over this news. He leaves behind 5 kids and a grieving widow, his eldest is only 16.

His oral cancer was discovered sometime in the summer, 7 months ago, I don’t even recall… rather don’t wish to recall.

It wasn’t supposed to end this way, his cancer just never went away, it just was so malignant that it grew at such a rapid pace down his throat to his tongue and his lungs that even I find it alarming. In the end, he was unable to talk, eat or rest…

I am not relishing the telling, infact I am mourning the passing. Life just seems so fragile and bonds between family feel taut and delicate. I do not know who to talk to about how this death has affected me. I felt writing about it might help me cope.

I still can’t believe next time I visit home, I won’t see him, talk with him and joke with him…

I still can’t believe the stark reality about the fragility of life.

May God give him eternal peace. He suffered overmuch in this world in the end.  

I really was on a go here writing nearly everyday and now here I am 2 months later, posting a post.

What had I been upto, volunteering for the 30 days of Ramadan at Concordia University with the Muslim Student Association. Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote this post during the days following the Dawson shooting. But did not have the heart to post it out until today.

On the day and time of the shooting, I was actually at home, sleeping the day away. To put this article in perspective, allow me to elucidate that I live near to Concordia University and Dawson College.

So back to me at home, some time before one in the afternoon, my friend calls me to meet up with her. I hadn’t seen her for a month, so I get dressed up. I am not a radio or TV person. These are not the first things I open in the morning. And don’t even mention the internet, I have dial-up…enough said on that sorry fact.

So while I am walking out on Guy street, I am hearing people collected in small groups talking about how 4 people are dead. Now I do not mean to be callous or cold-hearted but this is how I was assuming things. The day before the shooting, the US Embassy in Syria had been bombed. When people were talking about deaths, I automatically assumed they are talking about the bombings in Syria. It never made sense for me to assume that something could have happened in Montreal.

So anyways, I turn on Maisonneuve Street going towards Concordia University, this is the street on which if you go up you end up next to Dawson College. Now there is a rush of people on that road, comments about 16 injured, 4 dead, killer killed himself…

I see and hear a person shout Dawson Students go to the Hall building (Old White Concordia Building) near the Guy-Concordia Metro on Guy Street. Another person is holding a cardboard placard with “Dawson Students” and arrow pointing towards the Hall Building written on it with green ink.

Even with all this, the only thing my beleaguered mind understands is, that probably some Frosh thing is going on for Dawson Students at Concordia University.

The extent to which we would assume things are all okay and normal is astounding.

I made it all the way to the 7th floor of Concordia University Hall Building without an utter clue on what had happened nearby. One student was sitting in the student lounge, on the 7th floor, talking on the cell phone about he was one who was shot at.

Only after meeting up with my friend did I find out what had occured. But to this day, even after so much reflection, I still cannot fathom the extent to which I ignored and was in my happy place thinking everything is business as usual in Montreal.

They say you are safest at home, but it should be said in my case, you think you are safest at home…but look around you and notice.