Power Outage

When the lights go out…(Maha Kamal)

I got a message today:

“When ur life is in darkness, pray to God and ask 4 relief from darkness. But if uv prayed & ur still in darkness then realize U R in Pakistan!”

Cynically amusing, and yet how bitterly true! But be contented, for WAPDA is actually doing a lot to get you out of this tragedy. It’s just that it’s too long-term-ish for me. Their website has been updated to a high-tech looking, electric blue shade, and it says “Vision 2025”. It gives a list of development plans for the future, which eclipse the minority of ongoing projects. It’s good to see that at least our future generations would be catered to.

Pakistan is suffering a major power crisis, and Islamabad is also bearing its share of load-shedding. Gone are the days when our relatives from Lahore or Karachi envied the power-supply of the “dead city”. Today the incessant power-cuts have been unscrupulously meshed with our daily lives. We now know exactly when our lights would go out, and our schedules are planned accordingly. There are times however, when the light goes out unexpectedly, leaving you raving at WAPDA’s inefficiency.

For now, we can only set our hopes on CDA to be our saviour. “We will produce our own electricity in collaboration with the private sector,” Capital Development Authority (CDA) member finance Kamran Qureshi told Dawn on May 20^th 2008. If all goes according to plans, Islamabad should hopefully be self-sufficient in meeting its power demands in the near future.

Ironically, even though about 35% of Pakistan’s households have still not been electrified, Pakistan is suffering a major electricity crisis. Authorities are inexorably trying to contain this cancerous problem, but the situation is grave.

I was curious as to how exactly did we end up in this mess anyway. The tabloids, which always give the wackiest of conspiracy theories, came up with this: The UPS Supply was surplus this year. The government could have suffered immense losses if they were not sold. This forced the government to resort to harsh measures like load shedding, to stimulate consumption.

Of course, such speculation can hardly be the truth. A more plausible reason for the power cuts is Pakistan’s low energy output. If you still remember your O-level geography, you’ll recall that a major portion of Pakistan’s electricity is generated by thermal energy. Thermal Energy, as the name implies, comes from burning coal, oil and other fuels to produce heat. With the world facing depleting oil reserves and rising petroleum prices, Pakistan is bearing severe consequences for not exploring its existing oil reserves, evident by crises such as the present electricity shortage.

Moreover, the second largest source of Pakistan’s electricity-Hydroelectric power-has been subject to natural and political issues. The country’s dam-water reserves occasionally fall below acceptable levels, resulting in low electricity outputs. The need to build more dams is sporadically overshadowed by political concerns, as seen by the cancellation of the Kalabagh dam project.

We’ve come a long way since the time when Benjamin Franklin first invented electricity. Today our whole lives revolve around the millions of tiny flowing electrons we call electricity. From heating food in the microwave to catching the latest Grey’s Anatomy episode on television to doing all-nighters to finish assignments, the average Pakistani student has become scrupulously dependent on electricity. And with the summer heat at its peak, one cannot really do without electricity.

Some unfortunate people also suffer from water shortage when the light goes out, because their water supply is reliant on electric motors. Tradesmen suffer heavy economic losses because of the lack of business at night. Moreover, tailors have to work extra hard to meet the demands of their customers.

With our lives so intricately intertwined with the electricity supply, it is only natural that people should look for alternatives. In the short term, people have resorted to buying UPS and generators. Some of them have blessed China for manufacturing rechargeable emergency lights and fans, which are affordable and readily available in the market. Such substitutes have made lives considerably easier for a substantial fraction of the population.

So you can stop sending all those “WAPDA pe laanat” messages, =)

Extracurriculars

Good lord the extra curricular activities too?

Fatima tuz Zahra)

Every one is smart these days: replication of knowledge gleaned in class rooms is an art but a fairly common one. So colleges no longer look at only grades to see if the student is acceptable or not but also the extracurricular activities the student is interested in. These days when knowledge is duplicable, book worms seem to be losing the race while the book-shy are taking the lead. The reason for this is that text book knowledge about what to do is no longer the most important factor, since the ability to function and communicate in situations has become very important; this skill coupled with text book knowledge is what is coveted these days.

Extracurricular activities show a student as committed, diverse and whether he/she can handle the obvious strain on their time and how efficiently they can spread themselves and still show good results. It won’t necessarily matter if the student has a long list of activities they have indulged in but whether they have seen them through the end because it is easy to start something and harder to see it through, as it shows a persons character: whether they are dependable or not. It doesn’t matter if the student likes to stand at the start-up point but exits the race before the middle, because the ending is the most difficult and consequential. So if you are planning on jumping in, then make sure you map the exit at the end, and not the middle.

Now we have established that we will not rush out and jump at every opportunity or extra curricular activities that tap at our window, but rather do our research, know our priorities and choose carefully.

Colleges are interested in the whole person, not the just the bits and pieces, which makes choosing extracurricular activities all the more important; so you need to show that you care (as the capacity of a person is shown by there involvement in the community) ambition, creativity, dedication, interests etc. It will help if you profile your self, first beginning with your actual accomplishments and attributes and qualities, and then making another profile as to how you want colleges to view you. You should then find the best way to present it. So it is true that we are commodities and we sell ourselves for the prestige of the college name.

Many colleges are concerned about “burn-out”- when a reasonably good student suddenly stops giving results as everything suddenly becomes too much. This often happens to students who only concentrate on their studies. Just like ostriches, who bury their heads in the sand, because it is safer and more familiar than their surroundings, studying is safer than participating in the activity around them for these students; this points to insecurities and the inability to make themselves heard in a crowd or the fear of complications. Confidence is looked for and fear of exposure is always a hindrance both in a leader and a subordinate. This doesn’t mean that you need to be a president or a leader, but that your role must be important and significant either in the centre stage or behind the curtains.

Students who are involved in ten or more extracurricular activities in a year raise a red flag as trying too hard, being superfluous and doing it for impression not because you want to. Balance is the key, collages are looking for commitment, passion, resilience and depth they are not interested if you have only skimmed the surface of the activities, you need to be involved.

All of this does not mean that you should put your studies aside and only concentrate on the extracurricular activities because the first point of entry is through your scores, it is the first criteria that the collages consider. All the rest comes after that, don’t put your fingers in too many pies: your pen will slip at the end and your will grades suffer.

Applying for college is like playing musical chairs, with thousands of people and only one chair. The world has become so competitive that it seems that we must dance on our toes just to pass the criteria of being acceptable enough to apply to a college; actually getting accepted is a separate undertaking depending on factors that are beyond our complete control, and luck. These factors look so complex that students become flustered since it seems that it is not enough that they sacrifice precious moments of their lives nose deep in books they don’t care about, but when applying for a college our piece of mind is jarred by the extra curricular requirements. But that is not so, what you need is to do your research, get your priorities straight and know what you aim for and get a guidance counsellor. This complex admission procedure is a ’safety’ for the collage against the students who are not really dedicated and those who can’t take the strain. Brushing aside the procedure is not going to help you, you need to tackle it soon as possible and with a good combat strategy.

On leaving OPF

Reflections. (Aqdas Aftab)

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we took so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

–Helen Keller

I never thought I could feel all that I have felt in the past few weeks-Such a flood of feelings, a flood which ebbs and surges perpetually addling me, and exciting in me feelings that I can’t name. I didn’t know whether the tide would turn in my favour, or mercilessly swallow me up, leaving me completely bereft and baffled.

It was thrilling in the start- the prospect of going to a new school, where there would be lots of activities, thrill, and the most enticing of all- fun. There were no obstacles to our plans of going to Westminster. It was all excitement and anticipation. It stayed that way until the day the stark reality struck us hard- we realised we were leaving our old school, O.P.F, forever; and that’s when our excitement began to transform into a profound sort of nostalgia.

I’ve been in O.P.F for twelve years. I’ve had friends who have been with me since we were all four year olds, innocent toddlers. We grew up watching each other grow. We played in the rain, wrote our first illegible alphabets and gradually bunked classes together. We had our water fights, became naughty, and at times had fits of euphoria, when we would laugh about nothing at all-laugh so hard that we actually cried in the end. But it wasn’t just our attachment to each other. We were attached to the place; to the grounds and even to the sky in our old school. When we made plans of going to Westminster together, we had never fathomed how hard it would be to leave the place in which we had become what we are now.

The situation was abstruse. For a long time we had second thoughts and bizarre sort of inexplicable doubts about what we were doing. But we had to leave our school, for our future’s sakes. And so dubiously, we went about to do the most poignantly daunting task of all- getting our school certificates.

Our first day in Westminster was a different experience for us. Used to the big campus, and spacious classrooms of our old school (and the countless restrictions there), we thought this place was a real enigma. Exuberance was rampant but we didn’t feel a part of it. The melancholy feeling began to engulf us once again. It was almost like homesickness.

My O-level Math teacher had told us how precious our days in O.P.F were, and how they would all become the past one day. But his approach was never negative. He had told us how the memories we were creating would last forever, and simply musing about them would rejuvenate our old times. I still remember his words: “In the end, all we are left with are our golden memories.”

And so we realised that giving way to such desolate feelings was stupid and useless. We had to start being optimistic, and we had to conquer all our imprudent doubts. It was an easy battle- we triumphed in a few days, and began to really like Westminster.

Now, I don’t regret anything we did, or felt. Change and challenges are necessary to hone the soul. I look at my coming days with a new sort of hope and gusto, that maybe we’ll get to love the grounds and sky of Westminster as well. Above all, I;m hopeful that our two years here will give us tons of memories to evoke, because in the end, all we are left with, are our golden memories.