Pattering Love.
SPRING- The elysium that houses sweet smells, strawberries, daisies, smiles and the eve of exams. Exams, shoulder pain, research submission deadlines, taking your anger out on your loved ones (and moreover, your own work).
Today I skipped college and hospital hours for scientific research writing. In the afternoon, when I ran after a friend who was going out to ask her to get me strawberries, I saw the signs. A breeze that stops you clean in your tracks, and that reminds you of beautiful things. I peeped out of the window, and then turned my back on it.
Analysis- you need to describe your sample with biostatistics; where is that rogue the mean, and where is that statistical function from Pennsylvania called CountIf?
A knock on the door after a prayer break- ‘Here are your strawberries! Are they enough? I brought you colourful fry-ups, look, they come in wheels!’
The sweet scents of spring force themselves in- beguiling, conquering. But enough of that, I close the door.
Another friend comes knocking on the door with a plate of strawberries- ‘Surprise! I knew you wanted them’; only to look at the ginormous bag of fresh strawberries lying on my table with eyes that were not as glassy as they were a moment back. What a sweetheart. Another reminder of spring, what’s outside, and it’s loveliness.
I step out of my room in the evening, to cook myself some dinner- something quick. When I pass through the window, and look at it unconsciously, what is outside flashes.
Lightening?
….
My favourite weather?
I steal hungry glances out the kitchen window.
Brothers Karamazov and dinner. The rain does not allow Ivan Fyodorovitch or Alyosha- whoever it was- to captivate me as usual during dinner time. It patters at my window and beckons me out.
I leave the room, unsure when it will stop- it is coming down so lightly; gently. I take a leap of faith, and run down the stairs into the streaming rain, which welcomes me and appeals to my senses. My favourite weather! What thoughts come into my mind, what sensualism- but not pure sensualism; rather, all my senses getting pleasure- all my senses reminding me of what the Divine did for me!
He did not allow the rain to stop until I had entered in to it. Until I had walked through it, until I had pondered in the rain, until my face stopped wincing at the cold drops streaming down it, and until I was reminded about the angels and their fear for Him when it thunders:
‘How perfect He is, (The One) Whom the thunder declares His perfection with His praise, as do the angels out of fear of Him.’
Data.
I have fallen in love with this word, and perhaps irrevocably.
So when I read a BBC business and technology-related article about how data is the epicenter of marketing promise, I am naturally aroused. The guy who wrote the article works for an establishment that makes software that processes human information, or unstructured data, including social media, email, video, audio, text and web pages.
Here are a few paragraphs from the l-o-n-g article I took time out to read:
In the business world, information has traditionally been housed in databases.
This has been an effective way to keep information safe and stored in a uniform fashion. However, the database was created as a way to work around the limitations computers had half a century ago.
As the majority of information flowing through organisations today is unstructured or ‘human information’ (90%), such as text, email, video, and audio, and therefore impossible to box into traditional databases, being able to manage that information so you know where it is and process it so you know what it means is essential.
For instance, you could store customer-service call centre recordings into a database if you really had to, but you would have no idea whether the customer was happy or not. This is exactly the type of insight businesses want to know after all.
To understand them, organisations have to take a new approach to managing and uncovering the meaning of their data. The next-age information platforms make sense of, and understand the meaning of, information and use it to solve problems, in order to give businesses a better understanding of themselves, their customers and the competition.
Very nice. I get the point. But where is the solution- how do we contrive meaning from ‘human information’ that is possible to analyse numerically? You rant on and on about something cool and then end abruptly without a solution?
Awesome formula for pissing your readers off.
And by the by, what customer-related ‘human information’ is this and where does it come from? These are pertinent questions that are not often addressed, except in leaks 
The guy who wrote the above-mentioned article happens to be a big-wig who works for HP, a commercial firm that is part of the mass surveillance industry that has played an internet monitoring prank with it’s customers. I am not impressed.
Exam? I Pick Up Robbins, And…
I am a rebel, a cynic, a passionate muckraker- whatever you like. And dear to my heart are attempts to break apart the normal mundanity many entities (and things) in this life so tiresomely exhibit.
But when I see figures of speech and similes, the like of which are: ‘The story begins with‘, ‘Together, RANK ligand and M-CSF conspire to convert macrophages into bone-crunching osteoclasts’, ‘fractures as readily as a piece of chalk‘, in a medical book, imagine what happens to my soul.
Robbins. Are you narrating Aesop’s fables?
If text is supposed to be scientific, its credibility is compromised when the author tries to add the ooh and aah effect with their literary embellishes. Scientific research published in journals with high impact factors often annoy scientific connoisseurs with a similar tabloid-like take on scientific matters. Look- you’re writing about Science. Science is supposed to be boring. And formal. YOU are supposed to be boring, and formal. Being otherwise is treason.
Robbins trying to be cool.
They Asked How I Was…
And I said, well, and thank you,
A need is fulfilled and another is neglected,
When distress is such that my heart becomes constricted,
I say that perhaps one day will bring with it some aid,
My comrade is my cat, and my soul’s companions are my books,
And the object of my love is my night-lantern.
-Ibn Faris.
You are the One who Soothes. Soothe me.
A Pigeon.
A pigeon came to you with hope in you,
Complaining with a disturbed and trembling heart…
Who was it that informed it that your place
Is a sanctuary, and that you are the shelter for the wronged?
I Live With A Plant.
We are the only two living things in my room. I brought it from my Uncle’s place the other day. It looks like my soul- with it’s thorny, eccentrically-oriented leaves. It is aloe vera- it looks pernicious, but it has the potential to comfort you.
(:
I used to crave solitude. There were times when I would distance myself from everyone I knew. I have distanced myself from nearly everyone I have associated myself with intimately at some point of my life. I treasured my space. But for the past few months, this very same space is choking me. I look at my pet plant, my companion, and smile at myself.
Zainab, is this plant really going to replace you?
Rapid Response To Disasters, Twitterati & Social Networking.
I, an entity who is known for being an open scorner of the enigma called social networking, happened to be amused by the comic strip displayed below some days back.
The ICRC wants to be innovative in how they manage disasters such as earthquakes, and has therefore decided to join the bandwagon of those establishments that have chosen to involve social networking in their professional pursuits. It is not a very bad idea (certainly better than that pretentious Kony propoganda movement some naive American thought would influence the hearts and minds of facebook users; an insolent internet- or should I say, Facebook- meme), but ironically has a drawback that is pretinently expressed in the strip below.
Why do I chose to blog about it now?
Because it still manages to get a tranquil smirk out of me.
You Cannot Love Until You Feel.
It was Written that I should see this in this particular stage of my life. SubhanAllaah.
Prison Break.
By Wael Abdelgawad | IslamicSunrays.com
It’s possible to make ourselves the prisoners of others. How? By caring so much what they think that we let if affect how we practice our religion, how we dress, how we speak, even what names we call ourselves.
Prisoners have their names taken away and are given numbers. We do it voluntarily when we change Muhammad to Mo, Wael to Will (I’ve been advised by some to do this but I have always refused), and Khadija to Kim.
Prisoners are told how to dress. We do it to ourselves by giving up our hijabs and kufis in order to fit in. We enslave ourselves to the cultural dictates of others. We humiliate ourselves by suppressing everything that says, “I am Muslim.”
Prisoners are sometimes refused the right to pray or to have a Quran. We do it to ourselves by missing our prayers because we are afraid of being seen in public; or putting away our Quran and letting it gather dust.
Prisoners are given no choice in their diets. We do it to ourselves by eating the non-halal meat that is put in front of us, because we are ashamed to say, “I only eat halal.”
Prisoners learn to remain silent. We do it to ourselves when others speak of faith and religion – sometimes even criticizing Islam in our presence – and we remain silent because we are embarrassed to speak up.
“And believe in what I have sent down confirming that which is [already] with you, and be not the first to disbelieve in it. And do not exchange My signs for a small price, and fear [only] Me.” – Quran, Al-Baqarah, 2:41
Allah gave us a great gift, He gave us truth and guidance, and others are hungering for it, so don’t hide it! We must be ourselves, be proud (not the pride of arrogance but of gratitude), let our faith show, shine our light! A lamp in the darkness cannot be hidden!
Don’t make yourself a prisoner! Wear your Islamic clothing without embarrassment, eat halal without apology, speak your name with pride, pray on time no matter where you are, read the Quran on the bus or the subway if you wish, and when people ask you about your faith, tell them with a smile, “I am Muslim.” Speak your truth without fear. Be proud of Islam. Be free, and hold your head up high, bowing only to Allah.
