When Your Life Breaks Down

When your life breaks down, it’s hard to put it back together with the missing pieces gone. Maybe your best friend has left to begin a new life away from you. Maybe you lost your job and you’re trying to make ends meet. Maybe the divorce letter has reached your doorstep and you’ve become a single parent overnight.
So you find yourself clinging to memories from the past. You’re haunted by them. You dial a number that’s disconnected. You find yourself driving to a place that you no longer belong to, so you force yourself to U-Turn. You look at a wedding picture that is torn into half. it’s like you’re driving with your eyes on the rearview mirror.
And you try to get over it. You really do. You find your wall has lost half of it’s bricks, and there are holes all over.
But sometimes if you look closely, you will see it…some holes are being filled with tiny pieces that slowly grow into the holes, pieces that eventually fill these holes. And that’s when you know you’ve healed and you’re ready to start your life over.
So watch out for the tiny pieces. “enjoy the little things for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” Robert Brault

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Today’s Blah Blah Blah

So it’s been a while since I ranted on this thing, and I actually had to be reminded by Asma Saleh that it’s been four days since the last note.

Oh my God…FOUR DAYS!

As you can guess, back to student life, and assignments are on th roll. Gone are the idle days that used to inspire crazy notes like “When Time Doesn’t Pass“. So far it’s been quite “interesting” in Masdar City. For a sustainable city, I’m wondering why the classes are freezing cold and the library so warm? Aren’t we supposed to be optimizing energy usage?

One interesting sign that’s placed next to the elevators is shown below,

So what are we supposed to do? Jump out the window?

That’s it for today unless you’re interested to know what my sustainability assignment is all about. I’m back to camping in loserbucks (aka, the library) since there’s no internet at the villas where we’re staying.

Ciao


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Simple Recipe For Success

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; there is where they should be. Now put foundations under them”- Henry David Thoereau. A lot of us saunter through life like ship wreck survivors, just going with the flow, hanging on to floating wood, hoping to get to that beautiful island with the whispering palms and glaring sunshine. However, we wake up every day to the same sight of infinite blue carrying specks of sunlight that make it look as though crystals have been cast in the ocean, and we wonder, why haven’t we reached the island?

a)      Define what we want.
When we fail to define what we want, we spend so much energy in various activities that add little or no value to our lives. We are not focused towards a definite set of goals, so we run around like hyperactive toddlers, bouncing off the walls, climbing closets, jumping off the couch, then wonder why mommy is screaming at us. We do get tired, but we get tired doing what? Having a clear vision of what we want from this life helps us streamline our efforts.

 

b)      Gain knowledge. Gaining knowledge on how to succeed in what we do is a basic step to personal development. We need to know how to step up our game, how to sharpen our various skills so we can sail to our goal easily. Finding information is easy nowadays whether in books or on the internet.

 

c)      Plan. We need to start working out our plan to reach our goals. However, we shouldn’t spend so much time “overplanning”. Someone once said, “It’s not the plan that matters as much as the process of planning.” The process of planning helps us break down our goals into smaller mini-goals that can be set within definite time periods. Then we start taking small mini-steps towards that goal. A decision is not made until the first deliberate step is taken towards that goal.
That’s the difference between a goal and a dream. A dream stays a dream until it’s written down on paper, and deliberate steps are being taken towards it. Then it transforms into a goal.
d) Don’t stop working until we reach your goal, and then start the process over and raise our standards higher.

A lot of people quit when they don’t see immediate results to their efforts. They expect life to work on an immediate “If” function. “If you do A, then B will result immediately.”
However, it doesn’t always work that way. A lot of times, you have to put in so much work before you see any results. But when we reach that point, the results appear exponentially. It is graphically represented below,

A lot of times we give up just before we reach that point. There is a quote that goes, “When the world says, ‘Give up,’ Hope whispers, ‘Try it one more time.’”

Remember that point every time you are on the verge of giving up. Also remember that big achievements are could be defined by the integration of small achievement (represented by “s”) over a period of time, or in engineering symbols:

This signifies continuous work…there’s a Swahili saying that goes like, “Haba na haba hujaza kibaba.”Literally, that means, Little by little fills up the measure. Another quote goes, “If you take a step a day in whatever you want to venture into, look back a month later, you will be 30 steps ahead. Do not wait-DO IT!”

And with complete tawakkul on Allah (SWT), you’ll achieve success insha’Allah in this Dunya and Hereafter. Just remember to keep your intentions pure.

Have a blessed day!
Ciao.

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Why?

There are times
When you ask yourself
Why?
A drop of dew
That slides off a leave
And forms a pool
Why?
A soft wind
That covers the distance
To send a whisper
Why?
A butterfly dancing
Above the rose garden
Why?
Two birds tying
Imaginary braids
In the sky
Why?
Sunshine trickling
On the marble floor
Why?

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TEDxChange Dubai

So we attended the TEDxChange in Dubai yesterday. TEDxChange marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the eight Millenium Development Goals set out by the UN to tackle global issues such as poverty, child mortality and disease. We missed a portion of the event - including the part when one of our own MI students, Laura, was speaking. However, we did manage to see the live talks from New York.

Now I won’t go into details of the talks since they were all inspiring talks about women empowerment and eliminating poverty. However, I will ask you one question, if you had the authority and resources to change one thing, what would it be, and how do you plan to do it?

I would share my answer if and only if I get enough answers from my readers.

Quote of the Day: If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.
Now put foundations under them.
Henry David Thoreau

Ciao…

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Welcome To My World

“I live in my own world, but it’s ok…they know me here.”- Anonymous

When some people close their eyes, all they see is the black behind their eyelids. But when some people close their eyes, a whole different world explodes into life. They hear the delightful cries of children playing barefeet on the sand. They see two birds forming imaginary braids as they soar up to the sky. They see the sun etch a fiery circle in a bar of gold that is the sky, and watch it melt behind the ocean in a glamorous sunset display.

 You see, loneliness has been a dear friend of mine since childhood. One of the ‘disadvantages’ of growing up among brothers is the fact that I’d usually find myself crossed out from guy-only macho escapades. And yet, alhamdullilah, Allah has blessed me with an imagination and a power of words that have always kept my company even when I am alone. So I don’t really get lonely when I’m alone.

So I keep on sinking deeper into my own world.

But alhamdullilah, it’s really beautiful in my own world. Even when it hurts, it’s really beautiful. Because people think that all my writings come out of passion, when in reality some of the best ones come out of pain. They come out of pain so immense that it really hurts to continue writing, and yet I continue writing because I know I won’t relax unless it’s out there; black alphabets against a white background – real or virtual, on real paper or on screen. And when you continue doing something despite the pain that you’re feeling while you’re at it, that’s when you know it’s your passion. Now, you can quote me there.

The only problem with always being in my own world is that I can get really carried away a lot, and I quote one of my friends here, “The problem with excessive thought is that it detaches a man from reality. Every man needs an element of action in his life to root him in reality, something to give him a sense of proportion.”

Which is why, in my life, I need elements such as religion, family and my studies to ground me. And that’s another reason why, despite many of my friends’ frustrations, I haven’t made a move yet to monetize my writing by writing a book manuscript or in any other form. Because to me writing is too pure a thing to dirty it with something as mundane as money. For some reason I am convinced that the moment I monetize my writing, I’d start writing to sell instead of writing to tell, and that’s not the purpose why writing exists in my life.

And that’s why I try to share my world with you. So welcome to my world.

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched … but are felt in the heart.”- Helen Keller

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First Day In Masdar City

Okay so it was the first day we set foot on Masdar City today.

In case you don’t know what Masdar City is an area close to Abu Dhabi airport that is supposed to rely on solar energy, and other renewable energy sources with a sustainable, zero-carbon, zero-waste ecology. The first phase of the project began with Masdar Institute, and if you walk around you’ll notice that the place is still in its final stages of finishing, so there are still construction workers roaming around. However, classes conducted there went smoothly. Funny enough, I walked into my 2 o’clock class at 2.40 thanks to logistical problems (i.e. the carbon-dioxide emitting bus). Otherwise, it’s back to Navier-Stokes equations and unfathomable math. Our 5 o’clock bus showed up at 5.40 p.m.

In Back To School , I was talking about AUS running on its own clock. I’m starting to get an idea on the clock that Masdar’s Institute is running on, so I need to start synchronizing my personal clock with it.

Quote Of The Day:

“The difference in winning and losing is most often, not quitting – Walt Disney

P.S. Image is mine and can be copied and shared as you wish. It’s not copyrighted. 


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Burning Bridges

Remember the Land-Cruiser-stuck-in-the-sand feeling we discussed in “Stuck In the Rut” and the whole floating-and-sinking analogy in the note that followed? When we’re that stuck, annoyed and frustrated about something in our lives, a natural reaction is fantasizing about “Burning Bridges” to move on.

Even though the expression “burning bridges” is commonly used specifically for irreparable relationships, I use it here to symbolize the whole idea of letting go of everything that you currently have – or have had in your past – in pursuit of the goal ahead of you. So basically, you leave yourself with no other option but to go ahead, because going back is not an option anymore. And the idea is scary. Really scary if you ask me. It takes a lot of heart to do it, and personally, I never used to be a fan of the concept of burning bridges, because contingency plans are always good to fall back on.

But one can easily argue that sometimes, when you burn your bridges, failure ceases to be an option anymore. Because having too many backup plans make escape from Plan A so easy as you tend to think, “Oh, it’s okay, I have a backup plan.” However, when you burn bridges…guess what? You have no backup plan. You’ve got to get whatever it is that you’re set out to get, otherwise you might as well lock yourself in your room, get a marker and type “FAILURE” on your mirror right where the reflection of your forehead appears….

And it’s quite interesting how some examples of people who’ve burnt bridges in their lives show that they do fall occassionally, and return to square one sometimes, but they’re not really afraid of trying again – since remember failure is no longer an option – and they end up taking more risks, because they’ve been at the bottom once, and they’ve survived, so they know that they can easily get up and try again. So maybe their plans got delayed, but kul ta25eer feeh 5eir insha’Allah (every delay comes for a good reason….)

And sometimes you don’t really burn bridges on your own, as much as bridges get burnt automatically as a consequence of your decisions. In other words, your decisions might not always help you pass the “social norms and standards” test that society sets for you (and I seriously don’t mean ‘religion’, but ‘society’).

So whether you decide to burn bridges or not is really a factor of reasons, courage and support system. We really have to believe that what we’re doing is the right thing to do for Allah’s sake. And we need to make sure that everybody who might get affected by the decision- especially family & people we’re responsible for – backs it up entirely, or else we might not just be Burning Bridges but running away from responsibilities.

And if you notice, that’s why when people grow older, the more responsibilities they have, getting stuck, or sinking becomes easier, and burning bridges becomes almost an impossibility. Because at that stage, the responsibilities are many, and the stakes are higher, and one might get used to a certain standard of living, so in that case…it’s not failure that’s no longer an option but falling – or even stumbling – that is not an option. But then again, that can easily be argued as well, so what do you think?

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Back To School – Day 3

So today was the last day of the orientation. In other words, after today, we’re no longer the newbies, the guests who are honored with free lunches and dinners. Metaphorically speaking, starting next week inshaAllah we enter the kitchen. The morning began with lectures on the institute in Masdar City – the city that’s putting Abu Dhabi on the map (finally, after it’s been hiding in Dubai’s shadows for years). Following that was a lecture on a special place on that campus that I would like to call “Home Sweet Home” – The library, aka “Loserbucks” by my AUS friends.

The afternoon lectures focused on the researches pertaining to the Mechanical Engineering programs. The lectures began with an “explosive” lecture on Combustion by Dr. Sassi. I didn’t know that someone could spend so many minutes talking about a phenomenon we take for granted; the flame. You think it’s just a flame but today I learnt that there are so many types of flames – namely, Piloted Jet flame, Bluff Body Flame, Radial Bluff Body Flame, etc…

And did you know that after solid, liquid and gas; plasma (ionized gas) could be the fourth state of matter?

Then there were various topics discussed such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), and Chemical Looping Combustion, followed by Transesterification (and yes, that’s a word) of Waste vegetable oil to biodiesel.

Now I’m not going to bore my daily readers by going into details but enthusiastic engineers like NA have more things to google about in their free time.

 The last professor to present was such an incredible presenter, that when he spoke about photons exciting electrons, you could see the excitement in his body language. I’m still indecisive about what topic to pick, but since we still have six weeks to select an advisor/thesis, then there’s ample time to research the researches.

Okay…in the last paragraph…present/presenter, exciting/excitement, research/researches…whatever happened to my “thing” against using the same word twice in the same article (used to have that rule ages ago…by ages, I mean pre-AUS)…

I guess that’s it for today. And for those who are wondering if the blog notes are going to turn all technical from now on, don’t worry – it’s just the excitement at the beginning of anything as mentioned in Exponential Decay.

This is AH signing off for the weekend.

Quote of The Day, “Time flies. Time waits for no man. Time heals all wounds. All any of us wants is more time. Time to stand up. Time to grow up. Time to let go. Time.” -From Grey’s Anatomy


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Back To School -Day 2

Today was day 2 of the orientation. We got our class schedules and it seems I’m registered to Advanced Fluid Mechanics, Advanced Thermodynamics and Sustainable Energy. Then there’s the thesis as well. As the Associate Provost said, ”When you’re not in class, you work on your thesis, not downloading movies. Movies you download when you are in class.”

Then the professors presented their various researches, and three sessions ran in parallel; those for Material Science, Engineering System Management and Water and Environmental Engineering.

I attended some of the Material Science lectures even though the Mechanical Engineering lectures are tomorrow. It was a heavy load to digest within the time span given. I caught some interesting ideas on thermo photovoltaics, Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells and Nanofluids.

To explain briefly, photovoltaics is the direct conversion of light to electricity at the atomic level using semiconductors that exhibit the photovoltaic effect. PEM fuel cells use hydrogen fuel and oxygen from the air to produce electricity. Here’s a nice animation of how that works; http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/animation/swfs/fuelcellframe.html

As for nanofluids? Did you even know there was something called Nanofluid out there? NAnofluids are especially engineered fluids with nanometer-sized particles suspending within the base fluid. The particles are typically made of metals and the fluid could be water. Nanofluids have enhanced thermal conductivity and convective heat transfer coefficient than the base fluid due to the presence of the particles.

But the talks were fascinating, as professors emphasized on the importance of doing good research and thinking outside the box to come up with new ideas, and being a part of the solution to the world’s challenging environmental and sustainability problems. One comment was like, “I want you (the students) to teach me. I don’t want students who ask for tasks, 1, 2, and 3 so they’d execute. I want you to take the initivate as I will only guide you, but you have to come up with new exciting ideas.”

This was quite interesting as I compared it to the ABC system we had at work where every time we had questions, we were told, “Just follow the procedures…just copy-paste…that’s how the policies are set, don’t question them…”

I guess this is it for today.

Adios.

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