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Zcrysis
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Name: Mohammed
Birthday: 8/28/1985
Gender: Male
Interests: Football Manager 2005, FMGamer.com, The Straight Dope, football, Thinking, Global Domination and Other Things(TM)
Expertise: Well I know some stuff about the law, but IANAL and definately not one in your jurisdiction, which means if you've got a real problem go to a pro. I only deal with hypotheticals at this stage.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Legal
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
MSN: mohammedtalib21@hotmail.com
Member Since:
1/6/2005
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| Abandoning Xanga
I've been here for 6 months, but I find myself hitting on the limits to
Xangas usefulness. If you want to still read what I manage to write
once in a bit, you can still find me on http://motalib.blogspot.com.
I might still update this here thing once in a bit, but really will be
using it to keep up with all my friends who still use Xanga.
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| Trainrides
I've spent a lot of time, especially recently riding the Tube. Its been
the source of much internal enjoyment. Let me but give you 2
examples. You stand there, rocking back and forth, upon squeaking and creaking
track, all those with you looking everywhere but at each other,
the People of the Train.
So many of them look so sad, so depressed, so well meh, that anyone
with a even slightly attuned sense of irony struggles hard to not point
and laugh. They seem so unhappy, and in a twisted perverted manner, I
find there unhappiness brings a large smile to my face. It just cracks
me up that so many people are so content to look and be so unhappy. If
people are happy, you can see it. If they're not you can see it. Hiding
it, as much as you want to, can't succeed. I keep wondering why they
don't change something? Why not find a new way of doing things. Quit
your damn job, get a new hobby, find a new outlook on life. Do
something to change it, instead of waddling around on the train looking
grumpy. That's one of the reasons that my twisted black humour find it
so funny. So many people sincerely striving to remain unhappy. These
grumpy sad people, well I say bah to them. Remain the butt of my menial
humour and the heart of my jokes.
The other thing I find joyous about the Tube, is that you won't find a
better example in the world of prejudice making that unfortunate
squelching sound that prejudice makes when it hits reality. I've been
taking the train to the mosque a lot recently and that means being
dressed up in all my Islamic gear. White kurta, golden hat, and so on.
All the while reading DJ Hayton "The Law of Trusts and Equitable
Remedies", which is half purple half red all textbook. The clueless ladies
on the seat opposite me, staring at me almost uncomprehendingly for
almost 50 minutes, had me almost in stitches to prevent me laughing.
That it would have been highly inappropriate and the fact my trust exam
was 4 days away and I really needed to cover the material I was
reading. But idiot grin as well hidden behind a studious face. Oh thats
the other thing, you don't need to move your lips to smile, but you can
never hide the smile in your eyes. That shines through.
All in all the Tube seems tied 1-1 with itself. I shall wait longer to
judge it fully for its entertainment value. Its unchallenged that as a
public transport net its uniquely abysmal.
-- Gone Off The Rails--
Mohammed Talib. | | |
| So Worried
There are 3 days left to my exams. I've tried as hard as I can to
prepare for them, and worked constantly and reasonably hard for over a
month now. But I'm suffering the inevitable attack of nerves. There is
so much of the subjects that I don't know. There is so much that I need
to try and cover, that I have no time to do. I keep discovering new
details every day, things I need to remember, past questions in which I
missed basic details in practice questions. It also seems that certain
questions on the exam are to never be answered, dooming you to failure
if you decide to answer them.
I ordered pizza today for the first time in forever. I feel so lazy
after taking a bath. It is James' method of relaxing, but its left me
totally drained. At least its relaxed me though. I'm so relaxed though
that terminal laziness has sapped the rest of the day. Its 7pm though,
so that's not the loss it sounds like. I managed to do 2 practice
questions today, and that helped me a little bit. Every day brings
small progress. But I need to get to Thursday in one piece and then
things will be alright. For another 8 days at any rate.
On a wing and a prayer,
Mohammed Talib
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| Pigeonholed
I haven't updated this in a long time, and the reason has slowly become
self evident to me over the last few days. I set a too high standard
right at the beginning, writing long lengthy pieces dealing with ideas
and things that I felt that I had to get off my chest and out into the
wide world.
Its caused a problem for me in the sense that I now feel constricted to
write in that manner, and now am realizing that there are things that I
want to say that are shorter and more concise, but just as important.
That might change, it might not. But now I deliberately leave the
option open to me. Its dangerous to lose yourself and your aims amongst
your standards. Bear with me on that notion, it makes sense. They're
not the same, and its dangerous I feel to equate them.
Something that I have had much course to learn and relearn across my
stay in the UK is that many of your boundaries are self imposed. What I
will and will not do, is largely a mental thing. I can do anything I
want if I am willing to make the mental effort to do it. I realize that
my problems are not external, there are only a few instances in which I
can credibly claim that external forces prevent me doing something.
This is important to keep remembering because its easy to forget. There
is a pain barrier, a mental block that recoils from the unknown and the
uncomfortable, but the only way to extend your comfort zone is to
suffer through some initial discomfort. It takes time to get used to
new things, but to not get yourself used to new things limits your
sphere of life forever.
It's so easy to blame external factors, to blame circumstance and time
etc. for your own foibles and folly. Of course sometimes you, the other
person, are the problem as well. But I need the courage to change
what I can, and accept with good grace what you can't. Let he who
is without sin cast the first stone. My mania for the cult of
personal responsibility ought to extend to myself as well. And perhaps
accepting that some people won't but I can hold them to my own
unreasonable standard.
It's also led me to the danger of setting too high standards about what
you can expect of yourself. I feel I need to re-balance my standards to
a more reasonable standard. One of the ways to do this is to recognise
that some days doing what you can is much better then setting yourself
to a too high standard. If you set the standard, then you ought to
recognise when the specifications you wrote, no longer fit the product
you want to deliver. I no longer want to write lengthy things if I
don't want to. I no longer need to though, because it's my choice. My
choice.
On that note, the more things change, the more they stay the same. This
piece clocks in at almost 450 words. It's hardly short is it.
Mohammed Talib
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| His Story & History
I had the privilege three months ago of meeting a young Turkish-Greek
student named Steliakos. He made a strong impression on me for one
distinctive reason, as well as many subsidiary reasons. The distinctive
one was that he knew, actually in detail and accurately, knew, his own
personal history and the history of his people, in away that no one I
have so far met in the UK was aware of their roots and beginnings.
I think this is remarkable, and important. It is essential I think that
people understand their own personal and larger cultural history,
because I fell that it is essential to understand who you are, and why
you are who you are. You must know the history and details of your
family and people. Only then can you make progress forward from what
you start out as, to what you are meant to be. The roots of a person
are as important as the roots of a plant, they nourish them,
support them and allow them to prosper.
The reason this is essential, is that identity seems to be the prime
malaise of modern society, people do not understand what they are,
where they come from, where they are going and how to get there. It is
then essential that you need to start moving in the right direction to
solve these problems, or else you doom yourself to a vicious cycle of
continuing detriment.
It is an aspect of life here that I find very troubling. Very few
British people really seem concerned with the history of their people,
they do not seem to know, nor care that they do not know anything
about the details of their own history. Margaret Thatcher is long lost
in the shrouds of history, and the thought of William the Conquerer
fails to even cross their mind. I find this shocking and surprising.
How can I know more about British people then the people who have lived
here all their lives? Do they not feel that such a result is wrong? How
can they be so happily ignorant? I find it hard to convey to you the
almost pathological despondency this causes in me, how can they be like
this? Why would an entire people turn against themselves? Why would
they surrender their identity to group think? There is no harm in
sharing your culture, living in a multi-cultural world, but why have
you abandoned what was yours so uniquely?
The prevailing notion it seems is that the past is no longer relevant
to them; they are people of the present and the future. They are free
of the encumbrance of history, they are bound by no restrictions of
time and place, instead they can move on without looking over their
shoulder at their accumulated cultural history. My heart rings with
warning though, that words said immortally, transmuted into cliche, are
worth well remembering. They are famous words, that "those who forget
history are doomed to repeat it".
But this detritus to them, is to me what is most necessary for them to
come to grips with their society, and to heal the wider malaise that
seems to be rampant in their society. A problem cannot be resolved
without understanding its roots, the people to whom the problem
applies, and then to synthesize how the problem can then be solved. It
seems though that they reject this basis from which it is essential to
start. And so they have problem after problem, but cannot for the life
of them understand why they cannot deal with them. I pity them, and not
desiring to give anyone mere pity, want to know how it can be changed.
What do you think?
Mohammed Talib | | |
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