US

Everybody asks me how do I like it here. Well, what can I say? It's really beautiful. I posed some pictures of my house on facebook, and people did see that it's beautiful. Raleigh is rates is one of the most beautiful places in US, so you can see where I am coming from.

The weather is always good. So far, I have only seen the end of summer and the beginning of fall here, and I am loving it. The nights, and the mornings, have began to get colder. It rains often. It's just the right kind of whether here. Just the right amount of romantic, just the right amount of practical, just the right amount of enthralling, and just the right amount of convenient. I have started taking late night strolls in the cold nights now. Winds are great at that time. Soft winds are great in morning too, specially after a hearty breakfast and a cold shower.

But do I like it here? Well, like you know, I like the whether. I like the beauty. I like the liberty of living alone. The freedom of being a student, on scholarship. I love that part. I like that people are so professional here, everybody's on time, everything's clean. Everything's managed seemingly well. I like that here.

But the culture didn't appeal to me much. This is the same culture which, because of its freedom, and it's open values pulled me in so much when I went to LUMS, so much so that it transformed me for good. Then I started studying it. And I studies it more and more, I discovered the not-so-great dimensions of it. And now, it's the real thing. Here I am in America, experiencing first hand what was simulated by desi Americans at LUMS. To be honest, there haven't been any shocks per se. The amount of blogs I read about American lifestyle, the amount of movies/tv shows I had watched in the earlier days, it's just like that. Most people say real life is never like what's it shown on tv, specially for the observer who doesn't belong to that culture. Well, I would say to those people, their exposure to this medium of expression hasn't been diverse enough, or hasn't been completed with other medium, such as books, blogs, comedians. Though I do agree news have a way distorting reality to a spicy fiction. Anyway, in short, there were no shocks. It's the same I had experienced in LUMS. It's the same I experienced while hanging out among the upper-middle class in Karachi, Karachi being the 7th largest city of the world, the influence of the greatest super on its culture being very dominant.

So there were no surprises, but there were many things that I didn't like over my own country, that I liked being done in my country's way more than I like them here. The way my mindset has changed over last two-three years leaves me with ideas and beliefs, that my friends have started seeing me as a mystic person. Though I would say that's not true, because my opinions always have arguments behind them, they have stories behind them, contemplation behind them, and might I say, study behind them. And it is this mindset that makes me see these things, and feel against them, the same way I felt against them when I was back home. So being an anomaly is not a news for me. I am used to it in that sense.

So what are those things? It's the same everybody's talking about... yada yada yada. Distant lives. People not knowing their neighbours though living there for so many years. There is story about that one too! Commercialism, materialism, no direction in lives. No meaning, no purpose. Or shallow purposes. Here I see, really good rats, strong rats, fast rats, healthy rats, who run like Jaguars, but why? because they're in a rat race. To what? I don't know! They don't know either. It makes them 'happy' they say. Staying distracted, engaged, makes them 'happy' they say. Okay.

Some things that I would like to talk about is the way Pakistans act and think when they come here. That's very very interesting, and well, I am gonna dedicate a whole post to it :D

AND. I am gonna dedicate a whole post to the few stories I have had so far since I have come here. I will only put up the interesting ones, and a few boring ones too, Heck it's my blog!