The Career Road: Latest Updates, June 1, 2013  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin in , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So, the film I was working on last year with Concordia Productions (Pvt) Ltd has a trailer! And it's being played in cinemas in Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi before movies like Iron Man 3, The Reluctant Fundamentalist and The Great Gatsby.


Here's the link to it if you want to support Pakistani films, would love the support and appreciation:

It was so exciting to see something that I was a part of on a big screen. So many first times for me this year, I'm just ecstatic. Let's hope that this becomes an awesome part of my life! 

More essays to come soon, although I know they are sometimes really dark, but hey, if I get inspiration to write something nicer, I will. :)

Realizations  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin in , , ,

My father was recently diagnosed with CKD-5, and the worst part is finding a place to treat him in the city of Lahore. A major part of his treatment is dialysis, for which he has to go to the hospital/dialysis centre twice a week. During the past few weeks, I have come to one realization, one sad realization.


There aren't enough dialysis machines to cater to the staggering number of cases for people who need dialysis. 

What I'm talking about isn't just about how many machines the city has, but also how expensive it is to get one session done. With an average of Rs. 3,500/- (around about $35) per session, I don't understand how people are going to get their loved ones treated. Many patients have to go between two to three times a week, that makes expenses sky rocket. 

Even centres that want to provide free treatment to those who require dialysis cannot help these people with waiting lists that are year long, and the only way to get them out of it is to wait till a current patient on dialysis died, or chose to go to another hospital. 

I can't afford to buy a machine, but I would love to let people know that this is something that a lot of people need, and waiting too long in the line is not an option, if anyone can help hospitals increase their number of machines or help people who require dialysis, please, I urge you to try and help them. 

Reminiscing 2012 and 3 Highlights of 2012  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

Wow, it's been such a long time since I posted anything on this blog. Honestly, I feel really bad about it. Last year was kind of an interesting year for me. 2012 was the year of the dragon, and while it is going to be ending soon next month, I thought I should take sometime to write here about how 2012 really turned out to be.

For the love of writing, I told myself that 2012 would be the year I challenged myself, quite a bit. After writing three poems in two months (Jan and Feb), and while working on a theatre project as writer and co-director, I decided that I should write a 100 poems in that particular year. And then, for some unknown reason, I thought why not try writing a poem a day in April.

So, in April, I wrote not 30 poems, but I wrote 44 poems!

I believe that if it weren't for that month of April, I don't think I would've been able to finish my challenge because by the end of July, I was able to get the job that I really, really looked forward to working on. It's not that the job that I was working at at that time was not fun, or stressful, it just wasn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a film maker. And I was quickly immersed into the whole business of pre-production of a film, and finding very little time to write poetry, or even short stories (I failed my 10 short stories in 2012 challenge so haha, not everything went well). 

After a month's internship at Concordia Productions, I was offered to join in permanently. It was the best feeling of the year for me at that time. Here I was, a newbie who had no idea of the film process, except for what she saw on the television, being given a chance to work with film makers, who did not judge me based on my background in everything but film. They were working on a film called Tamanna, which had already created buzz at the London Asian Film Festival and other renowned newspapers.

Now I won't go any further into talking about Tamanna, instead I'll move on but I will say that this experience and writing a 100 poems in 2012 were the best highlights of my year. 

Other than that, I also worked on a play. I wrote the script in November 2011. The play was staged in March, I co-directed it with a friend Hamza Ghaznavid. It was a fun little project, and I hope to do more later on, but my focus for now is film. 

So that makes three highlights.

There were others too. But I don't want to start a rant here and so I shall begin to fade this post out:

One of my New Year's resolution is to write more this year. Not only for poetry, not only short stories, or other longer ones, but also try to update this blog more often. I know it has been stale for quite sometime, and I'm hoping that I can find more ideas in my head to write about more things here. Until the next post. 

What Electricity?  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

I've always been the kind of person who tried to see the good in governments, even if I usually am typecast as a negative sighted person (it's not really my fault, but hey I'm not going to keep going on about how positive I can be either. You chose to label me, I did not). Just a few days ago, I was talking about the immense potential in this country, even despite the problems that it is facing. But lo and behold, what thanks I get, a twenty minute glimpse of electricity, and then poof! Into the darkness. (The only thing I needed at that time was background music: crickets chirping)

I'm not one for supporting protests either. I believe that it is a waste of time, and most of all effort, because the end result is usually a ton of arrests, and a lot of mediums gaining from the air time showing all the chaos. Instead of focusing on the real issue, it's more about the violence - which by the way, proves to the world that we are a bunch of barbarians, a view that many are trying to negate.

You see, usually I am a person who doesn't care if there is no electricity, as long as I know I can either read a book, or write something (irrelevant to the blog). But seriously, in this situation where LESCO (the designated electricity provider for this region) has decided to cut off electricity for a majority of the day, how the hell are people supposed to divert themselves to other activities? It's over forty degrees - scratch that - over forty five degrees!

Nobody wants to do anything. The heat is getting to everyone, forget toddlers crying about the heat, adults are doing that too! (Except that their way is to snap at everyone and everything) People can't even take naps any more, and forget about that good night's sleep. There isn't enough electricity to charge the infamous UPS, and so the fan annoyingly buzzes in the sweltering heat. While this keeps up, people are already turning into zombies (no reference to the face eaters in the US). Proof?

No sleep. Heat - smouldering hot heat. Inability to calm down (stress). Being disappointed repeatedly. Bad business. I'm sure you get where I'm trying to go. It all adds up to people not performing well in the society. I mean look at it rationally, if a person is deprived of sleep, is constantly thinking about when they're going to see the light of um... light, coupled with the persistent heat that does not go away, then obviously the stress is going to gush out somewhere right? So it happens at social situations, parents yelling at kids, kids yelling at parents, parents yelling at parents, kids yelling at kids, friends yelling at friends, you get my point. It happens at work, lack of sleep, means person can't perform at optimum level, thus reducing productivity, which then translates to an angry boss that you already don't want to cross. Then all of that just spells disaster, forget only the economic implications of not reaching potential GDP, think about it, people are literally snapping at each others, attacking whatever pulls the trigger!

To top it all off, here's a rough estimate of electricity timings: for every two hours of electricity, we black out/brown out for four to five hours.

I'm not going to protest, neither am I even in the mood to suggest a solution, since that's not going to see the light of day anyway. So yeah, currently, the mind of mine is just too busy. Busy ranting about the situation that I am in. I wish I could get out of it, but well who am I kidding.

More on me soon.


Sad Goodbyes  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin in , , , , ,

The first profession that I chose when I was a kid was to be a teacher. Yes, a teacher. Although a lot of people have weird perceptions about this profession, I think, now because of my extremely short lived 3 week experience, it's, what I feel, actually the most rewarding and the toughest profession ever.

Yes, I am now on the road to becoming a teacher, since I have been selected by the Teach for Pakistan organization. I believe that the experience was much better than the experience that I had in my college. Like really.

During training, we were teaching kids in summer school for a short period of three weeks. It was crazy. It was a roller coaster of emotions. But the last three weeks would now be ranked at top five of my best moments in my life.

As a Teach for Pakistan fellow 2011, I have to teach at government schools in Karachi, where most of the students come from low income backgrounds. What pains me is the fact that I see a lot of people ignoring a huge amount of talent that these kids have. I was teaching science to 4th graders, and I saw a lot of talent and a lot of thirst for knowledge, that the three weeks were just not enough for them, and honestly for me too.

My kids - yes, it has come to a point that I have started calling them my kids - were cute. My kids were learning all that I was teaching them, even though they were disruptive in many occasions, partly because I tried to show that I was a fun teacher, and partly because of many reasons that I reflected back upon. But all in all my kids dreamed.

The last day of summer school, I believe was so emotional, I never thought it was going to be like that at all. The students at the school and the my fellows were sad to say our last good byes to the children. Although I know if a friend of mine was reading this she would think, "Oh you hated this this student, and now you're all proud and stuff?", I really have to say that I am PROUD of those kids. Bottom line though, WE ALL CRIED. Some students cried more than the others. (Ok, most cried)

One of the most memorable moments of the day was when all the kids from three grades formed sort of a goodbye committee, and were following the bus till as far as they could. One of the kids ran all the way till the turn to see us off, and that just brought tears to my eyes.

I never thought it would have ended that way. I really did not. I did not expect that we would cry the way we did. I did not expect the children to care about us leaving at all. But they did, and that translates to a lot of things. And even though I think I felt bad about myself for not succeeding at many times, what the student actions were, really makes doing what I am doing right now so much worth it.

I just have to say to these kids to be AWESOME, GREAT and not to forget their dreams...

The New Chapter  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin in

Here's a little update on my life. I've finally come to another city, and now I am no longer in the comfort zone, where I had my friends and family taking care of me. Where they don't have to bear my idiocy and my childishness, even my scolding and bickering.

I took my first plane ride alone - the last one I had was when I was 8 and I barely remember anything about it. It was bumpy, and Lahore's "tears" delayed my flight by more than an hour. I still stand that Lahore was sad to see me off. Haha.

So now, I'm here, in Karachi. It feels like a really really big city. I got this really really interesting job, and now I am getting trained for it... Looking forward for Monday to see what it can throw at me. I'm completely cool with the arrangements that the organization has done for me and other out of station fellows. And to all those who think that it isn't safe here, more on that later. :P

Signing off...
Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

Losing it All...  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

I just did something really stupid last week. I thought of moving all my poetry and stories into my external hard disk, which I thought was a safer place to put them. As it turns out, I pulled the USB cable before the transfer could be completed, and so, I lost everything. EVERYTHING!

I spent half of today trying to figure out how to fix the mess I got myself into.

For the stories I could restore most of the work, but for all my poetry, let us just say I was lucky to have made back ups of my completed poems, and unlucky for not doing the same for the poems that I had typed down so I could work on them a little more...

I feel like I just killed my own kids. I feel horrible, not to mention I had a major panic attack because of the idiotic stunt that I pulled on my own work. URGH!

Silence...  

Posted by Vicky Zhuang Yi-Yin

Note: I wrote this a really really long time ago... in 2005 for a class assignment... so excuse the immaturity if any

___________________________________________________________________________________


To me silence is threatening...

Before every storm there is stillness and silence in the atmosphere. Every animal can smell it but humans can tell it.

It is always silent in the dead of the night.  This is the time when thieves think best to raid venturing people in the streets. A dead man says nothing and is silent as people bury him. In a funeral people silently pray for the departing person. When a person wants silence it must be because he or she is sad. Remember, both silent and sad begin with the word ‘S’.

People say “How can a person stay silent forever?” When they know that the other is upset about something. 
This is true. A person’s emotions always make the best of him and he can never stay silent.

There is noise everywhere. There is the jungle music in the jungle, the buzzing of busy bees, the chattering of a lady and the busy streets of the city, the list goes on and on. A human is filled with joy when he or she hears the voice of a companion. A mother, at the time of birth giving is never happy about silence.
As a child, I remember I used to put on music before sleep because I could not stand the silence before bedtime. I would not be afraid of the creaking of crickets at night. Instead, I would be afraid of a room without the whirring of the fan, the scrapping against cardboard made by rats and the wonderful sound of my mother.

How can one live in silence? Thinking of it sends chills down my spine. The ghostliness of an empty silent house has no movement inside and no life. A silent house is always targeted to be a haunted house. Silence, in my opinion, signifies lifelessness.

I remember once, when I went to Murree, the place where I was staying had children. But at night, when they were sleeping like little angels, I felt as if something was behind me. It was because of the silence of the house.
I understand that silence is also peaceful but even when the hippie style was ‘in’, I guess that the people who loved silence, must have put on slow and low music in their homes.

A graveyard and my house share the same wall on the side. I dare not look at it whenever I cross it because of the silence. I do wonder how the people, who live in it, tolerate the silence.

What silence is; I do not know. What I do know is that my sixth sense always clicks when it occurs. The big mystery of what silence is will always remain a mystery, just like life itself. It is not a thing, it is not a feeling, nor is it human or an animal or a spirit. Perhaps one day philosophers might figure it out. But I care less. The thing I do not feel is yet a feeling and that I cannot stop. Silence is silence and it will stay like that forever.