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.

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...

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

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!

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

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1. A woman with really strong moral character (my dad revealed this to me only recently)

2. Dew drops on baby grass at dawn (my dad told me that when I was younger)

I'm Chinese, but born in Pakistan, but my family is still very traditional, and insisted on giving me a Chinese name, and thus Yi-Yin, from Vicky (Victoria) Zhuang Yi-Yin. It is also the most difficult to write characters in the Chinese writing, and rare names, apparently my dad told me it was a name only royalty used in ancient times. I chose this user name because it was unique and just me and I liked the name. The Chinese characters of this name is also very interesting. It consists of two characters. Yi's character contains the heart and human characters in it. While Yin is written in such a way that at the heart of the character, there's a character symbolizing 'big', and I call it big heart. So, I kind of feel special about this name, and am proud to be named that. I wish I could show you the characters but it's impossible because I can't find the characters anywhere online.

1. Shakir picked me up at 10 from Main Boulevard, and then we went to Hamza’s place
2. Made a detour, and went to Aitchison to pick a kid up
3. Went to 14 Tollington
4. Went to Multan Road to pick Awais
5. Went to NCA’s hostels to pick Samara, Fatima, Mathour and Sunny
6. Went to Badshahi Mosque for breakfast of Halwa Puri and Lassi (Shakir drank two glasses! And for some reason Fatima was competing with him on who could drink the fastest.)
7. Said goodbye to Amin, Umer, Sarah and Hamza, apparently Hamza’s stomach was upset, and Sarah and Amin had to go home
8. Went to Mariam Zaman’s mosque, where we took pictures, while Shakir was praying
9. Shalimar Gardens! Epic funniness, and realization that 10 year old kids are way too advance than we were, when we were 10
10. On the way to drop Arham, the Aitchisonian, and Shakir randomly, purely randomly, stopped the car and said, wait a minute, and then jumped out of the car, walked across the road, and took off his kameez and jumped into the canal, which by the way, according to Awais, is filled with sewage water from the near north. Oh and Mathour followed
11. Dropped Arham at Aitchison
12. Lawrence Garden’s tour, and the quest to find the epic-est gol gappas, and that’s where Fatima and Samara ditched, when we climbed up the hill to see the TREE!
13. Then Hashim and Sunny had this weird urge to eat Chinese food, and after discussing what to do, and whether or not to give Amel a Daewoo surprise, we went to Tao Yuan Chinese Restaurant, or as bhaiya puts it Humayun Restaurant
14. Went to Readings after sending Awais and Aamna in the rickshaws to their preferred destinations
15. Went to Daewoo for the epic surprise which turned out to be an epic fail, because we were 10 minutes late
16. Went to Amel’s place
17. Home
18. Chatted for almost another hour with Shakir and Amel on Facebook

• Making awesome since 1989 – Shakir
• Right! (while pointing left) – Awais
• They could be land rich bankrupt aristocracy without a penny to their name! Just like you… and me (while walking down the steps, spoofing Hamza) – Hashim