A strange feeling

I have a  friend who lives down the street, he moved here about 6 years ago from a village when his father passed away, he is 17 years old now so he moved here when he was pretty young, he had bad company when he moved here, he is the only child and his mother is a very innocent and very unaware of the city life, he lives with his mother's brother who has a big family of his own. some time ago he came to me and explained that he is very tensed and needs a way out of his current life situation, i welcomed him, had him avoid the bad company he was in, helped him get rid of the girl that was eating him alive and called herself his girlfriend, made him realize that he is responsible for his own future and his mother and that he should work hard and stop spending money on meaningless things and save up. After that we used to meet everyday talk to each other everyday. We became really good friends and he even started introducing me as his big brother to everyone, whenever he had a problem he would just come to me and we would talk about it.
A few months ago an employer called him from Dubai. They wanted him to work with them at a laptop repairing store because he is really great at it. He told me about it and we were really happy that he is getting such opportunities but this trip of his got delayed every time they tried to call him because he was too young to travel without a guardian so it kind of became a joke between us and i don't know may be some part of me started believing that he is never going to go, then a few weeks ago the employer called and told him that he is starting a new store in Nigeria and they want him to help start the new store there and that there was no age restriction for Nigeria so a new hope rose but still it was taking so much time and we didn't think that he will actually go until today, he is leaving tomorrow at 6 am and i don't know i spent the whole day with him like in normal routine and now when i shook hands with for the last time before his trip, it kind of killed me, i am having a strange feeling i don't know how to describe it, i guess my heart is sinking, i am not liking anything, i feel like just sitting alone and taking a nap for a long long time, i am reluctant to meet people. I just never thought he would leave and now he is leaving and i can't stop him because it is for his own good. I will come around but i think it will take some time, i wish the best for his future and stay happy :)

Chat

Most of us have a lot of friends and we meet up, we discuss various topics, we crack jokes on each other and have a good time but how often do we have a real meaningful chat with our friends, there is a common perception that guys don't really feel but this perception is very wrong, they do feel but just don't show it. Boys have as much feelings as anyone, they like things and they don't like things, they feel happy and they do get frustrated too, boys do feel affection and sometimes respond to it and they also feel betrayal and ignorance but don't really talk about it, this habit of holding things in often cause them to behave rudely and affect their behavior a lot. Boys are often shy to open up to their friends or may be they think if they open up to someone it will be considered as their weakness or somehow people will think less manly of them but believe me even the strongest of us actually really want to open up to someone who will listen to them without judging them. A single meaningful chat with a true friend can help them release their long held frustrations and freshen up their mood and even change their perception about various things in life. Boys should be tough, there is no doubt about that but opening up isn't really a weakness it is actually a very effective way to vent out so you can take more of life's crap, for me that is actually a way of strengthening yourself. If i talk about myself, talking to a friend about some problem that i am facing proves really helpful, after a good 30 mins chat i feel very light and fresh, that helps me concentrate better on work, focus and work even harder for the things that really matter. We often try to find meaning in something which is actually not such a big deal we overthink, stress and overload over mind with stupid things and loose the sight of things that really matter, talking to a friend can help you realize that so you can focus on the things that really matter. So an advice to you all, try talking to someone who is willing to listen and to help you, you will feel better, :)

Real Loss

My family is that kind of a family that sticks together, most of us live in joint family systems, my mother has 3 brothers, 2 of them used to live together years ago in another town, in every vacations i used to go over there and spent some days with my cousins most of us belonged to the same age group. one of them was my Nousherwan, he was the son of my mother's youngest brother, he was 7 months younger than me and we were best friends, i think we became best friends on the day he was born, i would spend all the time at his house every time i went there in my vacations, we were super close as kids, we did fight a lot but it was always about something stupid and after a few minutes we would patch up and start playing again, he taught me to ride a bicycle we did so much fun things together and i didn't realize when he became a part of me, i didn't realize it until the day his father moved the family to USA forever, i used to visit him twice a year when he was here in Pakistan that is not a lot but when i heard that he has moved to USA it broke my heart but i was a kid and i carried on with my life but time to time i would feel like talking to him but i had no contact number then i grew up a little and got my own mobile fone, i somehow managed to get his home number in California and after 5 years of him being away i called him, someone picked up the fone and in an american accent a manly voice asked "hello, who is this?" and i for a second lost my breadth and then i replied " hello, can i talk to Nousherwan, i am his cousin Arslan from Pakistan" and that manly voice suddenly cracked into a childish excited giggle and said "hey its me how have you been", it was him and he was even more excited than i was we talked for about half an hour then two days later we talked again and then a week later again, after that we couldn't talk much because of high school, then about 3 years ago he befriended me up on facebook and we had contact after that, a few months after that he told me that he is moving back to Pakistan to become a doctor and then he did, he moved back to Pakistan but in a different city, we exchanged mobile numbers and used to talk a lot in the start but then we got busy with our lives and used to chat rarely, in these 3 years we planned a lot to meet but never got the chance, about 2 months ago on the night of 14th February i read his 5 hours old facebook status "feeling sad" i immediately thought of texting him but then i read the comments on that post and it felt like it was just a joke, it was late and i was very tired so i thought to myself that let's sleep for now and will text him in the morning so i slept, the next day i woke up to the cries of my mom, she was talking to someone on the fone and crying, i was half asleep and couldnt understand what was happening after a minute when the cries got louder i immediately ran to my mom and when my mother saw me she screamed to me " Arslan Nousherwan is no more with us" i coudnt understand what she was saying and asked with my heart sinking "mom what is happening, what are you saying" and she said "Nousherwan is dead, he had a car crash", i dont know what happened next, i dont remember the next 10-15 mins, the only thing i remember is that i had tears running down my face and i was shaking, i asked my mom to pack the bags and lets just leave to where he was living in a hostel and in a few hours we left for my village where we were expecting the funeral, after that it was just alot of crying, funeral and other stuff, i spent 3 days there in those 3 days i wept in front of no one, i stayed strong got to work for his funeral and other ceremonies etc. the 1st night there, i was alone and after a hard day and the only thing that was in my mind was why didnt i text him last night, was sleep so important to me? what could have been if i had talked to him last night, i should have texted him, i blamed myself for this, i wept and wept and just wished that i'd get a chance to talk to him for the last time just a single word from him would have meant the world to me but that word never came from him. people might think that i lost a cousin but in reality i lost a brother, a friend and i would say i lost a part of me with him that is never coming back, i lost something that day which i didnt realize i had until that day when it was gone, we werent talking much lately i mean the last time we talked was a text chat about 47 days ago from the day he died. that day i realized that the people you meet daily and keep a constant contact with are not the only people you love or care about, some people are really close to your heart but due to some reasons you dont talk to them that often but it hurts when they leave, it hurts when you get to know that you are never going to hear from them again, it hurts it hurts a lot when someone talk about them or if you hear thier name somewhere, it hurts badly when you recall the time you spent with them and it hurts when you find yourself alone in a crowd and you are just thinking about that person who left, you still have all your friends, you still meet all the people daily that you used to meet in your daily routine but nothing is same again, food looses it's taste, things loose their color and everything is just dull for you.

According to me that is the real loss, the loss of a loved one, i have so many friends but Nousherwan will always stay in my heart, he will always be with me and i can never let him go, it's been almost 2 months and still when i hear his name my heart suddenly sinks, this is the real loss :( , my brother i will never forget you and you will stay in my heart smiling like this forever

Getting a hang of it

So now I am off the mark and this is my 3rd post, i think i am getting a hang of it now. 2 days ago i didnt know what a blog is and i saw a friend's blog and thought of giving it a shot and started writing whatever came to my mind so the 1st post was an introduction, on the next post i was blank but i wanted to write anyway so i was using my fone while thinking about what to write and it hit me "let's write about smartfones" so i wrote about smartfones but i am still not satisfied i want more, what is this urge to write a post that strikes me again and again, i mean it makes no sense, i dont know who is reading my blog i am not even sure if anyone is reading it but still i want to write, no particular topic no thoughts just an urge. Why is writing a blog so addicting, why people write it? i have a theory for it, people who have had a lot of experiences which they want to share with others but never get a proper chance to speak about them or are shy to speak about them tend to write blogs, it is a way of telling the truth and i think it helps you find out what is bugging you, a research shows that a large population prefers textual medium to speak the truth, and writing a blog helps in it, text messaging, emails, whatsapp, bbm etc are all major textual mediums so if anyone wants to confess something or speak the truth, they tend to turn towards these mediums because  when not facing the person you are talking to kind of helps you express better because you are not afraid of the awkward facial expressions and you dont have to look in that person's eyes because that needs a lot of confidence and strength to look in the eye and speak the truth or express your feelings. Blogging has an another advantage over text messaging, while blogging you dont specify the individual you are talking about and the thing bugging you the most is released from your system and still remains unsaid to that person hence relieving you of the tension and avoiding awkward situations, I think this is the reason for this urge to write a blog, i am sharing whatever is coming to my mind and i am not afraid of any reaction here well i kind of am afraid but it is helping me vent out my feelings so this is definitely becoming my new hobby, blogging,
have a good one, Arslan out.

Smartfones

As i am studying Computer Science i naturally developed an interest in mobile OS technology, i used to have  java powered phone by samsung, i used it for quite some time and then suddenly a boom of smartfones hit the generation, blackberry and Iphone became kind of a face of the "cooler smarter and wealthy" generation. i had a java powered fone which served my purposes of call, messaging and internet browsing very well but when everyone around me started buying smartfones specially Iphones, i wanted to have one too but they were very expensive so i planned and tried to convince my father upon buying me an iphone, at 1st he didnt want to but then i convinced him and he gave me the money, So i called up a friend who had been an Iphone user for a long time to help me buy an Iphone. I was willing to buy an Iphone 3GS. We went to the biggest mobile market in town and started exploring we came upon various Iphones but none satisfied my friend and i started loosing hope, then my friend asked the shop keeper to show us a Samsung Galaxy S1, it looked cool but i wanted an Iphone. it was in a good condition and fell in our price range, so my friend started talking me into buying this android powered Galaxy S1 and eventually i agreed, it was running on stock gingerbread 2.3.3, i was really happy with it, the very next day i went to a software guy and got it updated to gingerbread 2.3.6. and since then i am an android user, i have used Iphone, blackberry, android and windows fones but i am an android lover. In the start i wanted to have an Iphone because of its smooth functioning, and millions of applications but when i used android i got to know that almost all of those applications are available for android as well and that how restricted Apple IOS is. it was suffocating as compared to android, i rooted my android fone and put ice cream sandwich 4.0.1 on it and later on upgraded it to 4.3.1 without a problem. android's smoothness reached the level of iphone and also gave me freedom to put any 3rd party app and various mods on it. the only thing that bugs me about android is its limited application memory. It is a stupid restriction. my fone has 2 GB internal memory and 16 GB memory card but my applications are only allowed to use about 900 MB space which restricts the number of  applications to be installed on the fone. but as i said freedom to do anything, i rooted my fone and used an application called "link2sd" which helped me transfer all my apps along with data to the memory card and thus install as many apps as i want, another problem with low cost android fones is the low RAM memory, i solved that problem with my fone by using another application known as "swapper" to allot a 1GB virtual memory to the fones RAM hence increasing performance so in short android is love. what about the windows fones then, NOKIA is a big windows fone producer in the market, their fones are amazing looking, good hardware and powerful cameras but i personally dont like the windows mobile OS. that single tile screen bugs me and i got bored of it very soon. And blackberry in my opinion is just for emails and texting no catchy feature for us teenagers.

1st Attempt

Hello everyone, my name is Arslan i am blogging for the 1st time, i dont know much about Blogs and i am not sure what kind of audience my blog will get and what to write. Lets start with a little Introduction. I am a student doing my bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Comsats Institute of Information and Technology ( CIIT ), it is ranked NO.1 in the IT category in the Higher Education Commission ( HEC ) of Pakistan. It is my last semester and i am working as an intern on Software Information and Event Management ( SIEM) system with a research group known as Applied Security Engineering and Research Group ( ASERG ) established in our university. It is a great opportunity for me to work with such professionals and learn from them, this topic is comparatively new and still undiscovered in most countries, specially Pakistan. I have started my job hunt already and i am looking at multiple options right now, may God help and guide me to the right path. Apart from all this i am a basketball player and i have played under 20 nationals for my city and it was an honor to represent my city on a national level, after that i gathered some players and started my own basketball club where we learn from each other and strive to be the best.
My hobbies include long walks, exercise, watching movies, chatting and researching on various topics. I love kids, i find them very interesting and according to many people i am a very good listener. I guess that is all about me other than that i am open for questions i like sharing, Arslan out.