Duffy

Just wait till I get to Warwick Avenue.

No, I'm not referring to the university you twit =/

Sociosyllabusnotfinishing :/

I don't feel prepared for mocks. Should I? I mean, they're mocks. How is anyone supposed to take a set of exams seriously if you just go ahead and call them 'mocks'

Who was that genius anyway?

Khair. It's really hot today. Stuff that has happened lately includes me 'broadening my horizons' music-wise (Well, trying to. Whatever. Sorry love, another story for another day.) discovering a brilliant book on the French Revolution (written by a guy called H L Peacock. I kid you not) Skipping bits and pieces of school.

And the Karachi Literature Festival which could have been better but really wasn't bad. Good writers, a few compelling speakers, genuinely interesting talks. I loved sitting there and looking at the people. The educated elite who of course had to be there, the (sadly) smaller groups of students who came in a for a talk or two, the men who looked like they had come straight from work in order to listen to what Muhammad Hanif had to say.

And I met Sadia Shepard which I was quite excited about.

I still don't get why Mohsin Hamid is such a big deal though.

I bought no less than twelve books from Sunday bazaar last week. Add that to five books sitting on my bedside table and you know I haven't been reading at all. My copy of The Great Gatsby is laughing at me as I type.

Listening to Michelle Branch gets me thinking

This is us watching chances fade.

No, not me being overly dramatic but me having listened to far too much Michelle Branch due to nostalgia.

Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing here. Not here as in on this planet because I feel there are some questions that answer themselves. For those of us who can't come up with our own conclusions then they should just accept the answer is 42 and move on. 'Here' referring to what I'm doing with my life. I have a Plan B (Journalism) and a Plan C (Law) and no Plan A. Because I figure you should love Plan A so much that when you talk about it, tears should automatically start flowing. Well, the first few times anyway. But that's not it. Not articulate enough anyway. Plan A should be the something untypical.

My motto for when I'm older. If it's typical then I don't want it. Not the quintessential part time working woman (journo? lawyer?) role, not the husband, the two kids or their car pool. Not the constant bickering, the compromises, the mid life crises (because yes, there is more than one) and the realization that eventually these people will leave you and all you have is yourself but then again who-are-you? I've seen all of that. I've seen how people cling to it. To it's order and routine and predictability.

So then what do I want?

Truth is, I don't know. I could say 'freedom' and you'd laugh at me. I grew up compromising. Staying quiet at the dinner table, biting my lip and being careful of my dupatta. That sort of thing. But sometimes I say 'freedom' out loud just to test it out. To taste it really.

I see typicality everyday. Dinner guests and their forced, polite conversation. I find it funny, when we're all sitting at the table, to wonder about how much we all really hate each other. But it's not just dinner table conversation. I see it everywhere. Friend's dreams and attitudes. (What are we talking about these days? Prom dates, of course.) Snide comments and the looks we all sometimes get. Okay, so I get them a lot. Even the opinions of teachers, the behaviour of strangers. I don't know. It's not something I can define. I just know that I don't want any of it. I don't want to be typical now -and unfortunately sometimes I am and sometimes I need to be - and I certainly don't want to be typical later.

I love phenomenal women. Audrey Hepburn, Baroness Blixen, Oprah, the Rani of Jhansi, Sujata Bhatt, my mother. It's really that simple. I want to be one too. And it doesn't matter whether I go for Plan A or Plan B or C if I realize that really, they were Plan A all along.

We've been put on this planet for a reason. To be untypical, to understand what it wrong and what is right and how huge the grey areas really are, to perhaps try and right those wrongs and most importantly to do what we love. Once we understand that things like prom dates, shopping, bitchery and infatuation seem miniscule in comparison.

After all, social suicide may just be a dramatic term and nothing else

Jazz

Peace strikes you at the funniest times (Wow. Peace strikes. Almost-an-oxymoron.) What business do I have being peaceful now with sociology to worry about, history homework to tackle and a politics test first thing tomorrow morning. Should I not, at this very minute, be agonizing over the state of my hair? Or, like many of my friends, why no one has asked me to prom yet?

After all, prom is only a month and a half away *Insert eye roll here*

But I'm not doing any of these things. I am sitting on my bedroom floor, listening to jazz and I can't remember the last time I was this happy. I love jazz. And the man's voice on the radio. I sort of wish I had paid attention to the number listeners can text into just so I can text him. What a strange sentiment. I mean, what would I say?

It seems pointless to get up, turn the lights on and read for History or even to text someone and ask what chapters are coming in tomorrows test.

The whole number thing I did a couple of days ago was totally out of line. Sometimes I wonder if it pays to stick to girl rules. I should really learn what the rules are before being able to stick to them.

It doesn't matter right now. Jazz is good. The RJ's voice is downright sexy. He probably has an earring. What a gig though, midnight to 2 am jazz programme on the radio.

I wonder what his day job is.