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AlphaSquared

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Stranger in a Strange Land.

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I along with my team was part of this project, the Lahore SafeCity project, working closely with BES to deliver the required technology. I had a lead role in most of the projects and was familiar with all of their workings to a good extent.

I clearly remember going to give a demo of one the systems and at the end of it the British Consultant belonging to ARUP consulting firm told the Huawei software team in a passing remark "lets meet later and i`ll teach you guys about version control". Thats how I came to realize that the Huawei team may have hardware expertise, but the people they had working at SafeCity Lahore were not very competent at software.

Midway through our engagement some members of the Punjab Police (government) informed us that the Huawei folks were taking our documentation for various projects and shopping around for cheaper quotes. This is where things started going really sour.

Aside from this we encountered many other hurdles from Day 1 and the overall process was very unpleasant to say the least.

10 Hens and 2 Roosters.

Not kidding. They eat worms and stuff around the backyard, and whatever organic trash we have at the end of each day. I prefer the fresh free-roam eggs over store-bought any day and I also really like the farm sounds.

This may sound like a joke but it really isn't.

From an Islamic religious perspective, the soul is taken out of the body when you sleep and then put back into it when you wake up. Much the same way as when you die.

So there you have it :)

Agreed. I've noticed that sometimes I get a huge boost of happiness by simply smiling and giving a greeting to strangers passing by who seem to be having a tough time...

Seeing the huge smile on their face when they see a random stranger greet them brings me to the verge of tears.

The life of this world can be tough on people. Every little bit helps.

As someone who struggles with this on and off, probably more on than off but I dont like to admit that, I find gratitude to be the one thing that makes a huge difference in my life. It fits in nicely and deeply with my religion as well so there's that.

Externally though people think I'm a very happy person. Internally I know its just easy for me to forget or push away the dark thoughts for periods of time, but when I let them surface, they can cause a lot of sadness.

The thing about me is that I am a very logical person. I recognize and find it very easy to deal with the fact that depression is by and large a chemical imbalance. So I often find it very easy to label my current sadness as something caused by lack or excess of chemicals in my brain and that helps me cope a lot with things as well.

I've found depressed people tend to be told a lot to excercise and dont consider it as a solution, but again for me I find it fairly easy to co-relate the low points in my life with a lack of excercise and fresh air. So this tends to again help me push myself out of my low moods.

A friend of mine who's currently honeymooning in Istanbul says the riots are mostly regarding the laws against the sale and use of alcohol........

Him and his wife were caught in the midst of a riot and teargassed. They saw tons of public urination and most of the protestors are 25 or younger and drunk + smashing beer glasses all over...