Friday, February 17, 2006

2 false alarms in 2 days!

The funniest thing happened today to Azfar (my lil bro)... he woke up around noon today. No one was home.. so he steps out of his room... and the house sensor alarms start going off! Apparently my parents and them all went out... and put the alarm on "away"(obviously forgetting Azfar was home), which activates the security sensors. And one of the sensors upstairs is directly in front of his room's door... so when he opened it.. the sensors went off! He was still half asleep.. and then the security alarm company called?! In the case of a real break in, would they expect the burglar to answer the phone or something? Makes no sense... so i dunno how he got it to turn off... prob deactivated the alarm.. but it was jus sooo funny to hear. Glad it didn't happen to me.. I probably woulda been so out of it that i woulda confessed to breaking in or something.. bechara Azfar.. i think he had quite the scare. Not a good way to start Reading Week.

And jus the other day, something similar happend.. someone opened the door w/o turning off the alarm.. and the security alarm company called.. and said something about alerting the police!! So Ammi got freaked out and called my Dad.. and they sorted it out. The company must think we're a bunch of pakis who don't know how to work the alarm :S

2 false alarms in 2 days!

What I've been upto...

Sorry... been on hiatus for a while... had MIDTERMS man.. but alhumdalillah they are all over now (as of yesterday)! Soooo... wooo hooo... Reading Week!! Nothing much planned at this moment.... tons of sleeeeeep... maybe fit in some reading here and there... wanna hook up with my Farhi.. and work here and there.

But sooooo much has happened in the last month, that i havent gotten around to telling y'all.

First, my cousin & his wife came down for Pakistan about a month ago!! Finally... but bad timing because me and Az have been crazyy busy with school and midterms. They had initially planned to make it for Bro's wedding... but it didn't work out unfortunately :( BUT they've seen like every pic and video related to the wedding.. so it's all good. Even the decorations from the Mehndi are still up.

So we've been taking them out and about... to you know the typical Canadian hotspots... Niagara Falls, shopping malls... Downtown TO... Gerrard Street ofcourse!.. and we really have NO IDEA where else to take them. They're around my parents' age... so stuff like skiing and skating and wintery activities don't really appeal to them... so that rules out a lot of stuff. Well, we went to Nathan Phillips Square for WinterCity 2 weeks ago... it was soooo cool! I'd never even heard about it until Rehan mentioned it last year... there was an ice sculpture exhibit.. and skating and a concert. But, it was damn cold that day :S so atleast they've been able to experience the "real" Canadian winter. Any ideas where we can take em?

Second, I am a Naani! My niece in Pakistan, Nazia had a baby boy a few weeks ago! Which makes me his Naani, which roughly translates into a Grandma :S ... pretty crazy huh? And my parents are Great-Grandparents... we've all jus aged a generation.. so the next time any of you complain about being 24 or whatever... think bout me.

Third, went to Deej's lil party.... was soooo much fun. Tons of wicked food (you have amazing skills in the kitchen!), good friends, more than enough indian movies, songs and dances... and moral of the story: Johnny still ain't all that!

Happy belated Bday Homo :) and the monkey was jus tooo funny... and the CAKE... Marr u really outdid urself with that one. Interesting night that is for sure!


Ohhh and tons of yummy food making been going on at home as of late... we made Chana Bhatura last week, Daal bharri roti last night... and other things i cant even remember.. ohh and we're gonna make halwa puri on the weekend... mmmmm my favourite!


Hina's dinner party, Feed the Streets & Reading Week coming up... should be a good week :)

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

One Ummah Fundraising Dinner

After 3 months of waiting, finally the Fundraising Gala took place last Friday! Alhumdalillah, we walked into a room filled to capacity... yeah we got there fashionably late.. tee hee.. come on, it was Friday and we had to iron our clothes (some of us twice) and get ready...

[Top]: King Sarah & my Queen Marria

Getting ready was half the fun... me and Madihah went over to her cuz, Mou's place... her place is amazingggggg... we all ended up matching coincidentally ofcourse.. we're not nerds like that.. although Maddy was sad when we were trying to convince her to wear her hot magenta suit because she wouldn't be matching... nerd. So
we finally pull into Woodbine.. and the parking lot
was rammed! But luckily, there was a car pulling out of a spot when we turned in.. so we ran to get it... BUT this woman got in before Mou could get in... after a 1 minute staredown, she finally left.. and we were on our way. We ran into Sara in the parking lot... who was also wearing blue!!

Alhumdalillah, the dinner was amazing and i think they were able to raise alot. I think it's too early to tell how much exactly was raised, but from the sounds of it from Yaseen, the dinner was a success!

[Left]: Maddy and I

The tables were named (ie. Patience, Trust, etc.) instead of being numbered which i thought was really creative. The Programme started off with this guy (sorry don't rem his name) telling us about the trip he had just made to the earthquake ridden part of Pakistan/Kashmir... and it was emotional. It reminded us that
tomorrow (future) is not promised to anyone and
that we must continue to give in the way of the earthquake, Tsunami and other disasters as the restructuring and rebuilding process still has a long ways to go. So let's all please keep all the victims of these disasters in our prayers.

Dinner was good as always... Mmmm butter chicken & palak paneer! Which made up for us missing appetizers. Dessert was Gulab Jamman and mango ice cream.. as always. Thanks for the "heads up" Marria :P !! There were also tons of raffle draws.. which none of us won anything :(Mou was especially sad.. she bought like 10 tickets... we call this one: Mou is a Loser.. haha.

And ofcourse, we took tons of pics.... funniest part of the night was Marria shaking the camera.. hahaaa... that uncle sitting at the table next to us was laughing at us...
The Entertainment was top-notch... or as i like to say.. funtastic! The Indonesian drummers were amazing... totally the best part of the night... they were wayyyy better than any Dhol player I've ever heard and I live in Brampton.. I've heard/seen my fair share. I'm gonna book em for Maddy's wedding :D.

[top]: Sabina, Shazia, Iram, Iram's cuz [bottom]: Romana, Sumz, me, Marria

Azhar Usman & Preach were good as well, altho I expected more new material from them... come on you can only recycle so many times... but they still kept us laughing the whole time.

Overall, we all it was a great night. Everyone looked amazing, entertainment was great, food
was great. Teal baby...

Good job, One Ummah! Pulling off an event like that is no easy job... it takes a lot of time, dedication and patience. May Allah (SWT) reward you all for all of your time and efforts. Ameen.