HELL IN A CELL!

“There was a thrill! There was suspense! The war of presentation was going on! All participants were acting like professionals, giving their best to conquer the stage. My kids were nervous and so was I” These are the feelings of every mentor and their participants present in the auditorium of Bahria University event “Mega Presentation III”

The experience of mentoring a group of five was amazing. They tolerated me, my orders and so called my “motivational speeches”. I still remember the situation when I was cooling them down when I myself wanted someone by my side. Thanks for the cup of tea that helped me when my body temperature was shooting!

Two weeks ago, I met five people who were TOTALLY UNKNOWN to me and now they were one of the most WELL KNOWN people of the auditorium who were not only representing their individuality but the whole group and of course ME!

Muzammil, Sunaina, Adnan, Fizza and Naveed were my five participants working under me who tolerated my orders and gave their best to make the “EXTRA SERIOUS TOPIC- Guantanamo bay” digestive one!  Thank you Naveed for suggesting the topic, Sunaina to be there with me from the very beginning, Muzammil for putting your efforts in presentation, in flyer and for accepting my orders on URGENT NOTICE. (See I added your name in my precious note too  😛 )

Apologizes for Fizza, I know you were my target whole two weeks but seriously I am bad in controlling my anger. I am unfortunately TIME FREAK!! Well, Last but not least! Thank you ASAD for mentioning my name at the end and stop being EMOTIONAL- It’s over!! Opps! I mean Adnan! < I again got confused!:P>. Thank you all for such EMO type texts, I feel so respected, totally OUT OF THE WORLD!! 😉

In the end, a short message for all the participants, it was a small competition. I can assure you all will do much better next time. After all it was never about winning or losing, it was about having experience. We might have loss the stage but we won the EXPERIENCE!! I feel proud to be your mentor. CHEERS!!!

“I AM- a journey to self discovery” – Event Coverage

To make a Better “You” out of YOUTH, to enable you to think out of CUBE!- is the mission CUBE screams of!

Before starting the summary of the event “I AM”, let’s know something about the CUBE.

‘Cube’ is an organization founded by young and energetic Mr. Umair Lodhi who is working for the personal development and empowerment of the youth of Pakistan, to help them realize their potentials, by which they won’t only be better able to understand themselves but also they will be able to work for the betterment of the country. 
Cube’s events are not boring seminar/speech/lecture in which you sit and listen about how to or how you can, it`s something more than that. Cube has the ability to inject the dose of fun and excitement. They emphasize TO DO rather than TO THINK how to do. Cube events consist of activities which make you brainstorm OUT OF THE CUBE!
Best communicator for The YOUTH is the YOUTH. CUBE‘s team is a part of youth circle who helps Pakistan youth to grow and accomplish their goals. They enhance their skills to handle different situations in their personal and professional life at an early age. 

These are some words from one of the 35 attendees- Sabir Shah- who took out some of his precious time to explain me his feelings about the event. Special thanks to him!

 

“Mere andar bas aik masla hai…nai nai..wo nai..masla ye hai k mein decision nai le paata” were the words I heard as I opened the T2F door in which “I AM” was being conducted by the CUBE team.

The venue selected was far away from everyone’s approach. We travelled so far for attending hardly 3 hours session. I got late because of SUN-DAY traffic jams and finding T2F was itself a difficult task! After finding THE SECOND FLOOR T2F, I sighed with relief and pushed the door with ‘peace niche’ written on it. There were some Urdu literature books leaning to a brick pillar as I entered the gate. There was an interesting board above those books quoting ‘Parhein ya na Parhein, le to lain URDU ka bhala hoga’. The sentence made me smile because these days everyone is running after ENGLISH! Well, other than this some heart throbbing pictures and paintings were hung all around the walls with lightening which intensified the beauty of pictures.

Since I was around ten minutes late, the front seats were already occupied so I had to go behind almost 35 people. I didn’t want to miss any part of the show anymore so I quickly adjusted myself and started enjoying the interesting skit which was going on.  The skit seemed to be representing my own story and I guess every person sitting there must be feeling the same way. Each and every dialogue gave us the laughs and the ‘hmms‘.

The skit was followed by a speaking session of Azeem Mustafa in which he told us how to discover yourself, believe in yourself, and to have faith in your abilities and how to do good to the society. They emphasized on doing what we loved and to be motivated towards our aims.

‘A goal is to be achieved by you and only you, not by someone else’  Azeem quoted as he was walking to and fro with the delightful artistic pictures in the background hung on the wall behind him. The soothing surrounding with motivational speech of the speaker was a good combination for us to absorb.

After Azeem Mustafa, Umair Lodhi took the charge of the stage with his motivational speech. He shared his own experiences and gave examples of Ameen Guljee and Jahangir Khan which were very inciting. He constantly gave some examples to prove his point. There were some lines which were very philosophical yet very inspiring such as “Every person has the ability to think the way they want to”. For example, when one is talking to you, you can think of it in two ways.  Are we listening or are they talking?  It’s totally upon us to decide what to choose” Then he asked us to stand and to TRY to lift our chairs up. As we lifted it up, he said “Why are you lifting it up? I just asked you to TRY”. We weren’t clear as to what point he was trying to accomplish there and I could see the question marks on everyone’s face but then Umair explained “See? This is what I’m aiming to explain you. There is no such word as TRYING, either you do it or you don’t” Isn’t that thought provoking? These sentences impressed everybody and he was given huge applause at the end of his speaking session.

We were asked to go upstairs for some refreshments but apart from refreshments; activities were also waiting for us. After seeing Rubik Cube, Guitar and different board games, my excitement to be in the event diverted to be there at T2F. Great event held in a great place is called a PERFECT COMBINATION!

We randomly selected tables and after sitting, introduced each other.  As soon as we were getting the hang of each other Umari Lodhi came and ask two people from each table to change their places with other group. I was one of those who changed the place in spite of my unsocial characteristics. I met Mohammed Askar sahib who is the vice principal of the KAIZEN college, a teacher of the same college and two more exciting people.

The main topic was to conduct S.W.O.T analysis on how WE can change the world. The topic was divided into subtopics for all groups. Some were given “exposure” as a subtopic; some had “technology”, some had “behaviors” and we had to do “communication skills”.

He asked to do this task without any resources provided. Fortunately we had the Lady with the brain who took out a paper, a pen and we started to jot our points. Although it wasn’t easy task but due to the brain of Mhd. Askar, it turned out to be comparatively easy but it was still a nice and healthy activity. We tried to jot everything we could. Just writing down wasn’t the task but we had to present our SWOT analysis to everyone too which was another challenging task for those who had stage fright. Everyone gave their best which could be seen through their presentations. Another best thing about the event was ICE-CREAMS!! Yes! We were given ice creams to chill while we were struggling hard.

When we were done with the analysis I went back to the previous table to mingle with the new people and tried to make friends. We chit chatted and played the guitar with broken strings. It was fun!

In the end, the girl who performed in the skit asked us to pen down our names for the certificates. Everyone received a certificate of participation from CUBE and then we had a memorable group photo with the whole amazing YOUNG TEAM which compromises of speakers, drama team, the management team and none other than young and energetic Umair Lodhi– owner and founder of CUBE. It was the end of our memorable three hours with some people of our own youth circle who taught us some basic rules of life which we were unconsciously aware of! But sometimes there is a need for someone to remind us those things again.

This was one of the events which can be a big step towards the change PAKISTANIS are desperate for because for any revolution we have to change ourselves first. We will have to REVOLUTIONIZE ourselves. We will have to believe in ourselves. In the end I would summarize everything I learnt in some words…” Motivation towards success is the language we should speak; devotion towards success is poison.

Are You Mentally iLL?

October 13 started as the most normal day with all freaks roaming around, nerds running towards their classes, but something was fishy. There were some students, wearing green coats, dressed perfectly; they were running here and there.  Following those students, I read about it at various places on notice board. They reason they were giving to be organized was something like this:

“A pinch of testing and a dash of insight building feedback – this camp is a unique opportunity exclusive to students, staff and faculty members of the University so that they can experience psychological testing and feedback first hand in a relaxed and fun filled environment. Confidentiality is always our top priority and rest assured that you have nothing but professionalism to expect from our well trained senior students manning the various stalls at the camp.”

Then, I came to know that this event was called MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS PROGRAM, which is organized every year in university especially for the students of Bahria University by Bahria University- Institute of Professional Psychology (IPPBU). After attending the event, I felt they were up to the mark! The management was good, the students were well trained! All the management team was very friendly. They were organized. There were around 500 visitors and all left that event with content face. I was one of the 500 visitors. It was an amazing experience for me to know about myself by professionals. What I liked specially about this event was its contents; because, to carry out an event on such a topic, it is a tough job to keep the audience active and make the program interesting. They did this by focusing on five areas: Anger Management, Emotion Management, Organizational Control, Mood Management and Drawing for Personality.

At Anger Management, I had to tick mark the “anger level”, I thought I would have at the particular moment described there (which were very difficult believe me!!). Then based on my points, the psychologist taught me how to control anger. When I moved towards Emotion area, people were being handed with different Questionnaire (bit confusing one) from which they come to know if they are emotional or not and the methods to control it. Then, there was Organizer and Mood Management where they were counseling how to organize your life and to manage your mood swings, which I found very important for me. Last but not least, there was drawing activity in which I had to draw human body and after observing the way I draw it, the professionals were describing my personality.

Every counselor seemed to be very dedicated and well trained. They were treating their “patients” very friendly. Professors were guiding students. I also came across faculty members who were taking guidance from senior professors. At a point, it seemed as if all the attendees are a family showing care to each other through counseling.

When I was done with my investigation, I thought to gather some feedback from the visitors.

Murtaza Hashmi – BBA 7C expressed his views by saying:

“This camp was a very good initiative took by the Psychology students which provided awareness about people’s behavior & way of thinking. They were well organized in spite of covering large area.”

Abdul Aleem- BBA 3E

“I thought psychology is the most ordinary subject a person choose when he isn’t have any other choice. These people proved me wrong!”

Maryam- BBA 4

“Though there were times when i said NO! i am not what you are saying but there were ttimes when i was like SHIT! how are you judging??- Really nice experience!”

Palwasha Ashraf 7E

“I really appreciate the Idea behind this Mental Health Awareness Camp..They almost identified correct characteristics in the people about there traits and behavior..”

Apart from observing and asking feedback, my own experience, being a patient, was bit confusing. I registered for three stalls, but I was referred to other stalls also because of my complicated nature. Maybe, my answers were confusing or the strategies they were telling were already in run, I got no proper cure.

Well, I like the questionnaire. At least, they forced me to think about myself. There were some questions in which I got confused because they were so common that I never thought about it. But, I never thought these common questions can affect my personality. I personally liked drawing section very much. At other stalls, I observed students weren’t judging, but trying to get what I knew about myself and let me know the cure for it.

I almost gave up, but when I reached drawing, the person hit me with a sword in first attempt. I felt as if energy, I lost in other stalls, was all back. I chatted with that Commando for half an hour or so, but still I was ready to talk more and more! He was again and again hitting the nail on the hat! He diagnosed me complicated as well as Interesting at the same time! ENOUGH SAID to explain me!

Mental health awareness programs is good initiative in a country like Pakistan.It is important to know that psychiatrists are not only for mad people but psychiatrists are also physicians who enhance the person’s quality of life by providing psychiatric assessment and treatment.