A Whole Year!

It’s been a whole year since I last posted anything here. I am surprised because I thought it had been much longer. Good to see some loyal fans have been visiting the place. Shows I’ve been missed. Here is why I stopped.

I am famous. Well, kind of. People in Pakistan know me. Particularly in the tech industry. And I also say the most ridiculous of things. If a thought comes into my mind I tend to blurt it out. If I get a feeling, a vibe, I say it. If I have an opinion, again, I don’t keep it to myself. Previously it was just me those things would hurt (or benefit!). Not any more.

Since last year, here is what has happened:

• I became a World Bank Consultant
• I joined Enclude Pakistan as a Senior Consultant on Sustainable Business Practices and am working on WomenX, a training program for existing women entrepreneurs to help them scale up
• Was invited to the APrIGF in Taipei and attended a workshop on Women Human Rights
• Was spoken of very highly in a New York Times bestseller
• Am speaking soon at a UN – ISOC event

So I am all kinds of hoitey toitey cool NGO auntie who pretends to know tech. And then some. *pictures to be followed*

Now if I say the things I want to say it would get me into a whole lot of trouble. I am not giving you details. But if you REALLY want to know, oh my dahlin’ what long hours of juicy gossip and heartbreaking, disappointing, lose-my-faith-in-humanity chats we could have. But I can’t spill it on the blog. Just trust me on that one. So I have been keeping quiet. But something made me come back here.

Few weeks back the team from UpWork contacted me. They wanted to speak to me about some program I might be interested in. And half way through the call I couldn’t keep it together any more. The tears just started pouring no matter how hard I tried to stop. It took me back to the early years working on oDesk. Staying up all night just so I was one of the first 5 people to bid on a project that just paid $2 for essays that took me hours to finish. When no one believed online work was real. That you could work on a computer using the Internet and could actually get paid for it. That I wasn’t up to no good during those late nights but was actually working till my fingers hurt so bad I couldn’t straighten them out. When my biggest dream was to somehow make $500 per month.

And here were people from that platform talking to me, sharing jokes, ideas, possibilities! Phew …. *deep breaths*. Nothing has been as big a win as this.

Can I be a little grown up-ish and say something? Oh what the hell – I don’t need your permission. I forgot it was my blog. 😛

Don’t put limits on your dreams. No matter how crazy they may be. People will tear you down, poison you to your very soul with their doubts and jeers and negativity, but don’t give up. It’s OK to go slow. Take your time. Breathe! Hide, if you need to. Escape, when you need to. It’s OK to do that for a while. But always come back and continue.

This is me coming straight from the heart.

In other random news, I finally visited Hunza. Met the current CEO, Kamal. And had a CRAZY FUN TIME. Was interviewed for a cover page story of an urdu newspaper’s women edition. Made me realize the power of Urdu newspapers – WDL’s official number rang incessantly. BTW our official number is 0336-WDL-0-WDL. Cool, right? 😀 Finally bought a MacBook Pro. Yes, no more a poor woman. 😀 I have gained enough weight to make 3 plus size models from.

 

And sorry – Facebook is taking forever to load pictures and I am losing patience. Later! Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee