What’s Up, Pandas?

kill me now 👍

😭I don't want to work another summer in a restaurant!! But I'll focus on the positive. So, after several months, I was finally able to pet the neighbors cat last night. He also visited me this morning for pets. He's very skittish and doesn't trust easily, I was thinking I'd never be able to. I'm so happy. 🥰

So I’m here in Karachi visiting family for the summer. It looks a lot cleaner from my last visit a couple years ago, like there was so much litter everywhere, but it seems like a lot was cleaned up lately.

The Green Line and Orange Line buses are now running! The whole system is like a train or subway, but they use buses for some reason? People are using it a lot, so it’s nice to see some infrastructure development.

But there is no dent in the traffic literally everywhere. Like 15 minute routes are taking 45 minutes to an hour if you leave at the wrong time.

This visit has changed so much of my perspective. Like, there is a lot wrong here. Crazy inflation, a devaluing currency, poverty, broken roads, corrupt government, lack of education. But there is so much good happening too. So many charity organizations operate and are based here. There is so much goodwill among the people, complete strangers going to far extents to help each other out. I guess hardship softens peoples’ hearts for others’ struggles. I already told you about the buses, and so many old and ugly buildings are being demolished to make newer apartments. Empty lots on the sides of the roads are being converted into parks for families. And new bridges are being built everywhere. We’re making progress, just veeeeeery slowly.

I just hope that the politics stay okay. Crash course in Pakistani politics y’all so you can understand. There have been two main political families in Pakistan, the Zardaris (aka the Bhuttos) and the Sharifs. Their parties are Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League N (PPP and PML-N). They have held power for decades, tossing it around among themselves. The most corrupt people here. Somehow in 2018, Imran Khan, of a different party, won the election for Prime Minister, and sought to make many changes. Strengthen democracy, lessen American influence in the country, and a list of policy changes to make things better. Of course the other two parties snapped their fingers and lo and behold Imran Khan is impeached, removed, and the PML-N returns to power. People here LOVE Imran Khan. The educated, the uneducated, the rich, the poor, everyone. Overseas Pakistanis who hold dual citizenship too. People protested like no time before in Pakistani history. But no outcome. People have lost hope. The current prime minister announced that his administration will end in August and there will be elections, but many are skeptical that the elections will be fair and they’ll just have another person from one of the two families take control.

To end on a better note, Pakistani food in Pakistan just tastes so much better 👌👌👌

I had a break through with my councellor today so that was nice. My day was average but my mood was off so I was just getting pissed off at everyone and I want to apologise to whoever I’ve hurt. I want an opinion on this idea that I’ve had : Instead of giving out textbooks to all the students the school should allow us to download copies of them online as a lot of paper gets wasted in making the textbooks and they add to the weight of our school bags. The amount of books we have to carry has increased to the point where my back hurts 24/7 and I have to use another separate bag to carry the books I can’t fit in my other bag. I think the school should allow us to make our projects digital instead of on paper as so much paper & ink gets wasted for just 1 project. The worst part about it is that we’re only allowed to use 1 side of the page for our projects which wastes even more paper

anyone wanna talk? i’m bored. and lonely.

I am dying this is my death I'm dying help (to be clear no I'm not actually committing suicide or being brutally murdered, I'm just being anxious and sad) anyways kids are adorable and wonderful and I wish I could work with them for the entire summer but I have a 3/4 week gap unfortunately and I'm not sure how I'm gonna survive the boredom

An astrophysicist recently announced that the universe was 26 billion years old. This is great because it solves some issues of mature galaxies without bullcrap hypothetical objects like dark matter.