sikander – Page 17 – sikander.org

I’ve been taking care of the PSA website for about 3 years now. I barely know any members of the association now. When I was at Carleton I knew a few but almost all of those students have graduated and left. Occassionally the PSA president would contact me and ask me to post new event information on the website or some new pictures in the Gallery section. The website needs an overhaul badly. Carleton’s webserver doesn’t allow any dynamic pages so its all static HTML and it can be a pain to update every single page for any change in the layout.

In any case, I got to know many people by name only over the past few years. I would get their emails, I would see their pictures, I would talk to them on MSN. I names but didn’t know faces. I knew faces but didn’t know names.

The PSA organizes a PSA Formal Dinner anually and the president would invite me each year. I would apologize and say that I’m in Toronto and I doubt I’ll be visiting Ottawa anytime soon so thanks but I won’t be able to make it.

This year lunato and I just happened to be in Ottawa when the PSA Formal 2007 was held. I called Sana Q, the current president (actually I think she’s a co-president this year), and asked if she has extra tickets. She did. So, after skiing at Mont Cascades, we went back to dooh‘s place, washed up, and then went to 1135 March Road to attend the PSA Formal 2007. Taimoor and his wife didn’t want to attend so after dropping them we picked up Sumaira, shekhar’s co-worker, who lives close to the venue.

Lunato and I had never met Sumaira before. Amazingly enough, she had emailed me a few days ago asking where she can buy tickets for the PSA Formal. My email address is on the PSA website so she thought I would know details about ticket sales. I had replied to her saying that I’m in Toronto and I don’t know about ticket sales and that she should contact Sana. And now, a few days later, I was parked in her driveway waiting to pick her up so we could go to the PSA Formal together. Small world!!

I met Sana Q for the first time in person. She’s an excellent person. We’d been talking online for about 2 years now but hadn’t had a chance to meet. I had graduated from Carleton by the time she became invovled in PSA. I also saw a lot of other faces that I recognized but didn’t know the names of. It was a very well-organized event and all of us really enjoyed. I dubbed our table the “Informal Table” as everyone else was dressed up in fancy clothes with makeup and jewellery while we were in our jeans and coats :)

We had fun. Lunato and I were pretty tired by 11PM since we had woken up at 3 AM, driven 550 km to Ottawa, then went skiing at Mont Cascades for 5 hours, and now this. We sneaked out and went to the closest gas station and bought Red Bull. That drink is really powerful. It woke us up instantly.. the 2nd or 3rd sip sends a jolt to your brain and *boom* you’re awake. I’ve had it a few times when working late but it was the first time lunato drank it and she was surprised at how well it works.

Overall, it was a very nice event. Good food, good music, good people. If we get a chance, we’ll try to visit next year as well. Hopefully by that time the PSA website will be more functional than it is now :)