Updated: Made it more readable. Removed redundancies, etc.
I have four/five sleepless, tired, disappointed hours ahead of me, so let's see how far I can go fictionwise. Nothing relates to reality. Nothing. Get a life, chump.
The rest is fiction, not done in itals because itals are annoying to read and I don't think you'd read fivefrikkingthousand words in itals. They're bad to the eyes or smn.
Our story is so convoluted it doesn't matter where we begin we end up with the confusing tangled mess of various lives of our protagonist. Raul Adhikary was an average Nepali man, 21 years of age, in this average day, doing what an average person does. He had had an average number of average relationships, and had opinions about himself like an average man [those opinions are rarely average, but lets not get ahead of ourselves]. Drink, smoke, study, work, etcetera. An average life.
Raul would die an average death, at an average age. The implications of his death, however, would be anything but average for Raul was... special. He thought he was special anyway, and we little reason to doubt him, as we will see. Raul actually thought everyone was special, but he was specially special in that he knew how special everyone was. The thoughts this man had were just as convoluted and confusing tangled of a mess as his life. His thoughts about specialness were anything but average. But then, not every man believed himself to be God.
It would be unfair to peg Raul as someone who thought of himself to be God. Very godlike, is how he liked thinking about it. Because, he would explain to himself, it would be arrogant to claim to be god, even to yourself, specially at the point when modern science was on the point of disproving the existence of the being to the confidence level of several sigmas. He thought it would be wrong and impolite to go out and break science.
Raul did not consider himself the average run-of-the-mill god. Thunderbolt, fire, sun, luck, were rather stupid things for a god to have for him. Besides, he knew, no conscious being could control the entire universe anyway, because... of the laws of physics. Probably. He just knew it was impossible to be god and do everything. However, he did know that humans had gods, who controlled human beings, who were timeless etcetera and that he was one of them. He had wondered many a time if other animals had gods too -- insects, now that would be crazy-- but considered it a possibility that he could possibly be their god too.
Raul, for all the belief in himself, did not have any powers. He was an average person, with average superpowers like holding the diarrhea in till one finds a clean toilet and not getting drunk even after that fourth glass of Long Island Iced Tea in a row.
What's an all-powerful deity who had no power anyway, the reader might wonder. Our hero (while still in his current form) often wondered the same. What god I am, he would ask himself, if I can't do interesting shit. He wanted to talk to that pretty girl with the green dress from the dark house, please. Preferably just after she had broken up with that bouncer of a boyfriend.
Funny thing, fate. The bouncer of a boyfriend wasn't a bouncer but rather a cuddly gentleman who at that point in his life would have been glad with Raul's actions. No, even talking to the neighbour girl in the terminal stages of her relationship was a superpower too much for Raul. He was stuck with his perfectly normal life.
The only thing Raul could do was communicate with himself. While that doesn't sound particularly impressive --everyone communicate with themselves way more often than you would ever admit anyway, and shutyourmouthholeup it doesn't feel special at all-- things do get slightly impressive when one considers that Raul had more selves than the average person. Raul considered it a possibility that every living person, present or past, was his self; he was certain that at least a tenth of everyone he had ever met was him.
What that meant was when he came across his different self, he would be them -- their histories, emotions, baggage et al-- and then he could get back to his normal self. Or rather, the current self. Or whatever. It's complicated, and that is what we will explore for the rest of this book. The various lives of R.A.
This is how it worked. As Raul walks to his office located in Anamnagar, he comes across a mother taking her dressed kindergartener to the school. He looks at her, and she nods at him, giving him that smile and that look. Hi me, it's me, I hope I'm doing well in that form. My womanly current form isn't doing so well you know, just had a second child, not a terribly supportive husband but hey, I know everything so why the hell am I telling me. If he wanted to, he could be her, and his old body would go on 'autopilot' and he would be the woman. Sometimes he could come back to his 'original' body, sometimes he would live the rest of the life as the new person.
If he had the immense potential to be pretty much anyone he desired, why wasn't Rahul a genius after having accumulated uncountable numbers of experiences of innumerable individuals? Because, by some stroke of supergodly intervention, his abilities were limited to the confines of the body he inhabited. He could tap on to memories from other lives if he tried really hard, but his supreme existence didn't grant him any supreme abilities. Such is life. Even the gods cannot live without all the indignities of daily life. We are thus left with a man with illusions of grandeur who hears things in his heads and looks at every tenth person in a weird fashion. That's what our threehundredandthirtythreefrikkinmillion gods have been reduced to.
On this particular average day, Raul was on an average news event. Yadda yadda yadda, they release a new report, you ask questions if you're running after a feature or an interview, get fantastic refreshments, networking networking networking, say hi to the reporters from other papers and channels who you see ten times every day, a little bit of gossip here and there and sometimes someone says something they're not supposed to say so you run after it like a hound, then back to office typing lots of words, editing, editing, meals that last several hours, back to little more work, plans for the next day, and back home. The report released was on the status of the Himalayan Blue Boobied Bonnet Birdie in Nepal. Raul knew it was a strange name even for WWF. Maybe he could pursue the process of naming birds for a large sidebar or even a long feature story if it had meat in it. How the heck would a bird get a name like that... ending with a 'birdie'. Definitely a feature material. To Raul it sounded boring, but would probably get interesting as he dug in deeper.
Raul lingered at the refreshments area while his coworkers milled around and gradually left. His target was the pale blonde man with razor sharp suit and blue tie. Just as the man finished talking to a server, Raul approached him, put on his howdy-hiya-happytoseeyou-lets-talk face, and extended his hands. Then he got the chills. Of course, it happens when I least expect it.
While most of Raul's encounters with himself ended in mere glances and nods, there were times when he would strike conversations with himself. He had fallen in love with himself, and married (himself), several times, and occasionally had had sex with himself. However, we shall not get ahead of the story for we are not yet ready for the emotional and physical intricacies of literally fking yourself.
Once, he had gotten into a heated conversation with a man, only to realize halfway through that were both arguing with themselves. Both had gotten embarrassed and left after hugging each other. Raul realized that arguing with oneself was not as uncommon a happenstance as one might imagine, even in non-divine situations.
Had he ever killed himself? In a different form, no. As suicide, yes.
Had he ever birthed himself? Yes. But he gap between birth and the consciousness of his peculiar existence had been large enough for him to not over-think it.
The secret to being a diving being, Raul had realized, was to avoid over-thinking. If you start thinking and analyzing every small interaction and movement and what people say, you grew crazy quickly. So the ideal way to live a divine life was skimping on the details and focusing on the generals. What am I doing here? Should I be trying to save my life from that huge truck coming this way or should I just leave it all because goddammit I'm so tired of all the multiplicities I have? Not that suicide would have made a difference to his existence anyway. He wished the Myth of Sisyphus were only so for him, but it was living it. His existence was infinite -- with no beginning and no ending.
When Raul was feeling particularly smart, he wound think about the physical-biological nature of his existence. Maybe there was just one single 'consciousness' in the Universe, which would inhabit just one creature at a time while disregarding the rules of time. Maybe this consciousness originated as a weird result of some Big Bang or alien invention and it had been his misfortune to be conscious about the nature of his consciousness. Or maybe I'm just fking crazy. He had an average number of sad, depressing days for people his age, when he would want to really really kill himself because what's the point anyway. He would realize on those days dying was pointless also and it would just be unnecessary mess. Might as well go through this mess of life than the mess that's death.
Those were not the thoughts in Raul's mind as he shook hands with the regional director of WWF, also himself. The two versions of this deity made small talk about how great the presentation was, how important the boobies were, politics electricity omigod can we go the naming of the birds already. The naming for that particular bird was apparently not average. Had putting 'boobies' in bird names been common, the would would have a lot of dicks vaginas, penises, assholes, flying above us happily, shitting in our crappy little heads. Birds are respectable creatures, and they are supposed to be given respectable names, like the emperor penguin or the golden feathered peasant or the bird of paradise. Gosh, what asshole would name a bird asshole.
The bird had been named by the New Zealander discoverer with a particularly sick mind, in the late fifties, the WWF Raul told the reporter Raul. If you'd been overheard saying boobies at college at that age, you'd have been rusticated with a special note to the authorities explaining why this psychotic maniac didn't deserve a place in respectable society and perhaps the authorities wouldn't mind if he were restrained under special detention for observation, but everyone would know you'd been put there to be driven to insanity. You'd be driven insane for saying boobies. But this New Zealander changed everything when Ornithological conventions started seeing the usage of the word more and more frequently and the world was driven to insanity.
The New Zealander was still alive and had been unable to make it to the convention because of other commitments but would be in Kathmandu in a few days. If Raul wanted to talk to him, it could certainly be arranged. That would make a funny fullpage feature about this eccentric white man going around places at a time when it was basically stoneage and naming things with body parts. Haha, I would really want to hear of all the shlongs and dongs of rocks he's discovered in Africa. Raul got the contact information, promised to send a draft of the story for fact-checking and headed to a different assignment.
Later in the day, someone at the office mentioned that the police had captured several bodies of the booby-bird being smuggled to India. That was a strange coincidence -- not that coincidences come in any other flavor, not the interesting ones anyway -- he made a note of the officers involved and the location concerned and talked to his editor about pursuing the story. News had been slow lately -- despite all the rapes, kidnaps, murder, bribery, extortion, naked corruption that had been happening -- so he decided to call it a day.
Bargaining with the Naag
Yeah, I went away. But I got lazy to create different blogs for different threads of thoughts. Anyway. I'm back. Ignore the last post. This blogger writes for no one but himself or herself. I came back to talk about this recent happening in Nepal.
A quick background: Sinkholes have been appearing around Pokhara, and locals have been going to dhaami-jhaankri to pray the happening away. Some dhaamis are claiming to be dead Naags avenging... something. Here's the relevant article: http://www.mysansar.com/2013/12/9519/
The relevant video is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH-AOlm5OOc#t=62
The woman at the center is in a trance. She speaks for the dead supernatural naag who is destroying the city by sinking it below the ground. Imagine this majestic creature, this all-powerful invisible mystical being who can instantly create hundreds of deep holes in the ground. It does not have physical form (despite being able to poke holes all over) so it takes the voice of the woman in question to communicate to the residents. This celestial being, says through the woman, that it wants to devour/eat a virgin(young) man or woman (how politically correct of it. Glad the idea of inclusiveness has entered the collective psyche of our supernaturals also)
Hope you are in the frame of mind of the women taking the dhaami woman seriously/with less than the derision she deserves. You are afraid of the being occupying her, and are willing to make her happy. The Being is threatening to kill. Fear, curiosity, repentance should be what you're thinking about. If you watch the video, you'll notice something's not right.
"Aba ek jana le garebhane sab lai ta testo garnu bhayena ni", shouts one woman, ready for a tedious round of negotiations. It wasn't us, don't punish us all. "I will destroy the land and turn it into a lake", the eternal Being says, perhaps confusing Pokhara for Kathmandu. No matter. "If you're in trouble, don't get us all into trouble too," says another woman, angrily. She's sounds like she is used to this: there are many selfish beings, supernatural or otherwise, who bother the world to get what they want.
"They killed my family, and now I will kill," the being says. "No you are not, that's not going to happen. We won't let that happen," says yet another woman. "If they troubled you, bring them here, and then we will see to it. Stop bothering us," says someone, opening way for a series of negotiations. "So what do you want? Where do you want us to give you milk," she says again, making the first offer. "No no, we don't agree. We don't agree at all," the Being replies.
"Well if you don't agree, there's nothing to do, so you have to agree," says one of the lead negotiators. "Listen, we are poor working people, who have to work, and we have to go to work, so tell us what you want or we're going," she adds. The Naag leaves the body of the woman.
We are so sick sick sick and tired of all those selfish fking fkers fking us all over for whatever the fk those selfish fks fking want, we don't want it anymore. Fair warning to all legendary beings in mood for mischief: we're not in the best mood to be messed around with, so be careful.
A quick background: Sinkholes have been appearing around Pokhara, and locals have been going to dhaami-jhaankri to pray the happening away. Some dhaamis are claiming to be dead Naags avenging... something. Here's the relevant article: http://www.mysansar.com/2013/12/9519/
The relevant video is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH-AOlm5OOc#t=62
The woman at the center is in a trance. She speaks for the dead supernatural naag who is destroying the city by sinking it below the ground. Imagine this majestic creature, this all-powerful invisible mystical being who can instantly create hundreds of deep holes in the ground. It does not have physical form (despite being able to poke holes all over) so it takes the voice of the woman in question to communicate to the residents. This celestial being, says through the woman, that it wants to devour/eat a virgin(young) man or woman (how politically correct of it. Glad the idea of inclusiveness has entered the collective psyche of our supernaturals also)
Hope you are in the frame of mind of the women taking the dhaami woman seriously/with less than the derision she deserves. You are afraid of the being occupying her, and are willing to make her happy. The Being is threatening to kill. Fear, curiosity, repentance should be what you're thinking about. If you watch the video, you'll notice something's not right.
"Aba ek jana le garebhane sab lai ta testo garnu bhayena ni", shouts one woman, ready for a tedious round of negotiations. It wasn't us, don't punish us all. "I will destroy the land and turn it into a lake", the eternal Being says, perhaps confusing Pokhara for Kathmandu. No matter. "If you're in trouble, don't get us all into trouble too," says another woman, angrily. She's sounds like she is used to this: there are many selfish beings, supernatural or otherwise, who bother the world to get what they want.
"They killed my family, and now I will kill," the being says. "No you are not, that's not going to happen. We won't let that happen," says yet another woman. "If they troubled you, bring them here, and then we will see to it. Stop bothering us," says someone, opening way for a series of negotiations. "So what do you want? Where do you want us to give you milk," she says again, making the first offer. "No no, we don't agree. We don't agree at all," the Being replies.
"Well if you don't agree, there's nothing to do, so you have to agree," says one of the lead negotiators. "Listen, we are poor working people, who have to work, and we have to go to work, so tell us what you want or we're going," she adds. The Naag leaves the body of the woman.
We are so sick sick sick and tired of all those selfish fking fkers fking us all over for whatever the fk those selfish fks fking want, we don't want it anymore. Fair warning to all legendary beings in mood for mischief: we're not in the best mood to be messed around with, so be careful.
Slim slam flim flam
A tribute to unpopularity.
Slim Slam flim flam sheen ween
Shiny dee winie minie me hiney hee
What is there to romp about
If it's empty
like me.
Otter potter Mr shotter
What was and will be is nutter
Butter butter, cutter shutter, mutter mutter.
Mutter mutter. mutter mutter.
But err.. But err...
putt putt putt putter.
stutter stutter
stutter stutter.
but er.
i tell er. iteller.
Slim Slam flim flam sheen ween
Shiny dee winie minie me hiney hee
What is there to romp about
If it's empty
like me.
Otter potter Mr shotter
What was and will be is nutter
Butter butter, cutter shutter, mutter mutter.
Mutter mutter. mutter mutter.
But err.. But err...
putt putt putt putter.
stutter stutter
stutter stutter.
but er.
i tell er. iteller.
Midnight rambles
I'm sorry my facial hair misled into
believing I was more artistic than really am. For future reference,
the East is where the Sun rises, the North is where the Giants of
Death from Fimbulwinter are from.
Perhaps it's the South that you wanted to live closer but on campus -- far enough to be in different rooms, but it's phishing, you're supposed to not let it go off your hand it would be a problem, and I would not want that too happen here at all.
Hair tales
I'd always wondered why anyone would
buy all the 'good hair' from the salons. The realization that an
entire continent – an entire race – of people depends on other
people's hair for most of its hairy needs came only a few weeks
earlier. It's surprising when you're new to it – one day they have
a buzzcut and the next time you see them they have overflowing
waist-length silky hair. It can be braided, or it can be not braided.
People seem to be comfortable changing their looks and seemingly
their personalities every few weeks.
At one point I was considering getting
extensions myself – in preparation for HK. Now that the SE Asia
plan has been shelved, there are no food-stallers to entertain and
charm the bargains out of so it's now gross out-of-control natural
hair. I've never had my facial hair as long as I have now and the
feelings evoked are quite – mixed – grossed-out but proud.
Kathmandu kina najane
I don't want to go back to Kathmandu permanently because ... kathmandu (Nepal)will become an actual battlefield again within the next seven years. I dont wanna go back because people who look like me, who are related to me are being threatened away from their houses, the security of their daughters and businesses imperiled, and no one will talk for them. I don't want to go back because the syndicates will rule it in the forseable future, and i don't want to be the syndicate. I don't want to go back because the earthquake will kill hundreds of thousands and i dont want to be one of them.
Ghanian names
If you meet any Kofi, Kweku, Nana or Kwame (amongst others, but I forget the three remaining) anywhere in the world, call them 'Charlie' and ask them what kind of soup they like with their fufuo, and if Fante Kenkey and Banku are really better than Ashanti Kenkey and Banku. Do not ask for travel advice to Nigeria because he will unfailingly tell you that you will be kidnapped and taken for murder, or killed, there.
The drink culture that is Ghana
I had what was probably my seventh ginger-based drink in Ghana today. It wasn't as bad as a lot of my American friends imagined it would be, and I was secretly hoping it would be the secret to easy weight loss. One wonders at what point a culture decides that it needs more ginger in its drinks that leads to a massive home-grown and industrial production industry. The best ginger-based drink that I've had is arguably the ginger-beer that I had had at Republica-- my choice is probably biased by the home-brewed sugarcane-based nature of the drink though.
Idea for a future post --someone remind me if I get lazy with the posts : how Americans find the idea of any other flavor for drinks except sweet/alcoholic disgusting.
Idea for a future post --someone remind me if I get lazy with the posts : how Americans find the idea of any other flavor for drinks except sweet/alcoholic disgusting.
Project galore: twitter data visualisation
I've been working on a project to visualize data extracted from 400,000 (char lakh) tweets from Nepali tweeters in the last month. It'll be bearing fruit tonight, but wow, how time flies. This has been quick. A part of the project will be helping a yet-to-be-disclosed non-profit show the trend of public conversation of Nepali tweeps on twitter. Fingers crossed.
Blog housekeeping
I will soon be removing this blog from search engines. It was amusing at first when the 'fillers' I tagged my posts with (sex, free sex, nepali sex download, nepali hot girls free, naked, nepali naked, kathmandu naked, kathmandu free naked sex, baneshwar sex, kakani sex, ku sex, bhaktapur sex etcetc) were the ones that had the greatest hits. Now it seems just stupid that my target audience mostly doesn't come here and instead a bunch of sleazeballs who don't know anything about google flood it. The posts will remain but I'll be harder to reach here.
There were times, back when I was on facebook, when a post averaged 60 hits (sometimes in a day). Now, the average hit for my posts is between 3-4, in total. Maybe less. It's important to put things into perspective. If you're into linkbaiting, gofb yourself.
There were times, back when I was on facebook, when a post averaged 60 hits (sometimes in a day). Now, the average hit for my posts is between 3-4, in total. Maybe less. It's important to put things into perspective. If you're into linkbaiting, gofb yourself.
Reality show idea
Since they're so popular already, why not make a reality show out of it?
Contestants pitch their 'ideas' and 'projects' to a panel of judges, a-la aid-funding proposals. They're asked about assessment (the first round), implementation, sustainability, scalability, you-got-it. They have to prove their ability to implement the ideas through demonstration of their resourcefulness, social-consciousness, the way they handle risk and uncertain events, and accountability. The winner's project is funded.
Buuuut. That's just the beginning. The implementation of the project is filmed too, and winners from several seasons are judged on how well they implemented their projects and so on (assessment too!), and the winner gets the finale prize.
Everything should be outsourced to a reality show, including the WFP model. All the ideas that'll be up will be better than the actual model.
Contestants pitch their 'ideas' and 'projects' to a panel of judges, a-la aid-funding proposals. They're asked about assessment (the first round), implementation, sustainability, scalability, you-got-it. They have to prove their ability to implement the ideas through demonstration of their resourcefulness, social-consciousness, the way they handle risk and uncertain events, and accountability. The winner's project is funded.
Buuuut. That's just the beginning. The implementation of the project is filmed too, and winners from several seasons are judged on how well they implemented their projects and so on (assessment too!), and the winner gets the finale prize.
Everything should be outsourced to a reality show, including the WFP model. All the ideas that'll be up will be better than the actual model.
Motos in Ghana
George tells me that Ghanians are ashamed of moto(rbikes) or god forbid, bicycles, because they are symbols of poverty. "I wanted to get a moto, because traveling from home to office specially in the evenings would be so much easier. My sister and my friends were very much against the idea. My sister told me I should save money for a car instead," he tells me. Five years later, he still takes the evening TroTro(microbus) home.
The absence of motorbikes and bicycles is striking and specially ironic, considering Accra has a bikepath along the ringroad, and has bicycle path in general. The heat is not an explanation -- places with warmer climate have different attitudes. Besides, as George told me and I have observed, people would rather walk for half-hour in the sizzling Sun than ride a bike for ten minutes. Also important is the fact that both motorbikes and bicycles are rather cheap here relative to everything else.
I ask if the expats of US and UK colleges ride bikes... Bike-riding is an elite thing in some places. He laughs at at the suggestion and tells me getting a big SUV is their top priority after they return back.
Question for discussion: what factor(s) can explain the difference in cultural attitude towards bikes and motorbikes in South Asia/China and West Africa(Ghana, not sure about Nigeria)? One could argue that the price difference between cars and bikes is so high in Nepal, people would rather get a bike than wait for many years for a car. That still does not explain India, though. Could it be related to religion? Maybe differences in attitudes of young people?
Last point of observation: on weekend evenings, sportsbikes can be seen around the campus, being ridden at speeds that would make any sensible human fear dearly for her life.
The absence of motorbikes and bicycles is striking and specially ironic, considering Accra has a bikepath along the ringroad, and has bicycle path in general. The heat is not an explanation -- places with warmer climate have different attitudes. Besides, as George told me and I have observed, people would rather walk for half-hour in the sizzling Sun than ride a bike for ten minutes. Also important is the fact that both motorbikes and bicycles are rather cheap here relative to everything else.
I ask if the expats of US and UK colleges ride bikes... Bike-riding is an elite thing in some places. He laughs at at the suggestion and tells me getting a big SUV is their top priority after they return back.
Question for discussion: what factor(s) can explain the difference in cultural attitude towards bikes and motorbikes in South Asia/China and West Africa(Ghana, not sure about Nigeria)? One could argue that the price difference between cars and bikes is so high in Nepal, people would rather get a bike than wait for many years for a car. That still does not explain India, though. Could it be related to religion? Maybe differences in attitudes of young people?
Last point of observation: on weekend evenings, sportsbikes can be seen around the campus, being ridden at speeds that would make any sensible human fear dearly for her life.
Beach
For the first time in my life, I went to a (beach) resort, on my own, on my initiation, and had a blast of a time there tanning(!) and listening to local music and patronizing the local food and drink outlets, without for a moment feeling a smidgen of guilt for any reason whatsoever. The trip also included a reggae festival festival inside the resort.
Point of interest: the house we rented had no room for privacy: we had two bedrooms, connected by an arch, and a private bathroom, also connected by an arch, with curtains on it (no door). The idea of an 'open' bathroom with nothing to hide is not as emancipating as it sounds, let me tell you that.
Point of interest: the house we rented had no room for privacy: we had two bedrooms, connected by an arch, and a private bathroom, also connected by an arch, with curtains on it (no door). The idea of an 'open' bathroom with nothing to hide is not as emancipating as it sounds, let me tell you that.
India the 'dada': The rewards of big neighbours
Despite everything else, Nepal reaps one significant benefit of being next to India-China. Since both the countries are poor and yet have a massive population, most major brands have affordable products targeted at those markets that eventually seep into the Nepali market. Compare that to a country like Ghana, which imports its 'cheap' coconut biscuits from Sri Lanka (despite being a tropical country itself), its chocolates from Turkey, Middle East, and South Africa (the irony was observed), its fruit-juice boxes from Spain, the marmalade from Italy. The list is long, and the point stands: without the 'buffering' effect of India's/China's poor, prices in Nepal for imported goods would be much higher than they are now.
The best photo
Is this the best photo I've taken?
We were at the beach at night, and the kids of the resort staff wanted to wrestle on sand. Since we didn't show any interest, they started wrestling each other. Here, J falls on the ground, defeated, as I tell him to smile for the camera.
No photoediting whatesoever.
We were at the beach at night, and the kids of the resort staff wanted to wrestle on sand. Since we didn't show any interest, they started wrestling each other. Here, J falls on the ground, defeated, as I tell him to smile for the camera.
No photoediting whatesoever.
The Trotsky
The Trotsky
is the movie to watch if you feel jaded by Hollywood flicks and/or
indies. It's a cute comedy – not a romcom – that takes place in
Quebec.
What's
most amazing about the movie is how quickly the viewer can connect to
one of its plethora of its characters. They are complex and often
opaque, which makes them more real than Hollywood. You never quite
figure out the motives of the character, or 'figure' them out as you
would characters in Hollywood. You know
what they are doing and why, but you never quite figure them out.
It's good, go watch.
My
guilty pleasure from the movie were the Russian Revolutionary
war-songs that the movie has as background scores. They're there for
humor, but instead they got me up and excited.
Coding as a Solitary Activity
Good coding is not a solitary activity.
It seems like it should be – but
the more one codes the more one realizes that coding involving
discussion on algorithms and data-structures and everything your
program is about with one's fellow programmers are a lot
productive than ones done in pure isolation.
I
never realized the importance of discussions in coding till I was
here. Perhaps it was taken for granted – with Cy and Wi open to
talk to about any idea or topic under the Sun I didn't realize how
crucial they were to my programming. Now that SaDa has put me in
touch with Va, who is apparently also coding/interested in the topic
I'm working right now, but much experienced and learned, things are
getting back on track. It's not the most original epiphany, but you
can learn from people and you can teach people .
Dancing Music
If you have ever danced to a traditional Nepali dance music, you know what it like. It's about love, separation, teasing, nostalgia, first sights, little girls trying to figure out how they should fill the pitcher with water, married women missing their home, soldiers/workers missing their families -- the old mothers and the hardworking wives and the innocent sons, and so on. Once in a while, you'll get a martial tune about nationbuilding or patriotism.
West African dance music (Ghanian and Togoan, and Nigerian possibly) has more friendship and camaraderie. Between men and men yes but more generally in sex-neutral terms (because West African societies have traditionally been maternalistic and matrilinear even though men don't help with the Kitchen). There's little talk of patriotism but more of loyalty to your people, because of the still-existing pre-Westphalian notions of nationhood (which I prefer). The men and women will flirt and dance, but it's more vigorous, more physical, less shy than Nepali-dance flirting (as in, you stare at butts a lot and pretend to slap them playfully). I have found the dances here a lot more vigorous than those at home.
I don't know if that says anything about anything.
West African dance music (Ghanian and Togoan, and Nigerian possibly) has more friendship and camaraderie. Between men and men yes but more generally in sex-neutral terms (because West African societies have traditionally been maternalistic and matrilinear even though men don't help with the Kitchen). There's little talk of patriotism but more of loyalty to your people, because of the still-existing pre-Westphalian notions of nationhood (which I prefer). The men and women will flirt and dance, but it's more vigorous, more physical, less shy than Nepali-dance flirting (as in, you stare at butts a lot and pretend to slap them playfully). I have found the dances here a lot more vigorous than those at home.
I don't know if that says anything about anything.
Milestone
This is an important day for someone self-teaching himself machine learning/Natural-language processing. I just taught myself my first clustering algorithm ( O(n*n) worst case, O(n) best case, who knows that the average is) and now the world opens for me [as long as the data is not clustered. Because I sweep only once].
For your viewing pleasure
For your viewing pleasure, presenting to you, a picture of a masturbating Smurf, straight from a Turkish restaurant [DNR] in Accra, Ghana.
Ghana and its non-Ghanians
Ghana has a significant presence and
investment of outsiders from the US, Great Britain, India, China,
South Africa, Japan, Lebanon, Turkey and Nigeria. In Accra you see a
South African retailer competing against a British retailer, fancy
Indian restaurants sharing kitchens with fancy Chinese restaurants,
Turkish chocolate selling alongside Lebanese chocolate in public
markets, Indian supermarkets next to Lebanese-run supermarkets,
Indians working for Japanese firms with Nigerians, and so on. Let's
not even get started on the numerous African countries where refugees
come to Ghana from. Is the solution to 'international intervention'
as our leaders so often complain about to make ourselves so open to
international presence that no single country has any significant
influence over other? I ask because Ghanian leaders say great many
things, but never seem to mention the 'hidden foreign overlords'.
As a note of interest, President KA
Busia in 1983 decided that Ghana had had enough of Nigerians and
blamed them for all the problems in Ghana. He deported 550,000
Nigerians. In retaliation, Nigeria stopped export of Wheat, the
staple food-grain, to Ghana. Ghana had to resort to buying Wheat from
the U.S at four times the price. Today, of course, there are many
Nigerians in all sectors in Ghana and Ghana is the top choice for the
Nigerian elite to send their children to study (apart from US and UK)
even though Nigeria is the bigger richer more resource-rich country.
As an uninteresting sidenote, three of
my classes are in the KA Busia lecture hall/building.
Numbers of concern
According to the 1960 census, the
percentage of Ghanians following ATR (African traditional religions)
was estimated to be 40-45%. Today, it is estimated to be 2-5%. The
decrease comes almost entirely as a result of massive Christian
prosetilisation campaigns. The brand of Christianity peddled here is
the most repressive form of the one found in the West, so countries
that had traditionally accepted values such as homosexuality as parts
of their cultures have growing aversion towards them because of
rising conservative Christian values.
In other news, I got a personal
handwritten letter from Jesus (it was signed as 'Love, Jesus')
delivered by a 17-year old shopgirl telling me to convert. It's not
every day that Jesus writes you letters personally saying you need to
listen to what his dad says.
David Foster Wallace Dream
I am a reporter for a newspaper, and I
am to interview the writer David Foster Wallace. The assignment is a
bizarre one – he committed suicide in 2008. A photographer and I
are sent to his house. We knock on the door; it opens. We enter.
In front of us is the late professor
David Foster Wallace. I figure this must be a dream or the most
important day for the world of transcendentalism. The introductions
are short and we segue to interviewing right away. As we talk to him
in the living room, next to us on the carpet is a girl child of seven
playing with her stuffed Mammoth and Whale. That, of all things,
confuses me. The girl, who I know to be his daughter, should be
eighteen in 2013 not seven. The year must be 2002.
Still the depressed moody person he
always has been, DFW is close to his daughter. Our conversations are
interrupted by her demands to be hugged, to ride on his shoulders, or
her snuggling into his lap. She asks us where we are from, why we are
asking hard questions to him. She says she wants to write stories
like daddy; she wants to write stories for little boys and girls. She
shows us her picture book and she tells us what illustrations will go
with her stories. She doesn't like how daddy's stories don't have
pictures.
DFW is a rising start in 2002, not yet
at the zenith of his career. We discuss his writings, the jobs he's
had, the places he's lived at. I tread around the topic of his
depression. Our encounter would have made into his stories if he had
thought about it, he says offhandedly while explaining how dealing
with thin blurry line between the real and the unreal was his forte.
He talks about his love for mathematics. He considers himself a
mathematician at heart who likes to write.
The elephant in the room, the reason I
was sent to interview him, stays an undercurrent throughout the
conversation until he decides to talk about it. He is aware that he's
in a terribly bad place and in six years he will kill himself. He
looks with great pain at his daughter, who is now building a block
tower. He whispers she will will have grown up a bit by then, and he
wouldn't feel as bad.
The absurdities of the encounter are
not lost on us. I am talking to a dead writer 11 years in the past,
who is omniscient – at least inhumanly knowledgeable – about his
future. He is aware of the impossibility of his existence. That he is
likely a figment of my imagination, an ironic contrast to one of his
characters who'd rather be a fictional character than a real person,
is absolutely fine, thank you, with him. He needs to talk to someone
to explain his condition.
We stay over for dinner after the
interview. DFW knows his way around the kitchen well, having lived
alone a considerable time as a bachelor. I play with his daughter
while he is chopping vegetables. She is trying to scare the fish from
across the aquarium walls by making faces. The big fish, she
explains, are so big because they are afraid daddy might forget to
give them food them so they get fat from all the food now so they
don't die when there is no food. She snatches her slipper away from
the jaws of the tiny brown mastiff who was sleeping peacefully but
had decided to go outside with the slippers. She reprimands him and
makes him sit. He lays on the ground ready to go back to sleep. After
DFW is done with chopping the vegetables, we go to the kitchen to
help him, but he has had a head start on three dishes with surprising
agility. As we leave after a sumptuous rather spicy meal, we agree on
the strangeness of the situation. DFW mentions lightly that this must
be one of our dreams because his aren't this happy.
Just as I leave the room, I know I have
to go back. I go back into the apartment, and the scene has changed.
The room is dusty. It looks as if it were a living museum under
construction. Chairs, tables, piles of books, two old computers are
all covered in sheets of plastic. DFW sits nervously on the couch,
waiting for me. He looks paler, older. He smiles a weak but warm
smile, hugging me as one hugs an old friend after a long interval.
The year is 2009, I find out from the
wall-calendar. A year after his death. We make small talk. I ask him
why, when he loved her [his daughter] so much, he had decided to not
be there for her. A long pause; followed by long sigh. He asks me,
irritated, if I'm blaming him for his death. I tell him I want to
know why he killed himself when he had such a good reason to be
alive.
More pregnant pause. His legendary mane
covers his face as he speaks staring downwards perhaps at my knees.
He says that times had been unusually hard on him then. He hadn't
seen his family for a long time and he was dealing with issues that
seemed to be more urgent than his family. He couldn't handle those
issues, he says, they were too much for him. He always knew he would
kill himself, in a spectacular fashion. It was only a matter of time
and it felt right in late 2008, he says. This interview winds down
into sad awkward silence.
Next scene. I am walking into a
cafeteria of a private high school. I just figure out who the girl
beaming at me is before she gives me a long, tight hug. The year is
2013. This is real life. More real than the other parts anyway. My
assignment is about to complete, I am meeting the grown-up daughter.
She talks to me as if I were an old friend. For me it was only hours
ago that I last saw her. Eleven years have passed for her.
The empire that is bollywood
An uninformed informed may not be aware that hindi films and hindi teleserials are incredibly popular in West Africa, as I have observed in Ghana. The movies are titled in English and dubbed in local languages or English, and distributed widely. The teleserials get the same treatment, except that they're divided into 'seasons'. That I found interesting: Indian teledramas don't seem to have seasons. I'll bring photos of the DVD's of 'The young daughter in law' (Chotti bahu)the next time I'm at the markets.
I'll write in greater detail about the Indian influence in Ghana in a future post.
I'll write in greater detail about the Indian influence in Ghana in a future post.
That monthlong posting pledge
On a roll here, so no better time than now to make wild lofty promises.
Here's the pledge:
1. For the next month, I will post at least one post every day.
2. Over the next few days, I will try to cover up for the time I've been in Ghana with a post for every two days I've been here. They will be backposted to average one for every other day. The posts may or may not be related to Ghana. They will probably include some (many many) technical posts.
Here's the pledge:
1. For the next month, I will post at least one post every day.
2. Over the next few days, I will try to cover up for the time I've been in Ghana with a post for every two days I've been here. They will be backposted to average one for every other day. The posts may or may not be related to Ghana. They will probably include some (many many) technical posts.
Update reports re: Projects
Once upon a time a guy dreamed he would use his downtime in Ghana to write a novel. That novel wouldn't be very good, but it wouldn't have to be. He would just have to complete it, get it done, bhayo, over, sakkiyo, now I can go home, khaale, and he would have written a novel. You would have known someone who was a novelist-- an unpublished one but a novelist nevertheless.
That would have been me.
That's not happening. Don't get your hopes high.
My thought-processes have been growing evolving. It's not a conscious action but I can sometime feel it sneak into my consciousness. Say we have a problem that needs to be figured out, and I think of a solution. The first thought that pops up is 'why did I think of that, did I really think that, wow.'
More of life needs to be seen and critiqued to write a novel that's not going to embarrass me. The observations are insufficient and limited to a severely restricted domain. That needs to be worked upon. The world needs to be seen in terms of more than the middle-and upper-middle class lifestyle.
More importantly I have been working on my personal computer science projects. You can look them up online (find them if you can). The thing with that kind of stuff is, you need to put a lot of thought and time in it. It's like thinking math and writing poetry. During my classes I try to come up with less-inefficient algorithms; the first thoughts I have in the morning are those of wonder if the algorithm I thought over the night might work. That has left me with very little time for everything else.
[For those interested, Topic 1: I'm tracking topics of discussion in Nepal through twitter messages. I can tell you exactly when people started talking about Teej, when it reached the peak, and what happened when Maobadies bandaed the darr khane din. Wait I can't tell you that yet. I wrote the algorithm in my Theater notebook and will implement maybe later tonight. Topic 2 is more visual but I'm not ready to make it public yet. Topic 3 relates to ethnomusicology, which is a possible field of my internship. Topic 4 relates to snakes. Topic 5 is my fancy personal website that I want to code from scratch. So on and on.]
Writing is fun though. Despite everything else I have ideas for blog posts almost every day. By the time I'm next to a computer with internet they are all but forgotten. Lots of good ideas lost forever and this semester I also have a traditional West-African Dance.
I wrote a poem the other day during Computer Science class. It was about optimists -- all high up in their puffy angelic clouds--and how pessimistic they are about death. I end with a contrary idea though because I couldn't find rhyming words. Hey don't judge. If your poem rhymes it can also be used as a rap as Sam will tell you and that's quite a moneymaker.
That would have been me.
That's not happening. Don't get your hopes high.
My thought-processes have been growing evolving. It's not a conscious action but I can sometime feel it sneak into my consciousness. Say we have a problem that needs to be figured out, and I think of a solution. The first thought that pops up is 'why did I think of that, did I really think that, wow.'
More of life needs to be seen and critiqued to write a novel that's not going to embarrass me. The observations are insufficient and limited to a severely restricted domain. That needs to be worked upon. The world needs to be seen in terms of more than the middle-and upper-middle class lifestyle.
More importantly I have been working on my personal computer science projects. You can look them up online (find them if you can). The thing with that kind of stuff is, you need to put a lot of thought and time in it. It's like thinking math and writing poetry. During my classes I try to come up with less-inefficient algorithms; the first thoughts I have in the morning are those of wonder if the algorithm I thought over the night might work. That has left me with very little time for everything else.
[For those interested, Topic 1: I'm tracking topics of discussion in Nepal through twitter messages. I can tell you exactly when people started talking about Teej, when it reached the peak, and what happened when Maobadies bandaed the darr khane din. Wait I can't tell you that yet. I wrote the algorithm in my Theater notebook and will implement maybe later tonight. Topic 2 is more visual but I'm not ready to make it public yet. Topic 3 relates to ethnomusicology, which is a possible field of my internship. Topic 4 relates to snakes. Topic 5 is my fancy personal website that I want to code from scratch. So on and on.]
Writing is fun though. Despite everything else I have ideas for blog posts almost every day. By the time I'm next to a computer with internet they are all but forgotten. Lots of good ideas lost forever and this semester I also have a traditional West-African Dance.
I wrote a poem the other day during Computer Science class. It was about optimists -- all high up in their puffy angelic clouds--and how pessimistic they are about death. I end with a contrary idea though because I couldn't find rhyming words. Hey don't judge. If your poem rhymes it can also be used as a rap as Sam will tell you and that's quite a moneymaker.
B(r)easts of the wild
I am currently reading William Dalrymple's City of Djinns. For anyone interested in history of India or Pakistan or the Mughal period this is a fantastic read.
There's a mention of breasts somewhere in the book, and he writes something like:
Dalrymple is to Delhi what Rushdie is to Bombay, and this is his love-letter to Delhi. Rushdie had Midnight's Children for Bombay and Dalrymple has City of Djinns for Delhi. His writing is not comparable to Rushdie's (he writes non-fiction, and this is his first work, from 1989) but his book(s) are still amazing reads. I wish Nepal had a chronicler of history like him.
Suggested Readings for Dalrymple:
City of Djinns
In Xanadu
PS: I have met and talked to Dalrymple (or 'Will' as Prof. Jalal, a friend of his professor of mine, calls him) and he's as funny and intelligent in real life as he is in his books.
There's a mention of breasts somewhere in the book, and he writes something like:
...her breasts were like ripe(Indian?) Mangoes.I usually don't follow all the imagery I read [it's easier to get through Dan Brown that way] but this one caught me off-guard. It was a treat-- an interesting and accurate way to describe things succinctly without resorting to crude hyperbole. He could have picked avocadoes or --les artistically-- Oranges, Apples, or even (begin eyeroll sequence) Melons. There are fruits which could be have been used to describe women's bosoms. That wouldn't have been as pleasing to read though [or accurate. he's talking of Indian women] -- it had to be mangoes, and that's how it is. Great writer, this.
Dalrymple is to Delhi what Rushdie is to Bombay, and this is his love-letter to Delhi. Rushdie had Midnight's Children for Bombay and Dalrymple has City of Djinns for Delhi. His writing is not comparable to Rushdie's (he writes non-fiction, and this is his first work, from 1989) but his book(s) are still amazing reads. I wish Nepal had a chronicler of history like him.
Suggested Readings for Dalrymple:
City of Djinns
In Xanadu
PS: I have met and talked to Dalrymple (or 'Will' as Prof. Jalal, a friend of his professor of mine, calls him) and he's as funny and intelligent in real life as he is in his books.
A point to be made
I understand the ramifications. Is it a better idea to allow slight violence (eg, slaps, etc) against children from parents, or let them go their way and spend lives in juvies and jails? I'm looking at America, of course. How does America have so many 'criminals' and people in jails? There's something very wrong with the justice system [not an original observation, I'll concede].
Maybe the parenting is not to blame -- if it were, wouldn't the Nordic countries have similar rates?-- there's something that I'm missing then and can't figure it out.
Maybe the parenting is not to blame -- if it were, wouldn't the Nordic countries have similar rates?-- there's something that I'm missing then and can't figure it out.
Work in progress
Here's something for you to consider:
what would happen if every single person in the world had your name.
Here's another thought for you to ponder upon: why do you keep coming
back here when I repeat every freaking sentence structure, pattern of
word usage, and other semantics every damn(overused word) time.
Also(yes, it's an ironic use of 'also', targeted at my own overuse of
'also' and 'and' to begin sentences because I can't be bothered to do
better) (and yes, this is also an ironic take on my peppering my
writing with braces to explain things that are not directly relevant
(ie, irrelevant) to the topic under discussion.), would you like to
read a fiction whose format I came up with?
This is an attempt at fiction that's
different. Let's see where this goes.
I was nine. My uncle had just returned
from America. He said he had a gift for me, and he would give it to
me only if I were a good boy. I had always been a good boy, hadn't I?
His nieces wife's side came over unexpectedly from India, and he gave
them the gifts he had bought for me. Three twelve-year old girls got
American T-Shirts. I got nothing.
I didn't cry. I wasn't there; I felt
like an outcast. The flash flood of that afternoon swept one of my
friends away. I really wanted to go to watch the new Salman Khan
movie where he double-times his wife despite loving her profusely, as
he claims in the songs. My friends wanted to go swim. I was thirteen.
I was fifteen. My classmates and I went
to a restaurant for an all-nighter. We were not sure why were doing
it or what we were doing, but we knew that fun was going to be had
and we would be grown men after the night. My dad picked me up at
midnight against my wishes. The night that my friends lost their
virginity to cheap middle-aged streetwalkers. I remained virgin.
I was terrified. I was the only one
from my class who got published. I didn't want want to get published
so I made up the most outlandish tale that I could conjure and forced
what I thought were the most cliched tropes as a joke. My English
teacher made our class submit stories to the newspaper. I was
sixteen.
I was eighteen. My group of friends was
slowly thinning out thanks to relationships and those guys and girls,
so I summed up courage and asked out a girl a year junior to me. I
was soon going out with the most cute and lovably nerdy
seventeen-year old our school had. I was bored.
I was deflowered. I surprised everyone
by making the conversation last four hours. My Biology class was on a
trip to Pokhara and the Banda muddled our travel plans so we went to
a lakeside bar and I got myself into a bet on how long I could chat
up that cute girl sitting next to her emo friend talking to the two
large east-European guys. I was nineteen.
Reports from Ghana
Written on 8-14-2013
Thanks to Nana, the roommate of Sam A.,
I had the best drink that I have ever had, Most Spiciest Drink Ever
category-- the drink made my stomach hurt more than spicy Indian food
does. You could say I drank up a storm – which is what it was
called, 'Storm'. Hard drink, that one, even though the alcohol
content is not that much. I was the only one from our table to finish
the bottle of Storm, and my stomach ache/gastritis is an
alibi(observer/proof?) of that.
Ghana observations 2: there are way too
many .(bars, malls, aru kura in kathmandu... R bhai, uthepachi
complete gara hai. Aile timi thakya chhau and you know it. Aile ramro
writing audaina, so uthnebittikai lekha laa. Love, timro
shuvachintak, timi.)
Continuation. 8-20-2013
Continuation... Ghana Observations:
Even though per capita income for Ghana is more than twice that of
Nepal, and it has way more expensive SUV's than Nepal, shopping,
bars, malls and restaurant culture in Kathmandu is much more
developed in Kathmandu than in Accra. The fanciest parts of Accra are
fancier than Kathmandu could ever be. But, in general, if you ignore
the downtrodden-illness-of-the-Earth nature of Kathmandu, it is
posher. Perhaps it's because of Kathmandu's reputation as a
medium-income tourist destination. Accra is home to the most goddamn
expensive hotels and malls you could find on the face of the Earth,
but as I saw it, it wasn't goddamn dying for tourists for as much as
Kathmandu usually is.
Further observation: Women are way,
way, wayyy more empowered in Ghana/Western Africa than in the
subcontinent. Even though the situation in Nepal is improving, (I
hope. Please lets not be India, please lets not be India) Ghana has a
woman Chief Justice, a woman as the IGP of the police, several women
ministers, and so on. Smart strong women – NGOwomen, yes, but also
professors, businesswomen, even those in technology – seem to have
taken a lead, and are doing fantastically. I'll admit, I've never
seen women TroTro drivers (equivalent of our microbuses/tempos) but
that's just me.
Public transportation here in Accra (or
in Kumasi, or in Cape Coast, or in Temale – any city, really) is
better than our goddamn system in Kathmandu. This is Nepal's plight
then – those fkking syndicates: in transportation, in politics, in
ethnic politics, in law enforcement, that oligarchize our democracy.
Frkking undemocratic monopolies of power and money that pretend to
function under a veneer of democracy.
Ghana has held six general elections in
a row successfully-- quite a feat considering it's now the Third
Republic, after gaining independence in 1957. I wish we had a
semblance of free, fair and nonviolent elections some day.
Ghana Observation
The corrupt autocrat that Nkrumah was (despite his fancy Oxford et al. education or perhaps because of it?) he still had the sense to give absolute priority to education and send Ghanians abroad to study. Ghana now reaps the benefits of the seeds planted on those days: most of the professors here that I have met are graduates from elite east coast colleges and Universities. Two observations:
1) If the current student exodus in Nepal continues, I see Nepal becoming more like Ghana in 20 years than, say, Pakistan or Bangladesh in terms of the elites.
2) The fact that so many well-educated Ghanians have come back to Ghana (to teach, mostly, but also for public positions) is surprising and would be a good model to emulate.
1) If the current student exodus in Nepal continues, I see Nepal becoming more like Ghana in 20 years than, say, Pakistan or Bangladesh in terms of the elites.
2) The fact that so many well-educated Ghanians have come back to Ghana (to teach, mostly, but also for public positions) is surprising and would be a good model to emulate.
Status Report
I'm in Accra, Ghana.
I've been busy with everything and Internet's spotty at my place. I've not written anything for the last three months because... no muse, nothing interesting to actually write about (even though I had many interesting things to think and talk about) and the fact that this blog in a limbo, stuck between two very different places.
Accra's nice. I thought it was a combination of Kathmandu, Birgunj and Rajbiraj. Most markets are like the haatbajaars we used to go in Duhabi and Rajbiraj so there's that. On the other hand, the nicer parts of the town are also somewhat nicer than corresponding places in Kathmandu.
People told me it would probably be hot here. It's not. It is actually rather chilly in the mornings and my lack of a proper blanket has created some minor wake-up issues. Evenings are unusually humid but we've been getting a lot of cool wind, so it's rather pleasant.
Bi said Kathmandu is run down, coming apart, and broken-down city. I did not agree entirely, but...sigh. What to do what to do.
Watched the latest Wolverine movie at the hall here... I liked it -- it's fast, doesn't have too much nonsense battles and includes two beautiful Japanese women as major cast.
Photography is splotchy. I'm often confused about what lens to take. I guess that's the result of too many choices without corresponding level of skill. Still, I have some reasonably good photos that I will be uploading once the internet stops stuttering.
I've been busy with everything and Internet's spotty at my place. I've not written anything for the last three months because... no muse, nothing interesting to actually write about (even though I had many interesting things to think and talk about) and the fact that this blog in a limbo, stuck between two very different places.
Accra's nice. I thought it was a combination of Kathmandu, Birgunj and Rajbiraj. Most markets are like the haatbajaars we used to go in Duhabi and Rajbiraj so there's that. On the other hand, the nicer parts of the town are also somewhat nicer than corresponding places in Kathmandu.
People told me it would probably be hot here. It's not. It is actually rather chilly in the mornings and my lack of a proper blanket has created some minor wake-up issues. Evenings are unusually humid but we've been getting a lot of cool wind, so it's rather pleasant.
Bi said Kathmandu is run down, coming apart, and broken-down city. I did not agree entirely, but...sigh. What to do what to do.
Watched the latest Wolverine movie at the hall here... I liked it -- it's fast, doesn't have too much nonsense battles and includes two beautiful Japanese women as major cast.
Photography is splotchy. I'm often confused about what lens to take. I guess that's the result of too many choices without corresponding level of skill. Still, I have some reasonably good photos that I will be uploading once the internet stops stuttering.
Testing. Test 1-2-3
Hey there,
Glad you could make it. Gloomy day today, innit?
Where were we the last last time we met? Times Square, right. Oh yeah, Times Square on New Year's eve, hoping to catch Lady Gaga dropping the ball(s?), whatever that means.
Good times, man, good times. Those were the days. We would get up early in the morning, do a quick run, run to the shower, nude as a child's butt before entering the stalls, and stall in there for as long as we could. Stall in the stalls. Jokes. And then we would all have an all-out multiracial-multispecies orgy. All of this is false, duhh. Open your eyes, sheeple (sheep people are, confusingly enough, not people who fornicate with sheep or the unlikely products of the human-sheep amorous relations -- they are merely called so because of their nature as blind followers).
I have too many things I want to write about, but few that I will actually write about. Such is the human condition. And life goes maddeningly on.
Glad you could make it. Gloomy day today, innit?
Where were we the last last time we met? Times Square, right. Oh yeah, Times Square on New Year's eve, hoping to catch Lady Gaga dropping the ball(s?), whatever that means.
Good times, man, good times. Those were the days. We would get up early in the morning, do a quick run, run to the shower, nude as a child's butt before entering the stalls, and stall in there for as long as we could. Stall in the stalls. Jokes. And then we would all have an all-out multiracial-multispecies orgy. All of this is false, duhh. Open your eyes, sheeple (sheep people are, confusingly enough, not people who fornicate with sheep or the unlikely products of the human-sheep amorous relations -- they are merely called so because of their nature as blind followers).
I have too many things I want to write about, but few that I will actually write about. Such is the human condition. And life goes maddeningly on.
Incomplete
A danky, poorly-lit room. Rays of light peep in from gaps between the sheets of tin that make the roof. There's no floor to speak of -- it's the dry and dusty ground, with small holes poked into it by little kids playing digging games. A lightbulb hangs precariously from naked wires at the center of the room, the wires snaking out of the cutout in the mud-walls that acts as a door. The walls are the color of Sayapatri when looked at early in the morning during the Summers. Looked from the inside, they are always the color of ripe shit.
The air smells vaguely of shit that has been rotting for years. On some evenings, it actually smells of well-cooked vegetable curry with an excess of turmeric and vegetable oil, and that's when you know a good day was had by the people living in those houses. The wind will often blow in dust in the evenings, and the holes that are windows will be hurriedly covered by newspaper and sheets of plastic. A mess of wood and tin will cover the door, with enough space left to observe the happenings outside.
The baby begins wailing. He wails as if he were on a marathon of hiccup-crying. The cries will stop for the baby to take a rest, and then they will hiccup back into existence. Somewhere far off a pressure cooker whistle goes off. The baby is still sobbing, while the mother is vigorously rocking him on her lap as she puts a kettle of cold water on the stove. She is trying to get the radio set perched on the window sill to work, but all she gets out of it are angry hisses of white noise, the Radio Nepal transmission that she wants garbled into nonsense. She can hear the neighborhood kids on their bicycles, tringing their fat horns at each other and giggling as they try to figure out whose horn is the loudest.
It is hot inside the room. The dust makes it prickly too. You can feel particles of sand and mud settling on your head. During Summer evenings, walking in the room feels like wading underneath a vat of thick soup of the most unappetizing beans. The sunlit patterns from the roof catch eye at unexpected times. Those gleams of outside light and irritatingly painful in a dull way.
The air smells vaguely of shit that has been rotting for years. On some evenings, it actually smells of well-cooked vegetable curry with an excess of turmeric and vegetable oil, and that's when you know a good day was had by the people living in those houses. The wind will often blow in dust in the evenings, and the holes that are windows will be hurriedly covered by newspaper and sheets of plastic. A mess of wood and tin will cover the door, with enough space left to observe the happenings outside.
The baby begins wailing. He wails as if he were on a marathon of hiccup-crying. The cries will stop for the baby to take a rest, and then they will hiccup back into existence. Somewhere far off a pressure cooker whistle goes off. The baby is still sobbing, while the mother is vigorously rocking him on her lap as she puts a kettle of cold water on the stove. She is trying to get the radio set perched on the window sill to work, but all she gets out of it are angry hisses of white noise, the Radio Nepal transmission that she wants garbled into nonsense. She can hear the neighborhood kids on their bicycles, tringing their fat horns at each other and giggling as they try to figure out whose horn is the loudest.
It is hot inside the room. The dust makes it prickly too. You can feel particles of sand and mud settling on your head. During Summer evenings, walking in the room feels like wading underneath a vat of thick soup of the most unappetizing beans. The sunlit patterns from the roof catch eye at unexpected times. Those gleams of outside light and irritatingly painful in a dull way.
Bumbling like a bee
I have had too many thoughts, theories, and ideas for movies lately. Way to many for my head to hold. They go over me, and here we are, left together awkwardly, without a thing for me to write. So awkward.
Hitch wrote. Ebert wrote. I am nowhere near either. But I can write. And write I will.
Randomness starts wearing out after a time. Xkcd has a recent comic about how randomness is the opposite of interesting. The revelation isn't but I was disappointed, because, that's what I do best -- spring surprises on people. And then the Mango flew away to its prickish family along with piglet and Prithviraj Chauhan. See? We're on the same page now.
Terry Pratchett is brilliant, brilliant, and not only for a smartass teenager -- the kind that relishes on the fact that most of his contemporaries are likely to miss the jokes in Pratchett's books, while he gets only half the jokes himself. Humor always involves some element of surprise, and ho boy, are his book's full of surprises. Some of the surprises are planned (contrived? but does contrive even have positive connotations?) as parts of stories but most of his stories are little more than equivalents of lame physical humor. But. They are well-woven into the story and rarely go overboard. When they do go out-and-over the reader still comes out of it smarter, not having been taken for a fool who is content with foolish jokes. Random...(some) humor. Effective.
What else is funny? Modern Family. Lily the newly-minted Miss Smartypants. Phil the... there's a scene in one of the latest episodes where Claire is counting off the four times she had disappointed Jay. She counts off three and leaves off abruptly. It takes him some time to realize it's him.
Funny can sometimes be really strange or unexpected. I was playing a multiplayer game with a cousin on android. I was losing (and then lost), mostly because I was laughing so hard at the fact that I was losing an easy game. Yeah, I ain't got no clue eitha', brotha'. Too much?
Hitch wrote. Ebert wrote. I am nowhere near either. But I can write. And write I will.
Randomness starts wearing out after a time. Xkcd has a recent comic about how randomness is the opposite of interesting. The revelation isn't but I was disappointed, because, that's what I do best -- spring surprises on people. And then the Mango flew away to its prickish family along with piglet and Prithviraj Chauhan. See? We're on the same page now.
Terry Pratchett is brilliant, brilliant, and not only for a smartass teenager -- the kind that relishes on the fact that most of his contemporaries are likely to miss the jokes in Pratchett's books, while he gets only half the jokes himself. Humor always involves some element of surprise, and ho boy, are his book's full of surprises. Some of the surprises are planned (contrived? but does contrive even have positive connotations?) as parts of stories but most of his stories are little more than equivalents of lame physical humor. But. They are well-woven into the story and rarely go overboard. When they do go out-and-over the reader still comes out of it smarter, not having been taken for a fool who is content with foolish jokes. Random...(some) humor. Effective.
What else is funny? Modern Family. Lily the newly-minted Miss Smartypants. Phil the... there's a scene in one of the latest episodes where Claire is counting off the four times she had disappointed Jay. She counts off three and leaves off abruptly. It takes him some time to realize it's him.
Funny can sometimes be really strange or unexpected. I was playing a multiplayer game with a cousin on android. I was losing (and then lost), mostly because I was laughing so hard at the fact that I was losing an easy game. Yeah, I ain't got no clue eitha', brotha'. Too much?
Phrase of the month
Interface to reality: How a system interacts with the physical system it is representing
Er, Houston, we have a problem
The kids next door are being too noisy...
Listen to the following songs and watch the videos...
Gatzby
After reading way too many leftist praises of The Great Gatsby as well as well-written and articulated critiques (also from the Left.), this.
I read Gatsby in A1. Sbk had it hidden in his room, after (likely) stealing (read: borrowing without any intention to return, which is how I also got hold of Satanic Verses) from from some poor soul, and I happened by it, and read it, in an afternoon. It's a short novel, and not a very hard read.
Here's a confession: I skipped parts of it. Now that I think, I skipped a lot of it. I read somewhere that the names were an integral part of the story. I skipped all the names of the people in the parties, like when I skipped the names when reading the Old Testament. I skipped the emotional blather. I skipped details of the parties.
And yet I liked the book. Without ever being told it was about jazz, I could feel the jazz in it. I still felt that it was powerful stuff, without a clue about the hidden symbology. The dark, glum mood of a stormy day with lighting across the horizon was there every moment in the story, I felt it.
I'm told Gatsby is about the American dream. That's not the only read -- it's also about the unfulfilled American Dream (remember how Tom, the one with inheritance, ends up 'winning', after all?) or the folly of having a misguided American dream. One thing that's for sure is that Flitzerald intentionally engineered the smallest reference and symbolism knowingly -- with this man, an apple is never only an apple. Apples stand for dreams and whatnot in his world. I didn't need to know that, I didn't figure it out until I was told. I still enjoyed the book.
Changes are a-coming
I'll be making massive edits to the posts here for the next few days. They will be edited for diction, flow and whatever the hell is on my mind at the time. It will all be made more.. er.. professional looking. All my public accounts online be consolidated to a central location and the blog will be made fit enough to be there.
Boilerplate
There's something boiling inside me. I can feel the bubbles. Fermenting, fermenting. The pressure's building. Ready to burst out with force.
I pray to all the gods it's a critically-acclaimed bestselling novel.
So. What's new you all? Sab thik thak? Yeah? Aru, aru? Kei naya chhaina? Sure?
Still going to the dance classes and hanging out with your 'friend'? Who may or may not be your significant other but who cares as long as you're having fun and please you (meaning the writer) shouldn't be judgmental about sex because as long as you're with someone you enjoy being with sex is okay, and you don't need to be in a relationship -- I cannot fathom why you (the writer) think it is okay to hook up and so is being in a relationship but anything in between is disgusting and unacceptable-- do I sense hypocrisy and what not here, because there are no rules written down anywhere except maybe the ones that probably say 'everything I (meaning the writer) say is right, and everything else is not'. Hai?
Okay, so who's speaking right now? Is it the writer, the reader, or the character now? What are the walls being broken? Are words being put into the mouths of those that never uttered them for the sake of a good story? If they are, where's the limit? Discuss.
What is truth, and what is reality, and does it all even matter?
I have a serious impairment -- a limited vocabulary. There's another one -- a proclivity to write awkward sentences instead of simple but short sentences with a better flow. I wish I wrote sentences that flowed instead of bumping with each other like they were in a fish-market full of fat feisty fathers of fingering clowns.
I pray to all the gods it's a critically-acclaimed bestselling novel.
So. What's new you all? Sab thik thak? Yeah? Aru, aru? Kei naya chhaina? Sure?
Still going to the dance classes and hanging out with your 'friend'? Who may or may not be your significant other but who cares as long as you're having fun and please you (meaning the writer) shouldn't be judgmental about sex because as long as you're with someone you enjoy being with sex is okay, and you don't need to be in a relationship -- I cannot fathom why you (the writer) think it is okay to hook up and so is being in a relationship but anything in between is disgusting and unacceptable-- do I sense hypocrisy and what not here, because there are no rules written down anywhere except maybe the ones that probably say 'everything I (meaning the writer) say is right, and everything else is not'. Hai?
Okay, so who's speaking right now? Is it the writer, the reader, or the character now? What are the walls being broken? Are words being put into the mouths of those that never uttered them for the sake of a good story? If they are, where's the limit? Discuss.
What is truth, and what is reality, and does it all even matter?
I have a serious impairment -- a limited vocabulary. There's another one -- a proclivity to write awkward sentences instead of simple but short sentences with a better flow. I wish I wrote sentences that flowed instead of bumping with each other like they were in a fish-market full of fat feisty fathers of fingering clowns.
Bartholomew
Bartholomew is the word. Go.
St. Bartholomew Hospital in Northern Scotland is locally known as Bary's and it is one of the most prestigious hospitals in the region. When Sir Elton John wanted a sex-reconfiguration surgery he made Bary's his hospital of choice. King Birendra of Nepal got his second identity as a fishmonger in Berkshire after faking his death through a staged massacre thanks to the ingenuity of the brilliant resident surgeons at Bary's.
The hospital's history goes back to the late one-teeth century when Saxons invading England from West set up a camp to heal their wounded soldiers in the location where it currently stands. It existed as a tiny outpost for treating soldiers and served any soldier seeking treatment without inquiring his allegiance for four hundred years. In the oxidant century, St. Bartholomew of Russia was treated here for cooties, which he contracted while on his way to Ireland. As a gift of his gratitude, he donated ten thousand gold coins to the hospital, with a promise to help whenever the hospital's coffers ran low. It was the formal beginning of the most well-equipped and luxurious hospital that side of the Channel.
The hospital was visited in the nineteenth century by a woman of great stature known in the folktales as ' the lady with the lamp '. According to the local legend, she blessed the hospital to be able to serve all patients that require its services.
It was here that smallpox was first eaten, and diarrhea was first experimented with ( in ways others hadn't imagined could be dome). It is a pioneer in new medical practices, and a trailblazer in setting higher standards for patient treatment.
Today, it is patronized by the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Italian Mafia Boss Silvio Corleone.
St. Bartholomew Hospital in Northern Scotland is locally known as Bary's and it is one of the most prestigious hospitals in the region. When Sir Elton John wanted a sex-reconfiguration surgery he made Bary's his hospital of choice. King Birendra of Nepal got his second identity as a fishmonger in Berkshire after faking his death through a staged massacre thanks to the ingenuity of the brilliant resident surgeons at Bary's.
The hospital's history goes back to the late one-teeth century when Saxons invading England from West set up a camp to heal their wounded soldiers in the location where it currently stands. It existed as a tiny outpost for treating soldiers and served any soldier seeking treatment without inquiring his allegiance for four hundred years. In the oxidant century, St. Bartholomew of Russia was treated here for cooties, which he contracted while on his way to Ireland. As a gift of his gratitude, he donated ten thousand gold coins to the hospital, with a promise to help whenever the hospital's coffers ran low. It was the formal beginning of the most well-equipped and luxurious hospital that side of the Channel.
The hospital was visited in the nineteenth century by a woman of great stature known in the folktales as ' the lady with the lamp '. According to the local legend, she blessed the hospital to be able to serve all patients that require its services.
It was here that smallpox was first eaten, and diarrhea was first experimented with ( in ways others hadn't imagined could be dome). It is a pioneer in new medical practices, and a trailblazer in setting higher standards for patient treatment.
Today, it is patronized by the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Italian Mafia Boss Silvio Corleone.
Ginvivitis
Gingivitis is the word. Go.
Ginga was a girl with many passions.
She worked for a newspaper as a reporter, but she edited stories also because she liked doing it. She went to the orphanage every weekend to give away food and used cloths she had collected over the week. She was an astute political satirist, and on several occasions had penned the paper's political cartoon when the resident cartoonist couldn't make it.
Her job began at three in the afternoon. To keep herself occupied in the mornings, she went to a language class and a dance class. She had tried learning Pashtun, but she couldn't get the books, so she was now studying Farsi. She thought that Farsi went particularly well with Salsa, which she was learning. She had originally enrolled into modern dance, but after discovering it was full of middle-aged office managers coaxed into dancing by their nagging wives, she realized she would rather dance with college students.
When Somesh called at three in the morning, she was not particularly worried -- it was the third time in two months. The front page would have to be changed, Somesh said, there had been a breaking news. The paper would go to the press in an hour. She would have to do the edits from home, right away.
This was one of the several occasions when Ginga thought she'd rather have gingivitis than the work at hand. She knew she wouldn't be getting any credit if she got this right, but everything would be on if something--anything at all--went wrong. She sighed, turned her laptop on, and glanced at the leading story.
King Birendra, the Queen, the Princes, Princesses, and 15 other close members of the royal family had been assassinated.
Ginga was a girl with many passions.
She worked for a newspaper as a reporter, but she edited stories also because she liked doing it. She went to the orphanage every weekend to give away food and used cloths she had collected over the week. She was an astute political satirist, and on several occasions had penned the paper's political cartoon when the resident cartoonist couldn't make it.
Her job began at three in the afternoon. To keep herself occupied in the mornings, she went to a language class and a dance class. She had tried learning Pashtun, but she couldn't get the books, so she was now studying Farsi. She thought that Farsi went particularly well with Salsa, which she was learning. She had originally enrolled into modern dance, but after discovering it was full of middle-aged office managers coaxed into dancing by their nagging wives, she realized she would rather dance with college students.
When Somesh called at three in the morning, she was not particularly worried -- it was the third time in two months. The front page would have to be changed, Somesh said, there had been a breaking news. The paper would go to the press in an hour. She would have to do the edits from home, right away.
This was one of the several occasions when Ginga thought she'd rather have gingivitis than the work at hand. She knew she wouldn't be getting any credit if she got this right, but everything would be on if something--anything at all--went wrong. She sighed, turned her laptop on, and glanced at the leading story.
King Birendra, the Queen, the Princes, Princesses, and 15 other close members of the royal family had been assassinated.
Sansanee
Sansanee is the word. Go.
Sansaneee! What was hot yesterday is dead today, and will become a fossil tomorrow. What you think you did yesterday is irrelevant.
Everyone wants the NOW, and the HOW.
Sansaneee! Serve it hot, serve it fast, and serve it to them as often as you can. Serve it to them more than they can handle. Spice it up, heat it, strike it. The strongest of the swords are forged only in the hottest of fires.
Sansanee! When you need to tell them that they NEED to know something. They don't know that they need to know -- you gotta' convince them that they need to know, and they need to know it every moment. Every moment is different, completely different and hotter than it was last moment. It's urgent, it demands their attention right now!
Sansanee! When the world needs to be told of truths it may not be ready to hear. You spice the truth because truth needs to be told, and they don't know it, you should convince them that they NEED to know it RIGHT now.
Sansaneee! Zoom into everything. Dark zoom into everything that gives it an air of gloom and urgency and lets them know how urgent it actually is. Pay special attention to the music. Good music can make it or break it. The music should be urgent, it should be fast, and it should be loud. Don't waste your time on composing scores. Slap some quick urgent ominous tunes together, and you are ready for the run.
Sansaneee! What was hot yesterday is dead today, and will become a fossil tomorrow. What you think you did yesterday is irrelevant.
Everyone wants the NOW, and the HOW.
Sansaneee! Serve it hot, serve it fast, and serve it to them as often as you can. Serve it to them more than they can handle. Spice it up, heat it, strike it. The strongest of the swords are forged only in the hottest of fires.
Sansanee! When you need to tell them that they NEED to know something. They don't know that they need to know -- you gotta' convince them that they need to know, and they need to know it every moment. Every moment is different, completely different and hotter than it was last moment. It's urgent, it demands their attention right now!
Sansanee! When the world needs to be told of truths it may not be ready to hear. You spice the truth because truth needs to be told, and they don't know it, you should convince them that they NEED to know it RIGHT now.
Sansaneee! Zoom into everything. Dark zoom into everything that gives it an air of gloom and urgency and lets them know how urgent it actually is. Pay special attention to the music. Good music can make it or break it. The music should be urgent, it should be fast, and it should be loud. Don't waste your time on composing scores. Slap some quick urgent ominous tunes together, and you are ready for the run.
Confessions of an office
Confession #201:
Dear co-workers, I was the one who stole all the coffee the day big assignment was due. In my defense, they were really good.
Confession #220:
I don't want to point fingers at anyone, but whatever idiot put the big-boobied woman on the printer, NOT cool. I was two seconds away from ratting you out to the management. If you don't stop, things will get bad for you. You know who you are.
Confession #222:
Am I the only one who things Kelly looks really hot in the gray sweater? Come on fellas', this is a safe environment. As long as we're not harassing everyone, anonymous compliments are allowed.
Confession #277:
I left work and got a sauna therapy. I pretended I'd gone to the toilet.
Confession #314:
To the person who said " I don't think people should be allowed to wear super-slutty cloths for Halloween" : I agree. Unless a dude. Then the slutty cheerleader dress should be made COMPULSORY.
Confession #315:
Is this the right platform for posting poems? Guys? I write poems in secret, and it'd be really cool if you guys could give some honest feedback, you know. It's so hard to get honest-to-god feedback in real life from people. Since you don't know my identity, and I don't know yours, we should not be worried about hurting each other.
Confession #367:
Response to poem#7: Brian, you should stop posting those poems here. We know it's you. We can see you typing the poems on your screen. And I don't want to be mean, but your poetry sucks. You're good at doing your everyday job man, you should keep doing it..
Confession #372:
To whoever posted #367: This is Brian. I don't post poems. The poems are not mine. If you have seen my screen, then you also probably know that I'm working on the management's new journal for the department. They're all your poems guys. I'd be more than glad to post them anonymously without your names if you want me to.
Confession #375:
No thanks Brian! We'd rather get our poems published in the journal.
Confession #401:
Is it just me or has the general environment here started getting meaner. I mean, when we first started out, people were all nice to each other, but now with the things people are posting, I'm sorry to say but it sometimes feels like workplace harassment.
Confession #407:
TO the poster who said this confession page feels like harassment: no one's forcing you to look at this page. Besides, no one has had revealing information about them posted here. I'm assuming you're a woman: so if you think this is workplace harassment, you don't know what harassment is at all. You're demeaning the value of the word harassment by using it in unnecessary place. It's because of people like you that actual workplace harassment is not treated seriously.
Confession # 410:
The admins should definitely try to make this more managed. I have started seeing meaner and meaner posts here recently, and I don't feel as comfortable as I used to. I partly agreed to someone who said this was started to feel like harassment: this is getting uncomfortable. Lets stop while we are ahead.
Confession #417:
Anyone know where this year's Christmas party's gonna' happen?
Confession #421:
Guys, this is a CONFESSION page. You are supposed to make CONFESSIONS here, not treat it like a message board. If you want a messageboard, you should email everyone, or use the mailing list. Please don't spoil the fun of a confession page by posting your boring unnecessary useless posts here people. We need to keep this thing alive, for godssake. The admins should be more careful with regards to this.
Confession #422:
So what are you guys getting for the secret Santa. I mean, generally. I'm running out of ideas, and I really wanted this year's secret Santa to be the best ever.
Confession #426:
Someone left a big deuce on the gent's toilet. I have a feeling it has been rotting there for days. Don't the janitors come here everyday.
Confession #429:
Hey guys, this is Shawn. If you have any issues with the workplace environment, please report to me as soon as you can so I can help you at the earliest. I was not aware of the Men's room situation -- I might have been able to solve it earlier had you guys let me know earlier.
Confession #432:
I'm betting $50 that it was Shawn's deuce in the potty.
Confession #434:
Shaun's the man! I think Shawn's hawwt. <3>
Confession #437:
To the poster who thinks Shawn is hot: he may be hot in relative office terms, but he's not very attractive overall. Inside office, he's probably like a nine, but in real world outside he's barely a seven.
Confession #439:
Lets start a poll: Who thinks Shawn should grow beard? Respond to it with #pollShawn.
Confession #440:
I'll start first. #pollShawn. YES! He'll look like David Beckham if he gets some stubble.
Confession #442:
#pollShawn. David Beckham does not have lots of facial hair. At least get your facts right before posting here. I don't even think anyone follows soccer here. So NO. Shawn shouldn't get a beard. #noBeard.
Confession #444:
#pollShawn. I don't care either way, but new is always better. He should probably give it a shot. #meh.
Confession #446:
#pollShawn lol guys should we be doing this? Reply to this with tag #anon69 .
Confession #492:
#missyPrissy #yeahway #bigdig yes, agree. But Obama doesn't really have an option. With the republicans out to get him at any cost, he doesn't have a lot of way for bipartisanship. #crazyKoala
Confession #571:
Yeah, lets all do that. It'll make things so much easier to understand. #easytounderstand #missyPrissy #yeahway #bigdig #johnmyman #replacehastagswithats -@stinkaroo
Confession #611:
@bigdig It already feels like it's july! Gosh I hope we don't get hurricanes like we did last year. #noMoreHurricanes. -@yeahway
Confession #617:
@everyone: who else thinks s/he has figured out who's posting what in this forum? -@juleee
Confession #619:
More or less everyone. I'm thrown off my some random messages though. RT @juleee: "@everyone: who else thinks s/he has figured out who's posting what in this forum? -@juleee" -@missyPrissy
Confession #625:
Whoa. Really you guys? I swear I have no clue at all. There are a lot more handles with female names than there are women in this office.
"More or less everyone. I'm thrown off my some random messages though. RT @juleee: "@everyone: who else thinks s/he has figured out who's posting what in this forum? -@juleee" -@missyPrissy" -@stinkaroo.
Confession #642:
Confession: I gave address of this confession page to my friends outside work. Which is why there are a lot more users here than us.
Confession #646:
Oh my! -@missMarples.
Confession #654:
Not so sure about that. I have been using this forum as several different people, so I guess that makes up for the extra people from outside. RT: "Confession: I gave address of this confession page to my friends outside work. Which is why there are a lot more users here than us."
Confession #670:
Anyone who posts here or visits this page has no life at all. And the admins have absolutely no fking life.You're all losers if you spend all day posting and looking at this page.
Confession #672:
...says the person who probably read half the posts before posting here. RT: "Anyone who posts here or visits this page has no life at all. And the admins have absolutely no fking life.You're all losers if you spend all day posting and looking at this page." -@ johhhs
Dear co-workers, I was the one who stole all the coffee the day big assignment was due. In my defense, they were really good.
Confession #220:
I don't want to point fingers at anyone, but whatever idiot put the big-boobied woman on the printer, NOT cool. I was two seconds away from ratting you out to the management. If you don't stop, things will get bad for you. You know who you are.
Confession #222:
Am I the only one who things Kelly looks really hot in the gray sweater? Come on fellas', this is a safe environment. As long as we're not harassing everyone, anonymous compliments are allowed.
Confession #277:
I left work and got a sauna therapy. I pretended I'd gone to the toilet.
Confession #314:
To the person who said " I don't think people should be allowed to wear super-slutty cloths for Halloween" : I agree. Unless a dude. Then the slutty cheerleader dress should be made COMPULSORY.
Confession #315:
Is this the right platform for posting poems? Guys? I write poems in secret, and it'd be really cool if you guys could give some honest feedback, you know. It's so hard to get honest-to-god feedback in real life from people. Since you don't know my identity, and I don't know yours, we should not be worried about hurting each other.
Confession #367:
Response to poem#7: Brian, you should stop posting those poems here. We know it's you. We can see you typing the poems on your screen. And I don't want to be mean, but your poetry sucks. You're good at doing your everyday job man, you should keep doing it..
Confession #372:
To whoever posted #367: This is Brian. I don't post poems. The poems are not mine. If you have seen my screen, then you also probably know that I'm working on the management's new journal for the department. They're all your poems guys. I'd be more than glad to post them anonymously without your names if you want me to.
Confession #375:
No thanks Brian! We'd rather get our poems published in the journal.
Confession #401:
Is it just me or has the general environment here started getting meaner. I mean, when we first started out, people were all nice to each other, but now with the things people are posting, I'm sorry to say but it sometimes feels like workplace harassment.
Confession #407:
TO the poster who said this confession page feels like harassment: no one's forcing you to look at this page. Besides, no one has had revealing information about them posted here. I'm assuming you're a woman: so if you think this is workplace harassment, you don't know what harassment is at all. You're demeaning the value of the word harassment by using it in unnecessary place. It's because of people like you that actual workplace harassment is not treated seriously.
Confession # 410:
The admins should definitely try to make this more managed. I have started seeing meaner and meaner posts here recently, and I don't feel as comfortable as I used to. I partly agreed to someone who said this was started to feel like harassment: this is getting uncomfortable. Lets stop while we are ahead.
Confession #417:
Anyone know where this year's Christmas party's gonna' happen?
Confession #421:
Guys, this is a CONFESSION page. You are supposed to make CONFESSIONS here, not treat it like a message board. If you want a messageboard, you should email everyone, or use the mailing list. Please don't spoil the fun of a confession page by posting your boring unnecessary useless posts here people. We need to keep this thing alive, for godssake. The admins should be more careful with regards to this.
Confession #422:
So what are you guys getting for the secret Santa. I mean, generally. I'm running out of ideas, and I really wanted this year's secret Santa to be the best ever.
Confession #426:
Someone left a big deuce on the gent's toilet. I have a feeling it has been rotting there for days. Don't the janitors come here everyday.
Confession #429:
Hey guys, this is Shawn. If you have any issues with the workplace environment, please report to me as soon as you can so I can help you at the earliest. I was not aware of the Men's room situation -- I might have been able to solve it earlier had you guys let me know earlier.
Confession #432:
I'm betting $50 that it was Shawn's deuce in the potty.
Confession #434:
Shaun's the man! I think Shawn's hawwt. <3>
Confession #437:
To the poster who thinks Shawn is hot: he may be hot in relative office terms, but he's not very attractive overall. Inside office, he's probably like a nine, but in real world outside he's barely a seven.
Confession #439:
Lets start a poll: Who thinks Shawn should grow beard? Respond to it with #pollShawn.
Confession #440:
I'll start first. #pollShawn. YES! He'll look like David Beckham if he gets some stubble.
Confession #442:
#pollShawn. David Beckham does not have lots of facial hair. At least get your facts right before posting here. I don't even think anyone follows soccer here. So NO. Shawn shouldn't get a beard. #noBeard.
Confession #444:
#pollShawn. I don't care either way, but new is always better. He should probably give it a shot. #meh.
Confession #446:
#pollShawn lol guys should we be doing this? Reply to this with tag #anon69 .
Confession #492:
#missyPrissy #yeahway #bigdig yes, agree. But Obama doesn't really have an option. With the republicans out to get him at any cost, he doesn't have a lot of way for bipartisanship. #crazyKoala
Confession #571:
Yeah, lets all do that. It'll make things so much easier to understand. #easytounderstand #missyPrissy #yeahway #bigdig #johnmyman #replacehastagswithats -@stinkaroo
Confession #611:
@bigdig It already feels like it's july! Gosh I hope we don't get hurricanes like we did last year. #noMoreHurricanes. -@yeahway
Confession #617:
@everyone: who else thinks s/he has figured out who's posting what in this forum? -@juleee
Confession #619:
More or less everyone. I'm thrown off my some random messages though. RT @juleee: "@everyone: who else thinks s/he has figured out who's posting what in this forum? -@juleee" -@missyPrissy
Confession #625:
Whoa. Really you guys? I swear I have no clue at all. There are a lot more handles with female names than there are women in this office.
"More or less everyone. I'm thrown off my some random messages though. RT @juleee: "@everyone: who else thinks s/he has figured out who's posting what in this forum? -@juleee" -@missyPrissy" -@stinkaroo.
Confession #642:
Confession: I gave address of this confession page to my friends outside work. Which is why there are a lot more users here than us.
Confession #646:
Oh my! -@missMarples.
Confession #654:
Not so sure about that. I have been using this forum as several different people, so I guess that makes up for the extra people from outside. RT: "Confession: I gave address of this confession page to my friends outside work. Which is why there are a lot more users here than us."
Confession #670:
Anyone who posts here or visits this page has no life at all. And the admins have absolutely no fking life.You're all losers if you spend all day posting and looking at this page.
Confession #672:
...says the person who probably read half the posts before posting here. RT: "Anyone who posts here or visits this page has no life at all. And the admins have absolutely no fking life.You're all losers if you spend all day posting and looking at this page." -@ johhhs
So many confessions
I didn't want to breach the topic, but I must write.
Everyone in Nepal seems to have finally figured out what confessions are and think they are incredibly fun. So everyone has a confession group now. Confession group for Class-4 section D, confession group for class 8 section A first row, confession group for Gaurishankar House Cubicle 8. All of them anonymous too.
Dear gc8 guys, I used to steal your toothpaste every day from the locker in the middle. When the toothpaste there finished, I started breaking into the left locker's toothpaste. Was it gc8? What cubicle were you in Su? That room, you know, whatever room Su lived in.
Talking of that, Su and confessions, what made me write this was a confession by someone who 'led a different life' from classes 4-A2, and how he was not who he was and how everyone is surprised he went to the school. Because he is so not the 'type'. Lot of things wrong with that. To start, he should see a therapist if he's not already seeing one-- there's nothing wrong with it. More on that someday when I will talk about the trend of preemptively going to the therapist to prepare yourself for therapy-requiring experiences you might have.
This is to that person: Who are you and who are you? Who is the inside you and who is the outside you? What do you like, and what do you pretend to like? How were you different from everyone else? What makes you think every other self is the same, same, copycat, and you are the only different person, yo?
Sorry-- sorry for rambling and asking rhetorical questions. Here's my point: babu, many gay men and women have passed those gates, those shower stalls and those smelly dormitories, played in those muddy fields and done other decidedly ungay(you might say, because, you know, what defines you is a very specific set of things, yeah?) things. They were lying about the gender of partner they preferred for all those years. And you think you are the hero, huh mister?
Unless you're gay and that's where you're going. In which case, come out of the closet already. Don't make it so suspenseful -- I keep imagining exciting things (I have an interesting idea for an first-person story about how the narrator has a super-normal life until the day--the day when he graduates from college-- he is told that he is not a Homosapien but one of the 'lost' humanoid species that lost out to humans and was brought back by scientists, and it's going to be about how he took control of his fate and redefined what it means to be a person [you don't have to be a human to be a person, etcetc] ) and then am super-disappointed when you reveal your obvious 'secrets' (here's how everyone guesses/finds out: if you keep staring at guys' butts ALL the time, people WILL know you're gay, no matter how much you delude yourself into believe you're fooling everyone else), and I'll be all like, omyfkinggod did i reallly get thatexcited for thisshit?
On a slightly more serious note, our culture seems on a path to being catholicized -- no judgments. We have so many taboos, and try hard as we might, we seem to not overcome them. So we go the catholic way-- we confess, and try to atone for our 'crimes'.
But back to my schools confessions. They're not really confessions. They're hami bhanda ek batch senior daiharu and super-junior kids trying to rekindle their school days. Because that's what you do when you have a tough future ahead. You do things like writing about your school, your friends, and what you did there, and what they do now, like how they're opening up a confessions page, lol.
R out.
PS: You guys should really start commenting here yaar. I can see you and your geolocation in my stats page, so I *know* you're reading this.
PPS: The 'PS:' is, as you will notice, a desperate call for attention. Exactly what the confessions page are doing. Point proven. I'm really out now.
Everyone in Nepal seems to have finally figured out what confessions are and think they are incredibly fun. So everyone has a confession group now. Confession group for Class-4 section D, confession group for class 8 section A first row, confession group for Gaurishankar House Cubicle 8. All of them anonymous too.
Dear gc8 guys, I used to steal your toothpaste every day from the locker in the middle. When the toothpaste there finished, I started breaking into the left locker's toothpaste. Was it gc8? What cubicle were you in Su? That room, you know, whatever room Su lived in.
Talking of that, Su and confessions, what made me write this was a confession by someone who 'led a different life' from classes 4-A2, and how he was not who he was and how everyone is surprised he went to the school. Because he is so not the 'type'. Lot of things wrong with that. To start, he should see a therapist if he's not already seeing one-- there's nothing wrong with it. More on that someday when I will talk about the trend of preemptively going to the therapist to prepare yourself for therapy-requiring experiences you might have.
This is to that person: Who are you and who are you? Who is the inside you and who is the outside you? What do you like, and what do you pretend to like? How were you different from everyone else? What makes you think every other self is the same, same, copycat, and you are the only different person, yo?
Sorry-- sorry for rambling and asking rhetorical questions. Here's my point: babu, many gay men and women have passed those gates, those shower stalls and those smelly dormitories, played in those muddy fields and done other decidedly ungay(you might say, because, you know, what defines you is a very specific set of things, yeah?) things. They were lying about the gender of partner they preferred for all those years. And you think you are the hero, huh mister?
Unless you're gay and that's where you're going. In which case, come out of the closet already. Don't make it so suspenseful -- I keep imagining exciting things (I have an interesting idea for an first-person story about how the narrator has a super-normal life until the day--the day when he graduates from college-- he is told that he is not a Homosapien but one of the 'lost' humanoid species that lost out to humans and was brought back by scientists, and it's going to be about how he took control of his fate and redefined what it means to be a person [you don't have to be a human to be a person, etcetc] ) and then am super-disappointed when you reveal your obvious 'secrets' (here's how everyone guesses/finds out: if you keep staring at guys' butts ALL the time, people WILL know you're gay, no matter how much you delude yourself into believe you're fooling everyone else), and I'll be all like, omyfkinggod did i reallly get thatexcited for thisshit?
On a slightly more serious note, our culture seems on a path to being catholicized -- no judgments. We have so many taboos, and try hard as we might, we seem to not overcome them. So we go the catholic way-- we confess, and try to atone for our 'crimes'.
But back to my schools confessions. They're not really confessions. They're hami bhanda ek batch senior daiharu and super-junior kids trying to rekindle their school days. Because that's what you do when you have a tough future ahead. You do things like writing about your school, your friends, and what you did there, and what they do now, like how they're opening up a confessions page, lol.
R out.
PS: You guys should really start commenting here yaar. I can see you and your geolocation in my stats page, so I *know* you're reading this.
PPS: The 'PS:' is, as you will notice, a desperate call for attention. Exactly what the confessions page are doing. Point proven. I'm really out now.
Jibber Jabber
Yo. Raise your hand if you're here, so I know you are here. Haha, jokes, right -- if you're not here you can't raise your hand, but if you're here...[logic failure].
Hmm, what to say what to say. K reminds me of a Nepali film ko nice heroni and every time I tell her she's like, ho ra? That song, Jahaan Teku. A girl from that. I've never been able to say for certain what her name is because it seems to keep changing. Last time I checked, it was probably Nisha-- no wait, that's the other heroine. What's the arko heroine ko naam, who looks broody but is really nice? Is that Nisha? Are there more than one Nishas in Nepali film industry? K ho k ho. So many unanswered questions yaar.
Maile padhne blog haru update atti rarely huna thaalyo, so I've found that the josh and asha and bhawishya ko lagi naya blaab is dying. Not that it was actually there, but you know, saano tiino bache khucheko je je thyo, tyo pani sakyo.
I'm spending the next semester studying in a developing country. And I've decided I'd be really comfortable spending the life of an expat there, even though I can't afford it. Yupp, yupp. That's me. The only people I know who've been there are considerably attractive young white women, so the only thing I know about the place is 'yeahh, they kept on asking for my number, and kept on asking me to marry them-- even mothers would come to me and tell me to marry their sons.'
Which is super unhelpful for me, if you know me at all. Because... huuh, not a lot of mothers have come to me and told me to marry their sons, if you get my gist. I don't think that's suddenly going to change, but whaddya know, lets keep our fingers crossed. Not that I'd agree to, nono, don't mistake that -- I've already written many many posts on that issue so check my archives (hoho, what a line, that one, what a line. 'Yo, how'd you like my aarrrchives. You like it, ya,ya?')-- but it'd just feel nice, you know. Mothers and sons and marriage and arranged and stuck for you life hoho poor bastards.
Talking of bastards, have you guys been following Nepali politics closely? The last time I checked, they apparently got a new Prime Minister I think. And then boring newspaper headlines kept happening so I zoned out. You know.
Oh yeah. Next few months are probably going go be boring if I don't actively do something to make them better, but my plans don't seem to be...gaining traction... so I'm coming up with more and more funstuff to do, and we'll see where things go. Hopefully a good place, but you never know with Momoland.
If you've been keeping track of what I've been upto, in this blog, you've probably seen that I've been posting lots of fun code-stuff here. I'll keep that going, and more fun stuff is to come. However, this is not going to be a 'tech-blog'(circa 2007.) or a codeblog. What it will become is a place for me to experiment, to try out new things and projects, and the shizzles. You know. Same old but kinda' new. Except that now I write lame prose (which, if you keep getting confused like me, means not-poem. It's easy to remember: there's either poem or prose. Z taught me that yesterday) and faux-poetry, and now I'll also start writing lame code. The difference is going to be that you're going to be able to explore on your own through my programs. Which totally sounds like I'm teasing you about 'exploring' with other girls because, please, you're not in Nepal and you're young, and you haven't even tried so how would you know, and Nepal gayepachi esto hudaina, so you should explore all you want right now with girls, and there's no danger to that again k, lajaaunu parne kei chhaina, but please. I'm totally not saying that. That's outrageous. I'm offended you would even suggest that I would have the chutzpah to say that k. Quite offended. Dangerr offended.
Do I sound like an 18 year-old? Because that's quite a progress from the last time I checked, when I sounded like a 16 year-old. I'm growing old yaar, even in my writing.
Hmm, what to say what to say. K reminds me of a Nepali film ko nice heroni and every time I tell her she's like, ho ra? That song, Jahaan Teku. A girl from that. I've never been able to say for certain what her name is because it seems to keep changing. Last time I checked, it was probably Nisha-- no wait, that's the other heroine. What's the arko heroine ko naam, who looks broody but is really nice? Is that Nisha? Are there more than one Nishas in Nepali film industry? K ho k ho. So many unanswered questions yaar.
Maile padhne blog haru update atti rarely huna thaalyo, so I've found that the josh and asha and bhawishya ko lagi naya blaab is dying. Not that it was actually there, but you know, saano tiino bache khucheko je je thyo, tyo pani sakyo.
I'm spending the next semester studying in a developing country. And I've decided I'd be really comfortable spending the life of an expat there, even though I can't afford it. Yupp, yupp. That's me. The only people I know who've been there are considerably attractive young white women, so the only thing I know about the place is 'yeahh, they kept on asking for my number, and kept on asking me to marry them-- even mothers would come to me and tell me to marry their sons.'
Which is super unhelpful for me, if you know me at all. Because... huuh, not a lot of mothers have come to me and told me to marry their sons, if you get my gist. I don't think that's suddenly going to change, but whaddya know, lets keep our fingers crossed. Not that I'd agree to, nono, don't mistake that -- I've already written many many posts on that issue so check my archives (hoho, what a line, that one, what a line. 'Yo, how'd you like my aarrrchives. You like it, ya,ya?')-- but it'd just feel nice, you know. Mothers and sons and marriage and arranged and stuck for you life hoho poor bastards.
Talking of bastards, have you guys been following Nepali politics closely? The last time I checked, they apparently got a new Prime Minister I think. And then boring newspaper headlines kept happening so I zoned out. You know.
Oh yeah. Next few months are probably going go be boring if I don't actively do something to make them better, but my plans don't seem to be...gaining traction... so I'm coming up with more and more funstuff to do, and we'll see where things go. Hopefully a good place, but you never know with Momoland.
If you've been keeping track of what I've been upto, in this blog, you've probably seen that I've been posting lots of fun code-stuff here. I'll keep that going, and more fun stuff is to come. However, this is not going to be a 'tech-blog'(circa 2007.) or a codeblog. What it will become is a place for me to experiment, to try out new things and projects, and the shizzles. You know. Same old but kinda' new. Except that now I write lame prose (which, if you keep getting confused like me, means not-poem. It's easy to remember: there's either poem or prose. Z taught me that yesterday) and faux-poetry, and now I'll also start writing lame code. The difference is going to be that you're going to be able to explore on your own through my programs. Which totally sounds like I'm teasing you about 'exploring' with other girls because, please, you're not in Nepal and you're young, and you haven't even tried so how would you know, and Nepal gayepachi esto hudaina, so you should explore all you want right now with girls, and there's no danger to that again k, lajaaunu parne kei chhaina, but please. I'm totally not saying that. That's outrageous. I'm offended you would even suggest that I would have the chutzpah to say that k. Quite offended. Dangerr offended.
Do I sound like an 18 year-old? Because that's quite a progress from the last time I checked, when I sounded like a 16 year-old. I'm growing old yaar, even in my writing.
As an fyi
As an fyi:
Intelligence and knowledge are so hot. So so so frikkin' hot. So so so hot. With modesty of course, but still. Too much. Way more than physical appearances. Hmm. Maybe I'm really growing old.
Intelligence and knowledge are so hot. So so so frikkin' hot. So so so hot. With modesty of course, but still. Too much. Way more than physical appearances. Hmm. Maybe I'm really growing old.
Sajha dreams
Much has been said and written about the relaunch of the Sajha bus service. I don't have anything intelligent to add to the conversation that's not already been said.
The bus service holds memories for some, but for me --someone who never got on one of those and barely saw any-- it's the sense of nostalgia that matters. The nostalgia for a time when I wasn't here but when people were hopeful. It wasn't the bus-service. It's the song that has kept the bus-service alive in memory.
I don't know what year the song is from. My guess is it's somewhere in the mid-to-late early eighties to early nineties.
You can hear it in Haribansha's voice. You can see it in the actors' (who are all mostly terrible in their job) eyes. You can see it in the cinematography. There's so much hope. Bahudal was around the corner. Markets were going to open. The Sajha bus of prosperity was going to take off-- ironically-- through the private sector. Popular multiparty democracy would lead to accountability, development, better services, greater liberalization, more freedom. No one would have to line up for gas or kerosene. Scarcity would be a thing of the past. The leaders-- incompetent as they were-- could not fess that one up. It was so easy.
And then it wasn't. Things happened, and here we are now, two/two-and-half decades later, unsure if we're really better off today than we were then. But the nostalgia of hope has stayed with us. We are cynical at times, but we want to be hopeful, we want to put our naive trust in institutions that have mostly failed us in the past. We miss those times when we could be hopeful, and we had no solid reasons to be cynical. We knew this was going to happen, that failure was just across the bump, oh yes we knew, but we didn't want to think about it. We wanted to believe that we were wrong, that the sajha-bus future was the good future in store, and things would be just fine.
Sajha bus, the institution, the song, is a consolation. That there were times when we were less distrustful and less cynical. That doesn't mean we have reason to be any less distrustful now, but ...there was a time when we were happy, when we hadn't given up hopes of a better future. We collectively dreamed of peace, prosperity and accountability. We can't dream those dreams anymore. But we can certainly wistfully remember those dreams. Sajha bus, the service and the song, is that memory of the days when we dared to dream of a better future.
Arts
Here's some art I did. You can create your own in the empty space after the images. Move your mouse around and the colors will change. I made this by moving the mouse in circles. Small circles get more interesting colors, I noticed. Click to start drawing, click to stop drawing (saves some of your processor cycles). Or go to the original link, which will save you a little computer power .
Boston, alive
I survived another round of bomb blasts. Terrorists all over seem to be really bad at this one thing-- blowing me into pieces. Observations as someone who was 50m from the blasts:
1) I'm writing this point first because I just read this article on The Atlantic. Those in reddits who're 'hunting' for the bombers online through images are vigilantes like black and white, and using technology to hide their true identities does not make them any less of vigilantes than any other point in time. Some who consider themselves more technologically sophisticated on the internet seem to consider themselves invulnerable gods who are never wrong, the likes of whom the world has never seen. They ignore the lessons from history (RE: bitcoin and those who believe it's a 'totally new thing') and everything else mankind has learned from its follies. This is a rant for a whole post. Here's the gist: technology does not/should not mean the end of democracy and a functioning state.
2) The bombs were not designed to kill. They were designed to hurt, create panic, maybe severe limbs, but not hurt people. To begin with, they were not nearly powerful to create major damages. Second, one of them was placed in a trash can-- which actually deflected most of the impact of the blast upwards. The potential for damage was so much higher than it actually was.
3) Either it's a really, really incompetent and unenthusiastic international terrorist group, or one of those bitter people who's angry at someone for some reason or other. I strongly believe it's the second.
4) The response was amazing. Not only by cops and doctors, but medical volunteers, people younger than I am, who rushed with stretchers and wheelchairs towards the blasts seconds after they happened.
5) This merits a different post too but here's the gist anyway: comparing those blasts to those in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria etc. is completely wrong, so so wrong and misguided, and doesn't get the basic concept of context in political analysis. America spends a LOT more per person for security than they do, and American is KNOWN for its relative security(at least from bombs. the crazies will never let it be safe from guns). I have a lot more to say on this. Maybe later.
6) Marathon runners can be quite attractive.
1) I'm writing this point first because I just read this article on The Atlantic. Those in reddits who're 'hunting' for the bombers online through images are vigilantes like black and white, and using technology to hide their true identities does not make them any less of vigilantes than any other point in time. Some who consider themselves more technologically sophisticated on the internet seem to consider themselves invulnerable gods who are never wrong, the likes of whom the world has never seen. They ignore the lessons from history (RE: bitcoin and those who believe it's a 'totally new thing') and everything else mankind has learned from its follies. This is a rant for a whole post. Here's the gist: technology does not/should not mean the end of democracy and a functioning state.
2) The bombs were not designed to kill. They were designed to hurt, create panic, maybe severe limbs, but not hurt people. To begin with, they were not nearly powerful to create major damages. Second, one of them was placed in a trash can-- which actually deflected most of the impact of the blast upwards. The potential for damage was so much higher than it actually was.
3) Either it's a really, really incompetent and unenthusiastic international terrorist group, or one of those bitter people who's angry at someone for some reason or other. I strongly believe it's the second.
4) The response was amazing. Not only by cops and doctors, but medical volunteers, people younger than I am, who rushed with stretchers and wheelchairs towards the blasts seconds after they happened.
5) This merits a different post too but here's the gist anyway: comparing those blasts to those in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria etc. is completely wrong, so so wrong and misguided, and doesn't get the basic concept of context in political analysis. America spends a LOT more per person for security than they do, and American is KNOWN for its relative security(at least from bombs. the crazies will never let it be safe from guns). I have a lot more to say on this. Maybe later.
6) Marathon runners can be quite attractive.
Confessions
The idea of confessions is very catholic. Admit your failure, admit your darkest thoughts, and you'll be absolved. Truth solves everything. This is in reaction to the popular confession page that's been making rounds.
The thing is, confessions are mostly unnecessary, and wherein they create less happiness, even harmful. Nobody really needs to know the hate you spew for people you don't like. We get it-- you have prejudices, you have thoughts 'Dear EC5 girl, I have a crush on you', 'I get angry when I see townies', 'Omg, group of six have free printing?' Is it sad that people are talking lesser to each other and more through a forum that is anonymous enough not to identify them, but personal enough to reach the target, in good ways or bad? This conversation is not new, I understand, but it needs to be had.
And of course there's the Marxist Criticism of Hookups in American Colleges. To which I say -- (insert an In-Soviet-Russia joke).
The thing is, confessions are mostly unnecessary, and wherein they create less happiness, even harmful. Nobody really needs to know the hate you spew for people you don't like. We get it-- you have prejudices, you have thoughts 'Dear EC5 girl, I have a crush on you', 'I get angry when I see townies', 'Omg, group of six have free printing?' Is it sad that people are talking lesser to each other and more through a forum that is anonymous enough not to identify them, but personal enough to reach the target, in good ways or bad? This conversation is not new, I understand, but it needs to be had.
And of course there's the Marxist Criticism of Hookups in American Colleges. To which I say -- (insert an In-Soviet-Russia joke).
langauges, again
New thoughts on Nepali.
1) Even if it DID go extinct, we must remember that it's only a tribal language that turned sophisticated rather quickly.
2) Nepali literature didn't exist before Bhanubhakta. Written Nepali was rare, and lacked proper sentence structure -- it existed mainly in speaking. The centuries between Bhanubhakta and Nepali Bhashanuwad Samiti were the most fruitful for the language, when most of the literature was created.
3) Which means, it's likely our future is better than our past -- if only because our past wasn't particularly bright.
4) I regarded internet as mostly a threat for the language. While it still is, I see a future where more Nepali speakers will communicate in Nepali over the internet, and it becomes the norm. I had to think outside my clique of Nepali-nabolne-bourgeoisie-clique.
5) Devkota is still as great, but for slightly different reasons. He knew exactly where the language was, and worked accordingly. His inventing whole classes of words in one go, words that would actually be adopted in everyday use, definitely made it much more 'genuine' and saved it from hindification and bengalification.
6) There's still a LOT more space to work around/be on the frontiers in Nepali. I haven't really read the casual-conversation-y Nepali -- the new novels try, but I don't really feel them. There's such a potential for a new Nepali for the internet generation.
7) A's dad could be one of the pioneers of the trends from 6). His sense of humor (I find) perfectly Nepali, and it also fits brilliantly for the web. As more people from the older generation come to the public web (I'm looking more in the likes of blogs and twitter, not facebook...because closed systems entropy themselves to death).
8) No one's mentioned the slick animation below this page. I'm hurt.
1) Even if it DID go extinct, we must remember that it's only a tribal language that turned sophisticated rather quickly.
2) Nepali literature didn't exist before Bhanubhakta. Written Nepali was rare, and lacked proper sentence structure -- it existed mainly in speaking. The centuries between Bhanubhakta and Nepali Bhashanuwad Samiti were the most fruitful for the language, when most of the literature was created.
3) Which means, it's likely our future is better than our past -- if only because our past wasn't particularly bright.
4) I regarded internet as mostly a threat for the language. While it still is, I see a future where more Nepali speakers will communicate in Nepali over the internet, and it becomes the norm. I had to think outside my clique of Nepali-nabolne-bourgeoisie-clique.
5) Devkota is still as great, but for slightly different reasons. He knew exactly where the language was, and worked accordingly. His inventing whole classes of words in one go, words that would actually be adopted in everyday use, definitely made it much more 'genuine' and saved it from hindification and bengalification.
6) There's still a LOT more space to work around/be on the frontiers in Nepali. I haven't really read the casual-conversation-y Nepali -- the new novels try, but I don't really feel them. There's such a potential for a new Nepali for the internet generation.
7) A's dad could be one of the pioneers of the trends from 6). His sense of humor (I find) perfectly Nepali, and it also fits brilliantly for the web. As more people from the older generation come to the public web (I'm looking more in the likes of blogs and twitter, not facebook...because closed systems entropy themselves to death).
8) No one's mentioned the slick animation below this page. I'm hurt.
Hawaghar.Blogspot.com
The content here has been deleted because it was causing my computer to shout. Too many recursions are not what computers like, apparently. Pfft. Sissies.
goto: hawaghar.blogspot.com
Pakistan, Politics
With so many things coming out at once, a few comments:
1) Here's something hardliners in Pakistan and the US will instantly agree with each other on: the US needs to stop spending money on Pakistan and let things take their course. The Indians will disagree, of course, but, the argument goes, the US doesn't need to subsidize Indian security anymore.
2) The American government can remotely switch your cellphone on and track you to the meter if you are in Pakistan.
3) Security complications in South Asia arise because of India-Pak-China-Afghan stalemate. US pulls its money out of Pak and several things happen: Indians get nervous, spend more on defense, Pakistanis and Chinese get nervous because of India's better defense and increase their own defense, Afghans get nervous about Pak's strengthening defense, increase ties with India, and encourage border infiltration, Pak gets nervous about Indo-Afghan relations and the border infiltration, resumes undermining Indo-Pak borders... and so on and on. It's the textbook scenario for the security stalemate. It gets even more complex once you realize China's actions themselves are not in isolation and will further affect the behavior of its 19 rather-nervous neighbors. So what the US decides to do in Af-Pak will have direct implications in a much larger region. What a mess they've got themselves into.
4) Only 12-percent of Pakistani population is ok with the US. The only anti-US rhetoric there is stronger Islamic rhetoric. US's unpopularity will lead increased Islamic fundamentalism. The irony of this is that Pak is bff's with Saudi, a close US 'ally'. Actually, this is not really that ironic. US should be glad though that stronger Pak-Iran won't form as long as Pakistan is close to Saudi. Ultimately though, I'd guess they'd rather be friends with Iran than Saudi.
5) The Pak election commission actually enforced, for the first time, religious laws instituted during Zia's time. There's talks of increased fundamentalism. While that may be the case, I'd guess they're more likely creating a dust-storm for the elections. In the end, even if the Army doesn't have any power, they are likely to stay as power-players for some time.
6) Sa is worried about civil war between secularists and fundamentalists and B'desh. Times are scary, that's for sure. But that's unlikely to happen. Indians (Hindus, Muslims, whatever) don't want two religiously fundamentalist nations surrounding them. They can't work in Pakistan, but they can still move the strings in B'Desh, and they will likely do. Besides, I have a feeling most Bangladeshis understand that they didn't fight Jinnah and the Mukti war, just to see decreased Bengali cultural influence. This is likely to be a passing phase.
7) Even in the worst case, Pakistan is likely to become another Columbia rather than another Syria(?)/Yugoslavia/Congo.The wars there seem to be regional/tribal rather than religious. It's only their common enmity against the US that's holding different groups together. But here's the conundrum: the US won't leave till it's satisfied they're destroyed, and they may not break down until the US leaves.
8) Lets say Obama pulls everything out of Pakistan over a month. What would change? I'm guessing Pakistan would sooner or later reach a confrontation with India-Afghanistan over those damn mujaheddin. The US needs to worry more about Afghan drug money in Pakistan training fighters, not the other way round.
9) Greater power devolution in Pakistan would lead to problems with FATA and Baluchistan. And the Pakhtunakhtwa-- that's a given-- but that's such an old story it's not even there anymore. If the eastern provinces realized how much they had to gain through trade with India (without giving a lot to the Center or the Army), there's be stronger demands for better relations.
1) Here's something hardliners in Pakistan and the US will instantly agree with each other on: the US needs to stop spending money on Pakistan and let things take their course. The Indians will disagree, of course, but, the argument goes, the US doesn't need to subsidize Indian security anymore.
2) The American government can remotely switch your cellphone on and track you to the meter if you are in Pakistan.
3) Security complications in South Asia arise because of India-Pak-China-Afghan stalemate. US pulls its money out of Pak and several things happen: Indians get nervous, spend more on defense, Pakistanis and Chinese get nervous because of India's better defense and increase their own defense, Afghans get nervous about Pak's strengthening defense, increase ties with India, and encourage border infiltration, Pak gets nervous about Indo-Afghan relations and the border infiltration, resumes undermining Indo-Pak borders... and so on and on. It's the textbook scenario for the security stalemate. It gets even more complex once you realize China's actions themselves are not in isolation and will further affect the behavior of its 19 rather-nervous neighbors. So what the US decides to do in Af-Pak will have direct implications in a much larger region. What a mess they've got themselves into.
4) Only 12-percent of Pakistani population is ok with the US. The only anti-US rhetoric there is stronger Islamic rhetoric. US's unpopularity will lead increased Islamic fundamentalism. The irony of this is that Pak is bff's with Saudi, a close US 'ally'. Actually, this is not really that ironic. US should be glad though that stronger Pak-Iran won't form as long as Pakistan is close to Saudi. Ultimately though, I'd guess they'd rather be friends with Iran than Saudi.
5) The Pak election commission actually enforced, for the first time, religious laws instituted during Zia's time. There's talks of increased fundamentalism. While that may be the case, I'd guess they're more likely creating a dust-storm for the elections. In the end, even if the Army doesn't have any power, they are likely to stay as power-players for some time.
6) Sa is worried about civil war between secularists and fundamentalists and B'desh. Times are scary, that's for sure. But that's unlikely to happen. Indians (Hindus, Muslims, whatever) don't want two religiously fundamentalist nations surrounding them. They can't work in Pakistan, but they can still move the strings in B'Desh, and they will likely do. Besides, I have a feeling most Bangladeshis understand that they didn't fight Jinnah and the Mukti war, just to see decreased Bengali cultural influence. This is likely to be a passing phase.
7) Even in the worst case, Pakistan is likely to become another Columbia rather than another Syria(?)/Yugoslavia/Congo.The wars there seem to be regional/tribal rather than religious. It's only their common enmity against the US that's holding different groups together. But here's the conundrum: the US won't leave till it's satisfied they're destroyed, and they may not break down until the US leaves.
8) Lets say Obama pulls everything out of Pakistan over a month. What would change? I'm guessing Pakistan would sooner or later reach a confrontation with India-Afghanistan over those damn mujaheddin. The US needs to worry more about Afghan drug money in Pakistan training fighters, not the other way round.
9) Greater power devolution in Pakistan would lead to problems with FATA and Baluchistan. And the Pakhtunakhtwa-- that's a given-- but that's such an old story it's not even there anymore. If the eastern provinces realized how much they had to gain through trade with India (without giving a lot to the Center or the Army), there's be stronger demands for better relations.
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