Possible threat?

I open my inbox in the morn around noon and there's an email from the campus police warning us of suspicious activities and possible threats. To quote, "... In one such case a student is reported to have stated that the Virginia Tech incident was nothing compared to what he would do if his grades were not adjusted." I ended up talking with a friend who later told me that this particular incident had occurred the day earlier. It infuriated them that the email was sent out the next day and sounded little serious. I don't know how much of it is true... but I stand by my claim of learning from past events. We need to be more cautious of people's feelings and treat them with respect and perhaps even care and be friendly (a smile and Hello goes a long way). High time a lot of us stop demanding that thing called personal space, because in truth, there exists no such thing. Unless of course you lived all alone on this new habitable planet that scientists in S. America discovered a while back...

Virginia Tech Shooting

It's horrific and saddening. At this moment, feeling this way, I want to thank Him for keeping a friend of mine at Virginia Tech safe, and lift the ones who lost their lives in our prayers.

We will never forget.

You can read about it here...

Sex and the City

I grew up sticking my tongue out at girls who saw Sex and the City (with such ardor that it sickened me and I was more than happy to play tennis with the boys and be all tomboyish).

I turn 19 and I still don't get young girls my age watching the stupid series to learn (?) whatever they wanted to learn.

Come April and I find myself watching it on DailyMotion.com and see what all the hoo-ha was about. And what happens? I become one of "them"! No, I don't want to learn more about sex or NYC, I'm quite familiar with the terminology, NYC cabs and male/female psyche around the whole shebang. It's the deeper meanings, different outlooks the four single women have on life and circumstances that has me fascinated (excuse? not really). They're so natural -- which is the best part -- and so good at sticking together (even if its only a TV series...) that I find it rather interesting. I got some good quotes off it too (no, I don't use TV/movie quotes in real life... that seems a little desperate to me).

Oh, and did I mention that there are NO commercials when I see it online? Yeah. Gotta love that. And skipping, rewinding/fast forwarding? There are a few episodes that are rather lame which I have to simply skip... so its a big plus.

I speak 'merican and write British

No I'm not that completely culturally/linguistically confused... but most of the time, I do find myself saying colour like any other person in the US (oops, color) and writing colour online, on papers, etc. Few would comment on this subtley apparent pronunciation and spelling, but me being a spelling na-hzi, these things annoy me (even if it is for a few minutes). I'd go into how bloody pissing off it is to see people type in chats... but let's not go there today. A couple of us were talking about how we 'mericans spell our words, as opposed to the rest of the world. So before I pass off any more comments, I hearby consider myself as a global citizen (to avoid feeling guilty for biting the hand that feedeth me). So moving on... to me, this unrelenting need to be different is just plain stupid. There are of course many more involuntary deeper affects of all this (like the "American Cultural Imperialism", which is very much seen in how people all over worship 'merican pop stars, 'merican food, 'merican clothing, etc etc). The other day I realized I was saying aluminum, but writing aluminium. A friend caught it and it was kinda hilarious at that moment... but later on, I did some googling and found out that "The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) officially standardised on aluminium in 1990, though this has done nothing, of course, to change the way people in the US spell it for day to day purposes". Part of the blame can be placed on Noah Webster, "a humourless and deeply religious schoolmaster cum failed lawyer who, after 15 years’ work, published his American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828. One cannot imagine an individual less well suited to the creation of a dictionary; he knew very little of other languages, his ideas about etymology were based more on religion and wishful thinking than historical fact... and he had this bee in his bonnet about simplifying the language by removing unnecessary letters from words". I'll stop quoting and end here. I could write on this for hours... by God, I could! But I think this was just a tiny burst of frustration after today's tiny conversation in my Media and Middle East Hist. class. If you're interested, you can read more about the spelling transformations here and here.

ps. the image always makes me laugh. Click on it to zoom in/out and read

Cute

What a 3 year old would do to a monster. - Click Here for more great videos and pictures!



Thanks Vic. for the showing us the videos! I must've watched it a million times and it still cracks me up. Especially how the mom bursts after "... he's gonna kick my ask"

To everyone who HAD been following the World Cup, but decided not to, I totally understand... I almost bought tickets to go and watch the Super Eight matches. There will be a day when it will be worth it (perhaps in 2011? In apna Mumbai!). I'm not entirely sure about how the players are chosen but I seem to be hearing a lot of people wanting Ranji players to be selected. I won't comment on it for now 'cuz I need to know more about it first.