The Girl With The Golden Toering

Your first mission, 007, is to play the Bond theme in your head. Sets the right kind of mood for this post.









Your next mission is to offer me your resignation. Because Bond Girl's taking over. Yes, you heard me. This show now belongs to me. Sorry, it wasn't personal.

Bond's trademark is no longer the gun. So cliche, so dated. We have now developed the Golden Toering. 24 karat perfection, armed with a tiny diode laser device that ionizes air as it lases. The R&D wing of MIX developed the Ionazer in the year 2006, one of our most closely guarded secrets. When the Toering is armed, it sets up conduction pathways capable of delivering fatal electric shocks of up to 10,000 volts over a 100 metre range. It can also be used to deliver smaller shocks, enough to stun an average sized human being without causing fatality. Best of all, it goes perfectly well with any style of clothing or footwear.

MIX has secretly been running a school. A Bond Girl training school.

Potential Bond Girls are taught every skill they need in order to become top notch spies. These girls eventually find highly successful careers in international espionage, and very often, will end up in rival agencies. Best friends today might plot evil, but ingeniously clever ways to outwit/outsmart/kill each other in the future. They're prepared for this, they are ruthless. They're brooding intellectuals one minute and smoking hot sex goddesses the next. They can fly planes and make explosives out of paper clips and a cigarette lighter. They speak fluent Russian and Chinese, and that's not all they do with those tongues. The best part? They don't whine when hormonal, they simply blow you to smithereens.

And only one Girl gets to be Bond Girl. That girl is now me.

Agent Raindrop reporting, over and out.

Woman On Top (Well, almost)

How annoying is it to climb ONLY 35.7 feet of a 36 ft wall because that last hold is just not stable?

On the one hand, the cute guy you're with is cheering you on from below. On the other, your roommate who has a thing for him is your belayer and therefore, effectively holds your life in her hands.

And you know she's hormonal right now.

So considering I'm in one piece, I suppose my day wasn't so bad after all.

If I were an advice columnist in a trashy mag.

Today, I shall attempt to answer a question that women have been asking themselves ever since men stopped beating them over the head with clubs and then dragging them off to their caves to the sounds of cheering crowds pronouncing them cavemen and wife.

So would you rather be hit over the head and dragged kicking and screaming into your man's cave, or are you the patient sort who prefers to wait until he pops the question? If you'd rather he knocked you unconscious and claimed you as his, then you're just the sensible kind of reader we hope to attract in this magazine. If you think you'd rather wait, then make sure you think up a few dozen cat names while you're at it, for all the cats that are going to keep you company in your miserably lonely old age.

Don't just take my word for it. Cosmo's with me on this one. So are the authors of 'He's just not that into you'. At least, I think they're with me anyway, since I haven't ever read the book. But like most books, I imagine that you can judge what's in it based on the cover.

I used the incredibly scientific method of averaging some random numbers that popped into my head to come up with how long a guy should take to propose to you before you tell him to go screw himself (politely, of course). It's 1.1932333333333(rounded off) years.

If you've been seeing him for even an instant longer than 1.19323333333333 years, then it's time to call it quits. Go ahead now, make excuses for him, tell me he can't help it, he's a commitmentphobe.

My response to that would be:



As my mom would say, my foot. My grandmother didn't let her use words like ass.

He's only a commitmentphobe because he's not sure he wants to be with YOU. Find yourself another boy. This one's not worth keeping.

P.S. I have proved on my other blog that men are cavemen.

Click here to read it.

Men are cavemen.

Racism or plain old bitchiness?

Big Brother with Shilpa Shetty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KRUU6WdIbo

Can't upload the damn video, but click on the link!

Decipher this!

This is a typical Mediocretes-Raindrop conversation. It's amazing that we manage to understand each other at all.



Mediocretes :i love my font
Raindrop :you're a girl.
Mediocretes :the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Raindrop :with your purple cursive font.
Raindrop :dude, you're gay.
Raindrop :seriously.
Mediocretes :yup
Raindrop :purple AND cursive? come on.
Mediocretes :i won't apologize for being gay or loving my font
Raindrop :that's fine, i wasn't expecting you to.
Mediocretes :i just wish it had a little heart for the i dot


Raindrop :as a kid, i always got annoyed when girlie girls used to draw circles over their is.
Raindrop :i just DOTTED my is.
Raindrop :i refuse to say i's.
Mediocretes :yeah... i's would be a typo.
Mediocretes :not really a typo, but incorrect.
Raindrop :i'm not sure though
Mediocretes :why?
Mediocretes :you wouldn't just dot a single i.
Mediocretes :so, your is.
Mediocretes :which could be confused with a singular is.
Mediocretes :but i doubt you'd just dot one single is.
Raindrop :no, no. i think there's a special rule for alphaets.
Mediocretes :so then, it'd be iss.
Mediocretes :no, i don't think there's any rule.
Raindrop :googling it
Mediocretes :i don't ever use an apostrophe
Mediocretes :i think the webster's included it because people just naturally tend to use it
Raindrop :me neither, but i've always seen one used. i wasn't aware of this special rule.
Mediocretes :like CD's
Raindrop :it makes it easy babe.
Mediocretes :etc.
Raindrop :CDs sounds wrong.
Mediocretes :not to me.
Raindrop :is
Mediocretes :CD's just looks better
Raindrop :is is very hard to distinguish from is.
Raindrop :as in the third person form of to be
Mediocretes :yup, it is
Raindrop :as opposed to plural of i.
Mediocretes :but i's could be mistaken for i's... if you get what i mean.
Mediocretes :so some thrid rule should be invented
Mediocretes :like an underscore.
Raindrop :what's the other i's anyway?
Mediocretes :so i don't really buy the apostrophe rule
Raindrop :i's house? where i is someone you know?
Raindrop :but you can tell from the context, can't you?
Raindrop :if it's possessive, it's always followed by a noun..
Mediocretes :the i's construction in the font wasn't correct
Mediocretes :that's the other i's
Mediocretes :not just the plural.
Mediocretes :exactly
Mediocretes :so you can tell is from the context too!
Mediocretes :i's just just more aesthetically appealing... it's not more logical.
Mediocretes :if you can tell one of the i's from context... you obviously can tell the other.
Raindrop :anyway, the point is, i used to dot mine and not circle them!
Mediocretes :so did i.
Raindrop :i always thought people who circled their is were gay.
Raindrop :i thought it was unnecessarily frivolous to circle your is. i still do.
Mediocretes :well, circling is incorrect to begin with.
Mediocretes :it's a dot.
Raindrop :yeah, it's incorrect and it's also very gay!
Raindrop :it's almost as bad as hearts.
Raindrop :i've seen those too.
Raindrop :those, thankfully, were not encouraged in school.
Raindrop :yes, don't idiots realize that you DOT your fucking is. you don't CIRCLE them.
Raindrop :just as you cross your Ts and don't fucking ellipse them.
Mediocretes :yes... but the logical counterpart for a dash (or cross) would be a rectangle, not an ellipse
Mediocretes :so yeah... you don't rectangle your ts
Mediocretes :actually, i don't know.
Mediocretes :an ellipse might be more logical.
Mediocretes :yeah, probably an ellipse
Mediocretes :not a rectangle.
Raindrop :yeah, if a dash became a rectangle, a dot would become a square.
Mediocretes :a rectangle's a different from.. it's like arranging 4 dashes together
Mediocretes :the basic structure is the same.
Mediocretes :so yeah, ellipse.
Raindrop :this is the height of pointlessness.
Mediocretes :i don't think so. this has deep mathematical implications!
Mediocretes :no, seriously
Mediocretes :but if i really think about it
Mediocretes :a dash has no counterpart.
Mediocretes :because a dot is truly dimensionless.
Mediocretes :but a dash isn't.
Raindrop :a dash has one dimension. big deal.
Mediocretes :yes, which is what makes it fundamentally different from a dot
Raindrop :dude, let's get back to the real world for a second.
Raindrop :the sort of dot an i requires is NOT a dimensionless dot.
Raindrop :it has the same dimensions as the dash.
Raindrop :two.
Raindrop :so just as a two dimensional dot becomes a two dimensional circle, a two dimensional dash becomes a two dimensional ellipse.
Mediocretes :ok....
Mediocretes :so i agree..
Mediocretes :it's an ellipse
Mediocretes :not a rectangle.
Mediocretes :if the dot became a square... the the dash would become a rectangle
Raindrop :yup.
Raindrop :but this conversation was about circling is.
Mediocretes :yeah.. but you brought up the ellipse... and i, very uncharacteristically, was misled by own mammoth intelligence... that a dash might be better represented by a rectangle, in an alternate 2-D universe.

Raindrop :I think in 3-d babe. in 4-d actually, i'm the inventor of the hypercube.

Raindrop :i called it the quadrube.

Raindrop :i can draw you one
Mediocretes :the fact that you can draw one proves that you're full of shit.
Raindrop :it's going to be a representation of a 4-d object on 2-d paper.
Raindrop :well, it's like drawing a cube.
Mediocretes :yeah, but that's because our brains can process perspective in 2-D
Mediocretes :but our brains can't do that with 4-D

Mediocretes :so you can't represent 4-D in 2-D
Mediocretes :so fuck you.
Raindrop :i can represent 4d in 2d as well as i can represent 3d in 2d. we understand 3d, but how does that make a difference?
Mediocretes :fine, draw it.
Raindrop :when you see a 3-d object drawn in 2-d, you can tell it's possible because it makes sense. a 4-d object in 2-d makes little sense. but it's still a decent representation.
Raindrop :okay. it's easy enough babe. i'm sure you could draw it too.
Raindrop :as a square becomes a cube, a cube becomes a quadrube.
Mediocretes :a 4d object in 4d makes little sense... which is why it makes even less sense in 2d.
Mediocretes :then fucking draw it.
Raindrop :a 4-d object in 4-d makes little sense? what the fuck?
Raindrop :dude, you're so constrained by 3 fucking dimensions.
Raindrop :and btw, this is pretty basic higher dimensional geometry.
Mediocretes :and you're constrained by your own hyper stupidity.
Raindrop :dude, fuck off.
Raindrop :i'll do BETTER than draw a damn quadrube, i'll SHOW YOU A PREDRAWN PIC!
Mediocretes :ok
Raindrop :http://home.san.rr.com/slawek/Tata/Math/4DGeom.html
Raindrop :i can show you many more.
Raindrop :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_dimension
Mediocretes :that is absolutely the dumbest thing i've seen. not mathematically, but the visual representation.
Mediocretes :dude, i get the fourth dimension
Raindrop :how's it dumb? you're an idiot.
Mediocretes :i'm talking about the visual respresentation.
Raindrop :that's a visual representation! a pretty decent one.
Raindrop :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hypercube_diagram.svg
Mediocretes :yawn.
Mediocretes :i'm going to shower.
Raindrop :go shower
Raindrop :loser.

I know, I know. I've been a bad blogger, what with posting infrequently and not responding to comments. I'm going to be off the blogosphere* for a couple of weeks. Happy New Year in advance, y'all! And just so you know, I live in a part of the country where it's perfectly acceptable to say y'all.

*It feels silly saying blogosphere, but when I used it on my boyfriend, he sniggered and said 'Blogosphere? Is it supposed to be spherical or something, little fucktard?' Yes babe, I'll miss you too!

Couldn't find a witty alliterative title, so fuck the title.

Where are all those fabled last minute airfare deals?

And I fell for it. Hook, line and mofo'ing sinker.

Update: I will never comprehend why desi travel agents seem to take it upon themselves to dispense general life advice as they look for your tickets.

'Beta, you should've booked earlier, naa? We could've given you super rate, SUPER!
Now it's peak season, naa? So it's going to be VERY difficult for us. Next time, naa, please book your tickets in advance, okay beta?'

And,

'Oh, you DON'T want to buy a $3000 cattle-class ticket on Kazakh Airways? It's up to you. But you're not going to get a better ticket than that. You take my word for it. I even tried to get you that 16 hour long stopover at Almaty because they have EXCELLENT duty free shopping. It's mostly goat cheese, but I did that for YOU, because you're my valued customer. You're not going to get ANY tickets now, I can guarantee it!'

Yeah. She actually said she could guarantee it. I wish I'd taken her up on that offer. I'm very interested to see what such a guarantee would look like.




Yes, I DO happen to have some time on my hands this fine freezing Friday evening. Throwing large sticks into the frozen pond to check how frozen it REALLY is gets old after a while. Which works out well, because that's when frostbite sets in. All I really wanted was to make sure the pond was safe to ice skate on. Not that I was planning to ice skate on it, it was just a matter of satisfying the sort of intellectual curiosity that our society relies on for its progress, y'know, for things like electricity and PS3 and pizza topped with potato and hot sauce, which I personally consider one of the most important inventions of the modern age.

P.S. Apologies to the glorious nation of Kazakhstan. I know that Cohen dude made fun of you too, but it's just that Kazakhstan is a funny name for a place, rivaled only by Burkina Faso in funniness, which in turn is rivaled by its own capital, which, incidentally, is where my future job search might end up taking me.

Ougadougu to you too.

Update: Mommy MAY have just found me a ticket at a price I'd never pay. I love my mommy. And now, if things work out, all that remains is to hope that I have better luck than these people.

Jet Airways Rant

Flying Circus (NWA Rant)

And www.makemytrip.com is full of all manner of shit.

It's that time of the month, folks! Tag time!

The Punkster will be happy to know that I have finally gotten around to doing her tag on how feminism has changed my life.

Just to make my position very clear, I'm starting off with the Wikipedia definition of feminism.

"Feminism is a diverse collection of social theories, political movements and moral philosophies, largely motivated by or concerned with the experiences of women. Most feminists are especially concerned with social, political and economic inequality between men and women (in the context of it being to the disadvantage of women); some have argued that gendered and sexed identities, such as "man" and "woman", are socially constructed. Feminists differ over the sources of inequality, how to attain equality, and the extent to which gender and gender-based identities should be questioned and critiqued. In simple terms, feminism is the belief in social, political and economic equality of the sexes, and the movement organised around the belief that gender should not be the pre-determinant factor shaping a person's social identity, or socio-political or economic rights."

I believe in social, political and economic equality of the sexes. I also believe that anyone else who does is merely sane. It's pretty intuitive to expect that women should have the same basic rights as men. And you don't have to be a feminist to be pissed off at how badly women are treated in Saudi Arabia. Any normal woman/man should be outraged.

I don't hate men. I don't blame men for any residual disparity that might still exist between the sexes. I don't believe that I am a victim of 'The Patriarchy'. And I certainly don't believe that gender is a social construct. Man-hating lunatics with victim complexes are every bit as stupid as Bible-thumping anti-abortionists who advocate turning the other cheek when abused by their dear husbands.

And most sane people, feminist or otherwise, do not espouse the above views. Which brings me to this: What's the sane alternative to feminism? There is none. So my reluctance to classify myself as a feminist really stems from semantics. You might call it feminism, whereas I just call it common sense.

It's exceedingly difficult to try to attribute societal changes to any driving force, be it feminism or the inevitable intellectual evolution of society. Here are five ways my life may have differed if it hadn't been for feminism.

1. Every career option is open to me. It would be a bummer if I wanted to be an archaeologist, but couldn't, just because of my sex. I often remind myself that this was a real problem in the first half of the twentieth century.

2. I don't have to dress like a man and look like a man to be taken seriously. And I'm not going to either. I don't have to sacrifice my femininity for a career in a male dominated field.

3. I can wear what I want, and expect not to get raped. Because legally, rape is rape, whether you're wearing a miniskirt or a burqa. This works in most civilized nations, at least in theory.

4. Better sex. Because when you realize that even good girls have sexual needs, it's easier to communicate your desires to your partner.

5. A free lunch for women in my rather male-dominated field of study, courtesy the department. Because women need to talk, and whining about girlstuff is not wholly appropriate conversation material in mixed company.

But there is a downside to it though. My advisor is new, and needed help with moving some equipment around. Naturally, he expected his grad students to help. The real reason that grad students exist is so they can legally do menial labor in exchange for a graduate stipend that's well below minimum wage.

So naturally, he expected me to carry as much as his two other students, male, and twice my size. And what's more interesting is that I would have been REALLY offended if he'd said, 'Oh, maybe you should just let us handle the heavy stuff.'! Yeah, thanks a lot, feminism, because my arms hurt so much that night that I seriously considered chopping them off.

And here's the part where I ask you for your opinion. Assuming you've heard Jack Straw's recent comments on the burqa, do you think that in a (relatively) free society, people should have the freedom to subjugate their women?

I've heard the argument that the veil doesn't oppress, it liberates. It's hard to see how exactly that works considering the fact that most countries/families that enforce the veil are also quite likely not to be shining examples of gender equality.

While it seems unconstitutional to deny a person the right to follow his/her religious edicts, is it alright to allow a family to pressurize their 16 year old daughter to cover herself up from head to toe?

And to those who choose not to wear the veil, are they seen as less chaste than those who do wear the veil? I believe the answer to that question is yes. So how voluntary is it, really, when your choices are to either to

a) wear the veil and be respected, or

b) don't wear the veil and be like 'those loose western women' who don't deserve respect anyway.

So, what do you think?

I've decided I want a Ph.D.

Here are five of my top reasons.

5. Everyone else getting one these days.
4. I need a title to compensate for the fact that I'm not six feet tall.
3. The words Dr. Raindrop will lend credibility to my planned Cosmo article titled 'How not to make a complete fucking ass of yourself in bed',
subtitled 'Let's not forget the keys to those handcuffs, kiddies!'.
2. Heck, I can even use it to lend credibility to my arguments with my boyfriend. 'I have a Ph.D. and you don't. So I'm right and you suck!'
1. Everybody wants to do a woman with a Ph.D.

But apparently they don't give you a Ph.D. for sitting on your ass and being a shallow bitch. Fuckers! Now I'll have to choose some shitty topic like 'Are hunger pangs pangier when you're broke and living in a fairly decent sized third world city?'



P.S. Feminism post coming up next! Seriously.

DoW#6

Never attempt a saltwater gargle immediately after a dinner of cheesy jalapeno potatoes and cereal.

-Raindrop, 2006 A.D.

Diamond of Wisdom #5

In a blatant attempt to plagiarize from this man, I've decided to do my own little Diamond of Wisdom series.

(I own the man in question, so I just realized it's probably perfectly legal. To the curious: I own him because he offered himself to me. I'm not a cruel slave-owning bitch by nature, but he wanted it.)

So here's today's 40 carat stunner.

What numbs pain also numbs the imagination.
-Raindrop, 2006 AD

I'm referring to Ibuprofen 800mg, of course.

On a side note, why is it that Anna Nicole Smith looks so much better these days? To all you E! addicts who actually know the answer to that question, you should seriously consider getting a life. If you study Anna Nicole Smith's plastic surgery history, you've got to be at least slightly weird.


Coming soon: A feminism tag!

Raindrop needs answers and she needs them fast!

Will somebody explain to me what that picture has to do with the Indiatimes auction? It makes no sense to me, and it just looks very creepy. And she's not even pretty. If you're the woman in that picture, I'm just saying that because I'm jealous that you get to be in an ad and I don't.

Back by popular demand!!

I know some of you may not agree, but I think coffee can be fashioned into a meal. I usually like mine without cream (cream puts me to sleep rendering coffee useless), but on days when it's all the lunch I have time for, I get a latte. And then dump lots of creamer in it. And plenty of sugar because I need the energy. You'll never convince me that it's worse than McDonald's.

As some of you know, it's been a busy week. So here's a quick summary, and my take on it. Yes, like anyone cares about my life.

Coffee for lunch twice this week. Bad.
Four hours of sleep on average. Terrible.
Positive student evaluation of my teaching skills. Good.
Someone wrote 'HOT' in caps where it said 'What I liked about this TA'. Excellent.
Party at my house. Good.
J's friend didn't show up with weed. Bad.
Broke J's music system, and now have to buy her a new one. Terrible.
Ex came to visit. Excellent.
Blondeboy I made out with a month ago stared at me cozying up to my ex, and pointed and whispered in my general direction. Bad.
Got caught doing the Sudoku during a computer language workshop. Bad.
Claimed I was only doing the Sudoku because I wanted to create a Sudoku generator for my computer project. It worked. Excellent.
Missed a meeting yesterday. Bad.
Blogging when I should be working. Terrible. Ah, but it feels so good.
Ex is now ex ex. No comment.
Managed the time to watch a movie yesterday. Good.
Ex picked 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. He'll pay for it, the asshole. I couldn't even watch some of that shit. The only time I can stand to watch mindlessly graphic violence is when it's the victim's turn to get even.

Oh, I like trenchcoats. And guns. You scared already? But my only trenchcoat is pink! Yes, I just love flashing my Goth credentials.

Guess!

It's been called the most appallingly crude film EVER made.

And I can't wait to see it.

So which film am I talking about?

Random Raindrop trivia: I need my men to be at least half a foot taller than me. You tall men rock, especially the ones that totally tower over me. It's indescribably hot! So I've decided that my mission for this month is to make out with a black guy. A basketball player, perhaps. Yummy..

Somehow, I'm just not attracted to East Asian men. Which reminds me of a funny story..

Now I'm not big on stereotypes, but the last time I was driven by a chinese dude, he had his girlfriend play navigator. They took turns looking back, and would exchange frenzied shouts, leading Jose* and me, sitting in the back, to believe that we were about to be hit by a very large truck. This happened about twenty times. We soon realized their shouts coincided with lane changes. They were terrified, I could see beads of sweat dripping down their faces. They later revealed to us that they missed exits very often not because they FORGOT to take the exits, but because they were too scared to switch lanes to GET to the exits. Now they're probably the nicest people alive, and they were very safe, but it was funny how completely TERRIFIED they were! Ah, I'll shut up here, lest this turns to MY driving. (Yes, asshole**, you're the best driver I know. I love how you make parallel parking seem so effortless!)

* Name changed on request. Well, not really, he doesn't know about my blog, nor do I want him to. But his name is as generically Mexican as Jose.

** Name not changed despite request. Asshole's a good name for him. The other names I had for him make him sick, now that it's over.

I've been a-tagged! Twice!

I've been tagged by both Imhunt and Wishful Thinker . It's unorthodox, but I'm combining the tags.

Random facts about Raindrop you'd never have known if she hadn't been tagged. (Because, as you're no doubt aware, she just hates talking about herself.)

1. I'm straight in the female sense. What that means is that while I'm not attracted to women, I'm not repulsed (would I sound like a magnet if I said repelled?) by them either. And I'm very non-homophobic. (And the answer to the question you didn't ask is yes, I might.)

2. I don't have an instinctive sense of left and right. I need to mouth the word 'right'and the hand that comes up automatically is my right hand. That's how I tell.

3. I think I have a severe case of ADD. I get bored REALLY easily. (My earliest memory is of yawning. I'm dead serious.) I'm terrible with details. I can't be bothered cluttering my mind with information I consider completely irrelevant, like the clothes somebody wore the other day. I'd rather store random geographical trivia in my head, although it's probably just as useless.

4. I also get obsessed very easily. My present obsession is with Kimveer Gill. Here's a mirror of his main page. Here are his pics and his last blog entry.

I've been playing the song Nymphetamine over and over again, because I found it on his Vampire Freaks blog. I love the song/video. Yes, I'm closet goth. I'm back to my CoF/Tristania/Nightwish/Lacuna Coil/Blind Guardian phase.

5. I love potatoes. (No, that's not my dark secret, although it comes pretty close!)

6. I'm a dog person. I think cat people are psycho killers. Like kitten-loving Kimveer.

7. I want to

a)role play (in any sense of the world)
b)build a dollhouse (with curtains, paintings, furniture in miniature)
c)skydive, at least ONCE
d)get married to a superkinkytallgeniushottieatheistnonpsychokillerfreak, have his kids and live happily ever after. (Yeah, I'm a born rebel.)

8. Babies love me. They may be stupid dopeheads, but at least they're stupid dopeheads with taste.

Update: I tag Drunken Master, Mahima and Dodo. And everyone on my blogroll who hasn't done this tag.

Big apes do it better

Warning: Explicit Content! My face is superimposed on a monkey's. It's possible that the monkey isn't wearing clothes, although you can't really tell from the pic. It might offend some of you.


You Tarzan, me insane.

I made that!:)

I'm quitting academics and becoming a chef.

Also, I bumped into not-so-hot-dude in the library yesterday. It was weird.

Me: Hey! (My chirpiest tone, after I realized he'd seen me. Seen me see him, that is.)
S: Hey zere, I haf been so busy.
Me: Yeah, me too. Insanely busy!
S: Ja, very very busy.
Me: I know, gotta run now, I'm that busy!

So J, the flatmate, announced that it was time for us to host a party. I nodded enthusiastically. She then said she would HAVE to invite S, and asked if I wanted to put it off for a while. I rolled my eyes as if to say, yeah, like that day meant ANYTHING to me. Oh, she could invite him ANYTIME she wanted to. I'm SO TOTALLY cool with it! The other J suppressed a snigger. Funnily enough, the other J thinks S is cute! I just find dark-haired desi dudes far more attractive. Probably one of those cultural things.

Argh. I have to CODE for tomorrow! And I don't freakin' KNOW how to code! I have no problem with Hello World type programs, but sadly, this isn't one of those. And my only 'coding' experience comes from when I was 14, and passed encrypted notes to my friends during Civics. (Oh, this is from my civics book. 'India has a large population because sex is the only form of recreation for people living in rural areas'. That was the only interesting sentence in that whole book!')

My encrypted notes often had only two words in them. I'd go from alphabets to numbers with a direct substitution thingy. Then I'd convert those numbers to base 26, so I could use alphabets to cleverly disguise numbers, which were really just alphabets in disguise. Yes, I'm devious.

And yes, no one understood my notes. I'd end up giving them my message after class, VERBALLY, and my offers to explain my coding system were met with icy glares.

Yes, I was a freak.

I was such a math wannabe as a teenager! Like all good Indian kids, I read that famous Ramanujam/1729 story and tried to force myself to break random license plate numbers down into sums of cubes and squares. It was a huge effort for me, so I gave up in about a day. I also tried to teach myself calculus from good old Britannica at the age of thirteen because I read a spy thriller about a guy who had learned calculus at twelve. Didn't have too much success there either.

Oh, and in other news, I've found religion. Yes, Nath, you were right. God told me that if I couldn't get the damn code finished in two hours, I'd just have to quit school, marry, and cook awesome meals for my husband. And strive to be the perfect wife. To me, that would be a lot easier than coding. I love God. He really DOES have a plan.

Flouting the Ordnung

My life just lost its Amish seal of approval last night. But give me a week or so and I'll be all Amish again.

I am definitely an exhibitionist (the events of last night are a testament to this), but I wonder how much of that is blog-induced. My blog was born from exhibitionism, and now it feeds it, making it stronger. The one recurring thought I had running through my head last night was, 'I just HAVE to blog this!'

Here's the gist of it anyway. I'm exercising tremendous restraint here, in not including the good bits! So enjoy my little story. Mom, if you're reading this, of COURSE I'm making all of this up!

Alcohol.

The words 'de donde eres' thrown at me. Me trying desperately to remember what that meant. An apology. 'Sorry, I thought you were latina'. My pathetic claim that I WAS latina, dammit. 'Porque yo hablo espanol! Si, si, hablo espanol! Pero no comprendo UNA PALABRA! I speak Spanish, damn you! I learned it for FOUR WHOLE WEEKS! But I just don't understand it, that's all!' And because sanity finally prevailed, I shut the hell up before I slipped into further denial about my knowledge of the language.

He wasn't hot, but I really didn't care. I knew his name but that's more than I needed to know. Dance floor. Flirting in a strange language, I was bored out of my mind. The ensuing madness. A few shocked stares. Still at it until I hear him say the word 'bed'. I beat a hasty retreat. Yup, the Amish kicked in right on time.

The only thing that embarrasses me is that I might have potentially made a few alcohol induced grammar mistakes while speaking not-so-hot-guy's language. I desperately hope I didn't!

P.S. If you're a science type, go to my other blog. It's brand new and it's cutting edge.

Update: Do people just sit around waiting for playground bullies to insult them, so they can go home crying to mommy? Mommy, he drew an insulting picture of me! Mommy, he was rude to me! Mommy, they don't want the ten commandments! But I WANT THEM on PUBLIC BUILDINGS, or else I'll FORGET them!! Mommy, Aerosmith put MY hero's picture on a CD cover! That's RUDE!

Kids, if I were your mommy, I'd give you all a hard spanking.

Babies are little adults on drugs.

A few people I know have their very own poopmachines. Also known as babies. And these people, also known as proud parents, act like sprouting teeth is some kind of huge intellectual achievement.

It's not.

And if you've never been around a baby, here's a surprising fact about them.

They're unbelievably stupid.

Yeah, please don't give me that politically correct shit about their little brains developing. Their brains have plenty of time to develop while they're hogging their mothers' precious resources in the womb. Look at dogs and horses and other animals. They walk MINUTES after they're born! And humans are supposed to be SMARTER than them! Don't tell me that this has never struck you as being a tad odd?

Their dirty secret is drugs. Yes, wrap your diaper around THAT one.

I bet I'll have my kid reading Joyce and doing the cryptic crossword at three months, simply by blocking access to drugs.

Don't believe babies are on drugs? This little incident might help you see what I'm talking about. It's a true story, and it might shock some of you.

A proud mama once handed me her baby because she wanted to have a life for five minutes. I was holding the baby, so I decided I might as well engage it in some interesting conversation.

Hello, little baby.

*blank wide-eyed look*

My name is Raindrop. You have teeth and a tongue, your mom thinks you're some kind of genius. Say my name if you're that smart.

*gurgle*

Raindrop. Repeat after me. Rain-drop.

fa-fa.

What the hell is fa-fa?

*stupid smile*

Come on now, say my name. Rain-drop!

fa-fa.

fa-fa sounds NOTHING like my name you little shit. What have you been smoking?

goo-gaa.

You've been smoking goo-gaa? (I'm not familiar with that one, but this baby definitely knows its drugs.)

Look, kid. It's an easy name to say if you aren't on crack.

*tugs at my hair*

Oh, is that your idea of being cute? Let me tell you kid, that shit doesn't work in the real world.

*gurgly, almost giggly smile*

(Sighing) You're not even a year old, and you're already a dopehead. You, kid, are going to give your poor parents a lot of grief.

*flaps its arms wildly, laughing like a little maniac*

And this continued for a while. The poor little shit couldn't even say my name. I realize it was at an impressionable age, and all the other babies were doing it too. I tried hard not to be judgemental and preachy, but I do believe we're responsible for the choices we make. This baby had strayed. Hopefully not irrevocably though. Kindergarten is the baby version of rehab.

Are you still not convinced that babies are dopeheads? I have MORE proof, just for unbelievers such as yourself.

"Other signs and symptoms of drug abuse are dilated pupils, restlessness, hyperactivity, euphoria, slurred speech, disabled co-ordination, incontinence, decreased attention span, an irregular sleep pattern and impaired judgment. "

Do babies have dilated pupils? Yes. Have you ever seen the glazed looks on those little zombie faces?
Are they restless and hyperactive? Hell, yes.
Are they euphoric? Yes, and they laugh like maniacs.
Is their speech slurred? Baby speech is the epitome of slurred speech. They can't fucking talk.
Disabled co-ordination? Obviously, would you ever trust a baby to drive your car? NO! And have you seen them drool? Disgusting.
Incontinence? The diaper industry wouldn't exist if this weren't true!
Decreased attention span? Babies have the shortest attention spans ever. Try catching a baby do ANYTHING for over 5 minutes. Other than crying and sleeping.
Irregular sleep pattern? You know the answer to that if you've ever been around a baby. It's a resounding YES!
Impaired judgement? Even the idiots who ask Playboy for advice on life would not consider asking babies for advice. How many baby judges have you seen? Zero.

I strongly suspect it's in baby food/formula. So feed your baby Big Mac and McFries, because you can be sure there's no nasty shit in there.

P.S. Please, dear friends from college, I don't think your baby is smart at all, even if it just said its first word. Because 'gwynng' is not a word. It may be a Welsh word, but Welsh words don't count. And DO NOT send me pictures of your babies stuffing their faces, food messily splattered all over them. I don't want to hear about their toilet training escapades either. If I were ever in charge of a country, these are some of the things I would make taboo.

Some people might find all of that cute, but those people are usually put away before they can do themselves/others any real harm.

Babies pretty much come from sludge and ooze, live in sludge and ooze, and then make their own sludge and ooze.

'Nuff said.

Update: I'm a judgemental bitch who gets really annoyed when people mispronounce the French word 'forte'. It's one syllable, plain and simple. Fort-ay is wrong! If you want to be pretentious and impress people with your French, then at least get it right! Or just stick to English like the hoi polloi. The incorrect use of French personal pronouns is another thing that gets to me.

It's not pedantry at play here, folks. Anyone who uses a foreign word when an English word would suffice, is trying, on some level, to impress. You can pull it off by getting the word right, but by getting it wrong, you're fair game. You WILL be ridiculed.

I was pleasantly surprised to find some of my old students in a class I'm teaching. Well, as a TA. I'm too sick of academics to ever want to become a professor.

I told them I might not be teaching their class starting next week because I have a schedule conflict. And I added that in the civilized world, we say SHEDYULE and not SKEJULE. They nodded gravely and said they remembered that, and the fact that I say aluminIum. And the fact that cricket is the only true sport, and baseball is just a cheap imitation. I was all choked up, proud that I had really taught these kids something.

And they, full of their usual does-flattery-get-me-extra-points shit, asked me if the person taking my place would be as awesome as I was.

Yeah, I definitely think they deserve those extra points.

I hear my flatmate talking on the phone, repeatedly shouting out the words, I LOVE DIET COKE! Must be code for something. Low fat cocaine? Nah, too obvious. She's a total little undergrad, she gets drunk every night of the week. Hooks up with total strangers at the bar. And half her friends are either single moms at 21, or getting sentenced to three days in prison for DUI. Oh, now she's talking about how she's going to die of an STD. Charming.

*sigh*

I miss those days.

Oh. Wait. I never HAD THOSE DAYS! Thank fucking heavens for THAT!

P.S. Yes, she's a wackjob, but I'm really quite fond of her. You know, kind of like Maria in the Sound of Music. Except there's a lot more drunkenness/sluttiness here. Ah, the joys of living with an undergrad..