Year end balance sheets

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?

lied. to friends and family. and also grew a ponytail :D

2. Did you keep your new years resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I never make new year resolutions.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

nope.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

nope.

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

21st May, 2008. Man Utd painted Moscow red. And 31st May. because of no specific reasons.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

let me see. nothing.

9. What was your biggest failure?

academics. but then it has been my biggest failure for quite some time.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

naah.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Tapo. he believed. Somnathda and Peulidi. they know not what I owe to them.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

none.

14. Where did most of your money go?

food. house rent. beer. books.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

nothing really.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?

"Suzanne"-- Leonard Cohen.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

I would say, happier. Much happier.

19. What do you wish you'd done more of?

studying.

20. What do you wish you'd done less of?

dreaming, building castles in the air, brooding and throwing tantrums.

21. How will you be spending Christmas?

just chatting with some friends, having good food, maybe watching a good film.

22. Did you fall in love in 2008?

I fall in love everyday :)

23. How many one night stands?

none.

24. What was your favourite TV programme?

FRIENDS, The big bang theory, Weeds.

26. What was the best book you read?

Hungry generation rochona sonkolon

Difficult loves by Italo Calvino.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Freddie King, John Lee Hooker, T-bone Walker, Little Richard. I am in absolute love with delta blues.

28. What did you want and get?

A wonderful 3 month vacation in home. and proximity.

29. What did you want and not get?

cracking the quals. and proximity.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?

The Dark Knight.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

turned 25. spent a quiet day all alone. bought a bottle of scotch. got drunk while waiting for a call that never came. lost my temper and shouted and cursed. that pretty much sums it up.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

if only I learnt to bury utopian thoughts and for once face my life.

34. What kept you sane?

poetry, films, music. and ocassional phone calls.

37. Who was the worst new person you met?

I didn't meet anyone new.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

I told ya. I didn't meet anyone new. I am a social outcast :)

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

"Reality continues to ruin my life" :)

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

"I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life

I took a heavenly ride turough our silence
I knew the waiting had begun
And headed straight... into the shining sun"

Equus

Yes! I watched the broadway show. Mr.Potter proved that jumping around on the stage naked doesn't make him a good actor. His Uncle Vernon instead stole the show. Overall it was an excellent production. I have now read the play, watched the film, watched the bengali adaptation(which in its own rights was exceptionally good), watched the broadway show. And now, as Dr.Dysart would say " When Equus leaves, if he leaves at all, it will be with his intestines in his teeth". The horse's head, the metal chains in their mouth will remain with me. At least for some time.

Last night me and two friends drove to the Newark Liberty International airport to pick up a friend who was coming back from India. When we reached the gates, this friend of ours hasn't arrived and so we decide to wait for him. But the cops won't let us wait there. So we have to get out on the highway, drive around for some time and then come back. And we inevitably lose our way, ending up in a shady neighborhood in Newark city at 11:30 in the night. Now, Newark has a predominantly black and hispanic population and has had its share of mugging, gunshots, arson, sexual assaults and murder. Quite more than any other city in New Jersey. So we drive around for some time, trying to get back on the highway. Finally we stop at this pizza place and a huge black guy comes over to us menacingly. He raises his giant hands, greets us and on learning that we have lost our way, directs us quite cordially. We then try to follow his directions and get lost again.

We finally found our way but that is not the point. From the day I have stepped my foot in this country, I have heard about black men terrorizing unsuspecting whites or asians at every street corners. But all I have got from them till now are huge smiles, warm "hello, how ya doing today?"s. And now, this. I guess not everyone around me is a racist. Perhaps its me who's lucky. And I am not complaining.


Oh, my Albanian and Italian roomies were having a heated discussion a few days ago. They were counting how many places they have been to, that the other hasn't seen. Clearly the Italian guy was winning. And then the Albanian guy asked him "have you ever been to Albania?". The Italian answered "no". To this the Albanian replied "well well, I have been to Albania. quite a lot of times". Rich, huh?

Ah! The pain, the pain! At times it almost kills me. But mostly, it keeps me going :)

A night at the University.

10th December, 2008 will always be a memorable day. I had a homework due. A homework that needed a lot of computer programming and bits of statistics also. Now, the statistics I can do at home. But for the programming part I needed to go to my department lab which is like 7-8 minutes walking distance from my place. I had been planning to get this over with for the entire last month. But somehow, the cold weather with occasional drizzles and my special talent in procrastination prevented me from doing it. Also, my lack of memory didn't help my cause. Otherwise I could have done it on any of the numerous occasions I went to the department to do a class or for some other purpose. So, I was there sitting on my living room couch at 11 in the night, thinking that I should do something about the homework. And I decide to have dinner. Normally I hate cooking. But now since I have more important work to do, cooking feels great. So I cook musur daal, double dim-er omelette, a torkari with mixed vegetables and bhaat and have a sumptuous dinner. All this takes about an hour. Then it occurs to me that I really need to do some programming. So I have some ice cream(irish creme flavored) alongwith sherry. By the time I finish its already 12:30 and its started to drizzle. Alarmed by the dire situation in hand I get dressed, arm my backpack with chips, a bottle of pepsi and an umbrella and start walking towards the department. When I reach there, I am quite soaked and the umbrella is as dry as Canada(that'll put Sidhu to shame). So, I go up to the lab which is expectedly quite empty and work for half an hour and bored, start reading Calvin & Hobbes from the internet. Now, Calvin & Hobbes is a wonderful creation in itself. I have been rediscovering it in the last few months. And nothing other than Calvin and Calvino has moved me in that time. Anyways, I was having a great time exploring the space with Spaceman Spiff when a friend buzzed me in gmail. One may wonder what has gmail got to do with statistical programming. I would like to bypass the question. While chatting with him, I discovered that Facebook has lots of things to play around with. Around 3:00 I suddenly reallized that I have done almost nothing and went back to work and around 3:05 I reallize that I lack the expertise to do the work remaining. Relieved, I go back to Calvin and my pack of chips, which by the way were great. I tell you Doritos nacho cheese is too good. Its a bit spicy, so you cant possibly have it with liquor. It will then definitely give you acidity which is bad. But with pepsi they are great. A lot of people don't like Doritos. I wonder why. I even like their plain tortilla chips which taste awesome with salsa. Anyway, when the chips finishied, I had nothin to eat. And I decided to take a walk through the department. Now, I tell you taking a walk through a 7 storey building at 4 in the morning can be creepy. But I, being the ever valiant Knight of Bichiland, took a tour of the whole building. At every passage I thought it would be great if a serial killer jumps me or a Japanese girl with her hair all over her face starts crawling at me out of nowhere. Nothing of the sorts happened and I found myself infront of a cookie vending machine some half an hour later. Living. Unscathed. And bored. Thus went the saga till 10:00 in the morning when I finally called up my senior and and asked for his help. He immediately asked me to come over to his place. On reaching he offered help. And breakfast. Which was indeed a bigger help. I spent another hour there and figured out the problems. Later he dropped me home and I let myself drop on the bed and delve into unconsciousness. So, whats so special about the night? Almost a day and a half without sleep? Naah, I have done that. But almost 10 hours in a lab? Thats something I have never dreamt of doing. And one day when this blog will be no more, I can even boast to people that I actually worked for those 10 hours :D