Death and the Maths Teacher

So, I've been thinking (ok folks, no need to already start with your mocking, contrary to popular public opinion, I do think, sometimes!) So coming back to my original point, I've been wondering whether dreaming of killing your Maths teacher 3 times, using 3 different methods, in a period of 3 weeks is some sort of a premonition. Alright, fine, I admit it, I don't particularly like him, but that doesn't mean I want him dead either. Apparently, my subconscious has some other ideas! I a bit creeped out about the whole thing actually. After all I have my own reasons of having something personal against him. Last night he spoke to my mother for 20 mins for Parents' Evening about first, my ethnic origin and then, his ethnic origin and nothing on my (non-existant) mathematical abilities. Its not like I'm that bad in maths that he should even refuse to altogether talk about my (non-existant) maths skills to my mother. Oh yes, while we're talking about Parents' Evening, my Chemistry teacher was so drunk last evening that he could hardly speak to my mother without sluring and smelling of alcohol combined with cigerette smoke. As you can imagine, my mother loves Parents' Evenings, she finds them ever so amusing!

This brings me onto my next topic. Does anyone else apart from me have a mental hit-list? Well, my mental hit-list is a list of people who in my belief are wasting space on earth by existing. If tomorrow, they just die because of some random disease, freak accident or are just tortured to death, I wouln't particularly care. I wont even feel even a tiny bit of sympathy for them because they really do deserve it. Alright, I'm not leaving tonight on a random mission to kill all these people. Nope, I dont really want to kill anybody, I just wish they would drop dead or something! I know its a horrible thought and it makes me a horrible person to even to think this considering my previous post was all about a public system of justice and everything but you know what, I personally dont care about these people because they're not even good people, so why should I force myself to even care about them? Holy fuck, I know I sound like I have issues, but I dont. I'm just indifferent to people I dont like.

PS: In case you're not a nerd like me, the title of the post is a slightly adapted from Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman (it is also a piece of classical music by Schubert). Its a good play, and I strongly recommend it no matter that TPF says. I blame AKB for TPF's cynical attitude towards this play.

PPS: I just love Gift of the Gorgon by Peter Shaffer. We're studying this play right now for English class and its brillant, more than just brillant actually. *sigh* Mr Shaffer, I know you're 80, but I still love you from the bottom of my heart.

Greek Tragedies, Real Life and All that Jazz

First off, I think I should start off with an apology. This is unfortunately going to be a serious post. Yes, I do realize that serious posts are rather boring but I beg you to bear with me and even skip this entry if necessary, in order to conserve your sanity.

That brings me to the point of this post. I've been writing an essay for English Literature which focuses on the theme of justice in the first part of the The Oresteian Trilogy by Aeschylus (btw, how does one pronounce Aeschylus?) and its got me thinking (which is something quite rare, so you can image how much of a big impact this must have made on me!). From the play Agamemnon, it can be seen that there is a lot of prominence is placed on the difference between the duty of a person towards his home and towards his city in Greek society. Agamemnon is in a conflict between his duty towards his home and that towards his city when he is given a choice between his daughter and participation in the war. The climax of the play occurs when Clytemnestra (Agamemnon's wife) kills Agamemnon, acting in accordance with the laws of justice. She claims that Agamemnon’s murder is an act of justice but alternatively she also does it for revenge beacause of the murder of her daughter. So basically, to put it simply, revenge is justice in Ancient Greek society and this idea creates a lot fundamental problems, as can be seen in The Eumenides, which is the third part of The Oresteian Trilogy.

Now what I find really surprising is that issues such as the conflict between need for taking personal revenge and the public system of justice that Aeschylus wrote about in 512 BC in The Eumenides that Athena eventually establishes are all pretty pertinent to our society in the 21st century. This whole concept of why you just cant just randomly kill someone who has killed someone close to you, but instead the murderer goes on trial in front of a jury and has a chance to defend himself is what every judicial system in the world is based on. Now this really shows the level of human development from 512 BC. When we look at society then and the society now, really what has changed? Well, obviously, you can say that there has been a lot of technological and teleological developments in the world but the crux of the matter is that the emotional problems or the dilemmas that humans faced more than 2000 years ago still remain the same. It seems to me from the above argument that there has actually not been any emotional development in man as time has passed.

Again, I'm not looking for any comments to this post, it was just a random thought that was going on in my head as I was doing my English essay, although if someone does have anything constructive to say, either to agree or to disagree with my opinions, I would be delighted to read them and I do promise something lighter for my next post, definately nothing on Greek Tragedies this time.

Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head...

Alright, now this is going to seem a rather strange topic for most people reading this entry. This post is solely going to be dedicated as a tribute to the first and true love of my short and unmeaningful life: Umbrellas. I love umbrellas, I really really love umbrellas. Why umbrellas one would ask. Its a rather simple explanation actually. Umbrellas make me feel secure. They make me feel safe. They protect you from the rain. When you've just come out of somewhere and its pouring (not raining or drizzling, but pouring like it does in the month of July in Mumbai), you get under your very own umbrella and you see everything around you is completely wet and dripping, but your hair and most of your body is dry, its a lovely feeling.

When I was a child I remember getting all the umbrellas in the house on my living room carpet, opening them up and joining them together to make a small house. The only thing I used to do in this 'Umbrella House' was sit in it and look at the colourful reflections of the colourful umbrella patterns in the sunlight. My grandma always screamed at me when I built the Umbrella House saying that it was bad luck to open umbrellas indoors but my mother always let me be saying that it would keep me occupied, atleast for a while and would keep me out of trouble, which it did, by the way.

Umbrellas are like my security blanket. (By the way what exactly is a security blanket? People in books seem to have them all the time?) When I was younger, the umbrella pattern and colour mattered a lot to me. It was always some sort of unofficial competition in school for the best umbrella. This girl I knew had one of those cool transparent plastic umbrellas that were not sold in India at that time that her aunt had got for her from America. I'm sure she didnt know how much I hated her from that umbrella. It was beautiful, fluorecent green and transparent. It used to be my fantasy umbrella. Oh, the sheer number of hours I have spent contemplating over that beautiful umbrella! Now, I have a plain browish small foldable umbrella that I love. I love wrapping my umbrella after it has dried: folding it up neatly, making the metal things go inside the handle, wrapping it properly around the pleats and voilà its ready to be put in my bag.

Of English Teachers, Bad Boys and Fiction

Lets see, today is true confessions time. Well, it is not really a secret to anyone who knows me. I have a terrible crush on my English teacher. He is definately gay with a boyfriend, completely secretive about his personal life, utterly detached from his students and there are rumours all around school that he's into heroin. He does smoke like a chimney so there might a slight probabilty that the latter might be true. I was always into bad boys. *sigh*

Well, for future references we are all going to call him Dave (this is obviously not his real name because I can imagine him googling his name and reading this post, I would just kill myself out of shame if he did). But it is not just me who has a big crush on him, both Harry and Micky (other Dave fangirls) love him as much as I do. See, I dont personally think that he is physically attractive, but he is so intelligent (he studied at Cambridge) and he knows everything. Ok, TPF insists that he is not half as smart as we think him to be and the only reason he appears to be smart is that he only talks about the things he knows. But then again, TPF is just jealous that she has AKB for English and not Dave. Oh dear god, I do realize I sound like a 12 year old swooning over her first crush but that's what I do feel like. I do expect a comment from TPF mocking me for this post but she shouldnt talk because when she has a Mike or a Jude post and she'll have me doing all the mocking then.

So that brings me onto bad boys and fictional characters...what is it about fictional characters that appeals to people? Maybe because everything is just left to imagination in fiction and I personally believe that imagination is a wonderful thing. And then people wonder why I like reading, hello, has anyone seen the eyecandy around in books? Anyways, here's my top ten list of shaggable fictional characters in no particular order:

1. Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice, every girl's fantasy, isnt he? rich, hot, sexy... the only thing putting off about him is that his name is Fitzwilliam. Seriously, Jane, what were you thinking?)
2. Angelo (Shakespeare's Measure for Measure...most people see his as a cruel, corupt general, I like to think of him as a confused repressed man manipulated by the Duke and come on, dont we all just feel sorry for him at the end of the play?)
3. Heathcliff (ah, the tormented lover from one of my favourite books, Wuthering Heights...I really dislike Catherine, she ruins him and thats that and no matter what anyone tells me, this is going to be my stubborn opinion)
4. Aladdin (honestly cartoon or no cartoon, have you seen those abs?)
5. Alex Thomas (The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood... ok, TPF thinks he's just dirty, I just think he's the hottest criminal I've ever read about)
6. Jay Gatsby (oh, that poor, poor, rich bachlor we all just love!)
7. Captain Wentworth (Persuasion, he still loves her even after she dumps him...*sob* does this book make anyone else apart from me cry their lungs out because of the angst in there?)
8. Count Dracula (hey, he drinks blood and is a vampire..you guys do know how much that turns females on?)
9. Young Tom Riddle (Harry Potter reference, there is something just so creepily hot and powerful about him that is just so sexy that you have no idea)
10. Lucius Malfoy (Harry Potter referrence once again, hmm... evil... very evil... plain mean evil... cruel cold hearted evil... but blond... very blond... His sexy death eater black robes contrast with his platinum blond hair... dont you just love him?)
11. Estella (Great Expectations, whoever said that this list was supposed to be restricted only to fictional males? I think she must be the only fallible woman that Dickens ever created, although he did redeem her in the end. She's beautiful, haughty and just plain sexy)

Actually I can think of several more appealing characters but since this is a 'Top 10' list I have to leave it at this. By the way there are always 11 numbers in my 'Top Ten' lists because I like prime numbers. Anyways feel free to tell me what fictional characters appeal to you people (male or female, I must add!)

Frosty, the snowman was a jolly happy soul....until he got decapitated that is...

After 2 days of continuous snowfall in Milan, one can only imagine the amount of snow filled up on the roads here. As TPF says in her post snow is not a big deal for most people but in a city like Milan where I have just seen snow two times in the last 3 years, its a big deal. My school, over dramatic as always, as soon as we trudged there in the snow, desperately trying to make it in time, decided to tell us that we could return home. So my nerdy friends: Harry, TPF along with me of course decided to be the mature 18 year olds that we are and have a snowball war (yes, I do know the correct term is snowball fight, but what we had was a proper war, with sneaky double, triple agenting, false alliances and the works). Oh, I hope TPF is still ashamed of herself for trying to blind me with snow. My eye still feels weird, you know.

Much to the embarrassment of my entire street, we squealed like 10 yr olds, had random old people looking at us fondly with a smile and had the best time of our lives by building the joy of our short lives, the apple of our eyes: Frosty (original, I know) .

Frosty (aka Joey Ramone, because of his punk styled hair, which is a mohican and not a part of the male anatomy, as several people seem to suggest) was an amazing snowman, which just reminds me of the main aim of this post.

How to Build a Snowman in 5 easy steps:

1. Choose a location a lot of fresh snow.
2. Collect the snow in only place, make a huge snow ball and keep patting it to make it bigger and bigger.
3. Take care to see that you keep piling the snow around the ball and not on top of it, unless you want a volcano and not a snowman.
4. Make a smaller ball and put it on the bigger one.
5. Add accessories of your choice.

There you go, you have your personal snowman! Poor, Frosty's life was a very short one because some idiots decided to decapitate him. For more details on this, TPF's post needs to be read.

R.I.P Frosty, We all miss you and loved you from the bottom of our hearts.

*sniff*

Panacea

First Post

Alright, I admit it, I have finally become mainstream and have joined the Internet age with a blog. Im not really sure if anyone apart from my silly friends is actually going to read this but I hope I'm not fickle enough to stop updating after a week or two. So please nag me to update!