Parlez-vous français?

As a part of my university requirements, I have to study an additional language this year. When I say additional, I mean that this will be the second foreign language that I would have studied in the course of my three years at uni. My university well lives up to its Eurocentric reputation and only offers courses only in European languages. Hence, I had a choice between Italian, French, Spanish, German and Portuguese. Unfortunately, I couldn't choose Italian as my second foreign language because I had already studied it as my first foreign language, which is why I was forced to choose something else from the above list.

Six years ago when I was still a young fledgling, I had to study French in my old school in Bombay, which basically involved the school giving us lists of vocabulary and grammar rules, and us memorizing them without understanding what we were studying. Can you imagine what Indianized French sounds like? Well, you shouldn't bother much with it because it is quite painful to hear. The only thing my French lessons from school helped me to do was to have a good topography of Paris in my head. I pretty much knew my way around Champs Elysée, Place de la Concorde, L'Arc de Triomphe, Le Tour Eiffel, Musée du Louvre, Rue Saint-Honoré, Avenue d'Opéra, Montmatre well before I went to Paris.

So when the time came for me to choose a language this year, I didn't even give it a second thought and chose French. I mean, however beautiful Portuguese and German may sound, you don't see me learning them in a year, do you? And keeping my love for Spanish men and Spain apart, I couldn't possibly learn a language that sounds as crude as Spanish. No, not even Gujarati sounds as vulgar as Spanish, and so I didn't even think about the other options.

It all seemed simple enough until I realized that someone had forgotten to mention that I had to learn my second foreign language in my first foreign language. Yes folks, I am actually studying French in Italian. All of you can probably stare at your computer screens and look mildly amused, but this is no a laughing matter. I can barely manage speaking and understanding Italian, throw French into the equation and my nerves just crumble like a pack of cards.

Its very scary to be put in a foreign language class with a bunch of Italian native speakers, most of whom have previously studied French the right way in high school. My teacher keeps reciting these long sentences that she wants translated into French. I have to translate the Italian into English in my head and then translate the English back in to French in my head and then actually say it out loud. All of this has to be done in less than a second while the teacher and the rest of the class is waiting for me to reply. Its so stressful, especially since my teacher has to policy of making everyone in class talk at least once out loud during the lesson. This means that I can't even hide behind people in the background and try to merge in with the crowd.

If this was once a week for an hour each time, I might still be able to happily handle it without getting terrified each time, but I have French thrice a week, two one and a half hour lessons and one two and a half hour lesson. This year is truly going to pass very slowly. However, being your spunky narrator that I am, I will not give up without a fight, may it be in Italian or French. I am determined to do well because I've wanted to learn French for so long, and now I finally have an opportunity, albeit in Italian. It is truly a beautiful language and I do have a soft spot for French men, so that is always an incentive, right?

Guess Who's Back?

Clichéd post titles apart, I'm officially out from blog retirement. But my exams are not over yet, I still have exactly 10 whole days, 5 exam papers and 2 full subjects to complete before they do actually get over, but I have finished most of them. Before I actually begin this post, I have to warn people reading this that this post is absolutely subjectless and consists solely of my random ramblings.

The last two weeks have been filled with odd sleeping and food habits, exam pressure and not to mention bad hair. (I always have bad hair during exams, it's some kind of condition that I'm forced to suffer with) I have actual dark circles below my eyes, my first dark circles. I'm not to sure whether to be proud that I'm an adult now because I have dark circles or get wound up like most people about them. I think, I'll wait a few more years before they start worrying me.

I'm not a very 'sitting up late night to study' person. My eye-lids start drooping as soon as the clock touches 11.00 p.m and I just can't keep myself awake, however desperate my exam preparation is. Now because of this terrible 'early to bed' habit I'm forced to set the alarm early in the morning. The problem with alarms is that I have to set the alarm at least an hour in advance in order to get up at a particular time. (The person who invented the 'snooze' button on alarm clocks should win a Noble prize). As a result, I've been setting my alarm at 3.15 - 3.30 a.m in the morning to be up by 4.00 to study the things I haven't finished the morning before the exam for the last two days. This 'early morning getting up' thing has got me into a 'napping in the afternoons' habit. I love afternoon naps. Aren't they the bestest thing ever? (For people who are mentally correcting my bad grammar, I'm quite aware that 'bestest' isn't a word, and that doesn't stop me from using it.) I know, I'm getting into my grandma's habits of going to bed early, rising early in the morning and having afternoon naps.

My desperate examination situation makes me wonder what the hell was I exactly doing for a month of study leave before the exams began. I can't say I didn't know that it was going to be like this. I knew exactly what I would be in for, if I didn't revise properly before the exams, but now I just feel like an idiot. Knowing me, I am well aware that even if I did have a time-turner, like the ones they use in badly written Harry Potter fanfiction, I would have still not revised properly because apart from several other things I also happen to be the queen of procrastination.

I can't believe I'm almost two thirds done with the IB. It used to feel like it was going to last forever and now I'm almost done with it. Suddenly my whole world seems quite empty right now. I remember the psycological torture we had to undergo before we actually started the course with lectures from teachers which went like quote, "You think you're going to do well, but you're all going to fail." unquote.

Under these warnings our disillusioned selves began this course two years ago and I have to agree with most people in my grade. Yep, they've been hell alright, but I guess the satisfaction one derives from doing courses like the IB is that you actually feel well versed in your fields of knowledge and that makes it worth it. It's nice to feel intelligent, isn't it? One doesn't get that feeling too often these days.

My bladder has been running out of bounds these days. I'm sure not too many people over here do care or are interested in my urinary habits, but I shall mention them in any case. I'm telling you, it's gotten out of control. Like today, I had a two hour, writing intensive Economics exam and after an hour, I had to pee and not just pee, pee badly. But I was forced to sit there for another hour and continue writing wildly, while pretending that my bladder was not going to burst out any second. This was when I went to the bathroom right before the paper. I'm not even going to start discussing both my English papers, when I actually forgot to go to the bathroom before the exam began.

You Give Me Fever...

I hope people aren't going to be misled by the title of this post. I'm not going to be talking about a hot, sexy, possible future life partner that Elvis had in mind when he sang this song in this post; but about my upcoming examinations that begin in umm.. less than a few days. They are one of those final-end-of-school-exams-that-your-whole-life-and-career-depend-on kind of exams. I should definitely be more paranoid about them, but I can't be arsed to care. Alright, I'm lying here, I do care.

Last night just less than a week before my Maths exam I realized I can't integrate. Seriously, I have no imagination for calculus, even though I've been doing it for the last three years. I remember a conversation I had in class with my teacher three years ago while he was attempting to teach us the basics of calculus.

Teacher: "Imagine a line on a graph, parallel to the X-axis."

(Now it was fine till here. I mean, I have imagination problems but, its not too hard to imagine random lines floating about on an axis)

Teacher (continues): "Now imagine this line moving around the X-axis, making a cylinder around the axis because it's moving so fast."

(Hmm, this required a lot of effort. Usually it takes me ages to imagine normal three dimensional cylinders. To imagine a moving line making one was and it still is rather difficult.)

Teacher: "Now imagine if I wanted to find the volume of this cylinder."

(At this point, your beloved narrator, Pan couldn't bear to remain silent anymore, her imagination did have some kind of mathematical boundaries after all and she had to speak up.)

Pan: "Why would a line want to revolve around an axis?"

Awkward Silence

Teacher: "So, we were discussing how to calculate the volume then... thanks to integration we have a formula..."

(Therefore, my rather interesting question has remained unanswered ever since and had dreadfully affected my calculus abilities)

Anyways, this is probably going to be my last post for a while because I have exams till the 19th of May. I will still probably be reading all my favourite blogs on my sidebar and commenting, but I don't think I'll have time to post anything new. After all, pretending to study does require colossal effort.

Some days ago TPF and I watched the movie version of The Importance of Being Earnest. I agree, the movie did give the words 'Creative License' a new meaning, but I have to admit, I enjoyed it. Although, I may be highly biased in my opinion because it is my deep and profound belief that anything with Colin Firth has to be beyond brilliant. (Sidenote for Fangirl Rant - Oh my god, have you seen him? I mean, he's not as physically attractive as other Hollywood actors, but that's what makes it so endearing, doesn't it? Plus, he has this mysterious Mr Darcyish aura around him that makes him so very attractive. Anyone would think that this Mr. Darcyish aura would type cast him as an actor in movies (like Hugh Grant for example), but no, he's done quite a varied range of movie roles, ok, I'll just stop now :D) Surprisingly Rupert Everett made quite a good Algy.

Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell was hilarious. She is a very good actress after all. Although, she's very theatrical and therefore, it doesn't always come out well in cinema. The movie changed the order and locations of practically all the scenes of the play, but kept the almost all the language from the original play. Therefore, the humour is not lost. I would recommend people to read the play before actually watching the movie because Oscar Wilde definitely should be read at least once in your lifetime. Its like some sort of a law. Here is a link here to some memorable Earnest quotes.

I have absolutely no idea how I've managed to include Calculus, Colin Firth, upcoming examinations, Oscar Wilde, Maths, Judi Dench and The Importance of Being Earnest in one post, hey, its all in there, isn't it?

A Nostalgic Trip Down the Memory Lane

Oh god, the last two days have been terrible because Quincy (my dysfunctional computer) has not been working properly. No, its not Quincy’s fault, he’s been brilliant as usual, but the internet at my home wasn’t working. I don’t know how people in the other parts of the world live but I feel lost without the internet and my computer. Right now all I have is my Dad's laptop with a Dial Up connection, which very slow and for some reason it prevents me from commenting on other people's blogs. So if anyone is wondering why I refuse to comment on their posts, its not because I hate you all, but I just can't till I get my normal connection back. It almost feels as if someone’s take a part of my soul from my body and made it into a umm... Horcrux. Alright, strange metaphors aside, the whole of last week as been a very odd period of my life.

Yesterday was the last day of school and that’s it, I’ve finished it forever. The problem is that I can’t grasp the concept that its all over, just like that. I’ve been here for the last four years and I have to admit, I’ve been looking forward to getting out here for a long time now. Now that the time has finally come, I can’t imagine life without it. When I came here four years ago, this school was the worse thing that happened to me. It was terrible, I disliked it from the bottom my heart, and couldn’t wait until the day I graduated from it. But now that the moment has finally come, I don't really want to leave. I not sure whether I want this change in my life. I’m excited about University and the future but at the same time, I’d like to hold on to the life, place and people I was used to.

I’m also a strange person when it comes to crying; I cry extraordinarily easily for books and movies, I mean, I even get teary eyed for cartoon movies and television adverts. But when it comes to things like funerals or serious issues, I just can’t cry. Its not because I feel less sorry or less emotional than most other people because what’s happening around me, its just that I can’t do it. Sometimes I feel really guilty about the fact that I don’t cry because it makes me look like a cruel cold hearted bitch, which I am (hopefully) not. I’m as emotional about leaving school as anyone else, but yesterday when almost everyone I knew cried and I didn’t or couldn't, I felt terribly guilty about it.

I know its not really over yet. We still have our final final exams in May, then there is the Graduation Day Ceremony in June and the Prom, but its never going to be a 'proper school day' again. No English lessons with Dave; no discussing life, philosophy, books, movies and everything else apart from biology with my Bio teacher; no rolling my eyes over the incompetence of my Chemistry teacher or wondering how is it physically possible for someone to have hair on the top of their nose; no Maths lessons with my teacher’s blatant favoritism for me; no finding out ‘teacher gossip’ in Italian class from my teacher; no arguing with TPF in Economics or making fun of my Eco teacher, who is just a few years older than us; no dreaded trips to AKB’s (university counselor) office; no bitching about people with friends during lunch; no walking around the football pitch checking out guys in breaks; no fantasizing over Dave’s personal life; no chatting up the Computer teacher for colour printing; no sneakily using the photocopy machine; no long bus trips to school with my ipod or forged late excuse notes, no coming back home every evening with Marry, TPF and Harry; no joking or discussing Buffy with the Fat Midget (PE teacher) or having Philosophy lessons with my school principal on whom I have developed a crush of sorts. But most of all, no familiar environment around me that I had slowly gotten used to. School was a place where people knew what I was like, a place where I could be comfortable in because my familiarity with it and now I'm off to University with thousands of other people who don't know me and definitely don't care.

Yes, whatever qualms I may have against my school or the people in it, the fact still remains that I’m going to miss it. I don’t have any possible rational explanation behind my thoughts or emotions, but that’s how it is.

On a lighter note, the last day of school was seriously fun, and I leave TPF to add in the details about it in her next post because thinking about my antics makes me blush. I bear hugged my weird Maths teacher, and am never going to hear the end of it from people.

The Year of the Party

As the title of the post says, the scholastic year of 2005 - 2006 has been the 'Year of the Party'. Most of the people in my grade (including me, of course) turned 18 this year. The coming of age in Italy is always celebrated with a drunk night out in a disco. So this year, I've been out to several birthday parties in some of the best nightclubs in the city. Yes, one of those nights did involve the infamous 'vintage' incident that all my silly friends keep referring to. (If people have no idea what I'm talking about, please don't ask because I refuse to talk about it for fear of losing whatever little dignity I have in the blogosphere)

Last night was one of those nights. I have to admit, I can never make up my mind about whether I actually enjoy these disco nights. It all comes down to the music and the shoes I'm wearing really (and the level of alcohol in the blood stream of people around me!). What I can never understand is why women have to shower, wash their hair, put on make up, wear tight fitting uncomfortable clothes and shoes that damage your feet for about a week before going to a party where guys wear jeans, sneakers, a shirt, tousle up their hair and look really um..forgive me for using the term, hot.

Well rant aside, it was fun last night. It was Bad Hair Year's 18th birthday. She is known as Bad Hair Year because she's been experimenting with various hair colours this year that make her hair look really bad. As you can probably see, I don't care much about Bad Hair Year, she's just a weird person. I mean, what kind of a 18 year old has an ugly, hairy, smelly 30 year old boyfriend? But hey, it was a party, our hypocritical selves couldn't have missed that, however indifferent we may be to Miss Bad Hair Year.

That reminds me, TPF finally listened to me for once and let me braid her pretty hair. It looked fabulous, thanks to me! I looked like a prostitute, according to me. I'm the most prudish person I know when it comes to clothes. It took ages for both my parents to convince me that my skirt wasn't that short and my top wans't deep enough for me to be laballed as a umm..harlot. Seriously, if my own mother is telling me that my skirt which I think is short is not that short, it must mean that there is something wrong with me.

The party which was supposed to start at 11.30 according to the invitation began at midnight because everybody apart from me of course, was late. I detest people who are late *cough*TPF*cough*. The bartender was a horrible, horrible person who is so going to go to hell. She put extra alcohol in Marry's drink, and since she felt guilty about that, she decided to put none in ours. As a result, TPF and I, both ended up drinking lemonade and mint and Marry ended up drunk. I'm so glad Marry doesn't read my blog, otherwise she would probably kill me for mentioning her state of intoxication on the internet. You see, she goes into denial about these things.

Highlights of the party included an awkward conversation with a person who I used to be very good friends two years ago and then we basically just drifted apart. I saw her last night after about 7 months and it was rather uncomfortable. Then the 'vintage skirt' girl, who was also for the party (jokingly) told me not to defile her skirt again. Oh my god, why do people have to keep getting that incident up all the time? Why can't we just bury it in our memories and never bring it up again? The night also included TPF getting highly jealous about Juzie (her not-so-secret crush) dancing with everybody; but her, attractive random male asking me whether I wanted to dance with him and me saying no to him because I had to take a drunk Marry to the bathroom (I'm such a good friend!), the stupid males in my grade throwing reminants of their cocktails at people, me ending up with strawberry cocktail in my hair and spending the best part of two Madonna songs washing it out in the men's bathroom (the women's bathroom was locked because I think people were smoking dope in there), me almost dying of passive smoke because of the smoking of ungodly substances going around, two guys coming in the women's bathroom and asking TPF, Marry and me whether we had any cocaine for them to sniff and then getting annoyed about the fact that we didn't have any, me silently gloating over my sober condition while looking at a random girl throwing up outside the disco as we were waiting for a taxi. Ah, the joys of being a teenager!

So one would wonder what time I got home. It was at 3.30 am (I think its is the latest I've come home this year) and the first thing I did after getting home was wash my hair for the second time in six hours because of the strawberry cocktail. Seriously the bar woman is going to suffer, I mean, when I went there for drinks she told me that I couldn't have my Cosmopolitan because she didn't have any strawberry syrup, now I'm just wondering how it got on my hair then. I got up at 10.30 this morning, which is pretty late according to my standards because I can't sleep till late like most people and had a splitting headache, which almost felt like a hangover, except for the fact that it wasn't a hangover because I hadn't consumed any alcohol.

On an unrelated note, I am now the proud owner of a beautiful black Penguin edition of The Brothers Karamazov. People who frequently read this blog might know how obsessed I am with book publishers. I can't stop gushing about it and sniffing it. Alright, I shouldn't lie, I have also been hugging it all morning. But its beautiful!

Evolution

So this is my long awaited evolution post. Alright, its not really long awaited. But Nitin just reminded me about it a few days ago and since he was interested, I thought, why not.

We were studying Evolution in Biology a few weeks ago and my teacher was explaining the different theories and evidence there is that could give us a possible answer about how we have managed evolve into the people we are today. My snarky self couldn't resist from finishing his sentence, "...and even with all this evidence, there's a whole bunch of people who actually very firmly deeply believe that we've been been dropped down on the earth just as we are now from the glorious heavens above." Well obviously after this it was his duty as a teacher to tell me not to be disrespectful and dismissive towards the beliefs of other people. Ah, but I being the terrible rebel as I am found myself with the need to justify my statement to him and explain my argument (We're just a class of 4 people, nobody really cares about Biology much!)

*begin rant*

I'm not what people call a narrow minded person. I like to think of myself as follower of liberal thought. If somebody has a set of beliefs, I don't think it is my right to dismiss them, but I would like to think it is my right to question them at least. Where evolution is concerned, I admit that there are a lot of theories that are trying different means to understand how life first began on the earth, how human beings came into being.

If you tell me we exist due to the theory of panspermia, I can understand it. Its got its evidence agreeing with it and even more evidence rejecting it and therefore it is something I can consider. If you tell me we're all come from clay or tell me about the RNA world hypothesis, I'm fine with it. There is a scientific thought process that has gone behind the RNA world hypothesis that may or may not be true. Again, I don't mind accepting it. If you tell me that before Darwinian evolution there was another kind of evolution involving intermingling of genetic lineages and crossing over of genetic material between different species, once again I can accept it. But if you're telling me there are people who want to ignore all this evidence, ignore people who have given up their entire lives trying to find this evidence and these theories and just choose to believe that someone up there one day decided to play the toy maker and pop us all down because He felt like it, I refuse to agree with it.

The fundamental problem I have with Intelligent Design or Creationism is not the whole argument about the existence of a God, but the argument of faith. People believe in Intelligent Design because its the easy way out. But when other people are trying to explain it using different scientific, rational and empirical methods, all they do is just plainly dismiss these theories on their argument of faith, which does not have any logic or sense whatsoever. But ah, faith is not supposed to make sense, is it?

My blatant dismissal for Intelligent Design has got nothing to do with my belief or disbelief in God. God, according to me does not enter the pictures anywhere. If people say that they don't know who or what set The Big Bang into motion or what happened before it and attribute it to God, its an acceptable and even understandable thought process. If they say that it was God who created the first life forms on earth, whatever they maybe because we as human beings do not know or have this ability to know the purpose of our lives or creation, again its something I can understand and even accept. These are ideas I can't dismiss because we, as human beings don't know anything about them. So I, an insignificant human being don't have the right to hold an opinion about matters that are beyond my perception. I am well prepared to accept the fact that it could have been a supernatural force beyond our perception who we like to call God, who could have created everything.

We always like to atributte the incomprehendible (is this a word?) mysteries to God and that is something I can well understand because we human beings are curious people. We like to know how things work. When we don't have a possible explaination towards how something works, we need someone who we can attribute creation to and that is why the need of having a God like figure to worship is perfectly understandable.

Its not a classic I'm right and you're wrong situation, but more of a I'm not sure whether I'm right, but I think you may be wrong, but if you think you're right and give me resonable explaination about your views, I'll believe you. But if people refuse to even consider the possibility there all the collected evidence may be pointing towards the fact that Mr. Adam and Ms. Eve were fictional, I shall dismiss them. Maybe I sound like one of these people who refuses to see other points of view but in my warped up mind, my logic makes sense. Next thing people are going to find me doing is converting into flying spagetti monsterism because that's what I believe in and you see, my faith deep enough for me to discard whatever anyone else says.

*end rant*

On a more hypocritical and a lighter note, I'm really glad that someone did create fictional Mr. Adam and Ms. Eve because without them almost half of contemporary and classical fiction would not have existed. I don't think I could have lived in a world without Paradise Lost. I happen to care much more about literature than biology.

PS: Sorry for the wikipedia links, I know they're not the most reliable and unbiased of sources, but I really couldn't be bothered to search for information websites and I also happen to love wikipedia.

PPS: I also apologise for ranting but you can't say that I did not warn anyone.

A short excerpt from a conversation in Biology class...

Biology Teacher: "Pan, I like the questions you ask in the class, you think in a special manner."
Pan: "umm...does that mean in a good way or bad way?"
Biology Teacher: "I just mean that you're a special person... different from everyone else, you know"
Pan: "Ah, I'm different then, and special!"
Biology Teacher: "Yes, that's exactly the word for it, different"
CB (random unimportant guy in class): "What he really means is that you're such special person Pan, that you should go to a special school for special people who think in the special manner that you do"
Biology Teacher: "Exactly..."
Pan: "What...?"
Biology Teacher and CB: "Nothing...absolutely nothing."

Fine, now I'm abnormal...*drama queen sigh* why me? Is this because I'm left handed? Is it because I'm a socialist sympathizer? Is it because I'm obsessed with ducks? Is it because I'm paranoid about neatness and organization to the extent that I can't write on a sheet of paper unless it has margins on both sides? Is it because I can't roll my tongue like most people and for some reason everybody has to pick on me for it? Or is it just because I'm attracted to gay men who are English teachers? I'm not too sure actually...

On a completely unrealted note, I snapped at my Maths teacher and am feeling guilty about it because he didn't deserve my blatant rudeness, even though he was being rather irritating.

On another unrelated note, went shopping and drove TPF absolutely mad due to my whinging and indecisiveness. I don't think she likes me anymore.

An absolutely random inventory...

*sigh* this has been a hectic week. Actually no, let me rephrase, this has been a week like any other I've been having since the beginning of this year. Of course, I've still managed to enjoy myself because after going through the same old routine for a whole year now, I think I know how to find some little pleasures even in the most tiring of weeks. So let me begin.

MONDAY - crap, absolutely crap. It was cold and windy and terrible. My practice Italian oral exam went so bad that my teacher did not even bother giving me a mark, just a disappointed look and then a whole tirade that came after the look about how bad I was and how the final oral exam was on Wednesday. I obviously panicked and prepared a beautiful oral for Tuesday. Amazing English class where we studied Gift of the Gorgon and I drooled at Dave's rear, as I usually do.

TUESDAY - Practice Italian Oral went much better because it wasn't improvised this time. Had an argument with my Biology teacher about evolution, where he kind of admitted that I was right. (Remind me to make a seperate post on this sometime, I'm rather passionate about it!). More than amazing Gift of the Gorgon lesson. Drooled over Dave once again, and wondered if he may not be gay after all, then had a random 10 second conversation with him about Hugh Grant in underwear after the lesson and changed my mind about his gayness (gaiety to be grammatically correct). Symptoms of a sore throat started developing.

WEDNESDAY - Final Italian Oral early in the morning. Was rather cranky all day because I had a terrible terrible sore throat and had kind of lost my voice. Italian teacher made me bloody do the same oral 3 times because she forgot to press the record button on the cassette recorder and due to this stupid oral exam, I even missed English class. Thankfully she let me listen to it (my recorded voice). I sound male because of my throat. The examiner is so going to think I'm male :( (The oral obviously went well after repeating the same thing 3 times, by the way). Realized that my Biology teacher was still into this girl he used to date for a while, 20 years ago, who had dumped him. She is this famous evolutionist's daughter, by the way. Oddly felt really really sorry for him. He is a nice person. Crappy teacher but a nice person.

International Evening Night - School event, where people bring food from different countries. The school cafeteria is transformed into a restaurant and we're served by waiters (volunteer students, of course) dressed in costumes and there's a big performance prepared by some of the students. Had a terrible terrible waiteress who starved us. Harry and I had to sneak into the food area to steal dessert because terrible waitress didn't get it for us. TPF wasn't there because she had gone to see a stupid football match between Milan and Bayern Munich. Made funny videos on my camera.

THURSDAY- Sickness became worse. Now had a sore throat combined with a cold. TPF decided it would be a good day to get all testy on me and randomly not speak to me and sulk. Was rather annoyed about the whole thing... Only thing that saved the day was Dave, as usual. Made fun of random woman on the bus with TPF. She was sitting right in front of us and (hopefully) couldn't understand a word of what we were saying because it was in English. She was so creepy and twichy and just weird and kept on looking at me...

FRIDAY- Sickness worse than ever. Sore throat had deteriorated into a cough and still had a cold. Couldn't smell anything, including this smelly boy in our grade who you can smell from a radius of a floor. Should have stayed at home and not gone to school but being the nerd that I am, I couldn't stand the thought of missing school for one whole day. Was annoyed at TPF for sulking on Thursday, decided that it was my turn to sulk. Didn't speak to her for half a day then got bored and decided to speak to her and now we're cool. Decided on a topic for our Philosophy presentation which I'm randomly excited about and TPF thinks I'm just sad, which might be true. But, Philosophy research is so much fun!

So yes, that was my week, it was not a very eventful week I guess but that was about it.

Anyways, I forgot to mention a whole lot of stuff that didn't have a particular day but was eventful this week in any case, starting from: the throngs of school work and practicles that I did, the even more throngs of school work that I didn't do and should have done, the amount of time I spent in break at school oggling at boys playing football (in shorts!), wondering when did Plug get so cute and how in the world could I have missed his cute rear, teasing TPF about Juzie, whining to everybody I could think of about my illness, losing my favourite Kermit (yes, the muppet frog, does anybody have a problem with that?) ruler that I've had since 7th grade and then accusing everybody I could think of for stealing it, finding the Kermit ruler in my maths book the next day and pretending to still be annoyed at the people who I accused of stealing it, having my maths teacher trying to unsuccessfully grab my Snickers bar out of my hand for no reason at all (I think he wanted to either test my reflexes or he was just trying to be funny and not succeeding! nobody, I repeat, nobody steals my chocolate), rolling my eyes over Harry fighting with the Chemistry teacher AGAIN, having several of those Chemistry lessons that make you wonder why you voluntarily chose to study that subject at a higher level in the first place, teaching a sum to my maths teacher who couldn't understand how to do it and still doesn't get how to do it, learning about panspermia; which is rather cool by the way, reading fanfiction, writing fanfiction, nagging TPF about her sleeping habits, nagging TPF about her last minute homework habits, nagging TPF about her lateness, forging a late note because I was really really late one morning, blowing up a can of Coke that I forget in the freezer, giggling loudly in Biology class every time someone said homo erectus, wondering whether I was giggling about the word homo or the word erectus (I know its really silly, but I'm a teenager, you can't expect me to be mature and responsible all the time. And this was even funnier than the time in Biology when we studied synaptic clefts and synaptic shafts, so don't look at me that way!), finding myself doodling the the word 'PAN' instead of my own name on my bag (my blog persona is really getting to me!) and blah blah blah.

Hope everybody else had a better week! :D

Bookshelves and Morality

This post is solely dedicated for my own amusement and is also a great opportunity for TPF to mock me once again (as if she didn’t already do so the whole of today). Anyways, Thursdays are always bittersweet for me because even though I start with Biology and Chemistry one after the other in the morning, I have a double free lesson in the afternoon which is the best thing ever. So today at our free lesson, TPF and me sneaked into Dave’s room which was empty at that time and used his computer to go on Mugglenet to read the Harry Potter captions (which are really funny this week by the way).

One whole wall in our English class is a big bookshelf filled with really cool books that nobody reads, so they’re just gathering dust on the shelves there (fine, I'm the only one who finds them cool). Sometimes there are several copies of the same book, so I decided that since there was nobody in the room at that time, it would be a great idea to steal a book that has multiple copies on the shelf, so it wouldn’t even be missed (how moral of me!). So this book that I decided to steal was on the topmost shelf, which I obviously couldn't reach because of my height. At that time it standing on a lower shelf with high heels in order to reach the upper most shelf seemed like a great idea (don’t even ask me why!). So, as soon as I tried to stand on the shelf, the shelf obviously broke becauase of my weight and all the books on that shelf fell down on the floor. At that exact moment, the bell for the next lesson rang and people were probably about to have a lesson in that room with Dave. I obviously panicked and my first thought was to sneak out of the room before people started entering, like any rational person would have done in my place, but no, TPF made me feel moral and guilty about wanting to sneak out and so we started trying to fix the broken shelf.

Thankfully we managed to fix the shelf, dump all the books back on the shelf, steal the book that I originally wanted (thankfully TPF is taller than I am) and get out before anybody entered. Thank god, people are always late to their classes in my school because if we were caught we probably would have been in a rather compromising situation and TPF would have had to explain to Dave why he had a broken shelf and a hyperventilating student (me!) in a classroom that is supposed to be out of bounds when he’s not in there.

On a completely unrelated note, I’m mocking TPF in this post because she was being rather silly and not to mention, very nerdy by writing random Romeo and Juliet quotes (that she knew by heart, by the way) on the board of an empty classroom today.

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.