Four Years

August 24, 2006 is when I headed out of Dhaka to come to Montreal. Four years later, having completed my degree in engineering, I am now looking for full time jobs still (in this terrible market). I still remember, in vivid detail, the adventures of my trip here and the first few days in Montreal. I am going to pet my laptop for a bit now because it has served me so well all these years.

......

I remember that for the first two years, I felt like a tourist here. I felt I was on a "visit" all the time with a lot of school work to be done and touristy stuff to check out. Through the years spent here, especially the last two summers, I have grown an attachment to this place - heck, I even feel the pain of a goal scored against the Habs. Montreal is an amazing city, everyone! If you don't live here, you should definitely come visit.

Au revoir!

Hair Me Out

I went for a hair cut recently, to this Italian barber's shop in downtown Montreal. This wasn't the first time I went there and the elderly barber seemed to recognize me; he asked me to wait till he was done with the customer he was serving right then; "Amigo, 10 minutes?"

I sat down and noticed the fashion magazines lying around - a playboy edition too amongst them. This side of the shop seemed to be just for men. I figured that behind the mirrors in the middle, the other half of the shop, was meant for the ladies.

After a while, it was my turn. As he prepared me for the cut with the cloaks (aprons - whatever they might be called) he asked me how I was doing. Small talk ensued. I don't completely remember how the conversation went about - I was partly immersed in thought about assignments and midterms and due dates and all the rest of the university blah. What I do remember are snippets of the conversation.

It was difficult to understand what this person was saying most of the time. He is quite old and has an accent that makes it more difficult to distinguish the words in the mumbled speech.

He told me how he had his business on another street before..and how there was a 'tavern' there. It was a long time ago he said, when there used to be taverns - he described to me what a tavern was. He said he came to Canada 55 years ago from Italy. Told me about his parents who stayed in Italy. He told me how McGill College St. was not a big street back in the days. Didn't have much business he thought. He told me about having a sister in Argentina. His last visit to Italy was in 84/86. His father passed away in the late nineties. His father was a healthy man..and he died in a road accident. He has a son who is an engineer too.

He asked me where I was from and upon finding out I was from Bangladesh he told me that he had a client from Bangladesh come to his shop recently. The customer was Christian. "What religion are you from?" he asked me with a pause. I answered and he was very quick to clarify that it doesn't matter what my religion is. He pointed up and said there was just one. All are the same. He said he changed over time too - he was born Christian. He then went on to describe the pictures of the floods he sees. He compares the floods in the USA and in Bangladesh. He remarks on how poor and unfortunate some people are. He said something about working on Sundays and how he doesn't care if someone works on Sundays or not..and that it is their choice.

He keeps on going on till the end. I only understood half of all that he said and could barely respond from time to time - with an understanding nod or a smile as he talked about different things. As I paid and was leaving, he said, "I also work on Saturdays..fewer customers!". I suppose he just wanted to talk - it must be a welcome break from the monotony of scissors and brushes.

Hopefully a revival..

SO. It has been another few ages since I have actually posted something on this blog.

I was planning to start blogging again when I was on my New York trip this past winter break (December 2008). Had so much fun in that city and such a wonderful experience that I was perhaps overwhelmed (ok fine..I was actually being lazy about having to write up about it all). I composed a draft message in my gmail with short snippets of text which reminds me of the tiny little details of the trip and I still have it saved as a draft. Maybe one day I will elaborate on that and write about my NYC experience.

Anyway...what else has happened since the last time..let's see...
Well there has been a break up near the end of last year.. And an okay academic year overall - that's 3 years of university done with! One more to go!
I have started to take up photography as a more involved hobby. I take 2-1000 pictures every day (chase jarvis reference if anyone gets it). Well it's more like 30 pictures on average actually. Most of them are random and just test shots - so they don't count I suppose. I had to purchase a 1.5 TB seagate hard drive to store all my pictures, music, and videos.

Currently I am spending my first ever summer here in Montreal. Over the past 2 summers I was in Dhaka, Bangladesh. While being away from home and family for longer than ever is quite a challenge, I am trying to overcome the missing-home feelings with the Montreal Summer activities. I bought a bike around late March and I have been biking around the neighbourhood since. When I say neighbourhood I mean more than just around my block of course. Since the beginning of June, me and a couple of friends have been going on longer trips on Saturdays. When I mean longer..I mean REALLY longer. Our average Saturday trip clocks up about 80 kilometers of biking over about 6 hours of biking. It's pretty intense I tell you!

So what else is up at my end...hmmm.....well there's photography for sure (www.flickr.com/tmab2003).


I kind of want to go on a road trip soon...I miss driving and that's pretty much my biggest reason for wanting to go on a road trip. I have been watching Top Gear's seasons and greatly enjoying this show that I was a big fan of in the old times! You gotta love British television.

Alright..I have work tomorrow and need to sleep..so will end here for now. Hopefully there will be more updates in the following weeks!

Friend. obviously.

http://BigManHate.blogspot.com

Response and Ramble Ramble.

Thank you all for the responses to the last entry!
Let's clear out a few things now :P

Alright..so I really do understand why the organizers would want to
have the "pretty" girl on display rather than the "ugly" girl (let's
just say she's got a lesser degree of symmetry on her face than the
pretty girl? =/). And while I have nothing against them wanting to
show their best, I don't quite like the idea of the actual singer not
being able to present her singing talent to the world because a group
of adults felt she was not quite presentable. IMO, they should have
either compromised with the quality of the singing, or their desire to
put up the prettiest girl. Compromising a little kid's feelings…
shouldn't have been a consideration in the first place.

Next, fireworks…on a serious note,I have nothing against what happened
regarding that :P CGI or no CGI, I am just amazed at how neatly they
managed to pull the trick off! But it's always fun to pull legs innit.
So kudos to them I say! Overall..I really applaud the Chinese
organizers for making the opening such a success. It's one of those
humanity things which make me eyes well up a bit :P.

Now for some mindless ramble once again =)

Green and white. A polo shirt. A familiar smell. A familiar feeling.
Peach at the bottom of some chilled ice-tea. Some waffles with fruits
and ice cream on top. Some tears, some smiles all trapped within
elevator doors and an airport terminal. Some books and some express.
Some coffee in this world. Few words over a dear embrace. Peace and
compassion side by side. Anger and agitation, annoyance and
intolerance followed by a mellowness so unreal. August. Two years it
has been ugly. The third happened to be the worst. A tone – so
innocent and heart melting. Bau. A pie. Some drink from the pictures.
Some kid called Angie. A few clay elephants. Some rings and some
chains. Some gio, some surprises. Some marshies, some jellybeans..
Pictures against a lake facing the sun. Pictures against a lake at a
glass table. Pulling and tugging.. arms inside the sleeves. A
heartwarming sight. So warm that everything melts away. No Drugs. Just
eyes. Wishing to pry open the third. Maybe to reveal the indigo iris.
What makes it so easy to let go I wonder. Happiness so elusive..it
seems to lie elsewhere. Aziz super market..a heaven for black t-shirts
that mean something. A few large coins. A missing card. A few card
tricks over some tasty chicken. Some art. Some galleries. Sitting
against the wall on the floor facing the hard work of a creator.
Laughter over things so petty. Anger over the same. Home. Touchdown.
Promises that the future is bright and full of sunshine. Shhhunsine..
rings in my head. So do many many other things. I wonder if they echo
somewhere else. Do I care? Maybe..maybe not. Cheese slices. Morocco
and Malaysia. Many other places. A lot of travel. A lot of living. 3
years. I wonder where things will stand then. Or even 2 years. Or 1.
Or maybe months. I knew a month ago.. I wish I knew now.

A lot of thai express and second cup awaits us all people! Just less
than two weeks! :D

See you all next time!

Egocentric Ramblings 2

Why this post is being titled Egocentric Ramblings '2' might or might
not be clarified at the end. So don't let the suspense build up too
much.

So I was having this small chat with a very good friend of mine about
how we should leave space for different people thinking in different
ways. This conversation came as a response to me complaining about how
some people think in the most unthinkable ways through their life.
"It's unfair but that's the way it is.." said my good friend. And boy
don't I think "unfair" is an understatement.

My cell phone camera no longer works. My current internet connection
is slower than what a mummied pharaoh will get from inside his tomb on
his wifi which is accessing an access point somewhere in the
Himalayas. Well of course I exaggerate. And I am left feeling terribly
depressed about how some people turn out to be so very different than
what you knew them to be..and different from what you perhaps loved
them for, with all your heart. It's a feeling of betrayal on the self.

To more subtle and serious issues: I really think eating kangaroos
might be a good idea. Just like the Aussie scientist..I say it will
stop global warming. Cow and sheep flatulence is definitely not the
best thing for our mother planet. Maybe we should send them animals to
Mars and have them warm up the planet for us a bit eh?

lolzzz...haha..wow..what on earth would make me say lolzzz? well it's
grief. usually when i am happy i keep it to lol. What grief you ask?
well it's the fact that some will actually adapt to lolzing from
loling. Petty? trivial? well yeah it is.
Recently I realized that certain things in life have made me concerned
about the pettiest and most insignificant things. I have been
stressed, depressed, concerned, worried, puzzled and whaaaat-not by
things which I used to not care about at all! Well with the
realization has come the repair. I remember myself being the least
concerned about the small things in life..to the point of being an
absent minded jerk at times - since I kept on overlooking even some
pretty big things as they seemed too trivial for my oh-so-important
self. I wonder why i just lost that part of me to be suckered in to a
world so small that now...i don't even fit in there.

A song I liked recently..written and sung by a good friend of mine:

I hope you see,
what I want to be,
for you.
All I have to give,
in this life we live,
to you.
What I bear in my soul,
a love which unfolds,
unto you.
An endless time,
and a lifeline,
by you.
Here I bring the sun,
into the blue,
for you.
You didn't see
what i want to be,
for you.
All I had to give,
in this life we live,
to you.
Broken heart,
and back to the start,
without you
I'll find my sleeve,
and take my leave,
without you
You chose a setting
not our wedding
for you..
_______

had a nice rhythm to it :)

I had a dream..one of those dreams that you so wish was real..that
it's just painful to even wake up from it. A dream being lived for so
long that it seemed it'll last forever. Too bad it turned out to be
nothing more than a deception..but hey..it was good. while it lasted.
maybe good is an understatement. It was happiness - the sort that
makes u wake up in the morning with a smile on ur face without u
knowing it.

Too bad I couldn't sleep in and let the dream go on...everybody wants
you to wake up earlier than you would have liked to. I guess that's
exactly what life is. But hey..maybe the dream could have taken a
crazy turn in to a nightmare..in that case aren't I glad i woke up at
the right time :D

OH well...i hope all is well in this world..and everybody's happy! I
recently discovered that certain people (like myself I guess) can act
as a cold virus. They attach themselves to their hosts and eat off
their happiness and bliss to nothing but deathly frustration and
gloom. wow..what are you (we) guys? Leave them (us) happy people
alone! =_=

OK so now for the million cent question about why this post is titled
"2". Well that's because my favourite college essay was titled just
"Egocentric Ramblings". It was probably more organised than this piece
of $hit which led to whatever success it had during the application
process.

I remember ending that essay with a metaphor. I compared myself to a
polygonal shape lying on a sandy beach. Ever changing in shape, all
that's left behind when I die, is the mark left on the sand. Pretty
cool eh? Yeah, I agree....Hah..polygon. what an interesting dream you
have been =)

So the organisers of this year's olympics have a very simplistic
approach to solving problems. Here was the original problem:
1. The best singer found for the Olympic opening ceremony was "ugly".
2. By convention, ugly people cannot be shown on TV unless it's a
makeover show or some stupid reality TV program.
3. The opening ceremony has to have the best singer's voice in the
required song.
4. The prettiest girl didn't quite sing as well as the "ugly" girl.

A very difficult situation eh. Can't compromise looks..can't
compromise quality of voice. And why should they when they have an
ingenious solution to this very problem
The organizers decided that the world audience will see the "pretty"
girl..but hear the "ugly" one's voice. TADAAAA!!!! *chimes*
*beethoven's 9th symphony* *anthem of mars*
That's right. Never thought of THAT..have you? They made her lip synch
in front of the whole world. WOW. Amazing feat guys.

FIREWORKS are AWESOME! Or so everyone who have seen them live tells
me. I haven't really seen anything more than a miniscule firecracker
go off from a terrace. I have also lit a few matches in my life..but
all of these don't count as valid fireworks experience I hear. The
organizers had another problem with these fireworks. They didn't quite
trust their system enough to function well on the big day (or so I
infer from the news). So what they decided to do was...have the
fireworks go off far in advance of the main day's events...and have it
recorded very well on camera. To make sure the global audience
watching the opening ceremony live on the big day don't quite miss out
on this part of the fireworks, the organizers supplied all the
broadcasters with the tapes of these fireworks from the past. The
world thinks every thing is happening at once and goes WOW while the
broadcasting editor sweats in his studio to make sure no one really
detects this trick of theirs. Fiiiiine stuff I say!

Alrighty..time to eject myself from this mood of mindless ramble. Good
day folks! Cya later!

The almost forgotten dream

So as mentioned in the previous post, I had forgotten one of my very
clever dreams...BUT, i remembered it last night just before sleeping.

I dreamt that I had fever. And to get rid of it, I was using this
lotion on my body which made my sweat glands go hyperactive and
increased the blood circulation near my skin somehow. As a result, I
sweat a lot, and hence lost my body's excess heat (the fever). All
this made me feel much much better in just a few minutes. And that's
about it.

Ok then...see you all next time!