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!

It's been another long while.

I don't quite remember the last time I wrote on my blogs so here it is
now. I have boredom oozing out of every sweat gland in my body and
Dhaka's heat and humidity is not helping. A painful goodbye and a
relentless search for something exciting to happen is all cooking up a
bit of frustration and melancholy in my life.

It has been about 2 months now that I have come here. Gave up my
glasses with my newly shaped cornea thanks to some flashy lasers. And
I have tried to lose some kilograms at the gym in vain. I lost one.
The membership ended last week. The next gym I see will be the one
back in Montreal. Till then, I eat, sleep and do nothing much more.

Card tricks have always fascinated me and I just have a few tricks in
my deck at the moment..but maybe with more practice..and unlikely
devotion I will be able to come up with some more.

My cell phone lives on as a beaten soldier...the camera won't work
despite the repair effort put behind it. I am really urged to buy a
camera for myself when I get back this time. Pictures and
videos..maybe a video blog will be born further down the lane. But
given that I am somewhat (VERY) lazy and short of time when semester's
on, it's unlikely that I will ever start one. But hey..I am a dreamer.

Talking about dreams, I have had a few very creative ones lately. In a
previoust post I talked about a dead nail (the white part) dissolving
creame/lotion which acted as an alternate to nail-clipping and also
why planes can fly inverted even though their wings are meant to
create upward lift when upright and downward lift when inverted.

So recently I dreamt of an amazing razer..which used a jet of water in
a horizontal line..which removed hair from the skin without damaging
the skin at all. It was pretty cool because the person using the razer
on me was also talking about how land-owners were organising game
shows to find which winning contestant gets to buy their land.

Next, there was this other dream where..*spending a lot of time trying
to remember what it was..and also chatting away on MSN* ok
nevermind..will leave that to another post. I forgot what it was..will
have to ask father about it. Ok so, he doesn't remember either. Will
ask someone else about it. Arghh..i hate how I can't remember these
things at times.

Food; I have been thinking about food a lot lately (yeah what's new
about that you ask? well I don't know to be honest). But really, I
have been thinking about what I can make this time around in my
montreal kitchen. Been talking to people about food, been eating dhaka
food and asking how this and that has been made and so on.Stir fries
to cakes to sushis to subs to seasame beef to beef sashimi with teffo
at Odaki (:F) - everything is on the to-do list. (so are you AJ...ahem
ahem). So lemon rice is a must try as well. it's a special recipe from
a special person! :D only problem is..i am yet to get the procedure
from the chef :P

OK MOVING ON. Internet here is real slow. Can't youtube or watch TV
shows online here. Which is le suck.

I think i am going to check out some more digital cameras
online..reviews and ratings..(yes i am getting bored of writing this
as well.)

Sigh. Catch you all later.

PS.

AJ, 311. Indigo. Jellybeans.

cellular blog

awesome!

Exciting times we live in!

BBC NEWS
Chemical brain controls nanobots
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

A tiny chemical "brain" which could one day act as a remote control
for swarms of nano-machines has been invented.

The molecular device - just two billionths of a metre across - was
able to control eight of the microscopic machines simultaneously in a
test.

Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists
say it could also be used to boost the processing power of future
computers.

Many experts have high hopes for nano-machines in treating disease.

"If [in the future] you want to remotely operate on a tumour you might
want to send some molecular machines there," explained Dr Anirban
Bandyopadhyay of the International Center for Young Scientists,
Tsukuba, Japan.

"But you cannot just put them into the blood and [expect them] to go
to the right place."

Dr Bandyopadhyay believes his device may offer a solution. One day
they may be able to guide the nanobots through the body and control
their functions, he said.

"That kind of device simply did not exist; this is the first time we
have created a nano-brain," he told BBC News.

Computer brain

The machine is made from 17 molecules of the chemical duroquinone.
Each one is known as a "logic device".

They each resemble a ring with four protruding spokes that can be
independently rotated to represent four different states.

One duroquinone molecule sits at the centre of a ring formed by the
remaining 16. All are connected by chemical bonds, known as hydrogen
bonds.

The state of the control molecule at the centre is switched by a
scanning tunnelling microscope (STM).

These large machines are a standard part of the nanotechnologist's
tool kit, and allow the viewing and manipulation of atomic surfaces.

Using the STM, the researchers showed they could change the central
molecule's state and simultaneously switch the states of the
surrounding 16.

"We instruct only one molecule and it simultaneously and logically
instructs 16 others at a time," said Dr Bandyopadhyay.

The configuration allows four billion different possible combinations
of outcome.

The two nanometre diameter structure was inspired by the parallel
communication of glial cells inside a human brain, according to the
team.

Robot control

To test the control unit, the researchers simulated docking eight
existing nano-machines to the structure, creating a "nano-factory" or
a kind of "chemical swiss army knife".

The attached devices, created by other research groups, included the
"world's tiniest elevator", a molecular platform that can be raised or
lowered on command.

The device is about two and a half nanometres (billionths of a metre)
high, and the lift moves less than one nanometre up and down.

All eight machines simultaneously responded to a single instruction in
the simulation.

"We have clear cut evidence that we can control those machines," said
Dr Bandyopadhyay.

This "one-to-many" communication and the device's ability to act as a
central control unit also raises the possibility of using the device
in future computers, he said.

Machines built using devices such as this would be able to process 16
bits of information simultaneously.

Current silicon Central Processing Units (CPUs) can only carry out one
instruction at a time, albeit thousands of times per second.

The researchers say they have already built faster machines, capable
of 256 simultaneous operations, and have designed one capable of 1024.

However, according to Professor Andrew Adamatzky of the University of
the West England (UWE), making a workable computer would be very
difficult at the moment.

"As with other implementations of unconventional computers the
application is very limited, because they operate [it] using scanning
tunnel microscopy," he said.

But, he said, the work is promising.

"I am sure with time such molecular CPUs can be integrated in
molecular robots, so they will simply interact with other molecular
parts autonomously."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7288426.stm

Published: 2008/03/11 10:32:53 GMT

(c) BBC MMVIII

Dreaming

I had a dream last night. One of those dreams that feel real. I don't quite know if it was one of those which I want to be real..but i know..that i was happy for the while. I was happy while it lasted.

Maybe it was induced by my habit of playing a particular playlist of selected songs which I used to use for falling asleep a long time back.

"A Sranger" by A Perfect Circle will always be one of my favourites and some tracks from Nine Inch Nail's album Still will always calm me down.

Maybe I do want some things to be true. Or not. I don't know really.

Lecter Lecture

I am not sure how good of a decision it was to watch The Silence of The Lambs at midnight. I have always meant to watch this movie..and now I have just completed it. It wasn't as horrific as I expected it to be. It wasn't too gory and didn't come out from the behind to spook the crap out of me. It was just the sort of horror I can enjoy.

Like the millions, I thoroughly enjoyed Hannibal's ability to just read people. Obviously, things aren't like that in reality usually.

Life changes. I change. Some things never change though. And those are our memories. How we look back at those memories, and how they make us feel in the present keep changing though. The present...sigh. the present.

Nostalgic as I am by nature, I tend to look back at the past very often. It's not a very nice thing really. Especially when some of the happiest memories of mine seem so far away in the past. My heart sinks when I realize that I might never set my foot along those paths I have taken in the past; I might never feel the same way about the same thing. I feel a very deep hollow. I try to ignore..and maybe most people just keep on ignoring for the most of their life. That's perhaps the price one has to pay for happiness I suppose. But what about this very realization of ignorance? Doesn't that only aggravate the situation? Make things worse to cope with? Make happiness come from nothing but ignorance?

Well I suppose that IS right. Bliss is found in nothing but ignorance. Responsibility and awareness about everything only makes the mind feel burdened. Not the way to be happy I am guessing.

I wonder what has happened..but I have stopped caring about a lot of things that I cared about before. Hmm..doesn't make too much sense I guess..but hey..lemme ramble and you can shut up for now.

MEH. Whatever. I hope I find myself somewhere in the future. Maybe one day I'll find the world the way it was when I lost it and be happy about it. if that is to happen..i pray that the world doesn't change too much..i pray the world has nothing new to add to my burdens..
Or I'll find a whole new place. a whole new time. and if i do, i pray that i forget, what i was.

Keane?

So I downloaded some Keane music recently..and i liked quite a few of the tracks (musically..)

this one is from Your Eyes Open:

Well it's a lonely road that you have chosen
Morning comes and you don't want to know me anymore
And it's a long time since your heart was frozen
Morning comes and you don't want to know me anymore
For a moment your eyes open and you know
All the things I ever wanted you to know
I don't know you, and I don't want to
Till the moment your eyes open and you know

pretty cool stuff.

Nightmare @ Eden

In the darkness
Standing in the shadows
With the ivy full of lethal sap
Crawling it's way up
Binding and bonding
With what once drew the birds
called the bees
tainted with tar  this being
what was once..a long while back
akin to the rainbows in the skies
...

ankle deep in sorrow
knees bent with the burden
on the shoulders scarred and wounded
tears hidden in the shades
as the thorns pierce in to the eyes
poisoning the blood with doom
filling the being with the present
blinded not by the light..
but from it..
deaf to all
-save the cries of surrender.

Finals aren't getting to me, I am getting to finals.

Ok guys. It's time for some serious talk now. WHAT HAS THIS WORLD COME TO?

Babies in our days would be applauded for saying "mama" or even better "googoogaagaa" as their first words! With the affairs of the world as they are today, soon enough they will say "Osamama" or "boom boom". No seriously, ever since I remember watching news, I remember war on TV. I remember watching guns fired, tanks rolling, bulletproof undies on super models and what not!

I think we humans just need to get over the idea of war. Or maybe, not call it war and not give it a completely negative intonation all the time. We should lighten up a bit maybe eh? How about calling it  "Human Death In the House PARTAY! W00T!"? Wait that doesn't abbreviate to a nice thing...so let's call it AHEP? Artificial Human Extinction Project? no that doesn't sound exciting enough. Let's just keep to WAR. WAT IS RONG?!

wtf mate. i was linked to this article the other day by a friend and it was about political correctness in the UK. The article went on to describe so many different cases of ridiculous political correctness fads. No more "christmas" on holiday season cards. No more arresting criminals since they are praying in a mosque. (Hell do their prayers even count if they are criminals..oh yeah..they are seeking mercy from god..but they can do that from jail too i would think?). Serving black jelly beans being labelled a racist deed. Wearing crosses for them airline crews in no visible manner only. GOOOBADY GOOBAGAWHAA? political correctness? seriously? Who is making up these rules? Who is being the judge for controlling the threshold of sensitivity? Alright. Whoever YOU ARE MR./MS SMARTYPANTS (mr/ms - have to be politically correct you know..) PLEASE NOTE DOWN THAT I DO NOT LIKE ANYBODY ELSE BEING CALLED TAWFIK.

Ok so for all of you who are about to say: "Oh no Tawfik you have a point but you are over simplifying the issue and generalizing it beyond what it deserves"
WELL YES I AM! AND MY DAD IS STRONGER THAN YOURS AND MY MUM IS COOLER THAN ALL OF YOUR MUMS! *ooooh burnnnnnn* *eat that shetbags!*

So yeah. The next time i call a white person white, a black person black and a brown person caramel topped with chocolate shavings, PLEASE don't call me racist. If you want racism well get this:

I'll give you 5 seconds to remember the name of a non-white, non-mutant super hero. -_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_ annnndd...? ok fine Lantern Man or whatever his name is..Oh and the weather girl from X-men. BUT..mutant! haha... Anybody else from the mainstream super hero gallery? well none that I could personally remember. So anyways. Point is there are many superheros that I don't really know, and i am sure there are many which are not of the same race as batman, superman (wait..he's an alien..) or spiderman. Batman is my all-time favourite btw...just saying.

Well ok. I have a lot of friends here at mcgill and some of them are really smart. Yeah some of them. At the McGill Institute of Imaging Research, there are a couple of friends who deal with photo manipulation and they perform what I would call magic. I asked them what it would be like if James Bond was from the Indian subcontinent. After days of playing around with pixels and connecting a couple of PS3's together to gather enough computing power, the guys managed to obtain a mind blowing result. Here it is:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2261/2099203686_dca44e1dc7.jpg?v=0
OR
http://flickr.com/photos/7617731@N02/2099203686/

To be race-neutral, I have asked them to produce similar results for the asian version and the black version of james bond too. Results are being eagerly awaited.

Racial discrimination. IMO, that's perfectly FINE. *runs for life*

haha. ok wait. rephrase: in my humble opinion, (i am the best and you suck..hehe) racism is racism when we think that some particular person is bad/good/superior/inferior because of that person's race. If someone calls me a brown(ie), I wouldn't mind. What's there to mind really? :S If I DID mind though..I would instantly become racist myself. I mean..why should I assume that the person who's calling me brown is assuming an inferior/superior position than myself because I am brown..? I mean I am dashingly sexily handsome and what not (but that's just me..)..and that doesn't make me a better/smarter/more-capable person in any way.

lalalalalaaaaaaa (8) let's all celebrate our differences and not have war. let us kneel down to the true MASTER. let us look up at it with joy and expectations. All praise...the Ripe Banana (it's got black brown and yellow bits...[notice how i had to sort the races alphabetically?..sigh])

ok back to work :-\

DISCLAIMER:
fellow humans, this was just another random rant with a bit of paint work. i am not aware of any mcgill institute by the name i mentioned. and also i love you all. racism is SOOOO out. it's a thing of the past..and we should all just move on and live happily ever after. thank you for reading :)

With every tear...

...you go back one year.

It has snowed quite a bit already this year. Last night there were trucks clearing the sidewalks and the streets off the snow. They were loud enough to make the windows shake. Expecting more snowfall on Monday.

I miss home. I miss my family. I miss my room. I feel bad. Really bad.
I seek certainty in everything. I live on certainties and lead everyday to make whatever is uncertain, certain. My career is uncertain. That's why I am studying. But that doesn't mean I am unaware of the randomness of this world and its beings. I hold the random dear to my heart. But some things have to pass through this filter of randomness and stay as solid as they need be. My home, people I hold dear to my heart - they are at heart in their places. They aren't subject to the randomness of the world. Well they are. Maybe.

A long time back...perhaps 10 years ago, I was at a shopping centre (much like Provigo, but the middle eastern kind) with my parents. The shopping carts were my imaginary spaceships. My parents were my comrades (they had to be...otherwise the game wouldn't play right in my head - you know, i would have to change the storyline every time they dragged me somewhere). So on that particular evening, I think i ventured too much by myself and at one point i got lost. I couldn't find my parents anywhere. I kind of ran with my head towards the left looking at every aisle as i crossed them. They weren't there. I was filled with a horrible feeling of being lonely in a big world.

Soon after I found them though (they didn't really notice i was lost for a bit..). Inside, I was so happy I found my spaceship and my comrades. But while I was lost..it wasn't really that space game which continued to play on in my head. It was a very different thriller all together.

...A random anecdote there..

take for granted

1. To consider as true, real, or forthcoming; anticipate correctly.

2. To underestimate the value of: a publisher who took the editors for granted.

I take a lot of things for granted. By definition 1. Wasn't quite aware of definition 2 till today. My vocab is as limited as a bat's vision.

sigh..enough of non-sense rants..

Back to life. If I have one. :P

Good day!

Reflection - Tool

Reflection - Tool


It's calling me...

And in my darkest moment, feeble and weeping
The moon tells me a secret, a confidant
As full and bright as I am
This light is not my own and
A million light reflections pass over me
Its source is bright and endless
She resuscitates the hopeless
Without her, we are lifeless satellites drifting

And as I pull my head out I am without one doubt
You wanna peer down here survey my narcissism
I must crucify the ego before it's far too late
I pray the light lifts me out
Before I pine away.

Broken

A small worm crawled on the top of a railing. A railing that was around the roof-top of a 20 storied building. The sun was about to peep over the buildings of the city to finally call it dawn. The fog would probably take another hour or two to clear. A cold winter breeze gently swayed all the leaves on the top of that building. A girl walked walked up the stairs, through the door and out into the open. Under the open sky..she looked up and just wished for a moment that it was clear and sunny and warm on this winter morning. She decided to hang around for a while till the fog cleared. Had nothing much to do anyways..She flinched as she noticed the creepy crawler on the railing and just walked away in the opposite direction. The top of the building was pretty large and open..it was pleasurable to just wander around aimlessly.

In a small pile stashed away at a corner of this land, she had a bunch of the most random objects. Among them, was a small tin box full of little notes and scrap paper. The words on them without much value or meaning. But she was of the kind who wasn't a big fan of throwing things out. Everything she ever owned, ever made, ever became related to, turned in to a token of her memory. These little notes wouldn't make much sense to just anyone..twisted and metaphorical as they were. She was rummaging through the notes that day...one of these small pieces had a dark brown stain at a corner. She kind of smiled. It was a broken smile, reminding her of the time she bled from wounds she made herself. "It didn't hurt when.." she stopped her thought right there. Those were bad times...a time where she didn't really know the difference between day and night. Or rather..it was just all too foggy for her to have known. She found another note...almost felt embarrassed to read aloud her words in her own mind. She was..under the influence. Pins and needles..but of a whole different kind. She remembered those days..and just put the lid back on.

She glanced at the sun to see how far above the horizon it has gone...or maybe she was just trying to take her mind off for a bit..breathe a bit of the fresh air and just enjoy the misty weather. She scanned her eyes over the rest of the stuff...She knew from the changed positions that someone had his/her hands on her pile of stuff - maybe they were just looking for something useful. Heh. They sure didn't find anything. After all, it was just a collection of trash for anyone else - it even included a ceramic vase which has been glued together from pieces.

It was her favourite vase. During those times of pins and needles...one morning, she found it broken in her room. Given her level of attachment to even these inanimate objects, it's not too difficult to imagine how much pain she suffered for breaking something valued so much. The floor was wet..and the flowers, the stem and the leaves were strewn all over. She picked up all the pieces...careful to not leave out even the smallest of the pieces. Thankfully, it didn't shatter in to too many pieces...After letting the pieces dry for a while, she put them in a cardboard box and stashed it away in her closet.

It was only after a year or two that she brought out that cardboard box again. She was no longer under the leash...she was a free girl with a renewed spirit for life. As a challenge, and as a hobby, she decided to solve this puzzle in 3 dimensions. With a pack of superglue in stock, and after a few months of trial and error, she finally got the vase back to it's original shape. She took a billion pictures of it as she celebrated her success. She felt proud..content.

However, soon after, she got bored of it...and while giving her room a complete make over, she decided to put away the vase along with her other random junk on the rooftop of her building. There was no point in cluttering her apartment with these..and not a single soul in the building minded her using a bit of the roof-top space.

As the sun kept creeping higher in the sky and the fog got thinner..the sun started to shine its weak rays at the vase in the girl's hand. She looked at it...the lines where the pieces were brought together have collected some dust along the crease. They stood out and mapped the fragments out. She run her finger tip across the lines..thinking back about how proud she was to have built the vase back from scratch..but at the same time..she got reminded of the day she found it broken because of her own wasted time in life.

She was beginning to feel the warmth of the sun..finally. The morning mist was finally thinning out to give her a clear view of the city's skyline. The smog from the city's pollution smudged out the horizon..obviously. The girl felt happy. She looked up at the sky..and saw some nice white innocent clouds against the pale blue sky. She smiled. It's only possible for someone who has smiled at mother nature to know what it really feels like. She felt connected to the world. She felt happy - content with the world as it is. She headed towards the direction where she saw that worm earlier...It wasn't on the railing anymore..After minutes of looking around..through the leafy plants growing in pots around the roof, she found it. She realized this little bug was merely going from one plant to another. Slightly amused at her analysis of this little part of nature, she smirked.

It was time for her to go back to her apartment...so she closed the door behind her..and started off just another usual day - feeling completely refreshed by the clean morning air.

A grain of cinnamon

I am at the edge now..

I see the light coming through the window, I see the pale blue sky. Nothing exciting in the clouds, no shapes that make me wonder what they are. Nothing through the window beyond the usual urban skyline. Tops of houses, antennae and chimneys not in use. Not a picture out of a book or a frame out of a movie. It's just..another day from real life. But i am glad. I am no longer in that violent swirl, that whirlpool that sinks me to the bottom. That dark floor of the white ceramic world. Being ground against the walls as I am swirled around in that cyclone, i cried for help. But it was all muffled and subdued in that fluid of doom. All our cries..all our pain - they are all sucked in towards the center.

It was only a while ago that I was rescued. The most violent scene I have witnessed so far. As we moved in a circle near the edge of the world, we watched a huge dark void approaching us. It was a gross and haunting sight indeed...the mass of darkness surrounded by pink - with grooves and folds and creases all over it...till it faded, quite sharply actually, into a dessert of sandy brown..

The artifact appeared to be larger and larger - it was coming close, faster every moment. And then it happened. It touched the edge of our planet and it seemed that it's power was unleashed in an instant.

The darkness was an even powerful vortex than the one on our own planet. It sucked up the liquid at one end...I cannot describe in words how horrific the sight was - my friends..my fellow beings on this cruel world were being sucked up along with the liquid. They cried for help at the top of their voices. Everyone was powerless...everyone was being pulled towards the feared maelstrom..Helplessly we stared above watching our friends being taken away in to the dark abyss that had come to overtake our world.

In this chaotic state of confusion (excuse the redundancy..), little did I realize that I was much closer to the upward stream myself than I thought. I felt the sudden thrust as I reached the upward stream..I closed my eyes and prepared for it all to end. And it did.

I felt nothing..it was strangely cold. Reminded me of the days when I was in my home world - when I was surrounded by just my own and no one else. we had occasional quakes..but soon we all got used to them. I didn't know however, that with each quake we lost so many of our own from our world. That's just how I came to be here in this wet world - so different than my home..so many different beings with me here..

I opened my eyes. And I saw the window. I looked around. I could see the world I was in all this while, just below me. The dark void of doom above, was no longer there. I could breathe with ease. I stood up on the glassy floor under me.

I understood I was at the edge. I tried to jump over..to the other side that we all wondered about for all this while. But I couldn't move anymore..I was paralyzed. I was paralyzed by what I saw. I am not sure how long it had been since I reached that edge and how long i stayed there in my coma. But...it was time...

I decided to close my eyes, and ignore my senses as I waited for my end. I tried not to imagine how my fellows must have felt when they were sucked in by the dark vortex...At the last moment..I couldn't help my help my curiosity. I opened my eyes for a spare moment..and my last memory was that of the light around be being completely blocked out...i was inside it. It was warm. I do not know where i was..where i ended up being...

Soon..i just faded..

Leaves and Petals

Ok. So I believe it is time to write to my dear blog once again - addressed in third person as always.

The last time I wrote was in mid-June, so it has been about four and a half months since then. In mid-June, I was in Bangladesh enjoying one of the best summers of my life. It was a challenging year of McGill from August 2006 to May 2007, and it was absolutely awesome to be back home with my family and friends. It's pointless to go on about how I loved to be in the company of my family again - that is obvious. The four months went by sooner than I ever wanted it to. It was long enough however, to build few of the dearest memories in my life. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, it was a life-changing experience.. Not in the way where I came back from death or something of that sort. It was just as if someone pressed F5 on my emotions for a quick refresh.

That much needed summer break is now a memory alright, but it lives on in my heart every single day. Sounds cliched, I know. But two months in to university again, amidst all the stress, the pressure, the hectic life, I find my solace in my memories. They hurt, they mend, they inspire.

I remember writing last year how amazingly fast university life is. It seems even faster this time. I have just 3 more weeks till finals, and then I am done with my 3rd semester at McGill. That's 1.5 years out of 4. So close to the halfway mark already. It seems only yesterday that I landed in Montreal again, moved in to my own apartment, bought all the textbooks and started to get settled here.. And at the same time, it seems like ages since I have seen my family, hugged them or kissed them. Time is a cunning foe. It's either too fast or too slow to be happy about it.

And now for the meaningless cryptic words that make my blogs just mine.
In the dark night skies, the stars shine..but I once read (and mentioned in one of my blogs) that you often don't see a star if you look directly at it. I forgot what the explanation was. But it happens that you can see some stars only when you are looking away. You see them from the corner of your eye. Sometimes, you just don't have to stare at the star to appreciate its beauty..You just know...and keep it subtle. Imagine a plant in a forest. Watching the sun and the moon shine day and night. Heh. i would imagine the plant to want all the light to shine only upon itself. I mean..they are green anyways. But anyways..I suppose..for a big tree...it really shouldn't matter if there's just weed growing around..A big tree has the sun and moon as its friend. Knows that it's closer to the light than anything else lying around.

Leaves shed, petals fall, branches are cut. But the roots stay strong and the plant lives through the cold winter. The sun and the moon shine on too...perhaps the clouds in the sky make the silly earthly beings wonder about the whereabouts of the mighty stellar bodies..but there really isn't a need for worry..unless someone is in dire need of wood..

 

To get back to sanity..or the insanity of McGill rather, I have two midterms this week. Another the week after. And this is also the second set of midterms..So yeah. It's not funny how crazy the schedules are, how crazy the demands from the courses are. But it's to be done. Soon..all this will be over. Soon, I will look back and say..oh those crazy not-retarded-at-all times. Right now, if I had a time machine, I would prolly not go around looking for tutenkhamun's real face..or look for Fry in the year 3000. I would just live my summer months over and over again. Or maybe just move ahead 3/4 years and live from there.

Oh well..time to get back to work now. Should be updating this over winter if all is well...or not well.. who knows. Take care and good bye!