Jaage

Jaage Hain der tak, hamein kuch der sone do
Thodi si Raat aur hai, subah toh hone do

Aadhe Adhure Khwab jo poore na ho sake
Ik baar phir se neend mein, woh khwab hone do

Let me sleep a while more, I lay awake all night
The night is not yet over, let the dawn break

The dreams that were left halfway, incomplete
Let me finish those dreams once again in my sleep

Sigh...it loses so much in translation.

Project week(s). I'm going to be awake for quite some time through them, I hope I get to catch up on my dreams in a while.

I leave you with my Wall.

Quizzing

Singapore has no quizzing circuit to speak of. Its a nice place, and usually replicates home when you want it to (just go to little India on Sunday if you want to be pushed around by 1 million smelly people in search of a decent dosai). However, it has no quizzing. Being an impressionable first year I assumed that in absence of quizzing the next best thing must be debating because at least I get to keep reading and do something competitive. However, something was always missing, and my favorite pastime continued to be ignored through my two years here at college. It just didn't exist.

About a month ago, Ban (a second year who is similarly quiz starved) called me to check out the details for a quiz. In Singapore. Naturally, I was excited. The Tata Crucible thingummy, which they bill as India's largest biz quiz was going global and they had picked Singapore as their first stop. Okay, so it wasn't a general or lit-entertainment quiz but beggars can't be choosers and at that point I was willing to go for anything outside of an SMU college course which had the word Quiz attached to it. The quizmaster, Giri "Pickbrain" Insert-long-southie-name was familiar to ban, and he said that it would be a pretty decent quiz as well, lacking in the stupidities and arbitness that come with most corporately sponsored events who think calling Derek No-Brain or Siddharth "My Wife's A Child Molester" Basu.

So day before yesterday evening the day finally came, and my drought of close to two years ended: I went for a quiz. It was fun, the questions albietly were simple being dumbed down as the quiz master could have no realistic measure of the level of competition in Tiny Island Nation, and had not been exposed to the term "Kiasu". I think quizzing is perfect for Singapore, in that sense. In fact, scariness could happen if it really takes off, you'd have coaching classes for it and what not. The prelims were remarkably close, and we qualified in joint top position with 23/25. This is unheard of in a quiz, and the QM admitted to not having expected it. I think that's pretty tosh given how exceptionally simple some of the questions were, though it was fun yelling out "No Clues Please" to every second question.

The final rounds were well organised and presented. The man had a field day, an entire audience who had never before heard those standard quizmaster jokes that will now get brickbats back in India (My questions are easy, its only the answers that are difficult, and so on...). You could tell he was enjoying the attention.

For me, I was finally home. The adrenaline rush of being back on stage was one I've missed for far too long stuck in Tiny Island Nation. While debating does give you a kick, there's a special joy out of getting a question you know, or working out one that was at the back of your mind. Plus, the enthusiastic hive fives are something you have to give up in the interests of good parliamentary behavior during a debate (This may change, if I have my way about things).

Of course, the most fun bit was winning. I haven't won a quiz in two years, and the loot made up for it. Three and a half K in cash, along with an iPod Nano (the new one), a digicam and a watch and this is the best part... a VERY big foam check that I nicked and put up on my wall in my room.

Now I'm excited.

How to Bring down the Burmese/Myanmari Junta

Panties.

I mean, it was the obvious solution really. One pictures B52's loaded with Victoria's Secret making Panty Raids on Yangon.

I think this solution can be effectively imported in India as well. The next time the VHP/SIMI/Moral Authoritarian Body that Wants to Impose Indian Culture On Us All gets uppity, bombard them with women's underwear till they have no power left.

It'll make an interesting visual in the newspapers too.

Krabi

Krabi is really the most brilliant of places. I bet you've never even heard of it, and that's a good thing too. Its a province in Southern Thailand, for starters; and is serviced by the nicest small international airport you'll find, replete with Thai Television with scary sitcoms. As a direct result of you and me and pretty much most people never having heard of it, its nowhere near as croweded as Phuket, Pattaya, Tioman, or any of the other said beach places in vicinity of Small Island Nation. The closest you'll have come to hearing about it is watching a movie called "The Beach", where Leonardo De Caprio prances about on said beaches and eventually has a whole lot of people die around him. Krabi is exactly like that, except without the dead people.

I had the privilege of vacationing there for around three days last week, even every moment was worth it. The beaches were some of the best I've ever seen, and while I do not have an accurate gauge of comparison not having been to a lot of them, were really visually stunning. Stretches of white sand banks, blue and aquamarine lagoons, and amazing cliffs and rock structures that come out of nowhere.

Most of the beaches are on small islands and can only be reached by boat, so getting on a speedboat package is a great idea to check all of them out. But I don't want to drone on like some lonely planet review, so I'll move on to more fun things.

Thailand is the only place in the world where you'll find Ronald McDonald standing up. Not only is he standing up, he's doing namaste (folding his hands) to greet people entering. And here's the best bit about Thailand that I've seen so far: its got the friendliest people east of India. Friendly people serving you is a real change from Small Island Nation, where delivery men tell you that you're a spoilt rich bastard because you didn't show up to collect your stuff two hours before you actually told them to be there. In short, returning to a place where customer is king, and haggling for useless things is fun is a nice break from being told that $34.50 is the best price you're going to get, and that you can fuck off if that doesn't suit you.

Punjabi's are everywhere. At dinner, we stop by an Italian-Thai Restaurant (yes there are such things, wood pizza and green curry on the same menu, go figure) run by a German fellow. The guy serving us was from Jalandhar, gladly took our order in Punjabi, and translated it into Thai for the Chef. There's thus created a basic rule of globalization. No matter what the organization, at what level of management, and what country you're in, you'll find a guy from Jalandhar who's missing home and thinks you're from Bombay.

I love traveling. The further you go, the closer you are to home.

Accents And Breasts

One of the fun things about going to college with a large percentage of international students and professors is that you're exposed to a wide variety of accents. English is an amazing language in the sense that it can truly be spoken in half a hundred ways, and still have it sound vaguely the same. Singaporeans as elaborated earlier have perfected the art of communicating with as little of the language as is possible. Verbs are so passe in a land where you "off" the lights.

Fate has it that I have four professors of four different nationalities; a Frenchman teaching Neoclassical Economics, an Egyptian-American teaching Strategy, a Singaporean teaching Financial Instruments and Markets, and of course my Microeconomics professor, who is Mainland Chinese.

While some (read Priyanka Jain) do see the charm of a thick French accent pronouncing something like Walras as "Waallraah"(imagine Crazy Cat Lady of The Simpsons spotting a large aquatic mammal trying to eat one of her feline friends) , I'm not one of them. Beyond a point, hearing how many Dolaaah the Sauntroll Bank should be holding gets to be a bit much. However, the economics being taught is sound, and even if the Prof completely forgets the English language towards the end of the class, that's okay. I can pick up a bit of french along the way.
My Singaporean prof however overcompensates after being told (he claims) by students that Singlish tends to mix up words leading to very bad consequences that can't really be repeated in a fun family environment. But that's okay, because its not like his England is not Powderful. Besides, its finance, you only need the basic beginnings of English to get along on a load of jargon anyways.

But the most thrilling accents can sometimes be the ones that make the least sense. Everyone's got their great "Lets make fun of the Chinese and how they speak English" stories, but I kid you not, the following parable is true.

I'm in Microeconomics class, paying the barest minimal attention required to the proceedings (Its not the most exciting of Professors), and Marginal Utility is being introduced as a concept. At this point, Indian Economics Students will recall that Gol Gappas were the chosen good to elaborate on the utility effects on increasing consumption. I had all but phased out of attention from the class when I hear the Prof say "Of course, three breasts are better than two breasts".
Double Take. Loud guffaw ensues.
"You can never really have enough breasts, because breasts are a normal good, and you will never reach satiation. Even if you have ten breasts, you can always eat some later."

Apparently, she was trying to say Breads.

My theory is that this is why the Chinese are primarily a rice eating people. Not enough Breads to reach satiation point.

Sophie's Choice

I, Bhavya Khanna, after 3.6666 (a highly irrational number) years of being with Vrinda Maheshwari, have come to the conclusion that she(as always) is right and I am wrong.

Keynes at Work

I know that this fine country of ours doesn't really subscribe to the neo-classical Chicago School of Economic thought and sticks to Marx and Keynes, but really they don't need to take the man so literally.

I'm only back home for so many months in the year, and this is a phenomenon that predates my leaving for college. It happens at least 4 times in a year. You see, I live on a main road in Delhi, and as a result the road just outside our house is subject to being dug up. A lot. I kid you not, every time you think they're done with something they start all over again. What can be the reasons behind this? Well, there seems to be a different one every time, but there's only so many times that you can buy that they absolutely need to put in a new water/phone/electricity line, and only so many times you can believe that they are "constructing" the pavement or "broadening" the road. But before the recent spate of digging up that has started, there was already a nice pavement and a decent enough road. Obviously not good enough for our Municipal department, so just before the monsoon season begins, they decide its an appropriate time to dig up the entire brick and concrete pavement and replace it with cement. No, not concrete. Cement. This would I'm guessing serve the dual purpose of widening the road as well, no matter that a week and 3 strong rainshowers later what I effectively have infront of my house is hardened mud.
But that was irrelevant, for yesterday they started digging again. Apparently a new water mains was needed, something that was realised precisely 10 seconds after the order to dig up the road to remake the pavement was given.

The MCD's basically taken that man Keynes to heart, and taken upon itself creating employment through using its savings to get people to dig holes in the ground. Good for them, but could they possibly find someone else's road for a change?

Time Travel

Right, so its been ages. I've been traveling the merry month of May, which has a lot to do with my conspicuous absence during the same. It really flew by like a breeze, the last month. It started with my home debating tournament, the SMU Hammers (which I won), reached Bandung Indonesia (where I didn't win) , then flew back to Delhi for an internship (where I still am) and took a week long break to go to St. Gallen Switzerland for afore mentioned Conference (which was indescribably amazing). I've been from torrential rainfall in Singapore to Torrential Blizzards in Appenzel, CH and am now facing 44 degree weather and blazing sunlight while gallivanting around resettlement colonies in Delhi doing field research. I feel like one of them old geezers who's been there and done that and the honest truth is that in the last 30 days, I really have. But now its all over, and my life is returning to a bit of routine, a lot of home food and my summer joys of Aam Panna, Nirulas Ice Cream and Large Breakfasts.

There's this wicked confusion about Delhi, about most third world places. My internship involves fieldwork into a resettlement colony, a fancy name for where they shove people in slums once they tear them down, or shift in refugees once the shelters are gone. In between the tiny roads and houses with little lighting and no water are shops selling television sets, beauty parlours promising great looks and beauty parlour training centres promising to turn you into someone who can promise great looks. The monthly rent is Rs 700-1000 (18-25 USD) yet people all have cell phone lines. They talk a lot about development, and change and how its left behind the poor. I think its strange, its traveling through time without moving at all. The 1950s seem to co-exist with the 21st century, with fancy computer terminals and training centres housed inside dilapidated government buildings. And you look at this and think that something is very wrong here. That its not that people are being left behind by development, but that there's just been a callous ignorance when it came to developing the basics. They blame globalization, but globalization got them cellphones, and computers and television and jobs, easy financing options from GE and SBI. The government just forgot to give them water, power and roads. And guess who gets blamed.
Sigh.

Sex

There's been a lot of talk about sex lately. Its kind of depressing, because sex education or not, a lot of people get action and I don't. The greater point is, given that there's a lot of fucking happening, do you want to turn a blind eye to it, or actually educate people about safe sex?
Clearly, the Indian Government, or at least a vast majority of the state governments think that Yoga is an acceptable outlet to teenage hormones. Wow. I'm still a teenager, and you have no idea how stupid that sounds. Forget sex, lets talk about porn. Heck, screw porn, watching a Sharapova Game ranks as higher on my list of fun and exciting things to do than Yoga is. But clearly our government were never teenagers, or more likely are just too sodding old now to ever remember that they once were.

But then who better to hear from about the benefits of Abstinence and the Joy of Yoga than Swami Ram Dev, Yoga Guru Extraordinaire. This is a man with no stomach, so I automatically fear him. But then he goes and does funny things, like lecture the population at the Taj Mahal about Abstinence.

I find this hilarious. So, Ram Dev goes to a monument erected in memory of a woman who died giving birth to her 14th (God in heaven!) Kid, and tells people to exercise restraint and return to the old ways. Yeah, worked out really exceptionally well for Shah Jahan, didn't it?

But then, sex or any major kind of fun isn't a part of our culture(so I'm told), and is best left to the western imperialists.

I must go now. An exciting evening of Yoga followed by a Bharatnatyam recital awaits. Post that, I shall attend an RSS rally, and then read the Communist Manifesto to realize how my country's been enslaved by crass capitalist pigs. If I'm feeling extra special, I might just catch a Sooraj Bhartajya film to realize the importance of a perfect family life.

What Not to Think About When Preparing For an Exam

Tags are pretty,
Tags are nice,
When you're tagging,
Time just flies.

I wish each exam,
Were an open book test,
Then all my study material,
Would be a colourful fest.

Book Shopping

My exams got over, so obviously I had to head to a bookstore. Retail therapy for me means pretty much one thing, going to a very large bookstore and getting lost there for a minimum of a couple of hours. Said bookstore in today's story is Kinokinuya, a gigantic humongous oh my god its too big to be real bookstore in Orchard Street. The place is so large, as I may have pointed out before, they have a little touchscreen thingummy that gives you a detailed map to locate the book you want. It is a bookstore, with a map.

But more importantly, its got these really large wood bookshelves, and they are giant and hover over you. I appreciate this very much in a bookstore, they should be enveloping cosy places, not light and airy like Borders. But then, Borders is an American chain, and they know stuff all about ambiance. The second wonderful thing about Kino is just the sheer range of books that you get there. There's just an overarching range and selection, and one just drools over all that you can buy. The third wonderful thing about the place is the completely brilliantly random stuff you get there that you'll never see anywhere else. My last trip, I got this wonderful book called The History of Bread, and I bet you wouldn't find it in too many other places.

But what I really love about book shopping is the books. I love buying books, I love owning books. I love the way they smell, and I love how they're sold. The advertising is right there, on the cover, and at the back of the book. They lure you with their titles and covers, and invite you to turn them over to give the back a look. A good book has a great introduction at the back, to make you want to read further. I'm also a bit compulsive and fidgety, and bookstores just make me feel good. I love running my hand through a bookshelf, stopping at every book to have a look at the title and then to move on. If I was so inclined, I could draw a wonderful allegory to how it's like life, however I'm not that much of a ponce yet, so I'll just say that its wonderfully fun and I usually am grinning like an idiot in the store.

When I grow up, I'm buying a bookshop. A nice small cozy one, with looming shelves and a varied and erratic collection, with Orwell and Rand sitting next to Bryson and Wodehouse; with Sin City sharing shelf space with Divine Comedy. It'll be me, in store form.

Exam Week

Its that delicious time of the year again. I hate this week, its boring beyond belief. Half my exams over, and I've lost all will to study. Part of it is because, well, studying is an extremely un-fun thing to do but part of it is also the paper I wrote today. I've never written a three hour long paper where I walked out feeling that I need a minimum of another hour and a couple more booklets to do justice to the paper.
The paper was Economic Analysis of Law, which I have taken to like a fish takes to lemon. Were it a different world, I'd even consider doing my masters in it, but sadly its this world and I have to at some point sit down and study Corporate Reporting and Analysis of Financial Statements(Not so affectionately nicknamed Corp-Rape). Sadly, my performance in said course was not an April Fools Joke, and one prays and hopes I pass the finals.

On the plus side, I can now write some pretty cool essays involving property rights and free market solutions to development, the next best thing to actually enjoying property rights and free market solutions to development.

On the minus side, I've spent more than the healthy amount of alloted hours life does at the Library. If they offered a place to shower and a bed to sleep, I think I'd never leave for a week. Highly disturbing.

I don't know if its just the exams, or the end of second year (have I bitched about that yet? Half my college life is over and I'm going to be twenty soon!) but I need a change. I hope my summer helps me find something more fun than what's been going on so far. When I come back to college for third year, I'm doing lesser courses, having no positions of responsibility, and just generally learning to relax in life.
Yeah, right.
At least I'll try.

StumbleUpon is ruining my life

That long dark teatime of the college goer's soul- the time Just before project submissions when you realise that, really, truly, you have done NO productive work and that has to change, SOON, the Devil himself tempts you by dissuading you from work. In my case, it is in the form of StumbleUpon. It is the sole reason for me wasting hours not working, and winding deeper and deeper into the unknowns of the world wide web. If I flunk this course, it is sooo not my fault.

And I have also fallen utterly, and completely, and irrevocably in love with Saif Ali Khan.

April Fools

In the spirit of April Fools, here's a fun ol' list of things from around the world. Some of them are true, and some of them are a joke. Sometimes these days, its hard to discern the two.

• China has property rights now. Well, at least for a few people.
  
• New York has banned people from eating fats in restaurants. They aren't allowed to use cooking oil anymore
• Apple and Google are working together to make a new phone, that will revolutionize the industry
• Prabhakaran, chief of the LTTE, was responsible for the murder of Bob Woolmer.
• Peanut butter has been used by Evangical Creationists to disprove the theory of Evolution.
• I'm going along with my girlfriend for an all expenses paid trip to Switzerland this summer.
• Generation of Light, it has been decided, is a taxable commodity in Karnataka as broadband providers are being charged for "light pulses". So basically, they can tax you for using a light bulb now.
  
• Bal Thakerey is a closet homosexual
• Napoleon was actually a pretty tall chap, for his time
• I failed two midterms for the same course, and still got higher than class average.
  
• Communists are taking land from farmers to give to industrialists
• Big Pharma is selling vaccines to Africa at cost and is losing money on it. They don't seem to care
• I spent $500 to get myself a decent sound system

So, anyhow. Some of it's true. Some of it is a blatant lie. The world's a funny place. I don't even know which is which anymore.

Good luck, and happy April Fools Day. May someone make a monkey out of you.

Yash Chopra Jokes Aside

I'm going to Switzerland.

Joy is one of the things that is sadly understated in prose. Unless its in Punjabi. However, I'm neither qualified, nor able to write Punjabi Prose. Someday, I shall be.

The Joy, however, is perfectly understandable.

As it is with most Good Indian Boys (and as I've mentioned earlier before getting lost in a semi-lament of my inability to write in Punjabi, oh damn I better get back to the point already), I'm going to Switzerland. I'm exceedingly over the moon about this, because as it is not with most good Indian Boys, I'm not going on an SOTC tour accompanied by Gujju bhais, bens and tour chef, nor am I starring in a major Bollywood movie. However, I do hope to get to see beautiful women in Chiffon Saris on the slopes of the Alps. Yes, I realize that they don't come as a part of the regular scenery.

What I am going for is the International Student Conference at St. Gallen University. It's this really great world wide symposium, and they select 200 students based on an essay competition and fly them down and board and feed them for free. Yes,I'm one of them. Spontaneous Joy Explodes.

Needless to say, I'm very excited.

In Defense of America

The United States comes in for a lot of bashing, and I can't say that I haven't indulged in it myself. Given that their public face to the world is an imbecile, and their foreign policy has in the present and in the past left a lot to be desired, its easy to "Satan-ize" the land of the free.

Given that, I think its important to remember why they like to call themselves the land of the free in the first place. By a stroke of luck, fate or unnatural intelligence, very early in the life of their country they managed to draft a document of such simplicity and beauty, that it has only been amended 27 times in its 300 plus year history. They've got this constitution of theirs, that many nations including ours have tried to copy. Its very short, with seven articles, and ten of its amendments outlining the bill of rights. It is, by word count and sans amendments, shorter than the insanely long document outlining the rules of debating that the National Law School of India University provides for its collegiate debates. And therein lies the beauty. In contrast, we have a behemoth of a constitution with countless articles, and amendments who's only prerequisite to be passed seems to be bearing the surname Gandhi.

The meat of the matter is this. Outlined in their bill of rights is something our and every country wishes to aspire to. Human rights, or general rights accorded to the citizens of land. Free speech, expression, public property, you get the drift.
Okay, but the serious difference and indeed the difference why one is nice and concise and the other is practically unreadable is the philosophy. The land of the free basically says, okay do what you like, and we the state specifically cannot interfere in so and so things. So their article doesn't say, "Hey, we're giving you the freedom of speech and not much else", it says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
See, that's it. That's what it takes articles 12-35 to outline in ours, and it comes along with numerous caveats.

And that's why its the land of the free. It might sound naive, but the superstructure that a state creates for itself affects the fortunes of its citizens greatly. So, if the constitution allows the creation of laws in India that allow the state to basically stop us from doing whatever the hell we want to, well those are the kind of laws that we'll get (and have gotten!).

On the other side of the world, The Supreme Court of the United States is probably going to rule to allow a high school student to display a large banner supporting "Bong Hits 4 Jesus". The issue of it "offending religious sensibilities" itself would have stricken down the same in India. It was censored as being "against the educational mission" in the States, that is, against their continuing message to kids over there to not do drugs. Their court of appeals disallowed that kind of censorship, saying that it wasn't a good enough reason to go against the right to free speech.
So, here's a state that's saying that its okay to speak against our state sponsored education message in a public space, and I have to stand up and applaud that. There's a lot of noise about a culture of fear being created in the western world, but appreciate judgments for what they are. These are people who know that putting up a banner like that is childish, immature, inflammatory and stupid, hell I bet even the kid who did it knows that but a large majority of the people also support his right to make that statement.

That's the kind of country I'd like to live in.

Straw men, and other fanciful creations

Singapore continues to surprise me. Yesterday, I got up to a pretty ordinary day, had a pretty ordinary morning, went to college to do some pretty ordinary maths homework and an hour and a half later, I was shivering uncontrollably and had 103 F fever. Needless to say, I was scared out of my wits, was rushed to Singapore General Hospital (Where the emergency wing has all of 1 room and 1 attending doctor, something that well, disgusted me even more than my general low opinion of the medical profession in Singapore) to wait 5 hours before finding out that the doctors had no clue what was wrong with me, but it seemed like a bacterial infection.

Two days later, I'm seemingly fine, albeit still kinda tired, have another day of bed rest ahead of me, and am generally a bit bored in life. I should study today, as my fever seems to be off but have a tremendous disinclination towards doing so. Well, that's hardly new now, is it?

But on a more fun note, one has seen some of the more random things the internet has to present. As a teaching assistant for this course called Analytical Skills, I must congratulate the very pissed off Cuckolds over at Save Indian Family Foundation, for giving the most visually striking example of a Straw man Argument. Here's how it goes, basically. Feminism is leading to unfair treatment of men in India, and ruining our families. Some women have misused the law to put false allegations as fraud to get dowry. This is wrong. Therefore, feminism in its entirety is wrong. Oh, and if the Straw man wasn't enough, they throw in a slippery slope as well, and tell us that because of these off instances, the entire Indian Family system as we know it is in danger. How deliciously droll. They even want to celebrate Men's day, for some odd reason.

Aside from getting "Biggest Wusses On the Planet" award, I think the nice men over here need a reality check. Their 10 news reports of things going wrong because some gold-digger laid false charges is hardly a reflection of Indian Society. Yes, it does happen. And yes, the cause behind the misuse of the law is the well...startling ease that the current law in India on dowry and domestic violence allows. You're basically guilty until proven innocent under it. But I think the nice men should also remember who's fault the creation of this very biased law is. It didn't come out of thin air, nor a vacuum. If we're in a country in which there's no equality offered, then obviously laws to correct that inequality are going to be passed. I hate to see it, personally, but its bound to happen. The reason is surprisingly utilitarian. For every one misuse of the new law, there's at least a hundred cases of the law being used to protect victims of dowry or domestic violence. I'd say that it's those hundred that are a larger threat to the "Indian Family" than the one, but either the nice men at SIFF are blind to those cases, or simply think that it's an acceptable part of the Indian Family Tradition. In either case, god bless the lot of them.

That said, a check and balance is needed in the current laws. My very fun Economic Analysis of Law course would argue increasing the liability of a false charge, to change the dominant strategy of the game to Not File False Charges. That said, my very fun Economic Analysis of Law course also assumes an efficient and just legal system, and rational economic individuals.

I'd like to have both some day.

In my Defense

Okay, so I haven't written or posted about my life in donkey's ages. Last time I existed over here, I had just returned from Vanc, life was getting back to the college groove and generally things weren't all so bad. So what happened in between? In a word, shit. A more detailed explanation would be the wonderful way SMU's been treating me off late.

Before I get into that, I'd like to rant a minute here. One of the advantages of SMU is the sheer variety of CCAs and general activities you can take part in, compared to college back in India. One of the disadvantages of SMU is that you have absolutely not time in which to enjoy these various student life activities. A "differentiating" feature of SMU is starting to become not only the fact that there's always some concert/exhibition/competition/strange balloon related event on, but also there's absolutely no one watching. Why? Well, its quite simple. They're all busy meeting five billion deadlines, while also trying to juggle arranging for the next concert/exhibition/competition/strange balloon related event. Which basically means that the only real people who get to enjoy and appreciate the myriad of talent this little university has are the talented individuals themselves.

But of course, my following rant is based on the above. I don't remember my last 2 and a half months frankly, and that's disturbing. Since I last wrote, I've had six courses times a minimum of 5 graded components in each, projects, homework assignments, midterms, dastardly weekly presentations, readings, the works. Beyond that, I'm holding down two part time jobs, one as a teaching assistant for Analytical Skills, which involves me spending my free time correcting assignments, and as a Debate Coach for a local Secondary school, which involves me earning an inordinate amount of money for well, coaching debates. I like the word "Inordinate". Its sadly not an inordinate amount of money, as the ordinate (yes, its a fancy word for average) amount of money said coaches get is a lot more than me. But still, its monies and that's always a good thing. Oh, and lest I forget I'm president of a club, I've been trying my hand at Business Case Competitions, and of course to save myself from the insanity of it all I took a one week break during Chinese New Year time and flew back home.

I'd like to take a moment to thank the one week break. It's given me the kind of perspective that makes me realize that I no longer wish to work. Which is good, because term is winding up and I only have the full sum of Three Deadlines left. Sigh. I wish I could tell you of times I've been happier, but sadly that sort of stuff never gets written about on Blah!

So anyhow, I'll spend a vain attempt in trying to be back. Major projects and minor final exams concern me, be not too much. Chee, I think I'll grow up just yet.

More on Vancouver

Two days into my term, and I'm already realising how clinically insane the workload I've taken upon myself is. So its quite obvious that I have to spend time blogging, I mean I was too busy all the other terms when I wasn't killing myself to blog so yeah, why not start now.

But more importantly, there was a city. And as previously mentioned, it was beautiful.

Snow

Snow is great fun, while its still snow. And that's the key bit. The first time you see the white fluffy stuff, especially when its covering fir trees in a fashion you only thought was present in Hollywood Dreams and Christmas Movies, you freak out and behave like a kid. This mostly involved Harneja and I running about and throwing snowballs at each other. Technically, he was 18 and still underage in British Columbia, so had an excuse. I was the senior statesman. Okay, not, but still you can't help but behave a tad bit immature when you see snow for the first time. Its just so fun.
After playing around a while, a few realisations dawn upon you. The first is that snow is only light and fluffy when you don't clump it up. When you pack it nice and tight and into a snowball, it gets both heavy and quite solid. Thus, beaming someone on the head with said object is not a good idea.
The second reason why its not a good idea is a little bit about the chemistry of the matter in question. Snow is a very fancy version of this fun substance called water, and as obvious as that sounds you don't quite realise it till the snow melts, forming very cold water. Down you shirt. Very disturbing.

Skiing

So, after white people got over the whole excitement of snow, they had to figure a way to move around in it. Some smart chap thought it would be a great idea to slap two very slippery smooth sticks to your feet, shove two completely ineffective poles in your arms for the purpose of breaking (yeah right) and steering and tell you do go down a mountain.
This is while a very cool, but remarkably stupid way of transport. First, there's no way to get back up the slope, because skis are completely incapable of moving upwards, unless you're some muscle bound maniac who can do a Yeti act and literally climb up a slope with skis on. But more importantly, the great method of breaking known as "Bend the Knees" doesn't work. Not for first timers, anyhow. I bent my knees. I almost crossed my skis. But no, I was still going down the slope. Thus, you're left with exactly one avenue to break. Its called falling down on your ass. So that's what I did, and it worked remarkably well.

Sadly, my life doesn't leave me much time to write on further today. A last update on the place's food (you can't do a travelogue without food now, can you?) will follow.

Oh, one last thing. You can Check Out All the Photos, if you so desire at said link.

More on Vancouver

Two days into my term, and I'm already realising how clinically insane the workload I've taken upon myself is. So its quite obvious that I have to spend time blogging, I mean I was too busy all the other terms when I wasn't killing myself to blog so yeah, why not start now.

But more importantly, there was a city. And as previously mentioned, it was beautiful.

Snow

Snow is great fun, while its still snow. And that's the key bit. The first time you see the white fluffy stuff, especially when its covering fir trees in a fashion you only thought was present in Hollywood Dreams and Christmas Movies, you freak out and behave like a kid. This mostly involved Harneja and I running about and throwing snowballs at each other. Technically, he was 18 and still underage in British Columbia, so had an excuse. I was the senior statesman. Okay, not, but still you can't help but behave a tad bit immature when you see snow for the first time. Its just so fun.
After playing around a while, a few realisations dawn upon you. The first is that snow is only light and fluffy when you don't clump it up. When you pack it nice and tight and into a snowball, it gets both heavy and quite solid. Thus, beaming someone on the head with said object is not a good idea.
The second reason why its not a good idea is a little bit about the chemistry of the matter in question. Snow is a very fancy version of this fun substance called water, and as obvious as that sounds you don't quite realise it till the snow melts, forming very cold water. Down you shirt. Very disturbing.

Skiing

So, after white people got over the whole excitement of snow, they had to figure a way to move around in it. Some smart chap thought it would be a great idea to slap two very slippery smooth sticks to your feet, shove two completely ineffective poles in your arms for the purpose of breaking (yeah right) and steering and tell you do go down a mountain.
This is while a very cool, but remarkably stupid way of transport. First, there's no way to get back up the slope, because skis are completely incapable of moving upwards, unless you're some muscle bound maniac who can do a Yeti act and literally climb up a slope with skis on. But more importantly, the great method of breaking known as "Bend the Knees" doesn't work. Not for first timers, anyhow. I bent my knees. I almost crossed my skis. But no, I was still going down the slope. Thus, you're left with exactly one avenue to break. Its called falling down on your ass. So that's what I did, and it worked remarkably well.

Sadly, my life doesn't leave me much time to write on further today. A last update on the place's food (you can't do a travelogue without food now, can you?) will follow.

Back from Vancouver

After a long Worlds, a longer flight back and a brief stopover at Vancouver, I'm back to the pleasantly warm climes of Singapore where SMU's insane schedule of work awaits me. But who's complaining. I had a wonderful trip, some amazing fun and of course, a bit of success as well. I shan't bore you with arduous details of the competition and the motions and other such rubbish, there's apparently people a lot more bored than me over at the World Debate Website to do that for you.
However, allow me briefly to toot my own horn.

In which he Blows his own Trumpet

It really was a tournament exceeding my expectations, given that it was my first Worlds. I took on and beat teams from Oxford, Cambridge, Sydney, Melbourne, Birmingham, Bristol, LSE...a very long list basically. My team, me and Joey ended up 21st out of 340 teams, and thus qualified for the knockout rounds, where we put up a good show, but went out because well, that's the way the cookie crumbles. We were the only Asian team to make it to the knockout rounds, and hell pretty much the only non-white team as well. Individually, I was the 50th ranked speaker in a pool of over 600, and the highest ranked Asian/Non-white speaker. So basically, yeah. I had one hell of a good tourney.

Thoughts on the Tournament

After the worlds, I was actually pretty glad I had chosen to study in Asia rather than White Man's Land. While there is "Social Development", and "Equity", you get the sense that its more of a nice disguise than anything else. Do what you like, racial discrimination does exist, not only in the tournament where any and all Asian teams had to not just win their debate, but had to do it so convincingly so as not to give any of the judges even an iota of doubt to allow them to give it to a western team. You also have to put up with comments like "You guys got lucky this round, because it was an Asian themed motion", never mind the lot of us debated rubbish like "This house supports the independence of Quebec.
DIVERSION
(Quebec is this little piece of shit state in Canada that's taking part in the most timid and insipid independence movement in the entire world. In a movement spanning 60 years they've managed to kidnap one fellow and killed another one by mistake. One wonders why the Canadian government hasn't just told them to stuff it and shut the fuck up given that they're totally dependent on the Federation for monetary and social aid, but instead they've been granted constitutional rights greater than Kashmir, and have made Canada bilingual by force, because they refuse to learn English like the rest of the world. If you haven't guessed by now, these people are French.)
BACK TO THE POINT
You also have to deal with teams inside debates saying things like "All South East Asian nations are human rights abusers, and thus will never condemn violations of human rights." Yeah, and Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib of course never happened. So my point is basically this. I'd rather study and live in an Asian Developing Nation than a Caucasian Developed one. We may not be as well off, but who cares. We're not quite as screwed up either and the women are so much hotter.

Thoughts on Vancouver

Vancouver is the most stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful city I've been to. Okay, so I haven't been to a lot but trust me on this one, this really takes the cake. It has...everything around it. There's a bay overlooking the pacific ocean. There's a riverfront, with an amazing view of the Downtown big city skyline. Just off the river and only a 15 minute drive from the city center is grouse mountain, the most picturesque snow capped peak I've seen. The view from the city is breathtaking. On a clear day, you can see the Canadian rockies in the distance, with clouds bobbing around them and snow capped peaks in tow. The houses all look the same. A good way to describe the city is that its like some high level gamer's Sim City creation. Everything just looks and feels brilliant. The public transport is efficient and the cabbies are entirely, and I mean each and every single one of them, Punjabi. They're mostly fresh from the Pind so all speak Punjabi, and aren't remarkably surprised if you do so too. One has to remember that there still blossoms an active Khalistan Movement in this city, and the Akali Singh Sahib Gurudwara here is one of the biggest in the western world. The buses don't seem to require payment. One of the days we were traveling, me and Harneja bought a ticket for the ferry and bus, it had a nice and fancy magnetic strip thingummy on it, which we presumed was to swipe and allow ourselves on board. Instead, we just pretty much walked into the ferry, and walked on board most buses. If we didn't have change to pay the fare, the bus driver just told us to forget it, and we got a free ride. Weird.
At the other end of the governmental spectrum, the taxation in Vancouver is insane. There's a 14% tax on pretty much everything sold, which automatically raises the price of everything. Very annoying.

I now have work to do, but have plenty more to write about. My thoughts on the Genius of Snow, Skiing and why it proves that white people are insane, and why you should always stay in a Suite will follow, along with assorted photos of said events.