ThePanda

Imagine being in an okishly sized classroom (OK small as compared to most classroom I know, but well there’s more), with a bunch of sophomores, juniors or seniors, most of whom you don’t know, or know by name and by face but aren’t friends with (hmm I do have friends who are upper class-men, it’s more like some upper-classmen intimidate me more than others), in a class for which you don’t meet prerequisites. There’s a professor up front, in a black t-shirt and black jeans (don’t know what was with the black jeans), sitting there, looking content, before he rises and gives a piece of paper out to the guy in the first row, and asks him to send it around so that he can get everyone’s name and math courses they have taken, and then rather informally tells people that he was sure they had all taken lots of math courses, and you see the 8 people around you nod their head in agreement, while you sit there lonely and scared about this. The professor then goes up, and after mentioning administrative details (including a huge set of questions, which actually comes down to fewer questions than expected), says something like, we are here to do abstract algebra, and goes on to show how an isosceles triangle under rigid motion (translation/rotation using 2×2 orthogonal matrices/flipping over, 2×2 orthogonal matrices let you do that) forms a group with 6 elements. Imagine sitting through all of this, sure that you have done all of it multiple times before, for you have, and still blanking out on what the hell is this person in front of you is trying to show. If you can imagine all of that you just went through my first abstract algebra class. Hell that and a bout of Tokyo Modern, where I was vying for 2 spaces in a reading and writing intensive course with 8 other people (knowing my luck in such things, I didn’t actually get in), and I was more than ready to give up on the entire take five courses with abstract algebra and linear algebra, and drop Russian literature to take something less strenuous idea. Hmm well good things happen, and fortunately I got a phone call from TFB himself (hmm yup I was surprised, professors generally don’t call me up, even if I make multiple attempts at e-mailing and calling them up only so I can set up an appointment for weird stuff), and he spent a good 15 minutes on the phone (before being called away) discussing my math classes, and my linear algebra professor and stuff, and that kind of forced me to try the damn course again. Besides as I said I already knew that damn stuff, I know I am a potential math concentrator, and I need to do this class eventually, and giving up now would probably not have been a good idea, even though there would have been no transcript notification, and no one could ever have found out, but well it would have been bad for me. Oh well I tried the homework before going to class on Friday again, and it was sorta weird, but a lot of the homework was simply based on modular arithmetic, and proving that numbers mod 1 formed and albeian group, so yay for all those days I spent reading stupid crypto books, and articles, rather than studying for the stuff everyone wanted me to study for, modular arithmetic, I have missed using that for sooooo long… So yes the class itself was rather nice, with some amount of real analysis type stuff (umm well we didn’t prove any of the stuff from Real Analysis, but pretty much used that to prove prelim stuff about integers), more modular arithmetic and stuff. So except for the ugly exams from 7 to 9 on Tuesday evenings (the first one’s in mid-March though, so lotsa time), I am pretty much OK with this class, for now, we’ll see, the book doesn’t look impossibly hard. Having more people in my class (SCE, EDK, WNS, and others come to mind) would have been nice, like it’s a nice class, and I know at least some of these guys (and JKD) will eventually be taking this class, but well if they were now it would have been sorta fun.

Oh well Linear Algebra, where I do have all of these people, and which is taught by a professor from the land of the kangaroos (he literally began class by telling us that he had never lectured undergraduates in the Northern Hemisphere before, and that he spoke English and not American, and to make matters worse he spoke more Australian than anything else), who as expected is new at Brown. He’s really really good, though people in the know tell me that he goes into less of the material than the other professor (two sections), even though the other professor is supposed to be only slightly drier than him. Well I like this guy, I like some of his funny lines (“a line is basically a pathetic plain”), and even though taking his section (I was pre-reged for his section) screws with my schedule in unpleasant ways. But well, having a Physics professor (übber fun, he’s really really good at this) who speaks with a thickish scottish accent, and wears bright yellow pants (and rides tables with wheels), perfectly matches up with having a math professor from the land of the kangaroos. To compliment all the CS/Math/Physics courses, and since my advisor requires this, I am taking 19^th century architecture, which seems to be a really interesting course, even though it was originally based on European architecture, and has right now morphed into a course on mostly 19^th century American architecture (even though our book is still entitled European Architecture 1750-1890), because the person who teaches it usually has gone on a sabbatical or something, and we’re being taught by a visiting professor from Wheaton College (which surprisingly is supposed to allow students to cross-register at Brown). I really don’t know why I took an art history course, especially one on architecture, since umm it’s about as random as taking classics was last semester, though I was explaining that class away as an attempt to find out more about Alexander of Macedonia (once you study about him, though you realize he was a brilliant general, a good king, and a really cool person for his times, it is sorta hard to call him Alexander the Great, especially seeing that the “great” part was added by the Romans), and I really haven’t seen enough 19^th century American architecture (darn should have seen Jefersons house, it’s in Virginia, so theoretically shouldn’t have been more than a few hours by train from DC). Like I haven’t seen any European architecture, but I can extrapolate from Lutyens Delhi, after all that is late 19^th, early 20^th century British architecture, but well this looked like a lot of fun, and it’s in a good time, so I might as well take this, and well it perks my interests somehow. Maybe because of the florist I met on Wickenden some days ago, who had a discussion about Lutyens architecture in Delhi, and stuff…

Oh yes interesting part of talking with TFB, somewhere down there I mentioned how the LinAl professor (I am inclined to call him AVP, I guess I will use that) was telling us about how the 2005 edition of our Linear Algebra textbook (Hoffman and Kunze) was pretty much identical to the 1970 edition of the same book, and how he felt that was funny, TFB looks up and with a rather straight face he tells me he’s sure he owns a copy, and that he knows Hoffman and Kunze personally and that they’re really good at their stuff, and then proceeds to pull out bunches of LinAl book while looking for his copy of Hoffman and Kunze (said person also has colored building blocks in his office, a huge monitor from old Mac PPCs, the biege ones that is, and books on Java). I was dumbstruck for 3 seconds, before he questioned me about the abstract book, and while I sadly didn’t remember the authors names (Dummit and Foote), I have a feeling he would have known them if the book was important enough. Hmm I’ll be happy next semester once I am back in Math 106, and have weekly classes with him, at least it is less likely that I’ll have to figure out who he does and does not know while mentioning books or people.

Fire and Ice, by the way was übber fun, despite complaints from some quarters about how it would be so much more fun if they had someone serve stuff, or more grills, so that people could talk to each other without constantly going back for food, and spending hours standing in front of the grill waiting for someone to serve (hmm true, for their price they really skimped on hiring staff, or staffing their thing), but ya it was good food, and the unlimited trips helped.

I have a feeling I should be spending far less time staring at computer screens, even though I have gotten used to spending long hours in front of these. I think it’s time I got one of those Sun Lab relaxation programs, which force you to take a break (or more like remind you to take a break every few hours), whatever, that will be seen, but I should stop staring at screen, and start staring at pretty pictures for a while.

Ze Panda

I have had my mom mailing me about emergencies lately. Now having my father mailing about anything is not without precedent, having my mom mail is, so I am pretty sure more than one person is concerned about this entire emergency thing. Hmm well let’s see it’s been a long time, I have finally gotten back to my room and umm I have had a few days of undiluted fun (yes there is such a thing, talk to me about it), and well minor problems, but ya most of them have involved having snow which comes up to my damn knees, and on at least one occasion having shops I wanted to go to close down on me, but well I walked with another guy to buy groceries some days ago, and those helped us eat lunch during the worst part of the snow storm. Everything was pretty much open before then, and has been open after then, umm with the exception of schools and Brown, but people who would know about such things assure me that Brown wouldn’t have closed down if it was in session, they would simply have continued with the classes, and that makes perfect sense, seeing that you could easily walk through “the blizard” as it was, and the emergency was mostly declared so that they could clear the snow off of roads and pavements (and form huge ice banks in the middle :D). The only noticeably bad effect of the snowstorm, at least as far as I am concerned, has been delays caused to at least two of my friends, and having one of my friends loose her bags to a hungry aircraft thing, oh and umm the storm scared one of my friends about his prospects for coming to Providence from Boston, oh well he’s here, so it works out. I however did manage to have my keycard eaten by a value machine a few hours before the storm began, am not sure the storm was responsible, well actually I am pretty sure it wasn’t, it was just that the damn value machine was hungry and hadn’t had brunch (or closer to lunch seeing as it was near noon).

So yes about undiluted fun, oh well ever since people started coming in on the 21^st (one whole day before they were supposed to), and discovered that the dorms were actually unlocked at that point of time (damn the people at ResLife who said they were locked until 10 AM on the 22^nd), it has basically been long days of getting/making (almost in equal proportion) food, watching movies, playing board games, reminiscing about days gone bad and breaks which went on for too long. While I cannot say in an unqualified manner that no one liked being home for break, most people did not enjoy being home for most part of the break, and stuff. Grocery shopping has also been something of a minor thing, since we have been walking down to East Side Market, which is some distance from here (less than a mile though), buying stuff and bringing it back. Cooking would not accurately describe food for all days, since on the day we were snowed in (umm not exactly since I did trek from Emery to Andrews, and someone trekked from Keeney to Andrews), we had sandwiches, and yesterday we pretty much had Macroni and Cheese, chicken nuggets, Grape-Apple Cider and Oreos, most of which was processed food which either had to be boiled or baked for a while (I baked the chicken nuggets, :)), and stuff. I am not sure the amount of raw meat I am eating would help if some sort of new organism decides to jump the species barrier, but well ham tastes so good on sandwiches. Hmm either ways the last lunch is done (sandwiches, clementines, extra pulp orange juice, peanut butter, cheddar cheese, and other stuff were all on offer), and we are going to a fancy stir fry place (Fire & Ice) for dinner, so that promises to be fun.

Classes begin tomorrow and despite being really really happy about my Ma-54 and Ph-8 books (and the fact that I am supposed to use an infrared zapper to answer question for PH8, sometime back I thought it read Taser and I was concerned, but thankfully now it reads zapper), I have an uneasy feeling about this semester. For one I think a lot of the abstract algebra stuff seems to call on a lot of the linear algebra stuff, and though I have done rudimentary linear algebra, rudimentary is rudimentary, and except for vague ideas about rings (I know groups though yay) I don’t know too much abstract, and I have a feeling I won’t be sticking to rings and groups all semester, and like last semester I had done a little of everything, so a lot of it is going to be new. I am shopping a Japanese history, and a FYS (on Japan again) tomorrow, and a history of architecture, russian lit, and am civilization class the day after, but what I actually wanna take is this übber cool (my opinion) chaotic dynamics course my friend’s taking, though I am sure my advisor would refuse to sign on it, seeing that I am already taking two math courses as it is, and even though technically chaotic dynamics is applied math and not math, I have a feeling my advisor won’t be convinced (OK I wouldn’t be convinced if I was my advisor, but then I am not my own advisee)...

Later today I am going to be meeting the robots. Now every one who has heard that statement has paused, looked up at me, and asked me what’s up with that, obviously concerned that I probably watched too much japanese anime at home, and lost my brain to the TV, or maybe something went wrong in one of my neurons, and stuff misfired or something, but no seriously I am going to meet the robot, or at least the robotics group at Brown today, and try and get in with them. That should be fun, especially since there’s fire and ice after that. Yahooo…

Hmm about the snow, oh yes the snow, umm well there pretty much are huge mountains of snow outside, lining the streets, and it’s advisable to walk on the road rather than the side walks, but it nearly isn’t half as bad as all those TV people put it to be.

Adios for now, I have to do stuff…

Ze Panda

Hmm so I quite literally am not doing any work, or to put it more exactly the last piece of work I have truly done involved playing with an experimental language (more about that later), and typing resumes and cover letters, and umm forwarding stuff for a friend, so ya as I said no work as such, getting back to Brown shall be quite nice in a workish way, or so I hope, hmm there’s work that needs to be done eventually. But seeing as I haven’t been working, and that I have mostly been free, I guess it’s time I get back to doing what I do worse, critiquing TV shows, cartoons, and other such, umm well I’d say books, but that would defeat the entire purpose of having a trashy entry, hmm may have intellectually stimulating geeky content at the end or something, whatever, we’ll see…

Oh yes so critiquing, and why critique and stuff. Well see there was this instance of time a few days ago when I was complaining to my mom about how I was so fantabulously bored in Delhi, and how the TV just didn’t keep me entertained as much, and that next time she should figure out where my friends are and stuff, when obviously exasperated with all my arguments she went on to prove that I never really had too many people calling me up and entertaining me and stuff, and that it’s all because I am less impressed by TV now. Oh well true as that may be, it makes it imperative that I find sources of entertainment (hmm OK I have been out for two lunches with a friend, and missed out on a movie viewing op with another, so fine I am also kind of good at avoiding people, whatever), and umm after four months of nearly no TV viewing, most of TV seems kind of lame. Hmm most but not all, there are exceptions as we shall see.

Every now and then there are those magazine articles, science fictiony articles on the world of tomorrow that makes you wish you were there, and umm there is all this looking back involved when you are in the future, thinking about how it would have been nice to have somethings in the past. Hmm Ok no new tech stuff, and umm no the only thing I wish I had right now was a really fast net connection, this one really isn’t that much fun, but neh, right now I am referring to toonish TV channels and the like. For the longest time before I left I had been faced with two divergent requirements, toons and stuff in English. Somehow it was a general belief that toons in hindi sell, and therefore the only kind of cartoons you could ever find were broadcast in hindi, and everything broadcast in English was not cartoons. There were several good shows, but no good cartoons, hadn’t been any for a while… Now I like cartoons, weird/sad/crazy as that sounds, cartoons are nice, and you can do more stuff with them, and they’re harder to create and stuff, and umm if you don’t like cartoons I don’t really give too much of a damn about that, and stuff. But anyways as I was saying, there is this really cool Disney channel which started up mysteriously while I was away (not ironic, just weird), which broadcasts cartoons in English, and not only broadcast some of my old faves (Tail Spin for instance, now I realize how I knew that truffles were also mushrooms), but also really cool new ones (Lilo & Stitch the series, and Lloyd in Space, interesting cartoons those two), and it’s kind of nice. Oh so this is like a place marker, to remind me that sometime post all the hindisization and stuff they actually had cartoons in English. So yes the trashy cartoons critiquing and stuff… Hmm now there are some toonish things which though funny teeter on the edge of reality (with the exception of such things as the Toon Physics principle of Delayed Gravity) but those two are simply not true, they’re like completely off balance, umm OK mostly off balance, but the toon work is pretty and it looks really nice, and umm they’re funny, and umm you should watch it, and stuff like that… Lilo and Stitch for one has been making me wish I had seen the actual movie rather than missing out, it seems to be a nice enough story, and as I remember the actual movie was technically weird for some reasons, can’t seem to remember what, but it was featured on Time and everything, so can’t be really that bad, hmm well will try and see that soon.

Hmm Ok now for the pseudo-intelectual critiquing crap I said I might include. Hmm let’s see, I have been working on this Scheme derived, highly experimental, under-documented (seriously the documentation is woeful, and does not include any nice big sign saying Do Not Panic), paradigm shifting (supposedly, though all the void functions make me suspicious of how paradigm shifting it actually is) language named FrTime, for weird reasons which shall currently remain unexplained, this is somehow supposed to help me with my summer plans, we shall see. But nevertheless, FrTime is supposed to be paradigm shifting in that it does away with both Event/Message Loops (inherently evil, eats processor cycles, not good), and callbacks (as a professor explained evil since every function must have a return, keeping in line with the mathematical definition and the sort), and stuff like that. Hmm now as with any experimental language, as expected it is not completely developed, and I am not sure I know any or all of it, so my critiquing abilities are not up to the mark, but well ok nice things/issues. Hmm now let’s see, Scheme essentially lends itself to recursion, so building anything graphically recursive is fun, there’s little to no support code for maintaining GUI structures, things update themselves, parts of it are inherently simple. Bad things, hmm well, it’s hard (as in I haven’t figured out yet) how to change widgets programatically to any value, except when they’re created and you can set default vals. Sorta weird IMO, but it is also as if that functionality has been traded off to make other stuff simpler, and while I appreciate some of the simplicity, I change widget values programatically ofent enough to find a lack of such functionality or a hard way of doing it rather irritating. Anyways that being that, enough of the critiquing, I have to sleep eventually…

Ze Panda

So to all those who have been telling me that my trip will not be as bad as I envisioned, hmm I just proved you wrong, darn it’s worse than I hoped. I don’t know how to put this, I don’t hate the places, I don’t hate all the people, some are in fact really cool, I however am sick and tired of all the bureaucracy. Oh well I was sick and tired of the bureaucracy before I left, but being thrown out was not something which had happened before, and I hate it, argh… Oh well now you know, it was OK for me to say I didn’t want to be here, it was OK for me to be unhappy about things, but umm there are places I really love, and being affected by bureaucracy is not my fave thing…

Don’t get me wrong about that, bureaucracy is very much present everywhere in the world, it’s just that while at Brown I can mostly choose to ignore the bureaucracy of it all, things happen because we try and make them happen, leaving some space for others is usually enough to ensure that someone will leave space for you, and the few times I have had to be involved with bureaucracy it’s usually been pleasant people and short forms, or long complex forms with no people, and while mistakes have been made, people have usually been apologetic and have usually tried really hard to solve problems. Even when that has not happened, having groups like the nunnery crew kind of ensures that I don’t have to worry about the stupidity of the world, because reality is the last thing affecting anyone. Small waves after all do explain everything (with apologies to WNS)...

Some days before I left Providence, WNS (using MA35 nomenclature as defined by TFB, even though it doesn’t ensure a 1 to 1 mapping of people and acronyms) and I were having a discussion on one of her Xanga entries about her loosing her song. Hmm I am sorry for not knowing what it meant initially, and umm though I understood what was meant by her, I am not sure I could completely appreciate the effect. Sorry about that WNS, it had been some time since I had lost my song and it would have been hard to fathom, as you can imagine, but now I know what you meant, for as things stand I am sure stories have been lost, I am sure a part of my book has been lost, and the stories I value the most have begun to disappear. Even as new pages appear, and as pages change, mostly for the better, there were some stories that were mine, stories which like the songs which are us were important, sadly I think I just said goodbye to one of my favorite ones, the inks on the page, waiting to dry, but I am not sure when if ever the story shall be written again, when if ever it shall change, and when if ever a new twist shall appear. You were right, searching for new songs and stories is hard, but in a way I guess all we do is search for new stories and songs, and new song though I think I might find, I am not sure I can ever substitute this story :(... But then as is mentioned in this extremely surrealistic Murakami novel (Kafka on the Shore), life’s a constantly changing metaphor, hmm…

Sticking to Murakami, that’s a hellishly good book, the saving grace for most of this week (well that and State of Fear, though arguably I read the Crichton last week)... Hmm Ok let me qualify that statement, it’s an awesome piece of Japanese fiction. Throws people off, the mention of Japanese fiction, but well almost every piece of Japanese fiction I have either read (admittedly not many) or discussed with other people, has inexplicable endings, where everyone is happy, but you are left sure of the fact that no one’s actually happy, and that the story shouldn’t have ended and that it was done all wrong. True about Kafka on the Shore too, down to the second last page I stand sure that no one should be finishing the book now, sure the people have gotten to where they have to be, the puzzle is left incomplete, the metaphors incomplete, and the shore’s unbridged. It’s a beautiful book though, surrealism and all (OK I have come to the arguable conclusion that Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds is semi-surrealistic, hell a lot of what it describes is imaginable in a parallel world), with many entrances into parallel dimensions from which the world could be understood (makes perfect sense, we find it easier to understand 2-d worlds as 3-d creatures, understanding 3-d as 4-d beings should be simple enough, I am sure a lot of Ma35 people would agree, at least partially), and references to other surrealist works (mentioned as surrealist works, I think Murakami tries too hard to be surrealistic, or the translator tries too hard, I would be surprised if the Japanese edition quotes English authors)... Cool book, it doesn’t screw with people’s minds, not half as much as the back cover would have people believe, but then all I am doing is trying to get you to believe me over them, so whatever, read it, garner your own impression… Oh and just because this will help someone someday, Kafka is Czech for crow… Oh and EBJ, you were right about Murakami making his books smaller than they should be, he definitely leaves a more questionable ending than Ikezawa, Ikezawa at least doesn’t float the story on the influence of demons and Bali, Murakami pretty much resolves things in parallel dimensions.

Oh and my Mac is back with a working SuperDrive, and I’ll be starting back in 11 days, I am sooooooooooooo looking forward to that :-), escaping reality seems like fun, and there are all those people I am looking forward to meet… Then there are a few questions which have to be resolved.

Ze Panda

Long it has been since I last wrote, wary however I have had to be, for it’s hard to write and not compare, hard to write and not tally fellowships and truths of old with those new, hard not to analyze that which was universally true, hard to not tarry fellowships of value, fellowships of old. Important it however is that I write, for while words of wisdom I may not commit, words of importance these certainly are, for this is my record, and this is what I feel, the world needs to know what I feel, for I exist in this world… A New Year has dawned, and tomorrow I shall be gone, and though return I shall soon, the days have begun to grow long, and soon it’ll be time when I head back to the lands of far, lands which beacon with promises of scholarship and fellowship.

It’s been more than a week since I arrived, and it has been not as bad as I thought, though it has been mostly boring, and I can’t blame people for that. No matter how hard I try, I can’t but help feel like an intruder in the networks of life which my closest friends have built while I have been away, makes sense, I have been away for long, and I shall soon disappear, and I can’t expect them to leave open nodes I can reconnect to, open nodes which would make me feel like I am a part of the network again, I guess it’d be as hard as someone I know trying to fit into my current web of connections, into my current web of life while I am at Brown, and while it feels weird to be back in what was once universally believed to be home and feel as if home’s a few thousand miles and a world away. It’s weird to not have things I have gotten used to, it’s weird to not being used to things I always had, it’s weird to try and find people, weird to not find people who’d happily walk up to Massachusetts, and yet know these same people are people who are close to me, people who were and still are important to me, weird to find that walking on the roads in Delhi is not fun, and I used to do it all the time before I left, hard to realize that the air is often dustier than I imagined, and that I never noticed. A friend once mentioned, and this was back when I had first arrived, that he was surprised that four months of being away had acclimatized me to a place so distant, and to such an extent that I find my home of 18 years weird. Well at least I know I am not alone, everyone I know finds it weird to be home, most I know wish they could be back at Brown. But well we need breaks I guess, and at least for me it’s been a break of intense comparison, for everyone I know has asked me to compare things, expecting me to pick one, and I don’t know how to pick one, it’s hard, mostly because they’re so different, and both sides stereotype the other… How I wish I could just show both sides that their conceptions, while stereotypically held across many countries are not all true, their ideas are somewhat unrealistic, I wish more of my friends would believe that not every street corner in America has a McDonald, that the typical college student’s meal doesn’t solely consist of pizzas and burgers, that the food isn’t as bad as people think, and that I don’t live in a land without social norms or “culture” whatever that’s supposed to mean…

It is true, more than one person has asked me to compare cultures across the countries, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and in a way asked me to pick which I like better. For one I am not sure how anyone defines culture, if it’s about the people, well there are good people their, as there are here, I am lucky to know people who are mostly very nice to me and each other, and being in a college at least means certain social norms and civil curtseys are followed without exception, holding doors open for one, and if that’s what people mean by culture I don’t see how American culture is any worse than ours, different yes, we have different social norms, some of which I don’t like, but well I don’t think one can be better or worse than the other. If by culture they mean art forms, well they have their own, we have our own, I like Western art forms about as much or more than I like our art forms, I have friends who like art from India better than Western European and inspired art, I like watching english movies, and I have friends, Americans before anyone questions their origin, who enjoy watching bollywood movies. How do you then expect me to give a clear answer to that question, culture is not something anyone can weigh and choose between, and while being proud of what you have is a good thing, letting pride blind you is not, sadly many I know refuse to believe this. So here’s what people should know, America is not what the movies or the TV series make it to be, nor is India what hindi movies and hindi TV shows portray it as, like India, and in fact beyond it, America is huge, there is no one characteristic that would define all places.

Food seems to be the next most common question, well lemme put this down once and for all, on somedays the V-Dub and on occasion even the Ratty serve really good food, on most days they serve okishly good food, and on occasion they serve bad food. The number of days they serve bad food is about the same as the number of days they server really good food, hence on an average the food is OK, and that’s a good thing, I don’t have a problem eating OKishly good food. No the food is not Indian, and yes I eat some form of meat everyday, yes I eat everything on offer, it’s my choice to do so, and I don’t care about what anyone else believes. Yes I like that food, no I don’t find it overly bland, or I have gotten used to overly bland food, and as far as I am concerned it’s like normal food. Why people should have a problem believing this is beyond me, why people should have a problem believing that I don’t subsist on a meal of cheese burgers and pizza is also beyond me, get over it people, I don’t have a problem with food. To all those people who have issues with the fact that they’re vegetarians, and spend time asking me about how they’d survive, umm well I’d like to point out that quite a few (well it’s at least 3) of my closest friends are vegetarians, and they seem to survive just fine, so umm it’s not impossible if you don’t make it impossible.

To all those people who have asked me about their educational standards, here’s all I have to say, unlike what we in India are brought up to believe, we neither have the toughest nor the most “comprehensive” school/college education. There are people who are studying with me, who’ve done things in high school which most of us wouldn’t ever think of doing, there are people who’ve done less, and there are people who’ve done as much, the fact that they have the option to remain at all three levels is something I think is good. It however sucks that few if any know of Brown, argh it’s a beautiful place, and there’s no place I’d rather be, and it peeves me that no one would know of it, :(...

Ah well there’s more where that came from, I’ll come back to it someday, this however is enough for now, have a good year, and umm well whatever I say would be inadequate for the tsunami thing, especially seeing all the mails even Brown has had to send out to inquire about people in that region, but well I hope everything works out for those people..

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So I said there’d be more, umm well there is as I was reminded during a conversation earlier. To all those who have asked me about the now ubiquitous scandal involving my school, well yes I know all about it, have for a while, and as I mentioned earlier I think it incited the wrong reactions. Unlike what some people have told me, I don’t find this surprising, and I don’t think this is a reason to shun DPS. Unlike what at least one person has mentioned, I am still proud to have gone to DPS R.K. Puram, I wouldn’t have given up on that for the world, and a lot of what I am is because of school, so to hell with all of you who feel I shouldn’t be proud of that. Hell I love school for what it is, and what it always has been, never having been caught doing anything wrong, there are a bunch of people who are trying to take the so called moral high ground, alumni are screeching about how their good name has been tarried. Well those who believe that clearly don’t understand the entire concept of school spirit, nor the implications of all that has happened, well if you feel it has tarried your name, go remove your name, disassociate yourself from the school, or do it in so much as you can, but remember it does you no good, and you’d be a hypocrite to ever re-associate yourself, and you’ll have to give up on all that the school has ever done for you, and I doubt there’s anyone out there who has the ability to do that. But before anyone does anything I seriously think it’s time we all got down from out moral high horses, and thought about what it is we are criticizing, ‘coz I find a lot of the criticism currently being leveled hypocritical. The fact that this year’s class ended up as front page news and others did not, does not necessarily imply anything about who was correct and who was wrong. And to all those darn newspaper people who portray school as a haven for sex, drugs and rock & roll, to hell with you, go get your facts straight…

Ze Panda