Actors and Hip-Hop

I'm the dresser for "Vincent in Brixton", a play that the Schwartz Center is putting on these two weeks. I am amazed at how comfortable actors are with their bodies and nakedness. They just undress like no one cares. Of course, with their kinds of bodies, I can't blame them. It was just shocking.

We went to the Hip Hop Summit and got "I Love Hip Hop" bracelets and 211 Entertainment CDs. The CD is fairly good, through the group went sort of long and the speakers were too loud for us to enjoy them live.

I am half finished watching the 3rd season of "24". Jack Bauer is a great American and super CTU agent, but he can be pretty dumb at times.

Eggs, Hip-Hop, and New Year

I attempted making egg-bread/french toast this morning. I think it would have tasted better with white bread, but it was okay with wheat bread. I think I shall read for Chinese Film today and maybe do my chemical ecology reading too. The Hip-Hop Summit is tonight. I want to go so I can get a "I Love Hip-Hop" wristband and a 211 Entertainment CD. 211 Entertainment is a musical group that was started by some Cornell kids back in their freshman year. Cool stuff. I think we should start our band, seeing as we already have competition.

Oh yes, it's the Lunar New Year. It's the Year of the Dog. Oh boy.

Winter Semester

Why are the semesters separated into Fall and Spring Semesters at Cornell? It feels like they should be known as Winter and More Winter semesters. It was 8 degress F this morning.

I woke up today after having some disturbing dreams, probably because I read some of my Scars and Bars reading right before falling asleep. I wept during this one article from a book "Acts of Memory : Cultural Recall in the Present." Susan Brison's piece was about trauma narratives as a way of reconstructing one's self in response to an experience. Oh, this class is going to be very cathartic. I can feel it.

Oh, I am a dresser for the "Vincent in Brixton" play. It will require a lot of time in the next few weeks, but it will certainly be a change from watching 24 all the time.

Straightened Hair

I had another dream last night. It began with a sequence of events with my mom, sister, and me. Then, it shifts over to my dad, who is apparently suffering from some medical condition. He is in a great big room filled with all our relatives. They are all concerned since he is sort of the patriarch of his family. The condition is mysterious. His heart has a problem (---maybe coming from the angina that Bruce Willis's character suffered from in "Sin City," which Shashi and I watched yesterday). Anyway, there are new treatments. Then, he gets better, AND the asthma that my dad had also been suffering from was miraculously cured. So, it's like a wonder drug treatment that we have stumbled upon. People want to take photos. And my family is suddenly bombarded by photographers, wanting our picture. Of course, my hair is all messed up at that moment. Then, some lady gives me a hair straightener. I have never used a straightener before, but I decide to straighten my hair. By the time I finish, new photographers and relatives have come. My mom is playing some game with the aunties. Oh, I lost the last few minutes of the dream, but I do remember thinkingafter waking up in the morning that I should not take shower so as to not ruin my newly straightened hair. Hmmm, strange.

Huh?

I had a bizarre dream last night. It was like a combination of the Da Vinci Code and 24. Jonathon Rhys Meyers accent/Jude Law character with a monk's robe wanted to go back to Ireland to go back to his Teacher who had betrayed him. I just wanted to go back to America from wherever I was at the time, and there was some sort of terrorism plot. Gosh, I lost most of the details, but it was weird, trust me.

I am watching a Tamil movie called BOYS. I think it is like an teen flick. It's about five teenagers who are in their first year at college and they all desperately want girlfriends. One striking thing is that they all actually LOOK like teenagers, scrawny and all. No old Salman Khan-age actors who play characters in their 20s.

For some reason, Shashi's comment thing on her blog is not working, so I couldn't do this on her blog:

CONGRATS SHASHI!!!! You rock!

'Nuff said.

Too early

So I woke up at 6:21am today to do Add/Drop. I turned on my computer and the mainframe time was 6:27am. I waited. I IMed. I logged on. I conquered. In other words, I am now enrolled in Spinning!

Shady Shortline

So, Shortline is apparently having issues with its workers. On the way to Ithaca (yes, I am back!), we picked up a woman from some random place on the way to Monticello. She just had a hearing because she broke some rules. And there were several other hearings that day (17!). I guess they are cracking down on rule-breakers. Maybe that bus driver who drove me back home way back in Dec. was one of them.....he sure was a rebel.

Golden Globes

I watched the Golden Globes last night. Some of my favorite moments:
- Sandra Oh trying to get from all the way in the back of the sitting area to the stage to accept her award. She was too cute. Her dress was nice too.
- Geena Davis's story of how Commander In Chief inspired a little girl to dream to become president, and then her perfectly-timed comedic confession that the story didn't really happen.
- George Clooney
- The Desperate Housewives acting like the popular girls of high school with all their congratulating and hugs and running up to stage together. They seem like such good friends, and they were allo so gorgeous.

Hmmm, I don't remember much else now. I better go get some stuff done now.
Good night, and good luck.

Charles in Charge

So yeah, we went to another party on Friday night. It was a bunch of the neighborhood gang....of all the unmarried folks, or kids, I was the oldest. We played a game where I ended up having to sing a song. I sang the "Charles In Charge" theme song. It didn't go over too well since most of the kids didn't watch the show. They all stared at me with blank faces, except for a few of my peers. Oh, Scott Baio - how I miss thee.

I watched like 4-5 hours of figure skating the past weekend. Ofof the Men's competitors, I liked Evan Lysacek the best. Check out this website and you can see why (he looked good in that black shirt he wore for the free-skate): http://www.figureskatersonline.com/evanlysacek/
And he loves the movie: "Grease."

OH, and Michelle Kwan was chosen for the Olympic team! Yay!

Eid Al-Adha and What's a Modern Girl to Do?

So we celebrated Eid for the past few days. We got these new salwar kameez from Jackson Heights and I got some new churey with the fancy bell-thingys on them. I finally got a chance to wear the multi-color necklace/earring set that we got awhile ago from my relatives.

We went to my cousins' house. We watched Salaam Namaste. It's a Hindi film dealing with live-in relationships between Nick (Saif Ali Khan) and Ambar (Preity Zinta). It's new and fun and modern. I don't know how I feel about live-in relationships though. Yeah, maybe in the beginning to get to know one another. But why can't some guys commit? Oh well, it's not always just the guys...I bet some girls are also afraid or whatever.

We have a dessert competition amongst my family members. We made Carrot Halowa, Ma made shemai and Dad made Shuji. I don't know the names of these dishes in more conventional languages. Then we had the judging done by the people who came over to our house on Eid to visit. Gajor Halowa won after a deciding vote by G12 kid. Boo-yah!

We also played Party Mania and took photos and videos and danced and ate etc.

If you're into New York Times reading:

Maureen Dowd: What's a Modern Girl to Do?
Published: October 30, 2005
Burning your bra or padding it. Demanding "Ms." or flaunting "Mrs." Splitting the check or letting him pay. Playing it straight or playing hard to get.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/magazine/30feminism.html?ex=1152421200&en=4c0bd9b9392f83a7&ei=5087&nl=ep&emc=ep

Bargaining 101

1. Get to the store before the busy rush so the sales associate can feel easy spending a lot of time with you.
2. Show your hesitance or confusion over the "new trends", but willing to take her suggestions.
3. Indicate that you need to buy something that day (if not from her store, but from elsewhere.)
4. Strike up the concept of a common bond, be it coming from the same country or being "like two Bengali sisters."
5. Talk about how you just "can't" pay any more money: bills to pay, kids attending fine universities, etc.
6. If you have two daughters, and the sales associate expects two sales from you, but is stubborn about the price: get one of the daughters to walk out of the store because she doesn't want her mommy to pay too much for her dress.
7. Throw in more items in the package, like bangles or earrings.
8. Once the associate says a figure, and has packed up your dresses and accessories, give her less money, and run out the store so that you can escape the glaring pout of the sales associate who just made a sale that was half of the asking price for the store.

Follow these rules in Jackson Heights for the Eid sales and you too can also end up with new salwar kameez.

A. Agrawal

Today I read the IMPORTANT ANNOUCEMENTS for the New Semester that Arts & Sciences College sends out. Then I started looking up my course selections. In doing so, I saw one of my future professors is A. Agrawal. I looked the name up on google, and apparently, but not surprisingly, there are two profs with that name at Cornell. And there are several others at the University of Toronto. Check out the interesting story at the link on this page:

http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/agrawal/index.html

It gives me hope that this upcoming semester will be enjoyable!

P.S. Vince Young is the man.

J&R

So we went downtown yesterday. I can't believed I made that trek everyday for the four years at Stuy. It felt so long compared to just walking 15-30 minutes to class at Cornell everyday. Anyway, the subways are still as interesting as ever.

I drank a Chantico and Soy Machiato yesterday. It was good though the drinking chocolate was really sweet.

Then I went home and worked on my music video.

Woohoo 2006!

With 45 minutes remaining until the first day of 2006 is over, I write in my kitchen while trying to find a digital camera to buy. Oh the possibilities; they make my head spin. Or perhaps it was from the spinning around in a wheely chair at Fiona's and Phoebe's place. It was the former's first birthday. Unfortunately, she slept through most of her party. We had to blow our the candles on her cake, we being the four of us cousins, united yet again! =) (Oh, Phoebe

It was enjoyable, especially when we ran around the building, pointing our finger "guns" to make sure there were no criminals on every single floor of the building complex. (We stopped on ever floor in the elevator. Only once did Museo point her fingers at an old woman who was going down to get her laundry. Hilarious. )

Then we went driving around the city. We saw tourists walk around Rockefeller Center, those street artists, cotton candy-wallahs, toy sellers, a man trying to promote the message of Christ on 51st Street, and much more. (Btw, the graffit artists rock!) We also saw the Tree and Santa Clause and Spongebob and Elmo.