Fall Vacation

This year, Columbia has been quite pretty during the Autumn season. The trees are holding their color for a longer time. (of course, that's because it isn't as cold as it should be and we all know why)

Asheville, in North Carolina was pretty much the same too.

A beautiful place with artistic stores, one should definitely visit it if they are search of something very different. It could be anything-furniture, jewellery, clothes, handicrafts, shoes, and even food!

Even though it's a city, I would call it a pretty little mountain town, and a place for a sweet vacation visit.The downtown area is a must see, especially at night, as all the christmas lightings are up and vibrantly showing off.

Unfortunately, I missed the tribal dancers and the djembe players :(
But here are a few pictures from the trip.

div>

Fall Break and Movies

I watched two quite amazing movies recently. Even though both of those have been out for quite a time now, I never really got about to see them until this time.

I watched An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary film by Al Gore that talks about Global Warming. It was striking because I think that it is able of convincing every single foolish soul who does not believe in the planet's warming do something substancial about it.

The second one is called Children of Men and is adapted from a novel. Accoring to my friend who has read it, it is quite different from the book itself but is very impactful. It portrays a futuristic society where all the women are infertile, there are no young babies or even children, and the world's in a chaos and in a state of exile.

They are both worth watching, so go and check them out if you already havn't.

Things To Do...Besides From Getting the Schoolwork Finished

When I came to Columbia, SC, I spent so much time hating it that I rarely ever appreciated the beauty in it. And that attitude also extended pretty much for the entire country.
For the past few months I have been dreaming about how I want to run away from here, be in other places/ countries, and visit all the beautiful places without even realizing that some of the most beautiful places/things are right here in this country. So I made a list of things to experience/discover here as time allows..

• Hike the Glacier National Park
• Go to Yellowstone
• Go to Alaska
• Hike the Appalachian Trail :)
• Aspen Music Festival
• Other music festivals
• Go to a Broadway show
• A Karaoke night club
• Walk around the Mississippi and hopefully find the cave that Tom and Huck hid in :)
• Go to CALIFORNIA! and live like a hippie for a day or two
• Rodeo!
• Bungee jump from the Grand Canyon :)
• Hawaii!
• take the longest and the craziest roadtrip
• New Orleans during Mardi Gras
• Live in one of the Indian reservations
• Death Valley
• Smithsonian Institute
• Underground dance clubs in NYC ;)
• Other places in NYC undiscovered
• Blackhills National Forest
• Massachusetts in general
• Maine (for some reason)
• Visit the Ahmish people

I think that's about it and a lot for now.
;-)

Boast of Quietness

A wonderful poem by Jorge Luis Borges.

Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigious than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and death, I observe the ambitious and would like to understand them.
Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of humanity.My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of that same poverty.
They speak of homeland.My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword,the willow grove’s visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.
More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn’t expect to arrive

What Can We Do?

This post is a continuation of my previous post on the incredibly high number of rape victims in Congo. The article was dated October 7th, 2007 and was written by Jeffrey Gettleman.
After racking my brains about ways to reach out to the rape victims, I decided to email him via the website. I was delighted when he responded with ways of contacting and helping the Congolese women. Basically, the best way to go about is to donate money to the hospitals to help them keep up with the demands of the swarming number of patients. Here's how you can contact them:

If you would like to donate, here is the bank account information:
N° compte 170-0362031-93 USD
Intitulée : 8ème CEPAC V/C HOPITAL GENERAL DE REFERENCE DE PANZI
BANQUE COMMERCIALE DU CONGO
AGENCE DE BUKAVU/RD CONGO
CODE SWIFT / BCDCCDKI

Granted, these bank instructions are in French and a little confusing. So, if you have any questions, you can contact Erika Beckman, a Swedish aid worker in charge of the rape victim program.
Email is the best form of communication because the phones are unreliable.

Her details are:

Erika Beckman
Project Manager
Victims of Sexual Violence Project
Bukavu, DRC
vsvbukavu@kivu-online.com
+243 813 186 246

If you have any problems getting in touch with her, you can also reach out to:
Aurélie Lachant
Information Officer
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
DRC, Bukavu
Mob: +243 81 988 91 73
Email: lachant@un.org
http://www.rdc-humanitaire.net

Spain and Spanish

Among a lot of other things, I have developed a new and unfound love for the Spanish language and culture. Maybe it comes with the love for new and unknown places, knowing a bunch of cool foreigners, or perhaps, it just comes with knowing Amy and Sydney? :)
Either way, it's quite exciting to learn a new language.
I just came across this website- my latest development in learning this language as efficiently as I can. You can buy packages from it but I use it for downloading podcasts.

Shocking Sexual Violence in Congo

"According to the United Nations, 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country of Congo."

Every day, 10 more women and girls are brought to the hospital as victims of this horrible crime. Yet, we were all ignorant of this fact until Gettleman decided to report this incident in The New York Times. Reading about these vicious attacks made me cry out in the public library the other day... Many of these atrocious acts are committed by psychologically disturbed hutu tribe, more than 800,000 of whom were killed off in the Rwanda genocide. The government soldiers share as much of the blame. With more than 17, 000 UN peace corps already out there, it still doesn't seem to stop.

I am trying to find out if there's something we can do about it/for those women...?

More Money for Wars

So, the US Senate passed the $1.2 billion budget for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even though it's very idealistic to think like that, but I still hope that they won't make things worse and think about spending it for reconstruction and improving the condition of war torn families.
This actually also got me thinking towards a lot of things that people should realize to raise their voices against it and do something about it-
1. Bush initially promised to capture Saddam and all the WMDs. The former's been done, the latter are obviously not there. There wasn't a game plan in the beginning on how to handle the little internal uprisings afterwards, was there? Here we go into a land whose culture we know so little of and are always ready to misinterpret...was that ever a smart decision?
2. I havn't seen a single soul in the United States, not even the President, "suffering through these terrible times". The war's affecting the economy, but that part doesn't stop anyone from enjoying, does it?
So who's actually miserable? The soldiers who go through endlessly harsh training thinking that they'll be defending the citizens of their own land and protectecting their country, and not be like those GI Joe dolls being walked around for a political motive.
3. There are fears of the draft being put into effect just in case enough soldiers havn't died and Bush can get yet more time to show "improvements" in the social/political situation in Iraq.
4. Lately, I have been reading The New York Times daily; the most excellent news coverage out there. One article on the front page is always devoted to the miserable condition and the sufferings of the Iraqis (take for instance the Blackwater incident that was repeated again and killed two innocent women this time)

With all this going on, how can one expect other countries/ people to like America/(ns) if we keep on making horrible mistakes like these?

Probably, like a lot of people, I am hoping that the upcoming elections bring a terribly smart head to the matter.

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

Finally, someone took on the initiative of clearing out all the nonsense one comes across in the evolution v. creation debate. Read it if you are on either side. It is not an attempt to simply refute or debase the creationists, it just throws out all the misconceptions people have about science and on which they base their arguments about.
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

Struggling With Time

Things have been crazy in the University! My day is spent pacing from class to class, grabbing a quick lunch, finishing homework, studying, research work.... and so by the time I reach home I am so terribly tired and hungry once more. Even though it gets too strenous sometimes, I am still enjoying it quite a lot.; the challenge, the load, and the excitement is all worth it.

But then I have no time left for anything else. I still havn't been able to finish my novels. I wish that could change.

Fear Justifies All Measures...or Does It?

I have a friend who is partly of the middle eastern descent. He told me that he is quite often the person selected for a "random" security check at the airports. While at the Chicago airport, I myself recall the entire security unit keeping their blunt stares at us as we entered the United States from India. And then today, at a book discussion in the University, I heard another story from an Indian girl.

We were talking about the reaction to the Japanese and other Asians who were mistaken to be Japanese, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. And it came tohow people react ou of fear and how things have changed after the 9/11 incident. So that girl had a Saudi Arabian passport and had some edibles with her. However, the whole family was stopped at the airport for two days to check if the food was harmful and could be a possible source of food poisoning...

People react out of fear, but I don't think it is justified. They are ignorant fools if they do that.

As I was talking about this with my friend, she recommended me to read The Assault on Reason by Al Gore. He talks about the relationship of politics, fear, and faith, and how politics uses fear as another contemplative device...

Flight of Freedom

On 15th August, Indians all over the world celebrated India's 60th year as an independent country. As far as I remember, that day was just like one of the other days when I woke up late because I slept late the night before, and pretty much spent the rest of the day in a trance because of my messed up sleep cycle... :<

That day, I recalled how my dad and I, among with countless other families, used to fly kites every year at this time; and I was the happiest little girl around because "my papa's kite is flying higher than yours!!!" Among other things, he is really skilled at that. (It is a tradition to fly kites on 15th August in India, just as it is to light fireworks in the U.S.)

However, this weekend, we visited some of our friends in North Augusta, S.C., and we all went together to celebrate Independence Day (late, of course) along with the Indo-American Cultural Association of America. We reached about half way through the program, but I think we were extremely lucky to be able to make it on time to watch a spectacular Bharatnatyam performance by Articulate India. If you visit their website, you'll know, that among other things, one of their aims is to perform their dance for a spiritual experience. The 'Ganesha Stuti' and 'Jai Janaki Jai' were the two dances performed by five men that day. The unbelievably amazing fact is that four out of those five dancers were blind, but no one could have known that by judging their performance that night, unless it hadn't been already told to us. Those who have no knowledge about classical Indian dances must know that they use extensive facial and and hand expressions along with foot tapping. To learn all this and be able to reproduce in front of large audiences with the same talent as that of a person with no visual impairment requires a great deal of strength, determination, and perseverance. Every time I watch another graceful Bharatnatyam performance, I feel great knowing the fact that people use dance as a true form of expression and to get in touch with their innermost selves... :-)

Kudos to them.

The Height of Stupidity...

My latest venture into Barnes and Noble bookstore in search of something "dynamic and non-cliche" brought me across Godless, Ann Coulter's latest book talking about the ''church of liberalism''. It took me about a paragraph to realize that the only reason she is one of the bestselling authors, is perhaps because of her readers' quality of credulity.
An intrepid author, her prudence in repudiating the liberals (or the democrats) is exemplary. Never in my life have I read eight pages of a book and been able to rebut every single point made with my own prudence! I am not politically prejudiced, but with the following examples, you will notice very well what I meant, and hopefully, be able to notice her political beliefs and indulgence in bigotry:

"As a matter of faith, liberals believe: Darwinism is a fact, people are born gay..., recycling is a virtue, chastity is not...If people are born gay, why hasn't darwinism weeded out people who don't reproduce? And if gays can't change, why do liberals think child molesters can? Pedophilia is a sexual preference..."

• Darwinism is a theory-Darwin's theory of natural selection. Who does not know that? Where ever has this idea been published without clearing the fact that it's a theory?


• If she could remember anything that's taught in schools, without her bias, she would know that disturbed hormones during pregnancy introduce the tendency and possibility of a child of being a homosexual. It is biological, and hence, if I must use the word, natural. Moreover, the idea of comparing homosexuals to child molesters is utterly ridiculous! Pedophilia is a preference, homosexuality is not! And why should the latter choose to change? Only because Ms. Coulter and her friends are not comfortable with what goes on in their bedroom...?


• Coming back to Darwinism again, a lesson in Biology for Ms. Coulter: There is no gene for the predisposition to homosexuality. And they don't reproduce with their own partner. So either way, there is nothing to be weeded out.

"Why must children be told that recycling is the only answer? Why are'nt we teaching children safe littering?"

Here's the answer. Dispose off of tonnes and tonnes of waste, but where? Already, 83% percent of America's waste is dumped in other countries...but probably, Coulter doesn't care about knowing things before writing, "third world countries", or both!

I caught a dozen more things, but probably we'll all be better off reading and judging it on our own.

That day, I walked out of B&N engulfed in rage. Strange behavior for a bibliophile like me, but only because I realized that there are still foolish authors writing for the purpose of spreading ideas that are thoroughly flawed.

:/

Let's Go Outside...

I went to the Congaree River Park a few days ago. It's in Gadsden/Hopkins community, but at least it's a rejuvenating retreat from the same old Cola town; it's not even far away. As we started walking inside, it looked like any other place with trees and wild bushes; it wasn't just any place though, it happened to be one of the best national parks I have seen. There are very few places where you can hike in the utmost silence, save those rhythmical chirping noises that were pleasant to hear.

Although, walking towards the lake, I was glad that we had enough insect repellent sprayed on ourselves. :)

The lake, was beautiful! But the constant thunder noises compelled us to leave early and in an expedite fashion. However, we did save ourselves a lot of time for running after fireflies, catching one in an Aquafina bottle, and getting soaked in the pouring rain while running about a mile towards our car...

Besides all of that, there is a river, loads of wildlife to look for, and a swamp to carry yourself into with a canoe! If you find time and the perfect company, you should plan a trip.

As it happened, I did go on the river trail later on with four of my friends. The river trail was about thirteen miles long and wonderfully fantastic! Here are some pictures...

Tune Your World With the World

For people who don't stop at boundaries, languages, cultures, and variations when it comes to exploring and experimenting their intimacy with music. For people who have been waiting for their chance of exposure to something new besides dirty rap and the mundane pop/rock songs.

http://www.calabashmusic.com/

They actually have the most amazing and authentic collection from all over the world when it comes to traditional, tribal, folk, or classical music. In short, if you have had a taste and smell of other cultures, you should definitely rejuvenate your all of your senses with the variety of music they have to offer.

What's even more better? They offer downloads for 99cents per song (or even cheaper if you decide on more than one) and give access to one free download every week!

School and All

I came across this cartoon by Matt Groening. I will let it speak for itself...
=D

No Exit

After reading The Stranger by Albert Camus, I fell in love with the idea of existentialism as it is expressed in fiction. So a friend suggested that I read this play called "No Exit" by Jean Paul Sartre. This play vividly underlines the idea of existentialism and is an excellent allegory for the same.
Can you imagine being locked in a room with two people whom you hate the most? Sartre uses this storyline to show that the mind can actually be in hell in a peaceful environment because "hell is other people". It could be anything experienced in excess, be it a chocolate cake or ravenous sex. This whole idea led me to believe that the constant human need for variety, moderation, and instruments of balance exists to counteract the routine, maybe even creating heaven.

After reading that play, one thing stands clear- not that I really believed in it before, but I actually don't have to worry about "going" to hell. :-)

Actually, this whole thing reminds me of the American cartoonist Matt Groening, whose first series of cartoons were named "Life in Hell". It goes along pretty well!

Parties

I graduated high school on 23rd May. It was a new feeling and I was definitely excited. However, this excitement was far more different than what was being shared in a bunch of graduation parties thrown weeks before the actual day.

My time spent in that school was only about a little more than two years. In that time, I met some wonderful people and shared a great time. And then came along that greedy urge for wanting more time with those people;good and bad, both work for me. After all, people are not just supposed to see and know the good in you, they deserve to know the bad too...and stick around.
And when they do stick around, you've finally found true friends.
I think I digressed right there.

Anyway, before all these parties started (the ones at Carolina Park), I thought that I would enjoy them as I am an extrovert and absolutely love to dance. At the moment, I did enjoy them! I had fun, non-stop fun. But after LPT (i.e two parties), I felt worthless. To elaborate upon that, it was a sense of "wasting" away my time and not being "productive", I guess?
Then, came along another bunch of graduation/birthday parties which were entirely different, and I figured out why- I actually socialized rather than dancing away the whole night/day. And there it was! I wasn't uncomfortable with the whole idea of "should I be partying like this every now and then?"

Since I have been talking about all these parties, I must mention how amazing they were in their own way! I learnt: some cool moves to go with the electric slide; "pop, lock, and drop it" ;SALSA, SHAG, AND SWING; some more cool moves like being a water sprinkler, jumping up and down while pushing a shopping cart; cleaning a sand funnel in a park with the utmost dedication; and being as cool as a three year old on one's eighteenth birthday!










On a serious note, I figured once again that it was alright to go and spend this much time "partying", as I have just begun to explore and analyze the world out there with all of my senses. After all, we can't rely on books to teach us everything. And then, a friend comforted me more by telling me that I would be able to handle the seriousness and the fun perfectly!

Although, I think I'll have to be cautious in college! ;)

Wisdom: what is it?

A friend of mine showed a really cool link on www.nytimes.com. It was a wisdom scorecard. It contains a series of objective questions and then rates your level of wisdom on a scale of 5. The article is extremely interesting too!
Here's the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/magazine/06Wisdom-t.html?ex=1180065600&en=7f3ad2f446983e64&ei=5070

I got a little excited after taking this because I scored higher than my mother! (yesssssss!!!)
I scored a 4.3 and she scored a 3.8
:)