How many languages do you have in your music library

Hi, I just recently heard someone mention this question. I was really intrigued by it. Hence, I decided to check how many languages I have in my music library. I am only considering the tracks that I really like listening to. My faves. And off the top of my head, I could think of hindi, punjabi, english, french, German... And If I look in my itunes, I am bound to find atleast three more.

Lets see, Daddy yankee, I believe he speaks spanish. And so the 6th language is spanish. Even Ricky martin and Jenifer Lopez have sung songs in spanish. Shakira has also sung songs in portugese, and I feel embarrassed to say, that I can't tell if any of her songs I have are Portuguese. Seventh language is Arabic. A lot of hindi and english songs have arabic parts in them. And number eight goes to gujrati for the one gujrati rap song I have. Yeah, How could I forget Japanese? I have a whole bunch of japanese songs. From the soundtrack of Paprika and fast and furious tokyo drift. Number 10 goes to Armaic. Yes, its a language. The song kandisa by the band Indian Ocean, is actually a prayer in Armaic. According to wikipedia, Literal Translation of this word may be Divine Praise.

Can I go any higher? Lets see... Song Kaun in the album Kandisa has Kashmiri lyrics. Some of Yael Naim's songs are in Hebrew... And.... I think I am about done. I cannot split hair further anymore. Let me know what your count is. But I highly doubt you can beat 12. Bring it ON!

What a paratha is..

For dinner today, I decided to have some onion parathas that I had bought from the indian store, the last time I went shopping. Jon and his girlfriend stephanie were also cooking dinner for themselves. I put a pan on one of the burners(is it called a burner even if there is no 'fire'?) As I proceeded to remove the paratha from the pack and put it on the pan, Stephanie asked what that was. This was definitely not the first time I was asked about the 'weird indian food' that I often eat. But some foods are more difficult to explain than others.

For example, when I had to explain to oliver what pani puri is. Taruna was with me, and though she was doing a better job of elaborating the details involved in preparing and eating pani puri, Oliver was still clueless. Dal, which you'd think is simple to explain, is actually not. Because canadians rarely know about pulses. And, if you're like me, you go on to explain that this particular type of dal is 'toor dal', which complicates matters further. But paratha should be simple, right? its bread after all...

And that's what I said, "its a type of bread." But looking at stephanie's confused face, I proceeded to elaborate. I shouldn't have. "Its basically wheat flour stuffed with onions.." And she says, "looks unhealthy!" I was stumped. Jon just goes "she speaks her mind." (or something to that effect.. I was too out of it to remember!" I didn't want to get into an argument with them. Thought it would make an interesting topic for my blog. I still kept going, in my head, "well, what is YOUR bread made of? Some high tech synthetic polymer compound?"

Jon started talking about mandeep. says he has some bread with everything stuffed in between. I hadn't seen mandeep eat in a while, basically because he's always in his room all the damn time. I assumed he was talking about stuffed naan. But frankly, there are so many kinds of flatbreads that I wouldn't know. You should check out the wikipedia page for paratha. Meanwhile, my paratha was done, so I opened my jar of 'achaar' and put some on my plate. And steph goes, "Mango Pickle?" Great! so you can read the label. "Can I smell it?" I didn't mind, I let her.

And all this while, I had my earphones on, and I was listening to music so I couldn't hear all the 'ridiculous' things they might have said. But after I was done with the parathas, the crisp flakes of the 'slightly' burnt paratha made me crave some papad. I figured this would stir up some more questions. But jon just stared at me blankly. Steph noticed that too, and they joked about it. I guess steph thought she had enough 'indian food 101' for tonight. LOL. So the explanation that I had thought up in my head was of no use anymore. hehe.

Backlog

Lets start covering my backlog from easter. I was so glad I didn't go to Toronto yesterday with mickey, because my condition had worsened. I went to bed really tired last night. But I did not want mickey to be alone on easter. So I went to his place at around 4 pm. We didn't really have anything planned. Maybe we were going to watch a movie, maybe we weren't. Maybe we'll order food; or not! So we just watched tv for a while, Simpsons, family guy, actually, I don't even remember for sure now. He did suggest we go rent dan in real life, but I wasn't feeling upto the task of walking down to blockbuster in the cold. So we just dropped it. After a little more fiddling around, we got to playing tennis on the wii. It was fun. But after a couple games, I decided it was getting kinda late and I should go sleep and get some rest if I wanted to get better.

Monday was the day I had to present the 3d "contextualization of a man made object" assignment. I was pretty excited about my creation, but as the glue started wearing off, and my labels started to fall off, I got really nervous. This was going to look really bad. And this time, most of the class had come up with really amazing work. I was really blown away by the concepts and products of randal, ricky and lauren. I had known about Ian's project, and it surely lived up to the expectations. The concept/depth of John's or shaqeeba's work wasn't too great, but the craftsmanship on their product was astounding. I would love to talk about Eve's piece, but there is not enough space in this blog or time on my hands right now to properly discuss it. In a nutshell, I was inspired to do some controversial or provocative work. Because its part of the business. All the artists at some point in their career are criticized or opposed for some of their work.

After the class, we went to the mall, and again, had a nice meal while talking over random subjects. I've started to quite like this routine. Now I can't wait for mondays. LOL. Later, Jeremy took me to the college so that I could pick up my suitcase and dropped me back home. I wouldn't have wanted to walk all the way back with that suitcase. Now its time to take pictures of it and upload it to deviantart. But, The internet's not working. We went over our bandwidth limit for the month! AGAIN!

So later in the evening, I went over to mickey's place so that we could watch our favourite tv shows together. How I met your mother and Two and a half men. We also played tennis again. And turns out mickey had been practicing. He beat me at the game pretty easily today. I also tried different games. Bowling, Baseball, and Boxing. Bowling to me seemed kinda boring. And for me, golf would be boring too. That's why I didn't even bother trying it. Baseball tool a little practice, but it was fun once I got a hang of the controls. Boxing was the most tiring of all the games, because you're using two hands. Plus, you have to jab your hand really hard to make the wiimote register a punch. I would have loved to play it with mickey, but he was too tired.

I think I'll stop now, because there's not really much to mention. I'm really sick and feel awfull. I've only gotten out of my room for cup of warm water with honey. I wanna get better soon!

Tata Indicomm broadband service - Don't take their word for it

Yeah!! he got it... no wait he didn't... oh! its working, or is it? This was the case with my friend pranav in pune. He has subscribed to the tata indicomm wireless broadband which I believe is using wimax technology. And for which tata indicomm is getting accolades and recognition for being the largest network. But that's just an illusion, a mirage of those looking from a distance. The people living there have the real story. And I, knowing someone who is going through this, wish to blog about it.

The connection people came to his house to check if things are looking 'ok'. By this they usually mean that the residence specified is not faked so that they don't get duped into giving a unit/connection to some shady person. I'd say this is regular procedure for India. Then, days later, they said, ok, you can get the unit....but NO SIM card, yet. After few more days, my friend informs me that he finally got a sim card. But, because there was no electricity at his house, the guy couldn't install/configure it for him. ok, That was just his bad luck.

But, then, after rescheduling, the guy doesn't show up. After lot of calling and yelling on his dad's part, the guy comes back, tries to fix it, but he fails. He says he'll go get another sim card and try again... When's that gonna be? No-one knows... The problem really was the reception, or rather, 'the lack of it' to be more precise. When this came to light, (needless to say, few more days later) my friend figured since he's gonna be moving soon, it shouldn't be a problem. But when he got a little reception on his thing and got it workin last night, I got super excited. We tried skype, and aim for voice chatting, but over and over again, we were let down by awfully slow bandwidth.

I was getting really pissed. But today again, he came online. This time, from another friend's place. And the connection was pretty stable. We could talk on skype without any trouble. And he let me know that the tata indicomm people are saying they are not getting permission from the colony residents/authorities to install another tower nearby which will increase the reception in his area. Sounds like ...umm... to put it 'poetically', they(residents) are shackling themselves! But what is bugging me now, is how they could sell their service/product to a person, at his home, even though they know that there were going to be problems.

I'm leaving the post very open ended because I don't want to impose my 'rules' or arguments on anyone. And I could compare it to services in canada to no end, but it wouldn't make sense. Canada is a developed nation with population not even remotely close to India's.

Plaster Bandages

Today I had the opportunity to do something totally new and unique and I grabbed it by the horns! Well, only metaphorically speaking. Because the opportunity came in the form of my 3d teacher kirsten Abrahamson wanting to demonstrate making a plaster mould of someone's face. And for some weird reason, I thought being 'inside' the plaster mask was gonna be better than standing outside, watching the demonstration. Oh well, so I volunteered, and I wasn't gonna back down! Not even after the horror stories she was telling us about the people who got claustrophobic while the plaster was on them. How about people who's plasters wouldn't come off because they didn't 'grease up' well enough..LOL...

As I didn't want to get my facial hair 'waxed' off, I applied a generous amount of Vaseline on my face, not thinking twice about all the pimples I'm gonna get later. I was sitting on the chair,in the middle of the room, with a large sheet of brown paper around my neck,(feeling like a joker) and everyone in the class was staring me. I was the center of attention... again! But I felt frivolous and couldn't help stop laughing in the beginning. Kirsten told me to stay still. I controlled my laughter, got serious thoughts in my head, but the moment she put the first cold bandage on me, I lost it again! She had to remove it and replace it. This time, I was silent. And I stayed that way for the remainder of the demonstration.

No, I didn't fall asleep. I was listening to the things kirsten was talking about and I wanted to speak up at a lot of places, and share my insights. Just like she said.."These 15 minutes will be the time of your life when you want to talk the most!" hehe. She was talking about her experience with doing plaster casts. She said she did some of her kids, as young as 6 years! I could feel that the plaster bandages were shrinking as they started to dry. By the time she was on the second layer, It started feeling very hard and rigid. But I didn't get claustrophobic because soon, I was gonna be able to take it off. As told, I started to wiggle my lips out of the cavity. At the same time, Kirsten was using a tool to separate the mask from its edges, and pull it off. And it just about managed to pull out some of my eyebrow hair in the process.

After that, I was off to the bathroom to clean up the mess that I was. I only realized how much white parts I still had on my face when i got to the restroom. I wonder what the guys who saw me in the hallway thought. I even got some of it in my hair! GOD! that thing was like gum! But I didn't bother too much, because I was gonna go home and shower anyways. First, I had to get my laptop back from mickey! however, I got invited to go to the mall with jeremy, stephen and lauren, and I decided to go hang out with them first.

Title I did NOT use for this post : Mummifying me!

I salute you

I came here to Canada, without any friends. Al alone, and really lonely for a really long time. Then Slowly, I ended up making a few friends.... A few more people I would talk to, interact with, And I thought things were starting to look up. But I guess as they say, 'duniya gol hai' Life has come a full circle in canada, And I'm feeling pretty much like I did last march. Vironica just demanded that I stop having mickey over. No more sleepovers, hanging out, ordering thai. No more cooking Indian food for people, no more dinner partys.

I'm even talking to fewer people in my class. No one comes and sits next to me. Don't get invited to game nights. Infact, the class last year was way better. I miss all the jokes and hulabaloo that used to happen in class. All this just makes me feel like I couldn't leave this place sooner. I want to go visit my friends in India. I miss how I could talk to Harsh and Suraj about ANYTHING! I know someone who found me funny...(Divya) And a lot of people who would make fun of me, and that doesn't bother me at all. Atleast they acknowledged me! They noticed my stupid hairdo or my ugly t shirt. Or that I needed to shave already!

This post goes out as a tribute to all those who pulled my leg at every opportunity I gave them. This goes out to everyone who pranked me. Those who laughed at my jokes, those who made me laugh with their jokes. Ones who I'd share every second of my day, and also ones who shared every bit of detail about their life.

Lucid dream?

Its been a while since I blogged about my dream. And I think this one would damn well make up for it. This dream was a really happy dream. I was meeting old friends, and I was successful. I would achieve everything I wanted. It was like I was re-living my life and doing better than I did the first time around..

One of the incidents I remember was when I was at a really high platform, doing some 'stunt' for a contest/prize. I conquered my fear of heights! In another one, I dreamt that I had gone to some wedding with my parents and divya, and when I was coming back, I met hitesh, a guy from my school. We talked about what was gonna happen in school next, and stuff. Then we parted ways.

Another part was of me winning a race. It was like sports day at my school, and I was running in a 400m relay race. I can't say whether I had always wanted to run a race, but who doesn't like winning? And I think the win was symbolic of something... Maybe that I will achieve all my goals this time around. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention the hallucinations... hehe... I actually felt there was someone in the room, next to me or on the bed. And as soon as I try to look at it harder, or move my hand across, I'd realize there's no one there. Once it was Naniji, other times it was just one of my cousins... It was crazy! 

My printer is screwing up.

I bought an epson Cx8400 printer a few months ago and was pretty happy with the printouts because the pigment ink would not smudge or smear due to water or wetness. But lately, its not been performing up to par. My printout of the sign I put up in the bathroom is not really good quality, and this new printout, is just unacceptable!

I don't know whether its just the ink level running low or the combination of media type and print quality set to normal with 'high speed' checked on. But the print out that I got just now, was really really rubbish! There are horizontal lines running across at regular intervals. I wouldn't be able to use a print out like that for any personal projects. But this was for vironica, and she was more than happy. She was really grateful. And it felt nice...

I've blurred out the face. Please ignore that. But if you can look at the problem and tell me what caused it or how I can fix it, I'd really be grateful. Its specially noticeable in the coat part. when black ink is not even running low! I printed out another picture, this one was completely black, but it still had the lines. Even though this time, the high-speed wasn't checked on. I guess the way the printer moves the paper forward, is bound to cause such an effect.

Update: Later tonight, I printed out another page, this time, I checked on the 'quiet mode' option. But it still wasn't any good. I guess that with this printer, when I print at normal quality, I will always get such horrible results. This is unacceptable! If I had known about this before, I wouldn't have given it a good rating at all the sites I reviewed it at.

Bad morning- rant.

I am SO  pissed right now! I woke up, brushed my teeth, and went downstairs, hoping to have a nice breakfast. But I wasn't destined to have a nice breakfast. I took out the missi roti from the pack, and put it on the pan to heat it up, and just then, I saw that it had a spot of fungus on it.

"Not again!"

I had bought this pack just a couple days ago, and hadn't even opened it yet. I looked at the package for a manufacturing/packaging date, but there was none. 

"FUCK! How could I have been so stupid?"

I should know better than to buy food without looking at the manufacturing date or expiry date! I remember what happened... I hurried in and out of the store that day, because I had gotten a cab and mickey was in the cab waiting for me. Gah! I hate golden grocers and I hate that brand of parathas/rotis. I had to throw the whole thing away. And I am not okay with throwing away food!

I just felt so bad that I had to get it out of my system. Right, now that its over with, I got to get ready for class.

Canada post shipment tracking screw-up

I recently (28th feb to be precise.)ordered two books from amazon.ca and had them shipped to my place using standard shipment method. This, is the regular ground shipping which is slowest of them all. Still, it said they'd ship it on 29th feb! That was the next day! And I was pretty excited, when mickey told me that it only means the product will leave their warehouse on the 29th. BAH! How could I have been so stupid.

I looked at the shipment tracking page on amazon, and it said "delivery estimate: 4th march." Cool. I was gonna be home all day on tuesday, so I could sign for the package if they want me to. Other details said were, arrival scan at missisauga, 

and 'carrier notified to pick up package', about one hour later. On monday, I checked the status, and it said at 9 am, it was 'out for delivery' at the oakville center. Cool! I can expect it tomorrow then!

But I still haven't gotten it, as of 5:23 pm. However, what's weird is, now, a new entry has shown up in the shipmenttracking page.

Click to enlarge the image if you need to. The entry dated march 2, says Delivered! Now I don't have any proof to show u guys that it just popped up today, but as faithful readers of my blog, I hope you believe me. And even the status of the shipment has gone from in transit, to delivered! How is that possible?

This is the second time I have ordered something off the internet and have had to worry about shipment. The first time was when I got my wacom tablet.

Supercuts Experience.... Bad inexperienced staff!

Since I'm not keeping the shaggy look anymore, I figured its about time to get my hair trimmed and set. It had been two months since my last visit to supercuts, which was my first time. And it was alright, so I decided to go to the same place again. But this time, it was quite an ordeal. The reason - inexperienced and amateur Asian girl.

When I went there, I saw stephen getting a haircut from the lady who cut my hair last time. We talked about the portfolio submissions etc. I didn't think the other girl would do haircuts. But then she interrupted us, and asked me to come over to the chair on the other side of the salon. Stephen just left when he was done.

I told her I wanted my hair short, short enough so that I could spike it up with some gel when I wanted. She asked me how I wanted my sideburns and after I explained to her how short I wanted them, she took one of those electric trimmers to my head. She said I'm using lade number two. And Immediately after she got rid of a huge patch of my hair, I realized this was NOT the blade I wanted. I told her this was too short, but it was too late.

She spent the rest of the time, trying to make the short hair at the side and back look gradual instead of an accident which it really was. In that time, the other lady had finished cutting the hair off of two other people. I realized mickey would be waiting for me at McDonalds... but I guess he was done waiting, because he showed up there, at Supercuts. I realized it was him even before he entered the door. I saw a tall figure from the corner of my eye, without my glasses on, and assumed it was him. LOL.

I didn't even tip her. I'm just glad I won't have to go to her anymore, because I'll be in India in two months.