pavandeep

Yesterday I had a night class. Today I went to school at 6 am. I'm tired. I was hungry and tired when I came home. Americans are lucky. You can get "Custard Style" yogurt in America. I ate some when I came home from school (Orange Creme). My friend asked me if I had anything new up on my blog. I told her I didn't. She told me I could write about the Schiavo case, or about conformity, and there was one other idea. I don't remember it now. I have to write my section of a group paper tonight. Tomorrow, I have a meeting at 7am with a different group for a different project. I need to go to the bank and grocery store too. I have three final exams next week. They gave us a "tree in a box" at school today. I like trees. My sister just called. Some old guy swore at her ... in Langley... at 7-11... because of the way her car was parked. She said she just wanted to tell someone. I said "Oh". She said "Okay, bye".

This is evil.

Laura K. Krishna (Pahl) is a Plagiarist.

What follows is the epic saga of a random instant message that came to me from a stranger this weekend, asking whether I wanted to be paid to write a college paper for her. Bitch didn’t know she was fucking with a comedy writer….

I had been convinced by my parents the other day to come home to Pennsylvania for Easter. After letting Mom feed me, and playing with her dogs, and all that stuff I have to do when I'm home, I go to check my email.

When I'm home, I connect to the Internet using the AOL account my parents have kept open for me since high school. And since I don't use it except when I'm home, I just haven't bothered to change the profile, where apparently, about 8 or 9 years ago, I had listed one of my hobbies as "Eating Hindu Sculpture." That should be enough information for you to appreciate the instant message exchange that follows. Her instant message name has been changed to her real name, as has mine.:

Laura K. Krishna: hi can i ask u a quick question
Nate Kushner: what's that?
Laura K. Krishna: i see in ur profile it says something about Hindu....i am a college student and i have to write a paper on Hindu is there anyway u can help me with that
Nate Kushner: I can try.
Laura K. Krishna: have u ever written a paper on it before

At this point, I made a bargain with myself that if I said something sarcastic, and she continued to ask me for help, that I would be obligated to fuck with her, so....

Nate Kushner: I am qualified, seeing as how it says Hindu in my profile.
Laura K. Krishna: well i am looking fro soemone to write me a paper i am more than willing to send u a check in the mail...money isn't really an object to me
Laura K. Krishna: what do u think
Laura K. Krishna: if ur answer is no its ok just tell me

He wrote the "paper" then posted their conversations on his blog and then sent a link for his blog to the Dean of her school.

** Addendum: I think (hope) this is just an April Fools joke. The website does belong to a group of "comedians".

The peacock that lived off the parking lot died two weeks ago. Apparently he was sick and that made him weak and unable to defend himself against his natural enemy, the fox. Yes, Cornelius fell victim to a fox attack.


In some circles he was known as "Big Blue".


I think he had a good life. Someone told me today that he had been living here 20 years. Wow, and to think I called the Zoo asking if they were missing a peacock. Sorry Cornelius.

I made a collage in memory of Cornelius:

8. Get a briefcase! There are so many options:





The one that I always imagined I would own is this one:

I don't really own anything that's "briefcase worthy", but at the same time I wouldn't carry around an empty briefcase... that would be stupid. Actually, I can think of some things I can put in my briefcase:

-a bottle of Purell

-mandarin orange wrapped in green paper

-passport

-fancy notebook and a pen

-chocolate bar (Dairy Milk)

-reading glasses to make me look extra smart

-credit card

-Financial Times or the Economist

-partially completed crossword puzzle

-poking pen (to press elevator buttons with)

-Chapstick

-Kleenex

-picture of my bff

-cupcake with pink frosting

My friends, Sonia and Kamaljit, came to visit me last week. They left yesterday, and when they did I got a little homesick, but snapped out of it pretty quick. This is a picture of us in New York on Saturday:


There were a couple of instances where Sonia and Kamaljit got scared, but overall I think they were surprised that most of their stereotypes about Americans didn't hold up. I spent a lot of time trying to convince them that America is a lot safer than people think. We noticed that the guy who took this picture had a bloody finger covered with tissue paper held by a rubber band. Sonia asked him what happened and he said he was attacked while on the Subway. His story was that someone asked him for some money and he refused. This prompted a scuffle, resulting in the bloody finger. I find his story a little hard to believe and I think he was just trying to show-off. He probably just cut it while setting up his "store".

I also took Sonia and Kamaljit to Upper Darby to show them where the Gurdwara is. It was dark and Upper Darby isn't the nicest looking place, but it is quite safe. I guess at night it looks pretty scary because they both voiced their displeasure and Sonia locked her door.

It's only Wednesday and a lot of "good stuff" has happened:
- Awesome Rainsabayee Keertan in Maryland
- Turned in crown to lab (#12)
- Delivered denture (#8)
- A night class that is usually highly stressful turned out to be surprisingly laid back

and, oh yeah...
- Ajaib Singh Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik found NOT guilty!
Here's what some people are saying about today's verdict:

I'm glad to see judge did not succumb to public pressure and make scapegoats out of the accused without any real evidence. The victims' families deserve answers from the RCMP and CSIS, who "erased" the tapes, and also were investigating the Indian Consulate. How do you end up losing the evidence in the biggest criminal case in national history?
Jim Smith, Bolton, March 16

After all the years of searching for the answer Canadians are looking for, the verdict is here at last. The judge may have seen what we, the public cannot see directly.
Angel Penalosa, North York, March 16

:-)

I'm going to try to figure these stories out:

"The Faithful Dog"

A guy breaks into someone's house and steals a bag full of stuff. There is probably a lot of stuff in that bag... gold, money, etc... The dog leads the rightful owner to where the thief buried the goods. The owner beats the crap out of the dog for stealing a bag full of his possessions... because we all know that dogs are able to gather things that are worth a lot of money and then put them into a bag. Dogs do that all the time. The next night the thief comes to the house again and steals the same bag of stuff... and buries it in the exact same spot. The dog watches. Why didn't the dog wake up the owner when the thief initially broke in? Why is the thief stealing stuff if he's just going to bury it? Why are the dog and the bag of good a lot bigger in the last picture? Maybe it's a different dog?

"Those Who Try To Please All. Sure To Please None."

There's a guy on a donkey traveling with a boy. Another man comes up to them and asks "Why not let the boy sit on the Donkey?" The boy now sits on the donkey and the man is leading. Now two men approach the travelers and say that the man too should be sitting on the donkey. Now both the man and the boy are on the donkey. Then yet another man asks them why the poor donkey must carry so much weight. Now I'm a bit confused by the conclusion to this "moral story". It ends with the donkey hanging from a bridge with the original man and boy looking at the donkey. Two other men seem to be celebrating. Very strange.

"Union Is Strength."

This one I know we read a story called "ekay de barkath" in Punjabi class. A man's kids are fighting with each other. He sees this and decides to teach them a lesson. He asks them to get one stick and break it. They all break it easily. Then he tells them to try breaking 4 sticks at the same time. They can't do it. The moral of this story is that if his sons stick [sic]together they will be stronger. I think the father might be sick or dying, but earlier in the same day he was outside.

"Two Cats & The Monkey"

Umm.. yeah I don't know about this one. The monkey seems to have taught the cats a lesson. Or maybe the monkey tricked the cats (because we all know you can't trust a monkey). It seems that the cats wanted to divide something equally and they brought it to the monkey. I think the monkey kept eating whatever the cats brought so the scales would balance out, leaving nothing at the end. I'm not sure though. Notice how the cats get bigger and/or the monkey gets smaller in the middle two pictures? The monkey is certainly pleased with himself, but the cats don't really seem to mind... if they did they would probably attack him, since there are two of them.. and only one monkey.

If there is ever a need to induce vomit, ie. a poisonous substance has been swallowed, visit this site.

Now that I had established he did in fact remember me, I decided to remind him about the time when he declared I was the "Rudest Student".

Mr. *****,
Yes! That was me.. I used to sit on the left.. and you are correct it was something about negative infinity. Well, I started UBC that fall after graduation and all was going well for the first few months. However I faced some struggles in the spring semester. I had been repressing some traumatic memories from high school and the pressures of UBC brought them to the surface. It was a terrible time for me, but I am happy to say that after many, many hours with a therapist I am on the road to recovery. It took me a while to learn how to forgive those who caused me great amounts of humiliation. I am a much stronger person now. I learned something really important in therapy... in order to move forward I must acknowledge the past.
This is actually why I contacted you, Mr. *****. Do you remember giving me an award for "rudest student"? Well... you didn't officially give me the award.. you just wrote "RUDEST STUDENT: PAVANDEEP" on the blackboard and I happened to see it. After I saw it you erased it. I don't think that you ever meant for me to see it, but I did. I don't mean for this to be an attack on your character, by telling you it's helping me in my healing process.

So, Mr. *****, how are you doing? Do you still teach at **?

Yours Truly,

Pavandeep

The above (part about struggles, therapy, humiliation) isn't actually true, I just wanted Mr. ***** to feel some remorse for labeling a polite, good student as rude. He replied a few hours later, this is what he said:

Hi Pavandeep,

I am truly sorry. I remember that you were somewhat aloof, and I suppose I interpreted your manner as rudeness, when it now seems that was not the case. It's unfortunate how these things can be misinterpreted. I have tried in my teaching to not cause humiliation or embarassment to my students, so I am distressed that I have caused you any suffering - I wish I could change it. My awards were meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I hope there weren't any other things I did that were negative for you. You have my respect (and you did then) for letting me know this after all this time. I wish you all the best.

Sincerely,

*** *****

Oh My God! He remembers the whole thing! I wasn't "aloof" or "rude" I was just quiet. Anyways, revenge is a *****.

Well, I could tell that Mr ***** didn't remember me so I sent him another e-mail:

Hello Mr. *****,

Thanks for your prompt reply. I wasn't sure that was your e-mail address. Good thing it was !

I don't think you do remember me though... I was actually not one of the fortunate few who managed to obtain a seat in the front of the class. Much to our dismay, Jag and I wound up in the back of the classroom. :(

I know you've taught many, many students so let me try to refresh your memory a bit... I think I disagreed with one of your answers to a calculus problem once. It was a question of whether an answer was undefined or infinity or something like that (sorry, I don't remember exactly). I had taken a Calculus class at Kwantlen College the semester before so I brought in my textbook to show you the answer, which (I think) was different from yours. Anyways... I always thought you were upset that I brought the textbook in. Hahahaha... I was such a paranoid kid.


Take care,

Pavandeep

Two weeks passed and I hadn't heard anything from Mr. *****. So I sent the following e-mail:

Mr. *****...

Did you get the following response? I never heard back from you.

Pavandeep

He replied the next day, and this time he did remember me:

Hi Pavandeep

I got your reply. I remember the limit thing - and I seem to remember you being on the far left side of the class, toward the back. It was a negative infinity thing. You never told me what you are doing now, other than the reference to UBC.

*. *****

Aha, so he did remember me. I didn't expect him to remember me, but he even cited the math question we disagreed on. Weird.

I'm going to put up a series of correspondences between myself and an old teacher from high school who I contacted after 10 years. Here is the first e-mail I sent him:

Hi Mr *****!

I don't know if you remember me, but I was a student of yours a while back. I graduated from ***** ********* in 1995 and you taught our AP Calculus class. My friend Jag, was also in that class. It was without a doubt the best Math class I have ever taken. It really eased my transition into Math at UBC. I just wanted to thank you for being such a dedicated teacher. Thank-you.

Pavandeep

Then his reply which came 4 days later:

Hi Pavandeep.

I think I remember you, sitting at the front of the class? Thank you for sending that note. It actually means alot to hear things like that. ***** ********* had a lot of problems, but the students we had in the AP Calculus classes were as good as students anywhere! I hope you are enjoying whatever you have decided to do, since you must have long graduated from UBC.

*** *****

7. Apparently there are books you can read to help you get smarter, but I wouldn't recommend them... pretending to be smart is so much easier.

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I used to take naps almost everyday after school up until a few years ago. I remember once getting up on a Friday evening at around 7pm thinking it was 7am and that I was late for school. You know when you just wake up... and you're totally confused... well usually you come to your senses pretty quick, but I even took a shower. I cut down on naps after that incident.

But anyways... I can understand how this guy felt.

BERLIN: Astonished German police picked up an 8-year-old boy at 3am who had accidentally set off to school thinking he was late, authorities say.

I'm linking to this article for the benefit of one of my friends. (You know who you are)

We tested Sylvia Browne in 1989, on live TV, and she failed miserably. On that occasion, she was not allowed to speak to anyone in advance, or to be asked or told anything in advance. The audience was told to only answer "yes" or "no," when asked a DIRECT question, and Sylvia bombed out big-time. She blamed it all on bad vibrations.... Van Praagh and Edward have not responded to our offer to test them--for the million-dollar prize, even.

So, you see, it's your perception of what's actually being done, rather that the reality of the procedure, and your ignorance of other subtle clues and methods, that misleads you in your observations of these "psychics."

We have a little pond in our front yard, and until recently there were about 20 goldfish living in it. I noticed a few days ago that all the fish were gone. They must've fallen victim to a racoon or a bird. That's not the funny part, that's the sad part. What's funny is that kids in the neighborhood have been coming to feed the fish for a while now. They'll knock on the door and ask to feed the fish. My sister gives them food and they throw it to the "fish". Then they say stuff like "Oh, I see one!" and "Look there's another one!" when infact there aren't any fish.

Contrary to what some may believe this award is 100 % legitimate. That's right... you can all clearly see that I had the second best notes on "Exploring Space"... and yes, it is framed.

6. Say smart things. Easier said than done, right? Well with the internet at your disposal you can find plenty of smart things to say without ever having thought them yourself. Just yesterday I was telling my mom and sister about how the song-bird is used as a metaphor in bani. They were truly impressed and they wanted me to tell them more but I just repeated what I had said a little differently and then walked away. They think I know stuff when in actuality I just paraphrased what Davinder Singh had written here.

The US FDA has a list of maximum limits for food defects. By defects they mean things such as mold, insects, rodent hair, larvae, and maggots.

WHEAT FLOUR
Insect filth
Average of 75 or more insect fragments per 50 grams
Rodent filth
Average of 1 or more rodent hairs per 50 grams

CITRUS FRUIT JUICES, CANNED
Mold
Average mold count is 10% or more
Insects and insect eggs
5 or more Drosophila and other fly eggs per 250 ml or 1 or more maggots per 250 ml

MACARONI AND NOODLE PRODUCTS
Insect filth
Average of 225 insect fragments or more per 225 grams in 6 or more subsamples
Rodent filth
Average of 4.5 rodent hairs or more per 225 grams in 6 or more subsamples