burblings of a serial continent-hopper

iterator->next()

2008-06-12T01:25:30Z

Thanks to recently discovering that my latest Pointless Crush of Doom has acquired a gentleman, the last little voice in my head has reluctantly agreed to be quiet and let me get on with more constructive efforts. Particularly in light of my complete failure to talk to anyone I didn't know at Intrusion, I fear my attempts at self-improvement aren't going great. Anyone fancy going sarging any time soon?

talking to randoms

2008-05-30T10:09:22Z

While roving the vast Interwebs I came across The Modern Savage, and a couple of other blogs of that ilk -- while I can't quite rid myself of the feeling that the "pick-up artist" game is faintly sleazy, a lot of that blog's About page sounds familiar.

One of the concepts that keeps coming up there is "approach anxiety" -- a very familiar idea -- something that I've always felt in any social situation, no matter the gender or attractiveness of whoever I would like to approach. And particularly if I ever intend to go through with some of my hopes (e.g. running my own business some day) I'm going to have to be better at putting on a smile and going up to complete unknowns and talking to them.

(Yes, it would probably help with meeting women too, but I always wonder about that when I'm coming off a pointless crush of doom and it's not particularly relevant)

I think I've improved over time, but I'm still terrible at talking to strangers. Hence my question: do you find it easy to talk to randoms? Are there any strategies you use to make it less intimidating? Do you find it creepy to be talked to by complete strangers (and if so, how could I avoid that impression)?

shameless plug

2008-05-21T08:53:38Z

There is an Oxford-based band called InLight, who are vaguely indie/alternative and really quite good, and they're putting on a show this weekend here in Oxford. This has been publicized in many places and it's entirely possible some of you had already planned to go. If you hadn't -- have another think about it, it could be a nice (brief) break from exam-panic or revision or just the stresses of daily life.

(Why, you might ask, am I advertising for this random band? The guitarist is a friend of mine and, as I probably can't go, I'm feeling a bit unsupportive -- so if I can send a couple of people in my place I'll feel much better ;-))

i'm baack!

2008-05-06T02:05:51Z

My trip contained many adventures, and many mishaps, but all's well that ends well and I'm back in Oxford in one piece! I have got random pretty / cultural / ethnic things for people who asked for them, and will have to sort out seeing people soon and giving gifts and hugs -- it feels like I've been away for ages, even though it's only been a couple of weeks...

india

2008-04-23T14:21:37Z

I'm finally there! With all the delays and stuff I'm here for a day rather than two as had been originally planned -- spent all day today actually getting here to Pune, and tomorrow will be taken up by work-stuff, before I embark on the journey back to Dhaka (it involves a 3-and-a-half hour drive from Pune to Mumbai in the small hours, to catch an early flight from Mumbai to Kolkata, then a few hours' wait in the airport before my flight to Bangladesh).

After that, hopefully, everything in the Desh will go smoothly, and I'll be back in the UK (and not in too much pain) before long.

meme from mrkgnao

2008-04-08T12:25:26Z

If you'd like a mix CD / small pile of MP3s [warning: likely to contain large amounts of symphonic metal], comment (with genre indications so I don't give you Rammstein when you only like Sinatra)...

[geek warning] linux and laptops aren't there yet

2008-04-08T09:22:14Z

Last night I helped bring a friend to the light, giving her a fresh Linux installation to play with on her (quite shiny) laptop -- she's now set up with the most recent operating system for which I have an installation disk (Kubuntu Gutsy), and everything works.

But it didn't work 100% out-of-the-box. Hence this mini-rant. She asked me to help her with the installation, and I kept assuring her that she wouldn't need help (especially with as user-friendly a distro as *buntu (I was seriously impressed with the ease of updating multimedia codecs to allow patent-encumbered formats like MP3)) right up to the moment I noticed the regular two pains-in-the-behind weren't working: proper graphics and WLAN.

The exceedingly handy Envy script eased the process of getting graphics working smoothly, although there was a good bit of tweaking of the sources.list and xorg.conf to get it all downloaded, installed, and configured properly. And because it's a pretty new machine, with an Atheros WLAN chipset (not supported by madwifi), there was no alternative but to go with ndiswrapper and the Windows drivers.

Now, of course, it all works seamlessly and as I introduced her to the various config and administration tools (she's perfectly at home with computers, and not scared of them, thankfully) she will be fine. But it would have all taken a lot longer (with a good deal more frustration on her girlfriend's part, no doubt) without a practiced geek present.

*sigh*. We're not there yet (and we may never get there except with OEM support, though the Eee and friends are making that look less unlikely). But we're so close!

I was impressed throughout by how painless it all was, and couldn't help but be struck by more than a little guilt for using all these fabulous tools and not giving back to the projects at all. With a working knowledge of C/C++ and Python I have long wanted to actively help out, but without oodles of time on my hands... does anyone know of a way to contribute that doesn't necessarily involve learning an immense codebase?

mildly maudlin

2008-04-06T01:18:56Z

I turned 23 this past Wednesday, and because I was out of town at the time, the wonderful mrkgnao organized a pub-followed-by-meal type of get-together for today (Saturday the 5th) featuring the hilarious Eye of Argon game and one of my favorite places ever, The Big Bang. Most importantly, it featured a small horde of lovely people -- as mrkgnao pointed out to me, I do appear to have a stupid number of people who I care about, and gratifyingly quite a few seemed to care enough to turn up.

All in all it was one of the best times I've ever had. I'm unendingly grateful to mrkgnao for organizing the afternoon/evening, and an immense Thank You to everyone who came. I love you all (even if you didn't come ;-)) — you know who you are.

the world is tiny

2008-04-04T00:21:17Z

I told a few people about my recent astonishing discovery that my boss is related to (in fact, a cousin of) a good friend of mine from uni. What happened earlier today, however, is just as freaky in its exhibition of the Incredibly Small World Effect.

I'm in Stuttgart airport, and my colleague and I are hunting down chocolates to bring back for the other folks in our office (it's a company tradition. I like my company ;-)). A guy comes up to me -- he looks familiar, though I can't quite remember from where. "Excuse me," he says, "but were you in the service of the European Commission a few months ago?"

Well, duh! It turned out we knew a few people in common -- and with all the handshaking and greetings the first few days of the internship, it's entirely possible the two of us had met once. But it's still freaky to run into a former colleague(-ish) from Brussels in Stuttgart...

the laptop is dead. long live the laptop!

2008-04-02T15:17:39Z

Thanks to neoanjou, I have found suitable Japanese to name my reincarnated work machine! So, without further ado: akimoto is dead; long live sairai!

reincarnations

2008-03-25T16:33:12Z

Unfortunately, akimoto is still dead, but I have been allowed to extract his ~~soul~~ hard disk and put it in one of the spare machines at work. So, effectively, he's back. To keep up the naming tradition: can anyone help me translate "reincarnation" or "second chance" or something similar into Japanese, so I can christen the new one?

In other news, I had a really great Easter weekend -- managed, among other things, to feed a good few people without making anybody ill (so far); verify that my typing speed (on tigris, at least) is probably about 20 wpm higher than I'd previously thought; and caught a glimpse of a great road sign (simply a frog icon, with the legend "3/4 mile" -- genius!)

general stuff

2008-03-03T14:06:18Z

My work computer (akimoto) runs Windows -- it has to, to interface with all the other Microsoft-ware that my job involves. Not being a big fan of Windows, I don't run it on tigris, my personal machine, at all. But I've had to lend my brother tigris to stand in for his non-functional laptop, so for the next couple of weeks it's akimoto and Vista for me. Bleh.

This morning I tested a couple of changed aspects of my company's software, including a couple of security concerns. Not being much of a cracker I didn't expect to get anywhere at all, but gave it my best shot anyway... and uncovered a couple of XSS holes. I have to admit to being somewhat inordinately proud... and quite glad these holes are only in the internal, test software and not in the released versions!

Unrelatedly and non-geekishly, I'm going to an Inferno party soon, and am utterly devoid of costume ideas. At the moment I'm contemplating Hades, but am tempted by the ease of going as a barrator (they were so special to Dante they got a segment of the Eighth Circle all to themselves)...

Any ideas or suggestions, anyone?

silly time zones

2008-02-26T10:36:38Z

If all goes to plan, I'll have to be at work past 6.00 three days this week, to be in conference calls with the West Coast. Why can't California just pick itself up and move closer to the UK? Hmph.

time, once more

2008-02-20T13:41:54Z

The Vast Silliness is over! I'm immensely relieved that I have actual time to do things again, and see people I've not been able to see in weeks... but, at the same time, my day feels oddly empty. Or it would, had a customer not turned up a day earlier than expected and thrown me into a bit of a panic and confused my work plan for this week. Hmmm.

On the other hand, I've officially asked for time off for things happening over the next few weeks, so my medium-term plans for things are firming up. In the rapidly approaching future are several things I'm looking forward to: the Further Silliness, seeing Nightwish live, and maxwell_s_demon's wedding -- fun fun!

weekend

2008-02-04T19:46:08Z

Interesting weekend. Productive. Not relaxing, at all, but nice nonetheless! I saw irrumator (albeit momentarily) after aaaages; I finally met andustar's elusive other half; I got to say hi to alakaholic again for a bit, at her birthday gathering (happy birthday!!!); I unloaded a great deal of whinge in the general vicinity of notgoblin, who was kind enough not to yawn in my face and tell me to f**k off; and I had an involved, adrenaline-fueled Sunday.

And, to top it off, this morning mrkgnao talked me into a Further Silliness (to accompany the Vast Silliness in which I am currently participating)... which I'm actually quite enthused about!

silliness

2008-02-02T00:13:14Z

Facebook informs me that my old tutor -- one of the few who maintained that I was a worthwhile student and had potential despite my abysmal performance in most fields -- is giving a talk, in part to mark his retirement. I can't make it, despite living less than fifteen minutes' walk from the venue... and it almost feels disrespectful not to go. Why can't I be in two places at once? All you physicists out there -- I demand you rectify this immediately!

In other news, I finally hung out for a bit with mrkgnao and sentientfiction this evening (there goes my sort-of resolution to spend more time with friends, and not on my own watching DVDs), and have a jam-packed weekend ahead of me followed by a week in which my workload is likely to double. Wonderful. Perhaps I'll be too busy to think about pointless things that have the potential to get me down.

more random splurging

2008-01-16T10:46:11Z

So, for the last couple of days at work one colleague has been ill and one of them is working with a client in Budapest... so I'm partially covering for both of them, which gets in the way of being able to do my *own* damn work! So I'm spending the time in between frantic bouts of activity doing things like reading online texts on programming and attempting to teach myself about computer data structures by writing a simple pointer-based hash table in C. I don't claim to be able to produce a particularly useful hash function (Bob Jenkins' write-up has convinced me there are statistical concepts in there that are beyond my ken) so I'm using Jenkins' own lookup3 -- still, I think I'm learning something from it. And it's possible that I finally understand pointers! Probably next on the list: trees, if I can be bothered, though I'd probably learn a bit from doing that too...

It is because of this excess of geek that today's XKCD seems especially genius, apposite as it is.

geeky musing

2008-01-14T12:32:37Z

I probably ought to try and learn Lisp. I've thought this before, but never got beyond a vague idea of the difference between car and cdr. It could be a bit of a stupid idea, it could be I just didn't find the right websites to walk me through the basics, or it could be that I'm not quite clever enough to get my head around it.

Anyone got any pointers on whether learning Lisp is completely brain-dead, and if not, where I might be able to get started?

devil's got a new disguise

2008-01-08T17:23:11Z

<geek>
My company is a Microsoft shop, and I've pretty much been able to put up with the quirks of Vista (while being grudgingly impressed with some of Aero). I've gotten used to the minor differences in SQL syntax and using GUI tools for most things, rather than a nice pipe- and script-friendly command-line. But I had to do some in-depth VBA scripting (for Excel, our customers' format of choice) today...

Now, maybe it's just because my programming experience is almost entirely in C and its descendants, but (to flog an decomposed horse) Visual Basic mings. Oh Lord, does it ming...
Edit: Clarified that it's VB that mings. Not C. I quite like C!
</geek>

not long enough. dammit.

2008-01-06T23:23:42Z

Weekends just don't last long enough! Especially nice, quiet, productive afternoons like today at mrkgnao's/sentientfiction's/irrumator's...

Ooh, it's possible we'll have an aidansean soon. Ooh, I'm excited *bounce*!

cerebral dysfunction. hence, meme!

2007-12-28T14:00:45Z

I have slowly been coming down with a cold/cough/something over the last couple of days, which I expect has been caused by the flight back to the UK and/or change in climate clonking my immune system and letting a virus slip in. Last night, lazily doing household chores and drinking herbal tea and going to bed early (and feeling about 92 years old for doing so) helped a lot, but despite being at work my brain isn't active enough to do more than regurgitate a couple of (fairly extensive) memes stolen from asthelightgrew...

Year Review I

[P E O P L E]

Best boyfriend/girlfriend?
That would be N/A.
Lost any friends?
No, although some people have drifted out of touch (due to being thousands of miles and several time zones away)...
Gained any friends?
Yep, quite a few, from all of the various places I've been :-)
Met a new good friend?
Again, several -- although notably some people who are actually on LJ, like r_e_mercia, sentientfiction, irrumator. Plus a few people who I hope to be better friends with once I know them better...

[P L A C E S]

Went out of the country?
Went out of several countries, actually!
Moved?
From Bangladesh to Washington to Brussels to Oxford. Yes.
New school?
What am I, 15? No.
How many times on an airplane?
Six separate trips.
Road trips?
Nothing nearly long enough to qualify as a "road trip", although I did almost go to Norwich for something (which would have been by car).

[Y O U]

Have you changed?
Not significantly, I don't think.
New look?
Nope. Though much more frequent wearing of suits. And ties.
Any new additions?
???
Biggest conflict this year?
I suppose, the implied conflict between what my parents wanted me to do career-wise, and what I wanted to do, which extended into this past year but was really mostly a 2006 issue.
Most depressed time this year?
Parts of my fourth and fifth months in Brussels, when my flatmates had disappeared back to Spain/France and I was working on some dangerously dull research for the Commission -- boring and lonely. During this time, though, I did get visits from my brother and andy_godfrey, which were very nice :-)

[L O V E]

Did you fall in love?
Nope. Don't think I've ever been in love, per se.
Did you get heartbroken?
Mildly, yes; although I did see it coming and as I'm not likely to see her for some time, it'll hopefully be completely out of my system soon.
Who was your summer love? and
Hah!
How many boyfriends/girlfriends this year?
See above.
Favourite date?
Well, as she later decided we'd been going down the friendship path, I'm unsure whether I can say I've been on one this year. But if I give myself the benefit of the doubt, then probably early November -- dinner at the Trout and making fun of the "frites".

[S E A S O N S]

Favourite season?
See below.
Least favourite season?
Impossible to say given the range of climates I've been living in in 2007
Good birthday?
Yep!
Any snow this year?
Yep, plenty -- I was in Washington in January/February!
Highest temperature?
Probably about 35 degrees or so, with 99% relative humidity, in Dhaka in the summer.

[F I N A L Q U E S T I O N S]

Snuck out?
What am I, 15? No.
Met a person who will change your life?
I like to think my life is shaped by the people in it, so meeting anyone who makes an impression will change my life. And I've made some new friends, so definitely yes.
Kept your resolution?
Don't tend to make resolutions, as I don't keep them.
Got arrested?
Thankfully, no.
Had a first something?
A first proper job, yep.
Drank alcohol? Smoked weed? Done drugs?
(These didn't deserve separate questions). Yes, yes, and no.
Did anything illegal?
Well, legality is a funny thing ;-) Anyone who knows about my employment status knows what I'm talking about...
Had a crush?
See below.
Liked someone who didn't like you?
Yes, and whinged about it on this blog enough.
Lost a family member?
Not a close one, thank God.
Got bad grades? Got suspended?
N/A.
Moved ~~states~~ countries?
Yes.
Spent over 1 million dollars?
Oh, if only I had $1 million to spend!
Went streaking?
I agree with asthelightgrew on this. I can't see any time when I'll want to do this.
Done something you shouldn't have?
By whose standards?
Kept a secret?
Yes.
Told a secret?
Yep, that too.
Done something you totally regret?
I, like, totally, like, don't regret that much stuff I've done lately.
Changed your view on things?
Not hugely, no :-)

Year Review II

Yes, this is going to be a bit repetitive...

What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Lived in a country where I don't speak the language natively.
Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
No, as mentioned above I don't tend to remember New Year's resolutions so I don't make them.
Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
Did anyone close to you die?
No, thankfully.
What countries did you ~~visit~~ live in?
Bangladesh, the US, the UK, Belgium.
What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
Geographical stability for six months or more at a time.
What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
November 23, when I actually cooked a turkey and it came out edible :-)
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting a job.
What was your biggest failure?
Not finishing the FerretBrain upgrades.
Did you suffer illness or injury?
No injury but a few cases of colds/sniffles/coughs/etc.
What was the best thing you bought?
Well, I bought tigris (my laptop) in early January, so that would be it :-)
Whose behavior merited celebration?
For coming to visit the UK even when he was off in California: aidansean!
Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Mostly mine.
Where did most of your money go?
On mundane things like food and rent.
What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Living back in Oxford!
What song will always remind you of 2007?
Pretty much anything from Dark Passion Play (Nightwish's latest album)...
Compared to this time last year, are you:
1. happier or sadder? Much happier!
2. thinner or fatter? Fatter, of course.
3. richer or poorer? Significantly richer, with my own income!
What do you wish you'd done more of?
Coding.
What do you wish you'd done less of?
Watching crappy sitcoms and eating ice cream.
How ~~will you be spending~~ did you spend Christmas?
Hanging out with a great friend, eating goose, meeting fun new people and discovering that Spanish card decks are very different from the ones I'm used to.
How will you be spending New Year's?
Hopefully, chilling with really cool people.
Did you fall in love in 2007?
See some distance above.
How many one-night stands?
Hah!
What was your favourite TV programme?
Probably House; I watched all of Season 3 in one go toward the end of summer / beginning of autumn. I really like that show.
Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Funnily enough, I don't really *hate* that many people. No significant new dislikes, either.
What was the best book you read?
Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun -- epic!
What was your greatest musical discovery?
Thanks to my cousin in Washington, the slightly jazzy, slightly odd, but all in all rather cool sound of Keiko Matsui.
What did you want and get?
A job, based in the UK, near lots of friends!
What did you want and not get?
See response to the question about my favorite date.
What was your favourite film of this year?
Cheesily enough, Stardust -- it made me feel really good.
What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Went to work, but afterwards met some of the people I'd end up becoming good friends with in Brussels; I turned 22.
What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I really can't think of anything that would have made any part of my year immeasurably more satisfying!
How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Exactly the same as before, but with more suits and ties.
What kept you sane?
tigris
Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
No one, really...
What political issue stirred you the most?
It's still got me stirred -- the US Presidential race!
Who did you miss the most?
Lame as that sounds, my parents -- I spent more time away from them this year than I have before, and while I get on with my family better from a distance I do wish I could see them more regularly (and for shorter periods of time ;-))
Who was the best new person you met?
That's an impossible question to answer, there have been too many really cool people I've met...
Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.
Can't think of any valuable lessons that appeared, but rather events kept confirming realizations I'd come to before. It's the people in your life who matter most, and good friends that make life worth living -- that kind of thing :-)
Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"আমি কার আশাতে ছটে চলি পথে পথে? জেনো কার মাযাতে বাঁধা পরেছি জিবোনজে?" — Artcell, পথ চলা
(Approximately: "From whose hope do I come free and walk my path? Because of whose love am I bound to life?" (I'm sorry for the mediocrity of the translation -- as I said, my brain isn't working too smoothly today. (Not that most of you will notice but it should be noted that the above Bangla spelling is a bit shit. (Also nested parentheses are cool.))))
I've felt a lot more, in 2007, that I've been living my own life -- that I'm not bound by parental or familial constraints, and that I'm out from the shelter (and binding) of formal education. But at the same time I love my family and no matter how much I complain about how overwhelming it is, appreciate their presence and (when they choose to give it) their support... so while the song isn't really about my kind of situation, the lines above fit.

In advance: Happy New Year!

goings-on in the desh

2007-12-21T18:14:20Z

Eid Mubarak! Even though Eid really began a couple of days ago, at the end of the Hajj, because of the fairly universal weirdness of Bengali religious leaders we celebrated it today. So this morning was a frenzy of putting on traditional-ish clothes and, after prayers at the mosque, visiting the graves of my paternal grandparents and then visiting family.

Most religious celebrations that I've encountered are marked by their celebration of food, and in Bangladesh Kurbanir Eid is no exception. Because of the rituals associated with this festival (i.e. sacrifice of an animal -- in South Asia usually a cow or goat) there's an abundance of meat, and a lot of us stuffed ourselves at a big family lunch at my (maternal) grandmother's place. Not encouragingly, my brother has been shivering under a blanket half the evening and one of my cousins has been throwing up...

In other news, I've been working on the next iteration of FerretBrain. Version 2 has been in the works for about a year, and gave me an excuse to learn technologies like mod_python and WSGI... but after months and months of procrastination and hopping between continents, the user-visible parts of it are finally being fleshed out and new features like Themes and the Playpen are taking shape.

I'll be back in the UK in a couple of days, and am looking forward to hanging out with cool new friends over Xmas :-)! See y'all soon!

not at home... at home

2007-12-15T20:09:52Z

So I'm back "home" (i.e. Bangladesh) as of 2.30 yesterday morning (local time; about 20.30 UK time), nominally for Eid but effectively to spend a few days with my parents and see my family. Now, I love my parents... but, as you can imagine, it's likely to be something of a trial. It's a good thing I'll be back in the UK in a little over a week.

I've been back just a day, and some bits and pieces are already getting on my nerves again. I've complained about my home town frequently in this blog, so I won't repeat myself, but it didn't help that my uncle was joking with my grandmother earlier today that now that I'm earning on my own they should start finding me a bride. Ha ha. I'm pretty sure my uncle knows that he'd better have been joking, but I'm not sure my grandma does!

I'd also copied over a load of Nik's photos of various things to show my parents, including the immense turkey party (which they were suitably impressed by) and of course they wanted to know who everyone was, etc etc. I should be over this by now but it was still a little bit of a sigh-worthy moment when I had to describe her as "a new friend" rather than anything else. A friend of mine was apparently once given 46 detailed reasons why she'd never be loved. I guess a list of 46 things to work on would be a start...

Anyway. As the Internet here is approximately as slow as I remember, I can't promise I'll be in touch regularly, but see you again in a few days!

whine pt 2

2007-12-13T02:07:29Z

It's also mildly crap being (and I kid you not) the only single person at an office Xmas party. A fun party, but still a reminder of it all. Argh.

blessed.

2007-11-26T15:33:42Z

God must be pretty happy with me right now -- I feel on top of the world. I've just had a fantastic weekend, and have what looks like a pretty good week lined up; compared to where I was this time last year, I have everything I want in life.

Because it wouldn't be the same without a comparison chart, and us geeks like that sort of thing:

	Last Year	Now
Geography	Dhaka. It's dull, it's limited, and I was living with my parents. While they are in many ways wonderful, my parents have no concept of personal space, so not only was it dull and limited but I hardly felt like it was my home at all.	Oxford. It's familiar enough to quickly feel like home but different enough to feel interesting. While I'm not exactly living alone (sharing a not-very-big flat), I do very clearly have my own space and a say in how everything is done: it feels mine.
Employment	A part-time job I didn't particularly enjoy -- though the concept was interesting and I felt like it was worthwhile stuff it didn't mean much to me personally. And call me shallow but I want that. Plus, it didn't pay; with only unpaid internships on the horizon I was financially dependent as ever.	A job that I quite enjoy and that pays well enough that, no matter how much I complain about being screwed by the exchange rate when I'm in the UK, I'm not in any financial trouble.
Friends	All really far away -- either living in Europe or, as was the case with most of my school friends, still at uni in the US or Canada. The Internet meant that I was still in touch with people I cared about, but IM and LJ only go so far, and I like to hug! Making new friends, too, was quite hard as I simply didn't have enough in common with the people I encountered to make it worthwhile...	Loads of wonderful people in the same town or near enough to visit occasionally, and some really cool new friends I've met through them. Crucially, lots of hugs!
Relationships	You've got to be joking.	Don't want to get ahead of myself but there's someone who I'd like to be seeing more of, and as far as I can tell she hasn't discounted the possibility yet. Even if it turns out I'm horribly misreading things at least I'm making mistakes and can learn from them. [update, 12/12/07: Another series of mistakes made, another lesson to internalize.]

I don't know if it's particular to Bengal or common to a lot of Asian cultures but back home there's a superstition against reporting one's joys to the world. The fear is of something that means, approximately, "the evil eye" (it roughly transliterates as nojor) -- it's the idea that some vengeful person will be jealous of your happiness and emit evil vibes (and/or cast a spell) that will take your joys away.

So, in my best South Asian accent: if you are person to do such, please do not read paragraph above the one above this one. In all seriousness, I really don't mean to offend or annoy anyone with my current happiness -- I just want to share it with my friends -- and if there's anything I can feasibly do to make anyone else's lives happier right now please let me know...