Woopdeedoo

L-Dawg and I

2008-07-17T07:55:00.001-07:00

Hello children! Apologies for the extended hiatus. I forgot I had a blog.

Down to more important stuff. As many of you know, this summer I am working for L-Dawg , writing an article about war and world order transformation. The highlight of my job is my weekly meeting with the boss, where we discuss all kinds of things, from how stupid sociologists are to how stupid American sports fans are and how stupid jihadists are. It's great.

Peace.

MITY kids

2008-06-19T16:39:00.000-07:00

Hello all! Sorry for the absence...was going home and shit. It was intense.

In other news, I'm back on campus at good ol maca!! And it is full of little middle school fuckers! I hate them. There are alot of them all over the place doing some sort of program. I want to chokeslam one of them in the cafeteria. They're just fuckers.

Peace.

Long time no see! aka I hereby update my blog.

2008-05-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

Hello children!

Did you like the "adult content" warning as you entered the site? It's kind of annoying.

Today I want to talk about the word "hereby". For some reason, the Dutch use it often. Like VERY often. Here are some examples:

1. (email from PIM, which is a card so that some stuff is free in Maastricht)

Dear pimmer,

Hereby you receive the

weekly summary of

pim-activities until

Wednesday 14^th of April.

2. (email from the racist prof)

Hello all,

As promised, I hereby confirm the exact chapters from Zimmermann's book Heidegger's Confrontation with Modernity.

Indeed, the chapters 6 and 7 are about Heidegger's connection to Juenger and how he appropriated Juenger's thought, also into his later ideas about technology.

See you on Tuesday.

etc etc. I have nothing against the word hereby. But I don't think I've ever heard it used before Maas.

Peace.

Mario from Italy

2008-04-27T03:46:00.000-07:00

Hello kids!

In one of my courses here, we read a lot of 20th century philosophy. It's pretty interesting. This one guy in my class, Mario from Italy, knows ALL of it. More than just the 20th century stuff. Whenever there is silence in the discussion, he goes off on a several minute long speech about something philosophical. And all the time, he's staring at his little computer, with an earpiece in his right ear.

This last Friday, I finally got to sit next to him. I saw he was furiously reading forum entries while the rest of us were discussing Hannah Arendt. Eventually, after a moment of general silence, he looked up and embarked on his usual monologue, this time comparing Arendt and Kant. I took this opportunity to look at his screen. His website full of forums was none other than GayRomeo.com. It was pretty funny. Later, starting at around halfway through the class, he started watching Toni Braxton videos. He did this until the end of class. It was great.

Peace.

Technology

2008-04-24T03:45:00.000-07:00

After reading Heidegger I want to turn Buddhist.

Origins

2008-04-18T12:52:00.000-07:00

Dear friends and/or fans,

As we all know, we live in a "West" dominated world. One of the things that irks me greatly about this is our ignorance regarding the plural origins of many ideas. Here are some notable examples:

1. Democracy - The world's first republic is largely agreed to be Vaishali (Pali), a city that flourished around the time the Buddha was coming up with his ideas (6th century BC) in India. Vaishali was not unique in the region as far as democratic governance was concerned.

2. Pythagorean Theorem - Discussed by the Egyptians, Chinese, and Indians some 2,000 years before Pythagoras. Algebraic and numerical proofs found in ancient Indian texts at least one hundred years before the birth of Pythagoras. Geometric proofs from much longer before that.

3. Gravity - Discussed in 8th century BC India, 400 years before Aristotle had similar ideas and some 2,000 years before Galilleo. Similarly, the heliocentric model of the solar system, the distance to the sun and moon, the shape of the earth (including a calculation of its circumference), and many other such discoveries can be traced to ancient Indian thinkers, notably Aryabhatta, Brahmagupta, and Bhaskara II).

The list is quite long but I will stop here because you're probably bored already. Obviously this looks India-biased but that's because I'm Indian and have learned about these specific examples. I don't know if the examples here are the first discussions of these ideas, but they certainly predate the emergence of similar ideas in the "West".

If you are interested in learning more, there is loads of stuff on the internet. Also, read "The Argumentative Indian" by Amartya Sen.

This is quite a bizarre post, but I had to vent after my tutor/professor today claimed that Europeans were racially superior to everyone else, that all philosophy came from Greece and then Europe, that the holocaust wasn't all that bad, that Palestinians are similar to Nazis, and that some racial groups are more intelligent than others.

Cheers.

Peace.

Samatar et al.

2008-04-12T12:28:00.001-07:00

Hello fans! Here are some of my favourite quotes by professors from this semester:

1. "That's the Mollocans, folks, NOT the Moroccans."
- Dean Professor Dr Sir Ahmed Samatar, Ph.D, OBE, CBE, MD, JD

2. "I have made one observation about the Dutch. They are very clean."
- Same Dean.

3. "I hate people. I prefer ideas. That's why I gave up sex." (paraphrased)
- Ibid

4. "I beat up my wife and kids. HAHA!"
- Wiebs Nauta

There are other good ones too but I don't remember. I watched Last King of Scotland last night... pretty intense. I liked it. Except it was irritating that the (fictional) white guy was the hero. That's the problem with this "historical fiction" genre...you never know what's fact and what isn't. So there's probably a bunch of people out there that think this white heroic doctor had a part in bringing down Idi Amin. Great.

In other news, my ex-roommate sent me a package...THANKS MATTTYYYY!!!!! It's a bottle of the (self-proclaimed) rarest Scotch in the world and a Guinness chocolate. Beautiful stuff!

A damn long day.

2008-04-06T12:32:00.000-07:00

Hello fans! Got back today from an epic adventure to Central Europe (Prague, Vienna, and Budapest) and will write more about it later but I figured you would be interested in knowing how my day was, so I have divided it into several important segments:

1. Woke up at 5am in Budapest.

2. Took the Red Line metro to the Blue Line, which I rode with Jacky till the last stop. Here, I hopped on to the bus 200, which to me to Budapest Ferihegy International Airport 1.

3. Flew from Budapest to Bremen, self proclaimed City of Trams in Northwest Germany.

4. Took a train to Wunstorf. Met a Californian Mormon dude here who was very skeptical about his 2-year mission in Land of Germans.

5. Took a train to Minden (Westf). I'm guessing nobody is clicking on these links anyway so I'm going to stop. I'm also guessing that the other 5 musketeers and I became the first 6 Maca students to ever visit this place. I ordered a Cappuccino which definitely had chocolate in it. Delicious.

6. Took a train to Düsseldorf. Train was late, so missed connection. Train was also full of futbol hooligans supporting Borussia Dortmund. Played Snake II on Nokia phone for about an hour. Failed to beat previous best score. Fuck.

7. Took a train to Monchengladback (no idea how to spell that). Ok I googled it and the correct spelling is Mönchengladbach. Woopdeedoo.

8. Took a train to Aachen, where we ate kebab very quickly.

9. Took a bus to Maastricht Centraal. Then took a bus to the fucking dorm. Arrival time: 2015hrs. That's a long day.

Cheers.

Peace.

Italy and since

2008-03-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

Hello all! Here is the extended version of the last post. Enjoy!

1. The Texan: My first day at the LovelyRome hostel, I met this Texan dude. He said his name was "Moses", but I should just call him "Moe". Moe and I, along with Joe, a Brit now living in Atlanta, headed off to a pub to catch a big football game. While my first impression of Moe was solid, my opinion of him started deteriorating rapidly once he informed me he was a marine biologist and proceeded to describe, in excruciating detail, the work he was doing for his PhD. Trust me folks - that shit is boring. An interesting fact about Moe- he is a devout Catholic who had come to Rome (after paying off years of credit card debt) to figure out HOW LIFE STARTED. I believe his conclusion was that Darwin was a trick played by God to test the gullible. Not sure that makes sense.

Anyhow, it was only after we reached the bar that this guy REALLY started getting on my nerves. He apparently lived "in the Mid-East" at some point, though he was unable to tell me where exactly, and had developed an acute understanding of futbol in the desert heat. Our conversation re the game was something like this:

M: We're 20 minutes in. 70 minutes to go!
K: Yep.
M: That's good defense!
K: Yes
M: Yellow card! One more and he's gone!!
K: Indeed
M: 60 minutes in!!! 30 more!
...ad nauseum.

2. The accident: I saw a horrific accident. Don't feel like dwelling on the details.

3. The Pope!: So I was checking out St. Peter's Basilica and most of it was cordoned off, with some old priest dudes blessing some jugs. Then I looked closer and noticed that one of these gentlemen was none other than Pope Benedict XVI! I was excited. I shouted out to him "YO! Big P!! It's me - Kabs!!"...no response. I thought maybe he didn't hear me. "P-Bizzle!" I tried again.
"Mr. XVI! YOMOFO! WOORD! WORD WORD!". No luck. So I bought a postcard with him on it and mailed it to K-Dub back home. It was fun.

alright more later.

Peace.

The Eternalness of it All...

2008-03-20T13:48:00.001-07:00

Hello again fans! You must be thinking "Yo Kabs! I thought you was in Rome!" Indeed I am in Rome, and my wonderful hostel has free internet!

Rome is the most amazing city I have ever visited.

Things to talk about later -

1. The Texan

2. The Accident

3. The Pope!

4. The Queue

5. The Rome

Alright friends, Romans, countrymen and countrywomen,

Peace.

Black Swan Theory!

2008-03-15T15:21:00.000-07:00

Last week was great. The best part was Wednesday, when I went to Eindhoven to watch PSV beat Tottenham on penalties...fucking good time with SLe and his buddy Fred the Turk. But I don't really feel like talking about that right now (we had great seats right behind the goal where the penalties were!!!!)

What I feel like talking about is this Black Swan Theory (BST). I had never heard of it but SLe left this blog open on my computer, so I ended up reading it and became quite interested.

Ok I've been trying to summarize BST for almost 10 minutes but it's tough...read the article.

Anyway, some fun stuff to think about. I think this theory has particularly caught my interest because lately I've been thinking that Economics is really quite bullshit. More about that some other time I'm having some serious writer's block so I'm going to stop now.

Peace.

The European Life.

2008-03-10T15:59:00.001-07:00

Alright so when I first got to this continent, I thought "Fuck...these guys are SO far behind the U.S. of A". Everything was closed on Sunday, bureaucratic entanglements were a pretty common affair, and people just seemed sort of lazier than Americans. But I have to say that the European way of doing things is really starting to grow on me - no need to constantly run around, taking time to chill out, and generally not being hyper-competitive all the time...it's all kinda nice.

SO things I like about this place :

-not (nearly!) as stressful as life at Maca
-more densely populatedcities with stuff other than strip malls and parking lots
-not worrying as much about life after college aka the "Fuck...I'm only 21" attitude
-traveling!

And the things I don't like

- the racism (fosho worse than the US...today, for example, h-dub was served some beef at the cafeteria by the server dude. when she was paying, the lady was like "you got too much!" so she went back to the server, TRASHED THE FOOD, and gave Dear H a smaller serving. Maybe this was normal, but I have a feeling that HWs Koreanness had something to do with it all...)
-occasional inefficiency

alright there's probably loads of more stuff to write but I'll save it for next time.

PS: SLe's visiting! And then between now and first week of April I'm off to Amsterdam, Rome, Florence, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest so if you don't hear from me don't despair! I will be back.

For Breakfast: Cholestrol

2008-03-02T09:51:00.001-08:00

This morning, I ate a lot of bacon and two eggs for breakfast. It was FUCKING delicious.

What a name!

2008-02-22T10:15:00.000-08:00

Ok so far, I haven't used any full names in my blog after seeing what happened to my buddy seidshow(see here and here ). But man, I can't resist anymore. There's this guy in our class who's name, according to the prof at least, is "leonard". But then I got an email from him and it said...."Leo Pongo"! What a fantastic name. He's cool enough to pull it off so it's ok I suppose.

In other news, my buddies back at Maca are great. Also, I've started actively participating in an Inter blog because, fuck, I need more distractions. You guys should check it out.

Finally, the much awaited "Word of the Day"

Extant: Why? I used it for my project proposal and my prof circled it because it is a "very old formal word!". He better get ready for a barrage of extants but also some Latin, especially shit like ipso facto.

Peace.

Liverpool.

2008-02-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

Alright so we lost 2-0. I'm trying to tell myself that it's ok, we can win 3-0, but fuck...2-0 is bad. I was really hoping it would stay tied and then at 1-0 i thought ok we can do this...but 2-0 is bad.

I'm glad that we're at least looking invincible in the league and you know if we do a League-TIM Cup double that's pretty damn good, but fucking hell, 2-0 is bad.

I went to the local last night to watch it and for the first time understood that, yes, Maastricht has a huge German population. There were 4 Champions League games on last night and the local has 3 screens...one giant projection thing and then 2 normal tvs. and the projection didn't show inter-liverpool or roma-real...they showed SHALKE vs PORTO. to be honest this really cracked me up. after all my years of bitching that the EPL gets too much airtime etc, it was refreshing to see that the big crowd was there to watch SHALKE 04. wow.

in other news Im working on a group paper + presentation about decolonization in Peru. maybe if I was doing this alone or if I had India or something I would be really into this project but right now I can't be fucked to do anything. Maybe it's because Inter lost yesterday...who knows. But Zimeles is waiting for me so I should go and start fucking working.

Keep faith all...we will win it 3-0.

Peace.

potluck

2008-02-15T18:17:00.000-08:00

I don't know why, but the reason I felt inspired enough to finally start a blog was because I burned my finger today. You see, here at the 'International Guesthouse' we have those fireless stoves, so you never know when it's hot. There are four of the hot plate things on the stove and my pan was sitting on one of these with the handle directly above another. Little did I know that the handle was slowly reaching unimaginable levels of heat. I wanted to move said pan and didn't realize that the handle was FUCKING HOT. So I burned my finger. And then I thought "oooh I should share this story on the internet!"

Our Maastricht crew had a delightful little potluck today....I made some chocolate sauce. I thought it was pretty shit, but people seemed to like it. Maybe they were just being nice who the hell knows. After that, we went to this supposedly underground/alternative place and when we got there they were playing...wait for it...Linkin Park!!!! Yeah...it was shit. But the place itself was cool, some kind of abandoned building where they have these live bands play once in a while. The live band that came on after the linkin park was done was also shit.

Oh the people who took us to this underground/alternative place are the two non-Maca students in our class. One of them, I'll call him Tony, fucking quoted Che Guevara in our class the other day hahaha it really cracked me up. I mean I love Che as much as the next person, but to quote the guy in a classroom was really quite bizarre.

Ok it's getting to 3.30am now so I should pass out. Stay tuned for more from this quaint little place.

Peace.