and we all float on....

Rishan told me quite categorically to enjoy our day at Galle Face because there wouldn't be another for a very long time... Aindri and Sanjaka down from the states and newly married... Venu with John just down as well, Partner in Negombo and all things hostile in uni - Husna, Rikki who had returned from England after 5 years... resident optimist Rishan back from the states and a cruise around Europe and newly hitched Dayan who is not in any of the pictures.




Also featuring a very pensive me.. I had knicked Rishans i-pod because I had decided that it was high time I began to look cool and I was meditating upon the fact that exactly one year ago was a period in which I honestly thought I would never be happy again...
These pictures are a reminder that I was very wrong, a celebration of that amazing human ability to heal and move on and most importantly a celebration of my friends without whom I would have gone ballistic...




Really really missed Vin and Deanne - one in London and the other at rehearsal and since I could never have survived without either of them I'm putting them in here too. (Besides Deanne needs all the exposure she can get, since she has high aspirations that the Prince of Jaipur will notice her on someones blog, whisk her away into the desert and swear his undying love for her...)


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Repent now! April is almost upon us!!!!

This post has been inspired by Aindri's blog.... I'm moved enough to carry on the rant I began when I replied her post....

You know... every year in December when the weather gets cooler and everyone is in a much better mood and Colombo is a much nicer place to live in, I get a tad depressed. Because at the back of my mind I know that the year is ending and we're moving into April again. (it was my biggest issue on 31st night infact) You know... April should come with its own menacing sound track... or perhaps the sound track should begin in January... an almost unnoticable ochestral background which reaches its crescendo in April.... accompanied by the sounds of wails and moans and sound effects of bodies falling heavily onto concrete floors.
Its already getting hotter... its at that point when having a wash and stepping out of the house is proving to be a counter productive and futile excercise - unless you have the luxury of stepping from one air conditioned environment into another... which I certainly dont! And i know its only going to get worse.... and its depressing....
I can already see ahead to the time when we'll all be walking around in states of severe heat inuced inertia ad when tempers will be short.... and sweat and body ordour will be the normative. aaargh.... WHY WHY WHY???
And to all my friends who live in cooler climes... please dont expect any love or affection or even communication from me from April up until late September. I hate you all already.

Its over but....

Yesterday I finished my university career. And apart from the obvious sense of relief that it was finally over, I felt nothing. Nothing! And I realised that really... my university life was not the rip roaringly fun period in my life that its supposed to be for everyone in general... it was a burden and towards the end there was too much unpleasantness and too much stress for it to be anything more than that..
and I guess thats sad.. I feel quite deprived and cheated somehow. I should have had far more fun than this dammit! I should have done more stuff! I should have been more involved! And while this isnt a case of regret its a sense that I've been somehow let down by life...
perhaps I'm watching too many chich flick type high school and university movies.. perhaps I need to just start concentrating on my thesis without trying to get profoundly philospohical about what "ought" to have been... and while I'm at it, chapter 2 will soon be written (at least the draft) remember to check my thesis so far here
alright then the slightly let down but unmistakenly euphoric ayeshea will get on with the inane details of life such as having a bath and going to sleep... hangover from last nights celebrations is still not completely gone away and eyes are dropping with sleep - that elusive creature!
euphoric yet let down... the great paradox of the week....

Accidental decapitation?

How does one accidentally decapitate? Is anyone in the Iraqi government under any illusion that anyone sees the hangings of first Saddam and now Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar as anything but petty revenge killings? The unprofessionalism and the underlying thought processes that have led to it are chilling in their very incomprehensibility. Saddam Hussein is now a martyr and we're left with at least a vague feeling that those who hanged him were the brutes.
And now they botch up these hangings again. Decapitating a condemned prisoner and then flippantly describing it as a "mistake" is to my opinion disgusting. I cant claim to speak for anyone else but right now my overriding emotions constitute sympathy for the two hanged and revulsion towards those who killed them. By no account am I condoning the actions of these men in the past or the incident that led to their ultimate execution. But when something like this comes to pass how reassured can we be that tyranny, corruption and murder at the top levels of Iraqi government have been laid to rest? Can anyone tell me with any certanity that any of the people who killed Saddam Hussein were better than he was? (And this by the way is completely bypassing all my reservations about the death penalty in the first place).
What has ultimately been achieved? Can anyone convingly argue that these executions have not been counter productive? Who's the barbarian and who's the martyr?
The absolute hard headedness and stubbornness in the face of international criticism and local dissent displayed by the Iraqi administration are amazingly familiar. Who's with my theory that Nouri Maliki has been taking Bush lessons?

The primates we live with

SO I go to Negombo Browns Beach Hotel for a weekend trip with Hus, thanks to her very generous office that gave her a weekend package for two with full board for winning EIGHTH place at the company office party raffle draw... (we didnt even have a party... if my boss is reading this he can consider it a broad hint)
Anyway we go.. all prepared to have fun... and we do.. for the longest time.. but with one recurring and very strong annoyance. The Sri Lankan men at that place.
WHAT is it about them? Is there an innate genetic flaw that dictates that they act like testosterone ridden maciacs at the sight of two girls who seem to be on their own? And not foreign girls mind you... they can parade around in a bikini top and the shortest shorts and not one of these morons would DARE make any comments... but see two Sri Lankan girls sitting alone and enjoying some music and they not only have to comment, but stare, sit at every table adjacent to us and then leer suggestively. And as for the moron who kept throwing his tennis ball in my direction while in the swimming pool over and over again..because (as he remarked to his friends) He felt sorry for me because I was alone... I hope the fleas of a thousand camels invade his armpits.. yes I do indeed!
But this was just such a problem that these men had!!! They think that any and every female unaccompanied by a man is fair game! And so they come.. these predators.. with their pot bellies, thin arms and leering smiles...regular little casanovas...
The fact that we had to put up with this on such a regular basis and by SO MANY Local men speaks volumes not only about what makes their moronic minds tick, but also the ideologies that we as women have to deal with here... its sickening, its nauseating but most of all its sad... are these the mindless boobs who will be procreating and giving us our country's future?
two words.
Nuclear Holocaust.

A rhetorical Question...

As I walked down the road to office on a Sunday morning, I smiled at a couple of people down the road: A garbage collector and an old security guard outside the Hallmark Building. Their response was instantenous - er.. that means that they smiled back. Then suddenly I remembered one of those cheesy notices that someone had stuck on one of the notice boards near our grade block in school - something about it taking only 17 facial muscles to smile while it took 32 to frown or some such thing aimed at lightening the disposition of some 125 sulky teenagers who thought they knew it all...

And then it struck me...

Why does it then hurt your face to continously smile whereas frowning can be mantained for an idefinite period of time with minimal facial discomfort?

If smiling is less effort as the notice insinuated, why is it harder to maintain? Can the answer be found in economics? The more effort you put it into the production of something the better it will work? Or is it that smling is a more alien state of being to man?

Just wondering...

Top 5 Reasons to be a MP in Sri Lanka

5. The Power! The prestige! The fame!
4. You only have to make an appearance in parliament a few times a month
3. Subsidised food! (And not the crap we get at university..! Rumour sayeth that buriyani is on the menu!
2.I can shout and hurl abuse at people I dont like under the pretext of debating important national issues in the sure knowledge that no one can sue my ass.
1. The fact that all MPs in Sri Lanka got a 145% salary increase! (so I got a friend to do the calculations!)

But seriously check this out:
Increased salaries
Prime Minister & ministers From Rs.34000.00 to Rs.71500.00
Speaker From Rs.31000.00 to Rs.68500.00
Leader of the opposition From Rs.29815.00 to Rs.65000.00
Deputy Minister From Rs.28750.00 to Rs.63500.00
Member of Parliament From Rs.22100.00 to Rs.54285.00

I kid you not! Read the BBC Article!

And all of a sudden I'm all for the President calling for early elections! Where do I sign up dammit???