She Rocks!

Loley enda moley....I can't believe I know this girl from college!!!

For the Malloos out there, plees check out the video effects and other Melayalee idiosyncrasies!!!

Carrie Bradshaw on Life

'You cannot let who you are mess up who you will be'
- Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City

Sometimes these telly chicks are quite smart, I tell you.

The Beautiful Hospital vs. The Ugly Hospital vs. The Real Hospital

Sallie Tisdale in Salon on the medical realities portrayed in television shows : House vs. ER vs. Grey's Anatomy vs. Scrubs. She's a real-life nurse in a real hospital, by the way.

An excerpt:

Like a lot of people who work in healthcare -- I'm a nurse -- I started watching "House" because of the mysterious diseases involved. Everyone loves a rare disease. And I was perversely charmed by the title character's nastiness. House says the kind of things I sometimes want to say -- mostly, to doctors. (Dr. Weber: "I know I know you." House: "Sure you do, Dick." Weber: "The name's Phillip." House: "Oh, my bad. Something to do with your face. I always think your name is Dick.") I kept watching in spite of his flamingly litigious behavior: He calls one patient "Mrs. Nympho" and says of a Chinese woman, "Not the sharpest chopstick in the drawer, is she?" I watched for a whole season, in spite of knowing that the crude passes, Internet porn and Vicodin addiction meant that any doctor like him would be both bankrupt and imprisoned.

The P Problem

Why do I have to pee so much when I drink alcohol?

Question: Why do I have to pee so much when I drink alcohol?

Answer: Alcohol is a diuretic--the overabundant urge to urinate while drinking is caused by the alcohol's diuretic properties. Specifically, alcohol causes your body to expel water. Since your body is persistently excreting more water than is ingested you run the risk for dehydration. Being dehydrated is the main reason you have a whopping headache, feel fatigued, and thirsty the next day.


OK, all that is fine. I have a question: has ANYONE - anyone - ever had the experience of becoming completely sober (or at least 80% sober) the MINUTE you go to the washroom (why am I bothering to be delicate anyway?!!!) after ingesting alcohol???

Responses appreciated :-)

Offside

Sometimes I take my freedom for granted. My freedom to act like a woman, do the things I want to do, see the things I want to see, be the person I want to be. The reality is that there are women and girls out there who don’t have that freedom. Watching ‘Offside’ today reminded me of that.

‘Offside’ is the story of six Iranian girls who try to sneak into the qualifying match for the 2006 Soccer World Cup between Iran and Bahrain. In Iran, for those of you who are not aware, it is banned for women to attend men’s sporting events. With loose shirts and caps covering their heads, their attempted camouflage of their female selves does not work, and they are all caught and put into a small barred area outside the stadium, pending their transportation to higher authorities. I wouldn’t call the movie startlingly brilliant or any of the other glowing compliments that movies of this genre often do receive (and this one has, in fact, received a postive review from the New York Times as well). I’ll be completely honest: it was funny in parts and did not shock the sensibilities of the viewer, nor did it attempt to draw the viewer in with an overdose of emotion. ‘Offside’ has been made like a documentary, indeed it IS one – the actors are all first-timers, unpolished and therefore largely realistic, and it was shot for a large part during the actual qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain in 2005.

Surprisingly, this is one movie I was completely neutral about. But I thought the premise that the director based the movie on was good – lots of people today are probably not aware of seemingly simple issues like these being, well, issues, in countries like Iran, because they have never needed to fight for their rights to watch a live match in this day and age. Jafar Panahi’s movies are in fact banned in Iran because he shows the country for what it is – one of his earlier movies, ‘The Circle’, followed a group of women around Tehran as they tried to evade injustice.

Something I thought was interesting, though, was that there was a young girl, no more than 13 or 14 years old, watching the movie with her parents. The movie is rated PG-13, and at that age, I thought it was noteworthy that her parents were bringing her to a movie about girls in a part of the world that is so removed from where she is. She’ll probably grow up to be a sensitive adult, and we need more of those in this world.

The Wonderful Years

I watched the Wonder Years last night and was transported back to the age when everything was simple and innocent and yet so different and full of angst. Growing up was a hard thing to do. The Wonder Years is one of my favorite TV shows, and I haven’t watched a re-run in years and years. I couldn’t help but smile longingly as I watched Kevin, Winnie and Paul at the start of their teenage years. I remember the confusion I felt when you know those people from the other planet – BOYS – started talking to me a bit more than usual. I remember trying to be haughty and avoid listening to their taunts as I rushed along the corridors to get to class. I remember getting into a fight with that girl who talked to boys all the time and who threatened to ‘report’ me because she thought I was the one spreading rumors about her. (Star TV had just about made its advent into the country and my hometown was more of a homevillage back then – girls talking to boys all the time – how SCANDALOUS!!!!)..and no, it really wasn’t me. I remember playing Hide and Seek in my grandmother’s huge house, and Dark Room and other such fun games with my classmates when they came over one day. Even Name Place Animal Thing! India was still so new to me then, I’d just moved from Saudi Arabia where society was even more closeted and at that age, I felt like it was a new world. With my pigtails and big spectacles, I was certainly not part of the cool gang on my first day. But then, India back then – or at least my school, didn’t have those group labels yet. I misheard a proper South Indian name like ‘Sugalesini’ as ‘Subbulakshmi’ (probably one of the few names I was familiar with), who was the girl sitting next to me on my first day at school. I remember asking K to be my ‘best friend’ because you know, everyone had a best friend back then and she was new too. I probably figured it would be my best shot – but you know what? Fourteen years later, she’s one of the few people I can still really talk to, and she still lives down the road from me. Just as she used to in India. In another country. How’s that for Providence?!!!

I hated a lot of what I went through back then, but they probably were a large contribution to who I am today. I’m glad I went through my Wonder Years, even if I was not as enlightened then as my Big City Sisters. Those are the kind of girls who later became my college classmates, but that’s a different story altogether!