Where to go ladies?

It's Thursday! You meet up with your girlies to have “ladies night out” or in other words serious gossip session. The next step is to choose a suitable location. Now, where to go? It's not like you have that many options available. It has to be that chicken or burger place or that infamous ice cream parlour! Since it's almost the weekend and you have nothing better to do why not try going to all the places and pick the best hangout spot for you and your BFFs.

5 PM @ that burger place
You are full from the lunch you had but just because you are resting your butt on their chair it's only fair you order something. So you stick to fries and soda.

Just when you are about to start your girly girl conversation you notice a group of people smiling and waving at you. Oh great! It's your high school classmates. Few minutes later the boy who sat beside you during your A-level exam walks in and starts talking to you.

What is this? A school reunion? You finish eating as quickly as possible and walk out of the place.

7 PM @ that ice cream parlour
The chairs are empty; there aren't that many people. Finally, you can sit and have that pending conversation. You happily prance to the counter to order ice cream and there you see familiar faces. Holy Guacamole! It's your second cousin or third cousin. You are not even sure who they are but you remember those faces from the winter weddings you attended.

If that was school reunion this is family reunion! You do all the formalities such as smile, Salaam and the usual “kemon achen?” “bhalo achen” “ji accha”.

You and the girls grab the ice cream and start to power walk.

Good thing it's a ladies night out and your male friends didn't tag along ...or else that would have been a different story altogether. Phew!

7:30 PM the car huddle!
That's it! You have tried every possible place but it seems like everywhere you go all of Dhaka city is present there. So, you and your friends decide to go 9 km away to that “peri peri” chicken place.

8:45 PM @ that chicken place
You have been sitting in that car forever! You do some stretches, get out of the car and order the food. The ladies are too tired and bored to even talk.

10:00 PM
You drop off your friends.

And the girl talk?
Forget it! If only you had a proper place to sit and talk (with privacy!). Guess you just have to go home and talk on that Instant Messenger.

By Fariba Rakhsanda

Musings during a Physics class

Egad! It's the fourth period of Monday! Physics class by He Who Must Not be Named (trust me, you don't want to know his name)! The dreaded class that is synonymous with boring! But look on the bright side; it's not that bad, after all how is it that yours truly manages to come up with weird articles like this had not the Physics classes given way to idle thoughts. Then again, I understand the despair of the masses and provide a few “musings” just for the sake of keeping the classes alive and well, not deadly: -

1. Time the teacher from as soon as he swings the door open and until he reaches the teacher's desk. You will be amazed at your result- but don't fall asleep during the timing.

2. Just play dead. It's as simple as it sounds. Just out of the blue, drop down theatrically and have it arranged beforehand that everyone else in class MUST make a big issue out of this. The teacher will sense something is amiss (about time!) and rush out of the class for assistance. You and your mates must take this chance to run out of the class before that old-timer (no offence) returns.

3. Say playing dead is not your forte, then seize the idle time to practice life-saving techniques. I mean, you never know when your friend drowns himself in his water-bottle and you have to save his life. Think CPR. Don't think mouth-to-mouth resucitation.

4. Sharpen your artistic skills by drawing caricatures of your teacher or that physics-spewing nerd. Hold an Art Exhibition amongst yourselves (during the class) and judge the most “artistic” one as the winner. Boys and girls, let your imagination fly (the Da Vinci Code is not a source of inspiration).

5. Raise your hand and ask the teacher questions such as “How many physicists does it take to change a lightbulb?” or “Why did the chicken cross the road?” or even “What was Darth Vader's lightsaber made of?”. Be warned, you may expect long scientific rantings as answers from the teacher or the nerd (interfering little brat).

6. Speaking of the nerd, having a spitball competition among friends with the said nerd as target might not be that bad an idea. Take particle accleration now, nerd!

7. Physics classes are actually a thriving tiffin market among students. Here, tiffiin among students are sold, bought or traded; with people holding “shares” in tiffins. Of course, sometimes watch out or you may find your chicken and cheese sandwiches stolen by tiffin burglars. All this under the blind eye of the teacher.

8. During a class test, when that all-attentive Physics teacher is gently snoozing on the desk, flick your cellphone open and shoot a video of him to be uploaded onto the Net. To make it more interesting, try catching a mosquito and let it fly around the nostrils of the teacher. Don't be surprised if it turns out as one of the most popular video clips ever.

9. Whatever you do, do not ask questions in the LAST 5 minutes of the class. Your friends cannot stand the teacher any longer after the bell has rung and if you commit this Unforgivable Sin, let's just say your face will never be the same.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to restock my store of spitballs. Good luck for the next class!

By Wahid T. Khan

Lord of Justice

'Zeus' was the youngest son of The Titans, Cronus and Rhea. He was the supreme ruler of Mount Olympus and of the Pantheon of gods who resided there. Being the supreme ruler he upheld law, justice and morals, and this made him the spiritual leader of both gods and men. Zeus was a celestial god, and originally worshiped as a weather god by the Greek tribes. These people came southward from the Balkans circa 2100 BCE. He has always been associated as being a weather god, as his main symbol is the thunderbolt; he controlled thunder, lightning and rain. In Roman mythology he was known as Jupiter.

The heroes Perseus and Heracles were his sons. 'Hera' was his wife and sister. The name Zeus is related to the Greek word dios, meaning "bright". His other icons were the scepter, the eagle and his aegis (the goat-skin of Amaltheia). Before the abolition of monarchies, Zeus was protector of the king and his family. Once the age of Greek kings faded into democracy he became chief judge and peacemaker, but most importantly civic god. He brought peace in place of violence. Now that the whole world is being torn apart by wars and recession maybe we need someone like Zeus to bring peace.

By Nishita Aurnab
Source: Wikipedia and Encarta

A week before the judgment day

My mother can predict the future with cards. I just have to show her my report card and she knows exactly what will happen when dad gets home. So naturally you see I am in quite a bit of pressure before the exams. But again, there is no problem so big or complicated that it can't be run away from. I strongly believe in that philosophy. According to Newton's third law of motion, I manage to exert equal and opposite pressure on the pressure applied on me to proceed along the path of procrastinating from my studies. Exam being only a week away, I still am unable to gather any momentum in my studies. Something always happens. It's like this, unavoidable things turn up and I can't ignore it for just one second. I mean why is there nobody to answer the door, or the phone? Why does the tap choose this moment to start malfunctioning and start to drip loudly? Why can't I understand the mystery of utorrent just before the exams and WHY is there so many things to download? Huh? Huh? Suddenly I have to have a terrible discussion with a friend on the mistakes in the Harry Potter series. I can't stand anyone insulting the series, so I am re-reading part six to prove him wrong. And if anyone asks: I am preparing for my English exam.

Exam Time
I have finished the Half-Blood Prince and proved to my friend that my theories are correct. He was not willing to talk in the phone so I sent him five short messages explaining. Then I phoned him again asking if he understood. But his dad picked up the phone and threatened to complain to my Dad about me. All these happened before the English test. As for the actual exam, my only preparation is 2 raakats of Nofol namaz.

I have some great plans for the after exam vacation. And I have eight exams to go. These include gaining six packs, downloading the prequels of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, finishing Assassin's Creed and the Godfather 2, and formulating a project for the next science fair and most importantly sleeping till ten am.

Euphoria (!)
Hooray (in a boring tone), the exams are over. Now what do I do? My previous plans seem futile and I am losing interest in killing people, both silently and openly (in the game of course). How many times have I listened to the songs? Enough times to memorize the lyrics. And I can't stay in bed after eight, no matter how hard I try to sleep. Sleep comes late too as my mind is filled with the possibilities of passing in the exam. My right arm isn't working very well either, after a strain in the muscles when I tried the 'clapping' push-ups. Days are passing by in this trend. 10 days still to go for the vacation to end.

P.S.: the above situations vary only for the nerds and the study-geeks.

By Jawad