Bits 'n' Bytes (a novella)

Introduction
I have not written a blog in ages. There just aren’t enough hours in the day! If I stay up late for a couple of days, then to catch up on my sleep I go to bed early some day during the week. Yesterday (September 1, 2004), I fell asleep around 5:30pm, got up at 9 when Pavan called and then went to sleep around 12-12:30am. So much has happened between my last entry and this one that I don’t even remember all of it.

Chapter 1
The college-planning meeting was Monday, August 30 at 6:30pm. It was a complete waste of time. All that admissions person from Gordon did was promote his school.

If you have an 800 SAT score, you can go to a 4yr college. If you have a 600 SAT score, you must go to a junior college. Come to Gordon, you only need a 1.8 GPA to get in.

I hate that guy! He was talking to the wrong crowd. That idiot wasted everybody’s time.

Anyways, to reach the school for this stupid meeting somebody had to drive. My job was to be ready and get everyone in the car on time. What came as a shock was mom asking, “who wants to drive?” Papa wasn’t there, Hansag’s only 14 (wow! He’s 14 already?!), and I am the one who’s always after both the adults to let me sit on the driver’s seat every now and then so that I can get rid of my learner’s license and get a permanent one. I didn’t know what to say when mom raised that question, neither did I take it seriously. After 15 minutes, when we reached the school, Andrea’ exclaimed, “Geetali, you drove!” Yup! I ended up driving a car after 2+ months, and not just any car. I drove Mom’s Camry, which I had never driven before. That, dear readers, was a moment of sweet success.

Chapter 2
Failing a test means the student is not doing good. I knew I was not doing well in Statistics because every time Mr. Shirley got in front of the class and started talking, I just looked at him, comprehending nothing! Classmates asked questions and on getting the answer said, “oh! I get it now!” I, on the other hand, neither did my homework, nor did I read the chapter. The night before the test I ended up reading the entire 50 pages long chapter and saying, “this is really easy” to myself.

I failed the test by 2 points, but I felt alright because those students who said, “oh! I get it now” got an even lower score. I could have gotten a better grade, had I studied before and spent some more time actually working out the problems, but I chose the road less traveled by (less traveled by the other AP Statistics students at least) yet received a higher score. Hmm :-?

Chapter 3
No subject is difficult if you set your mind to it and study hard, but anyone who gets Lee for Chemistry or Physics is considered to be in big trouble because he makes these subjects difficult. This year Mr. Lee does not have a planning period, he’s teaching two Honors Chemistry, two AP Chemistry, and two AP Physics classes.

Right now we are covering Velocity and Acceleration in our (Physics) class. There are about three-five formulas used at least ten times in the solving process of a problem to get the final answer. I am briefly going to talk about one problem he gave us.

Osama Bin Laden is hiding in a tank. A US bomber plane is ###### feet above the ground, traveling at ### miles per hour in the direction of the tank. The horizontal between the tank and the plane is ## miles. The tank is moving in the direction of the plane at ## miles an hour. It it’s 12:00pm right now, at what time should the pilot push the button to release the bomb so that it hits the tank.

I knew how to do the problem and started working it out, but got stuck at one step. I just kept on looking at the paper, telling myself “I’ve done this before, I know who to do this, why can’t I work it out now.” I never got past that part, just sat there for the next 5 minutes and when Marcel worked out the problem on the board, I once again said, “I knew how to do this!”

Chapter 4
Okay, since I mentioned Marcel in the previous chapter, here’s what happened in AP Government today. We got to discussing (or rather arguing) about the most debated topics in United States politics – abortion, gay rights, drug use, and prayer in school. Although usually there are strong opinions from people supporting both sides of the debate, in our class not many talked about drug use or prayer in school, very little put their ideas forward about abortion and most of the time was spent talking about gay rights, more specifically gay marriages.

Mr. Dees asked, “What two groups are there when it comes to talking about abortion?” Everybody started yelling, “pro choice and pro life” but there was this one voice, which was louder than everybody else’s combined, and it said, “prohibition and anti-prohibition.” I have no idea what Marcel had in mind when he said those words, but it was something. We laughed, Dees walked out, and everybody just looked at Marcel.

About gay rights, I think our class was divided 50/50.

Peter: To me a marriage is between a man and a woman, and I do not agree with saying two men or two women are married.

Josh: Why should they be allowed to marry when it’s considered immoral.

Desoree’: You cannot help who you like and no body should be able to tell you whether you can marry the person or not.

Josh: What if I like more than one girl? I can’t go off marrying both of them, it’s immoral, and society doesn’t allow it!

Mr. Dees: No nation in the history of man kind has ever approved the marriage between the same sexes. Homosexuality was okay in the Greek world, but even they were never married. Then, how can America do something of such sort? We’ll be the first one’s do to so. How will the rest of the world react?

My response (which I did not share): 200yrs ago when United States became a
nation, it set up a type of government that no other nation had. They made three
branches of government, everything was on a trial basis, and it has worked perfectly fine till this point. Why can’t then United States be the first nation to approve gay marriages? I know it’s a whole lot bigger topic, but hey somebody has to take the first step and in my opinion more and more homosexuals are coming out of the closet. Now, it’s not something people are surprised to find out about, it’s becoming a very common thing. Ten-twenty years down the road, nobody will give a second thought to this topic.

About abortion, I’m pro-choice! I don’t believe in applying my beliefs on somebody else’s life. Everybody has the right to make decisions that best suits them. If abortion is the best thing for them, I say go for it!

Chapter 5
After today I hate Mr. Washington more than ever!! We had our first test in programming today. Everybody would have done perfectly fine if he had actually used the book when teaching because the questions that he did ask on the test came directly from the book. He used the technical language and asked the most outrageous questions. It was all multiple choice and on one of the question he didn’t even give an option for the correct answer, that too on purpose. He’s the most idiotic fellow I’ve ever met! I so wish Mr. Smith was still at this school.

Chapter 6
Now, going back in time a little.

Raksha Bandhan was on Monday. This year, for some unknown reason, Hansag actually wanted me to tie a rakhi on his hand. Not only that, he agreed to wear to school as well. So, him and I got on Papa’s back to go to the market and get a Rakhi for him (another reason was I just wanted to go somewhere and not stay at home, I was bored). Papa said, “I have one somewhere, I’ll get it out.” I asked Hansag, “Do you want me to tie an old Rakhi? If not then talk to Papa.” :) hehe… so after we achieved in our task of getting on Dad’s nerves we finally went out and got a rakhi that had GaneshJi’s image on it.

In the morning the whole Raksha Bandhan thing slipped our mind, though. When we reached the school Papa asked, “Kishu, did you tie the Rakhi?” and I just sat there with my mouth popped open. Finally, Hansag replied, “We’ll do that in the evening.” Surprisingly, he actually gave me some money. Not a lot, but he doesn’t have a job you know. That was very kind of him, I must say.

Chapter 7
I do not know where Hansag’s getting his money from but today he gave me $5 so that I could eat subway. We had the first FBLA meeting and Papa picked us up around 4:15pm. In the car Hansag bhaijaan started yelling and crying to get domino’s. I refused to eat another slice of a pizza with so much cheese on it. I’m more of a salad person, I like subway (eat fresh!). So, I was arguing with both, Papa and Hansag, about getting pizza every other day and in turn helping Hansag’s belly grow more and more. Hansag said I could have my sub and handed me a $5 bill from his wallet :O

Chapter 8
Yup, first FBLA meeting was held today, after almost a month of the school’s reopening. More than 60 people came and I think that’s a record. We have never seen so many people in the first organizational meeting (at least not in the past three years). All the basic things were covered, officers introduced, talked about last years national conference, and a slide show of photographs was presented. It was pretty boring.

Oh yeah, the Motivational Rally is September 30th and our homecoming day is October 1st (the next day). It seems like not a lot of people will be able to attend, so there’s a chance that nobody from our school will show up there. Personally, I don’t really mind missing the parade and the pep rally; it’s not that big a deal to me anyways. I’ve seen better in India!

Chapter 9
I have not seen any Hindi movies in ages! I don’t even know what’s going on these days. Nirali and Janki sit their talking about the stories, actors, and songs; I’ve never even heard of any of the things they mention. I don’t think I’m missing out on a lot though, because this is how their conversations goes:

Day 1
Nirali: Oh! Really want to see Lakshya
Janki: Don’t watch it, it’s
really bad!

Day2
Nirali: I saw Lakshya. It was so bad, a
complete waste of time.
Janki: I told you so.
Nirali: Yeah, but Preity
Zinta and Hrithik were in it. I had to see it!

The same thing goes for every single Hindi movie. My dear GHP peeps, the movies we saw, the movies our Kwanza dear loves, and the songs I often hummed around you guys are a selected few that were (and will forever remain) extremely good. Love me guys! ;)

Chapter 10
Tomorrow is a Bollywood concert in Atlanta area somewhere – Temptation 2004, Starring… Shahrukh Khan, Rani Mujherji, Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta, Arjun Rampal, and Priyanka Chopra (Miss World 2000, I think). Well, it’s going to be bindas, and guess what? I’m going :O Yeah, yeah, with parents, and my brother, but didn’t you hear me – SHAHRUKH, RANI, SAIF, PREITY, RAMPAL, AND MISS WORLD CHOPRA and I’M GOING! Am excited!

Conclusion
I think I’ve covered pretty much everything in this novella (at least the main things have already been read by you). If I ever skip writing a blog for such a long time in the future, I’ll write a sequel to this one ;)