Okay, I didn't mean for that to be all caps, but I'll leave it as is. I'll be glad that my guests will get to see a more sparkly apartment, but still, I hate cleaning. …

At my aunt's house the other day, I saw various artifacts of various cultures and countries. The matroshka doll sort of disconcerted me. I'm not used to looking at that nested metaphor while hearing women …

Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is, or soon will be, an audiobook. The excerpt is worth a listen. Dan on Slashdot, when I complained that "Stopping the 56K Hate" is almost Jon Katzian but not enough:" …

I had a lot of fun. I went to my sister's party with Leonard and Camille and so many of my sister's friends. There was much eating and some mall shopping, and I watched "Black …

My mom and I finally lost patience with each other while I was practicing driving -- during rush hour today. I knew it had to happen sooner or later. Back to Berkeley tomorrow, the sooner …

"Gourmet soap" and "If you open it, you buy it. Don't get caught!" and "We Don't Except Checks": seen at Food King yesterday. Drove with Mom for the first time and second time yesterday. She …

Hindi film, steering, reading, writhing, and arithmetic. Title from the intro to most Russian fairy tales, "Once there was..." (mutatis mutandis for gender and number, of course). Lagaan. Today I finished watching Lagaan, also known …

  Er, that is to say, I'm in Stockton for a few more days, and I'm brown. Trilingual hilarity from the Harihareswara household: "What is the Russian for [Kannada for 'are you full?']?""Why would they …

Congratulations, Windows 98, for crashing and erasing my eloquence. Funny, isn't it, that this almost never happened in Russia, and yet as soon as I have to use my father's machine....but never mind. My father …

Reverse culture shock feels a little harder than the culture shock of going to Russia. There were no orientations for the return. All the signs are in English. Everyone speaks English. Well, almost everyone. I …