blooper moments in the US of A

“Hi…How may I help you?”

“I need…(blah blah)”

“Do you have your ID?”

“Yeah, it’s 1-1-0…”

“No, I meant if you have the card…’cos I need to make sure you are who you’re claiming to be and you also seem to be schizophrenic…”

You would have thought it to have been rude. It was too quick. The conversation had hardly started and this person had noticed this so quick. Well…, I was wearing a T-Shirt that said

‘I’m not schizophrenic…and neither am I’. So it was all in good humour.

At another office…

“Ok…welcome aboard. Introduce yourself to others who work here.”

“Hi, I’m Vydhieswaran…”

“Hi, I’m Erin…”

“Graduate student here…??”

“No…under-graduate”

“Oh…I’m a grad student…which major? (I probably meant which engineering department?)”

“Criminology…”

I couldn’t go on with the conversation for a moment…Not that I haven’t heard of criminology, but the fact that there is something called criminology hit me only then (nothing against criminology or people who do it). Only after that, I remembered that I’m away from home…where the question would have been which college and the answer would have been some Rakayee Mookayee Engineering college (Thanks to my high school math teacher for the name). Here, people atleast study what they want and don’t follow the wave.
I felt cheap when I said “Oh OK…I think I would be going…got a class in sometime.” with a stupid grin.

Back home this is more or less the case…

The Indian fresher party or the free-dinner-day…was fun even for someone like me,who is not interested in dancing to music. The agenda of the day had been met…food. Then started the actual paaarddy. The crowd basically got divided into one huge and one tiny group. The tiny group was the supposedly less cool, tamil speaking one. This group had me and a few others, who I am going describe in detail now. These few are the ones who are always in two minds. They want to join the party and enjoy. But there is something thats stopping them. They always want company…like our Vivek puts it “ஒண்ணுக்கு போக கூட ஒங்களுக்கு company வேணுமாடா…?” I couldn’t go home alone at this point of time on a Saturday night, with recent mugging and armed robberies going on around. I ask them “Either you guys go dance and I’ll go somewhere and be back when you are done or we’ll atleast go home if you aren’t doing anything”. No, they won’t listen. “தமிழன் மானத்த வாங்காம வுட மாட்டீங்கடா”. Of all the places, we decide to kick one-guys butt in the name of today-is-not-my-birthday…bums. Everybody (in the tiny group) starts to try and catch some guy to hold and kick. I also got kicked. தமிழன் மானத்த இப்புடி சூத்துல…ச்சீ…காத்துல பறக்க வுட்டீங்களேடா ??!!

We went to DC, few days back. I happened to be the photographer of the trip. Being the photographer has its own problems.
1. You tend to get lost, when you keep trying to get a good shot.
2. If people see a decent cam in your hand,they think you are some big photographer and they give you their camera and say “Bhai saabh…ek pikchar…”.
3. The most pissing thing of all, is that you don’t get a good picture of yours…

The photo I clicked

The photo of me, clicked by my friend…

Food is another thing if you are a vegetarian like me…I’ve never thought about spending on food until I came here. There aren’t many options if you are a vegetarian. All I got in the food court in a museum in DC was a cheese pizza. I thought that must be filling leave alone it tasting good. What I ended up eating was the thinnest pizza slice of my life. It was thin beyond imagination. I wondered how they priced it the price I paid it for. I’m sure food is going to be one helluva thing these two years for me who has never been out of home for school, college or work.

Here I am waiting for my first coffee (the real coffee) watching tamil comedy on youtube and waiting for more blooper moments and about click on “Publish”.