Nothing ever happens around here
People are starting to say that I don’t blog about the things happening here anymore… Well, the reason is, nothing ever happens here… =)
For instance, nothing ever happens in Drik…
We wake up at about 9 every morning, reach work at 10+ (that’s late btw… but we don’t really care to be on time since there’s nothing for us to do here…), and we set up our laptops and start surfing the internet… I’ve been uploading my pictures everyday but it’s not finished yet because of all that backlog from the past 3 months… (Anyway, I suspect one of my rolls of film is missing or isn’t scanned yet…) Otherwise, I’m setting up my blog for when the photos are ready… There’s not much work, except that I just got two books yesterday to write summary scripts for…
There’s this group of models who rent the Gallery to rehearse for their performance at some snazzy hotel for the Bengali New Year coming up on the 14th… Not sure I like them much… I’m sure they’re expert models… but dancing?... And besides, they’ve been leaving behind a mess everyday and poor Azirha has to clean up after them in the mornings… Think that’s pretty irresponsible…
Drik’s been having a massive change in employment… Abir is leaving for another good job at the European Photo Agency… Tutul and Amin have been shipped off to Drik India for an exchange program for 4 months… We are having a new operations manager who starts work today… No idea what his name is… We had two new people at Multimedia, to work on our human rights portal www.banglarights.net ... Two more people to help out at AV… And I’m sure there are other new people around that I just haven’t met yet…
Big Boss got upset one day cos he discovered that everyone wasn’t working… Myself included… He found some of them watching cricket, playing games on the computer…. And he was completely disillusioned… I feel bad for him… Everyone knew everyone else was slacking off… And it isn’t really their fault… There isn’t much to do during off peak periods anyway… But Big Boss didn’t know that… And his face was blacker than coal all that day… His assistant was relating the whole story of that day to us after work… It was quite ridiculously funny actually… Even though we were all in disgrace...
Yup… Nothing ever happens at Drik. Heck! Nothing ever happens at lunch time either…
Jess & I recently discovered two nice little eating places… One of them is a branch of Mango Café called “Escape From Shanghai”. The picture in my profile was taken there… And the place really looks like that… Very pink and dreamy… We were just trying out my camera and Jess happened to get a very good moment when the waiter walked by… We edited it to make the colour richer and I cropped it to get the movie effect… Giving it a very ‘In the mood for love’ feel… (We’re crazy about the show… heh!)
We also discovered “Shwarma Palace”… A shwarma looks like a mos rice burger… Only the bread isn’t rice… It’s filled with very nice bits of beef or chicken and it’s topped with shredded cucumber and sour cream… And you eat it with their own chilli sauce… Very good… And the best part? For less than Tk100, you get a shwarma and a lassi (sweet yoghurt drink) and you actually feel quite full. No worries of overeating there…
After work is even worse…
The weather has gone rather wonky nowadays… Kinda like Singapore weather… One minute it’s extremely hot, and the next minute, it’s raining cats and dogs… Once, Jess & I and Jo (She’s this exchange student from Bolton, called Joanna, but we call her Jo… She has 3 kids… 14yr old Isabelle, 12yr old Sophie and 9yr old Anna… and says ’bloke’ all the time) decided to go to Rifles Square… It suddenly started raining and Jo & I got drenched in the rickshaw… It was the funniest thing when we arrived at rifles sopping wet! Everyone was staring at us… (But don’t worry, Mom… I didn’t fall sick… )
Last week, we went to a meeting of Shadhus and Bauls. They are spiritual gurus and musicians. They play very traditional music using the local instruments like the ektara and the banjo and other things that I don’t know the names of… It was a really beautiful night… No rain there… There was a stage set up for all of them to sit and perform… At times, there would be individual performances… The music is so dreamy at times… And I must say, the light was fantastic… A large majority of the audience were photographers from the local papers, and the Pathshala students… They were having a real field day cos the stage was so well lit… And the organizers, my friend Zaid was one of them, were going around burning a strong that produced a lot of smoke, and creating a really dreamy mood in the entire place… *Pictures coming soon*
Jess went to a dentist here to get her teeth cleaned… And she said it’s the most ‘worse’ (she must say it so it sounds like ‘wuursse?’) experience she ever had in a dental clinic… For one thing, one of the thingys that they stuck in her mouth got spray all over her face and made the sides of her mouth sore for days… On top of that, they chipped her teeth… Good grief… But she took it quite ok… Said she’ll get dentures in future… Cos her mum got them and her smile looks fantastic now…
We got invited to Big Boss’ home last night, and Big Boss’ wife is the sweetest, most darling lady I’ve ever met… She looks really classy and all… But is still very motherly and hospitable… (She and my big boss are so so so in love!) She considers us like her own children… And she said that her home is our home in Bangladesh… When I mentioned how much I liked her place, she excitedly showed me around…
It is the coziest and loveliest apartment place here… They don’t use white light… only yellow lights… (Except in their work rooms..) The living room has nice carpets and cushions so that we can sit on the floor comfortably… It’s also filled with lots of little trinkets from all over the world… And tons of really interesting books… They even have this really lovely filing cabinet that they got made and they even hired a rickshaw artist to come and paint rickshaw designs on each drawer! It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen! The food was great too… And my lady boss would never claim credit for preparing the food herself, she would tell us that it was because of their nice cook that we get such good food… I overate… again…
Don’t even talk about Pathshala… Nothing ever happens there…
When I got back from Singapore, I couldn’t open my closet for 3 days because the keys were locked in the office and Joseph, who has the keys to the office, was on leave… I panicked and did some emergency shopping… heheh… Good thing I left some clothes out to dry before I left and I could wear those as well… The problem was, I had a lot of food from Singapore but I couldn’t cook them because my kettle was in the closet… Irony…
The mangoes on the mango tree had started to grow and everyone has been picking them… They’re all very small and hard… I tried one and it was quite sour… but very crunchy… Thing is, Noyon’s gotten into the habit of calling Jess & I to pick mangoes for him whenever he wants to eat them.. cos he’s too short to get them from the tree… Sometimes, we just pretend we don’t know what he’s talking about…
Abbas and Koli have arrived back in Dhaka to stay for good… And Noyon has a playmate again… I’m not sure if that’s a good thing… cos they make so much noise! But Abbas is cute… He’s actually younger than Noyon but he’s much bigger than Noyon… I think he’s even gotten taller since the last time he was here… Must be because his dad is big… (His dad is Malu, if you have forgotten… A really annoying bloke… )
There’s this other little girl who comes round on Fridays as well… Called Medha… I have no idea who she is and who’s she is… But she’s really cute and drew a nice little picture and gave it to me… I think Abbas and Noyon like her too. Haha…
As for me? Nothing ever happens to me also…
When I arrived back at Dhaka, the first welcome I got was a hit on the head by a luggage that fell from the overhead compartment as one of the passengers was getting his luggage... It smarted at that moment... But the guy was so apologetic, and I didn't want the other passengers to chide him for his mistake... So I just smiled and told him I was ok... While secretly rubbing the bump on my head... No loss though... Not much IQ points to lose.. haha!
For instance, nothing ever happens in Drik…
We wake up at about 9 every morning, reach work at 10+ (that’s late btw… but we don’t really care to be on time since there’s nothing for us to do here…), and we set up our laptops and start surfing the internet… I’ve been uploading my pictures everyday but it’s not finished yet because of all that backlog from the past 3 months… (Anyway, I suspect one of my rolls of film is missing or isn’t scanned yet…) Otherwise, I’m setting up my blog for when the photos are ready… There’s not much work, except that I just got two books yesterday to write summary scripts for…
There’s this group of models who rent the Gallery to rehearse for their performance at some snazzy hotel for the Bengali New Year coming up on the 14th… Not sure I like them much… I’m sure they’re expert models… but dancing?... And besides, they’ve been leaving behind a mess everyday and poor Azirha has to clean up after them in the mornings… Think that’s pretty irresponsible…
Drik’s been having a massive change in employment… Abir is leaving for another good job at the European Photo Agency… Tutul and Amin have been shipped off to Drik India for an exchange program for 4 months… We are having a new operations manager who starts work today… No idea what his name is… We had two new people at Multimedia, to work on our human rights portal www.banglarights.net ... Two more people to help out at AV… And I’m sure there are other new people around that I just haven’t met yet…
Big Boss got upset one day cos he discovered that everyone wasn’t working… Myself included… He found some of them watching cricket, playing games on the computer…. And he was completely disillusioned… I feel bad for him… Everyone knew everyone else was slacking off… And it isn’t really their fault… There isn’t much to do during off peak periods anyway… But Big Boss didn’t know that… And his face was blacker than coal all that day… His assistant was relating the whole story of that day to us after work… It was quite ridiculously funny actually… Even though we were all in disgrace...
Yup… Nothing ever happens at Drik. Heck! Nothing ever happens at lunch time either…
Jess & I recently discovered two nice little eating places… One of them is a branch of Mango Café called “Escape From Shanghai”. The picture in my profile was taken there… And the place really looks like that… Very pink and dreamy… We were just trying out my camera and Jess happened to get a very good moment when the waiter walked by… We edited it to make the colour richer and I cropped it to get the movie effect… Giving it a very ‘In the mood for love’ feel… (We’re crazy about the show… heh!)
We also discovered “Shwarma Palace”… A shwarma looks like a mos rice burger… Only the bread isn’t rice… It’s filled with very nice bits of beef or chicken and it’s topped with shredded cucumber and sour cream… And you eat it with their own chilli sauce… Very good… And the best part? For less than Tk100, you get a shwarma and a lassi (sweet yoghurt drink) and you actually feel quite full. No worries of overeating there…
After work is even worse…
The weather has gone rather wonky nowadays… Kinda like Singapore weather… One minute it’s extremely hot, and the next minute, it’s raining cats and dogs… Once, Jess & I and Jo (She’s this exchange student from Bolton, called Joanna, but we call her Jo… She has 3 kids… 14yr old Isabelle, 12yr old Sophie and 9yr old Anna… and says ’bloke’ all the time) decided to go to Rifles Square… It suddenly started raining and Jo & I got drenched in the rickshaw… It was the funniest thing when we arrived at rifles sopping wet! Everyone was staring at us… (But don’t worry, Mom… I didn’t fall sick… )
Last week, we went to a meeting of Shadhus and Bauls. They are spiritual gurus and musicians. They play very traditional music using the local instruments like the ektara and the banjo and other things that I don’t know the names of… It was a really beautiful night… No rain there… There was a stage set up for all of them to sit and perform… At times, there would be individual performances… The music is so dreamy at times… And I must say, the light was fantastic… A large majority of the audience were photographers from the local papers, and the Pathshala students… They were having a real field day cos the stage was so well lit… And the organizers, my friend Zaid was one of them, were going around burning a strong that produced a lot of smoke, and creating a really dreamy mood in the entire place… *Pictures coming soon*
Jess went to a dentist here to get her teeth cleaned… And she said it’s the most ‘worse’ (she must say it so it sounds like ‘wuursse?’) experience she ever had in a dental clinic… For one thing, one of the thingys that they stuck in her mouth got spray all over her face and made the sides of her mouth sore for days… On top of that, they chipped her teeth… Good grief… But she took it quite ok… Said she’ll get dentures in future… Cos her mum got them and her smile looks fantastic now…
We got invited to Big Boss’ home last night, and Big Boss’ wife is the sweetest, most darling lady I’ve ever met… She looks really classy and all… But is still very motherly and hospitable… (She and my big boss are so so so in love!) She considers us like her own children… And she said that her home is our home in Bangladesh… When I mentioned how much I liked her place, she excitedly showed me around…
It is the coziest and loveliest apartment place here… They don’t use white light… only yellow lights… (Except in their work rooms..) The living room has nice carpets and cushions so that we can sit on the floor comfortably… It’s also filled with lots of little trinkets from all over the world… And tons of really interesting books… They even have this really lovely filing cabinet that they got made and they even hired a rickshaw artist to come and paint rickshaw designs on each drawer! It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen! The food was great too… And my lady boss would never claim credit for preparing the food herself, she would tell us that it was because of their nice cook that we get such good food… I overate… again…
Don’t even talk about Pathshala… Nothing ever happens there…
When I got back from Singapore, I couldn’t open my closet for 3 days because the keys were locked in the office and Joseph, who has the keys to the office, was on leave… I panicked and did some emergency shopping… heheh… Good thing I left some clothes out to dry before I left and I could wear those as well… The problem was, I had a lot of food from Singapore but I couldn’t cook them because my kettle was in the closet… Irony…
The mangoes on the mango tree had started to grow and everyone has been picking them… They’re all very small and hard… I tried one and it was quite sour… but very crunchy… Thing is, Noyon’s gotten into the habit of calling Jess & I to pick mangoes for him whenever he wants to eat them.. cos he’s too short to get them from the tree… Sometimes, we just pretend we don’t know what he’s talking about…
Abbas and Koli have arrived back in Dhaka to stay for good… And Noyon has a playmate again… I’m not sure if that’s a good thing… cos they make so much noise! But Abbas is cute… He’s actually younger than Noyon but he’s much bigger than Noyon… I think he’s even gotten taller since the last time he was here… Must be because his dad is big… (His dad is Malu, if you have forgotten… A really annoying bloke… )
There’s this other little girl who comes round on Fridays as well… Called Medha… I have no idea who she is and who’s she is… But she’s really cute and drew a nice little picture and gave it to me… I think Abbas and Noyon like her too. Haha…
As for me? Nothing ever happens to me also…
When I arrived back at Dhaka, the first welcome I got was a hit on the head by a luggage that fell from the overhead compartment as one of the passengers was getting his luggage... It smarted at that moment... But the guy was so apologetic, and I didn't want the other passengers to chide him for his mistake... So I just smiled and told him I was ok... While secretly rubbing the bump on my head... No loss though... Not much IQ points to lose.. haha!
Strangely enough, maybe because of the way I dress, people have started to mistake me for a local... From the tribal areas... The people from the Chittagong Hill Tracts look like Thai... and they look like us... One guy at the Airport spoke to me in Bangla, offering to help me with my luggage... until his fren told him that he didn't think I was local... Then the guy turned back and said "bangladeshi na?" And I said "Na..." That cleared it up...
My sister got me a CD to learn Bengali from Singapore… Haven’t started using it… But am seriously planning to… And continue learning the language… Took a break when I went home… Hmm… sounds like what I tell myself when it comes to that teach-yourself-guitar book that I have here… somewhere in my closet…
My new laptop started to crack up the last two days when some of the buttons suddenly stopped working… But I prayed about it, and asked God to fix it for me because I was at a complete loss… After that, it miraculously started working again! As though it never had the problem! Praise God!
I just signed up for a digital photography workshop at Ikon Photo… It’s taught by my Big Boss and costs Tk1200… I’m planning to really make it worthwhile for me… I’m gonna really try to learn a lot from it… Even though danny thinks I won’t because I’m “not that much intelligent”. I’m giving him the cold shoulder treatment for saying that… *evil grin*
Next month, I’m going to sign up for the basic photography course organized by Pathshala… Cost: Tk1800… To improve my techniques and my basic knowledge in photography… Never been very strong at it… And I’ve only started photography what… 6 months ago? Anything would help…
I also signed up for a module in school that just might allow me to go Sri Lanka to do a reportage… But I probably won’t get it… Which doesn’t matter too much to me either… I’m gonna be traveling around Bangladesh and maybe Calcutta after the internship anyway… My fellow Nightbird, Mark is thinking of joining me… If any of my frens is interested to travel… Please let me know… and we can try to arrange something for a bigger group…
Oh… I also might have a chance of getting my pictures published… If the journalist who needs pictures will just call me back or something… oh well… It’s a slim chance… *fingers crossed*
So, you see… There’s nothing much that I can say… Nothing ever happens around here… =)
My new laptop started to crack up the last two days when some of the buttons suddenly stopped working… But I prayed about it, and asked God to fix it for me because I was at a complete loss… After that, it miraculously started working again! As though it never had the problem! Praise God!
I just signed up for a digital photography workshop at Ikon Photo… It’s taught by my Big Boss and costs Tk1200… I’m planning to really make it worthwhile for me… I’m gonna really try to learn a lot from it… Even though danny thinks I won’t because I’m “not that much intelligent”. I’m giving him the cold shoulder treatment for saying that… *evil grin*
Next month, I’m going to sign up for the basic photography course organized by Pathshala… Cost: Tk1800… To improve my techniques and my basic knowledge in photography… Never been very strong at it… And I’ve only started photography what… 6 months ago? Anything would help…
I also signed up for a module in school that just might allow me to go Sri Lanka to do a reportage… But I probably won’t get it… Which doesn’t matter too much to me either… I’m gonna be traveling around Bangladesh and maybe Calcutta after the internship anyway… My fellow Nightbird, Mark is thinking of joining me… If any of my frens is interested to travel… Please let me know… and we can try to arrange something for a bigger group…
Oh… I also might have a chance of getting my pictures published… If the journalist who needs pictures will just call me back or something… oh well… It’s a slim chance… *fingers crossed*
So, you see… There’s nothing much that I can say… Nothing ever happens around here… =)
OFF THE RECORD: Please forgive me for this long blog again... I squeezed in weeks of stories in one entry...
posted by thebemusedphotog @ 12:47 PM
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