Tête-à-tête

Hey People!
These last few days have been a mishmash of good and bad news. First you have Bangladesh showing a tremendous performance, with Rafique scoring that sensational century. Then the hartal is announced, and you have people being roasted alive inside a bus. Honestly, it's like, for every forward step we take, we get dragged two steps back.

Enough with the depressing stuff. You'll probably have noticed some of the changes we've brought in this week. For one thing, you'll notice there are fewer comics and some new stuff in Page 8. We've got this new column called "Taskin Talking", for a slice of everyday life in Dhaka. We've got some science stuff for all the Einsteins and Dexters out there. We'll be getting some more new stuff soon.

Now, we did say we'd mention those people whose ideas we liked. Reader Sunny wanted something like 'Weird Web Weekly" back. Well, as our all-time favourite Alien Angel is not in the Desh right now, we've got our newbie Niloy with his column "Sites Unseen". Flip to the centre to check it out. Those that liked our Harry Potter fanfic will also like this week's issue of the column.

Moving on, next week, we'll be having our Father's Day special issue. Those who want to send a special message for your dads, hurry up and send your buzz to the "Shout Out" column at shoutout13@hotmail.com Let your daddies (or any special father-figure in your life) know how much they mean to you.

Well, I'll leave off here today. Keep reading the RS to see what further changes we bring. Till our next tête-à-tête, take care!

Send your polls, opinions, and queries to thegirlnextdoor1@hotmail.com
By The Girl Next Door

Making the Right Choice:
Career Building Programme

How many of you realise that the rest of your lives starts now, at the end of your O & A levels? How many of your realise that your future success and happiness depends on the decisions you make today? The response to both these questions is probably a sea of blank faces. None of you probably even thought about the weekend let alone what you are going to do after your O's or A's.

STOP! Look around you. The world waits for no one and before you know it, you have wasted the most important years of your life. You will wake up one morning and find the smart kids or just the wise ones are all starting or are in their second year of university and you either can’t even get in because you did not give your A levels, or you are stuck in a obscure small University with academic rejects. This might be the fate of your generation if you do not wake up and do the smart thing.

Masses of students give their O levels and not even half of them continue on to appear for their A levels, making them what the Americans would call "High School dropouts". What's more alarming is that they actually think they can get into a decent university without A Levels.

These are the misconceptions that perpetuate the mistakes students continue to make. The fact of the matter comes down to that few know the importance of A levels or what part they play in the rest of their lives and even fewer realise how crucial it is for attaining a Degree. However, where are these answers? Who can really tell you why you should give your A levels, what subject combination you should take, how to approach them from a study prospective?

After all the questions asked and facts raised, it’s refreshing to be able to tell you that there is a place you can get all your answers and help form. For 3 days from 14th June to 16th June, 2004 all your education-related question will be under one roof. For the first time ever in Bangladesh, Edexcel International, the British Council, University of Cambridge, London Metropolitan University, Victoria BETS University and the British School of Law have come together to organise the most comprehensive Career Building Programme. Three days of unlimited access to the people that can tell what you need to know.

Everything from why and which A levels subjects you should give to how to pick and apply to universities will be addressed. Usually for that kind of Information students would have to go to a number of places and still maybe not have all the answers. From smart University choices to what UCAS is and how it helps you apply to Universities in the United Kingdom these are all subjects better discussed with people that know professionals. It's so easy to get lost in Application forms, deadlines and requirements both for admissions and Visas. The point is not to get lost. There is a map of what not to do and how not to get lost however you have to know where to find it.

Generally we just end up going to a place either near our homes or some place that a known person has been to. Though a referral is good it doesn't necessarily have to be accurate. Who, however, gives us the criteria to pick an institution to study at? This is yet another issue that the organising institutions hope to deal with during their 3 day Career Building Programme. How to pick a quality and qualified institution is not only important for IELTS but for O levels, A levels and University.

We all deserve some real and honest answers for our selves and from people who actually know. The choices are ours but the information we need to make the right choices are out there and now we know where it is.

By Farheena

(This article is an outcome of the author's wild imagination. If any name or character resembles anyone living, dead or yet unborn, that's purely coincidental. That means, if you sue me I hold all the rights to sue you back.)

Boltu is in love with Moyna. He has met this angel of a girl in his maths classes. They have talked in a few occasions. Now he has come to realise that he can't possibly live without her. There's just one tiny, tiny bit of a problem. Boltu has a dark complexion! As a result, he gets all glum and disgruntled. He loses his self-confidence…and appetite, and soon develops dark-circles under his eyes, though with his colour-complexion and all it doesn't turn out to be that visible. Within a few days Boltu turns into a total recluse. He starts spending 24/7 listening to Manna De and writing aggravatingly prolonged love stories, which in turn end up saturating the dilapidated litter-box placed at one corner of the RS cubicle.

Then… one day a mutual friend informs Boltu of an element known as the Ligion Gent's Uptan. (If you happen to have a Bangla-vocabulary as rich as that of Tony Blair, uptan is one of those face-pack-things which supposed to make you look pretty). Of course, Boltu doesn't believe in the beginning. It's sheer curiosity that has brought Man this far. Boltu gets curious and starts using this so-called uptan. One week. Two weeks. Three weeks. By the end of the fourth week Boltu becomes as white as Michael Jackson! With his new looks he goes up to Moyna. Her eyes bulge out in wonder. "I love you," she cries. "I love you," he cries. They live happily ever after.

Thanks to the cheap advertisements, the above story has become quite a proletarian eyewash in our Subcontinent. Only, the version 1 generally comes across has a dark-skinned girl rather than a boy. Then again, it's the twenty-first century, mister. Here, boys and girls are all equal. Thus, when the female of the species are joining the military and playing professional football, some rare, daring, open-minded males are trying to keep-up the equilibrium by adopting every-girl's preoccupation, in other words 'beautification'. Gone are the days when a 'handsome guy' meant a rough-set bloke with an unshaven face and muscles bulging out all over. Now every man wants to be a Hugh Grant. As a result, the number of males visiting the beauty-parlours keeps increasing, and the barber-shops always end up buying more face packs than antiseptic creams.

For the sake of argument, lets say that it is imperative that a guy has to look handsome in order to remain at the top of the game. Even then, the solution should be a gym or a swimming club, not some gaudy gent's uptan. Of course, there isn't any law stating that a guy can spend one and a half hours a day smeared with stinky, dirty brown paste all over his face. Then again, no law states that a guy can't go dancing around the streets wearing tops and mini-skirt. It's just not done.

When boys like Boltu are debating as to whether or not a hint of an extra good look might win them a little portion of Moyna's heart, guileful companies come up with guileful products such as the gent's uptan. (What on earth is the difference between a ladies uptan and gent's uptan by the way?) The flashy ads instantly sear through the hearts of our ill-fated Boltus. 'Guys need to look pretty. Guys need to look lovely. Guys need to look lush, sensual, and dainty. So guys need to use the Ligion Gent's Uptan!'

Someday they'll probably come up with a gent's lipstick or something.

By Tawsif

About Potter

Now that the sixth book of our favourite series is going to be published, (hopefully in September, according to some anonymous publishers), numerous rumours are spreading like wildfire. Although only a few of those rumours are actually true, they are widely accepted and welcomed by the Harry Potter fans. Here are some of the most popular of those rumours.

Book 6 of the series is going to be called "Harry Potter and the Green Flame Torch" or "Harry Potter and the Mountain of Fantasy"
Well, these names are not even close. A torch emitting green flame wouldn't be enough to destroy Voldemort.

Professor Dumbledore is Harry's Real grandfather/close relative of some kind
No, he's not. If he was, Harry would have been living with Dumbledore instead of living with the Dursleys.

Crookshanks is an animagus
No, he's not, but he's not pure cat either. If you read "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" (published by Comic Relief), you might be able to work out what he really is.

Harry will be asked to become Minister of Magic in book seven
No, seventeen is much to young to enter politics.

Professor Lupin has a twin
No, but this obviously sprang from the fact that Lupin's first name (Remus) comes from one of the mythical founders of Rome who had a twin called "Romulus". They were raised by wolves, incidentally.

J. K. Rowling is going to write a book about Lilly and James once she has finished the seven books about Harry Potter
No, unfortunately she won't. It would have been nice to have books like that, though.

Lilly Potter was once a Death Eater
Aren't these rumour starters outrageous?

Lilly Potter is still alive
No, she's not.

Harry's a descendant of Salazar Slytherin
Nope. Dumbledore already told Harry that Voldemort is the last surviving descendant of Salazar Slytherin. This means that Harry is not a descendant of Salazar Slytherin.

Voldemort is Harry's real father
No, no, no, no. James is definitely Harry's father. Doesn't everybody Harry meets say "you look just like you father"?

By Ashiful Haque

Painting Competition

Sandhani Central Committee will be observing World Blood Donor Day, on June 14, 2004 for the first time in Bangladesh. For more than two decades Sandhani has been serving the people in need through its various programs related to voluntary blood donation, posthumous eye donation and distribution of drugs to the poor.

In accordance to the celebration of World Blood Donor Day, Sandhani Central Committee will be arranging a children's painting competition at Shishu Academy on June 14, 2004 at 4 P.M.

"Rokto Din Jibon Bachan" has been chosen as the subject for the competition for children aged under 8 years, while "Rokto Shomosha Shomadhane Sandhani" is the theme for competition for children under 12 years of age. All children will be supplied with art paper but they will have to bring required accessories with them. Participants will be presented with an attractive gift box each.