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Love Mathematified

As products of evolution and natural selection, we're naturally driven to look towards an external stimulus for long-term spiritual and emotional gratification and security. i.e., we want love.

Love that will lead us towards an exuberating outpouring of satisfaction while remaining caged in our moral sentiments of social norms, i.e. conducting those little mischievous deeds behind society's curtain only with the beloved.

Interpret that as you may like.
Now, what makes us tick? What makes us go all oogly eyed and weak kneed, with stomachs churning and heads reeling in dizziness? Lots of things and it all depends from one person to the next. But those lots of things have to click in all the right places. Looks usually do it for those prone to frequent crushing and simple hormonal urges. But, for those who're looking for something more than a little pish-posh fling, their criteria encompass something on a more numerous scale.

Aztec Kobutor: Let's take Captain Kauwa, for example.
CK: Wait, why me?
AK: Why not you? You're the perfect specimen.
CK: Yeah, but why take a perfect specimen for an example when you can take a thoroughly unwilling and, as of yet, unwitting perfect specimen, who has no idea about this philosophical rant? i.e., let's take Ninja Murgi as an example.

AK: A fine flock of words, my avian friend. Moving on. The idea is to recreate the perfect significant other of the specimen. To do this we must establish a list of one's needs and Mutual Interests and Wants (MIW) that hold a dominant grasp with a keratin claw on the specimen's lifestyle.

The following is a list of the wants and prerequisites that must be present in any woman, for the Murgi to seriously consider giving up his isolated life of celibacy. The creation of this list has taken countless man-hours of work, sweat and untold numbers of fluffy toys (that were subsequently mutilated in bouts of frustrated anger). Be warned the following is to be taken seriously, if you are to apply for the post of Ninja Murgi's confidante, life partner. You must also appreciate the humour behind a guy calling himself Murgi (which is the female noun yes, but Morga didn't sound cool). The established list of “Tickers” is: age, money, cars, techy stuff the Murgi doesn't have and wants, drawing abilities, singing abilities, playing the piano, Calvin and Hobbes Compendium hardcover, looks, games, owning consoles, dogs.

Once the variables have been established, calculating the likelihood of the specimen “Hooking The Knot” (HTK) with his Prospective Mate (PM) is a simple matter of figuring out the percentage. Of course, iterative meetings between the specimen and the PM can tilt the scale depending on the number of ticks tocking and, of course, the awkward silence that follows at the heels of a disastrous date, like a bat out of hell. But that's another story. First is the list, as seen above. Now what to do with it?

It's very simple mathematics, or numerics. Put that list on one side of the scale, and shift points of interests to the other side. The method is simply to read off the list, and each one that the PM does not possess, remove and shift. Eventually, you'll end up with a number of MIW on one side that resonates with your PM, and on the other, the MIW that the PM lacks in its entirety. In other words, you'll have a HTK unit of compatibility that will, at a single glance, tell you whether the scale is in your favour or not, and the likelihood of the HTK. Of course this is not perfect mathematics, or heck- real mathematics- but the higher the HTK unit, the tighter the knot, and of course the lesser, the lo(o)ser.

That's not all, of course. Now, you may think this can't make sense- how can a bunch of simple words sum up something as grand and as mysterious as the ever-elusive love? It doesn't. You see, no matter how much the compatibility, there's always that certain... X factor, the Secret Ingredient, the Chemical X... that OMPH! value that ultimately determines where any relationship is headed. The Omph is a unit of measurement ranging from -1 to infinity. Anything below a 0 is pretty much a no-no (with -1 meaning you should get the heck of that room as fast as possible), since it would render the whole a negative, which is kind of self-explanatory. Positive values such as 0.000001 are very controversial in this field of study; however it is still accepted as a plausible multiplier. Results will definitely vary, according to the PM's own Omph. The exact Omph value is never easy to determine. It must be felt, not calculated.

The equation is as follows:
Once again, we repeat that this is not perfect, or real, mathematics. But it just might work. Let us know.

NM: The Murgi, after being dragged from his dinner, found out, to his great dismay, that his birdlike friends, in their birdlike fervour, came up yet another branch of mathematics he doesn't get. Furthermore, they did this with his life as a constant, or variable or something mathematic-y. The Murgi does not like this.

Out of propriety, the Murgi would like to let the female populace (or whatever portion happens to be reading this) know, that the list is absolute. If, according to this "math" he has to compromise and shift the scale until it balances, he refuses to cooperate in conjugal dealings. Unless of course the applicant female in question were to have techy stuff he doesn't have. And a piano. In that case, he is willing to let negotiations run their due course.

It must also be noted, that the Murgi does not mean that your value is merely materialistic. He just believes that stuff, preferably techy stuff, add that OMPH, the others are talking about. If you can't record your life's moments at 1080p, it's not a healthy relationship. Trust the Murgi, he knows these things.

CK: Don't you just like to go on and on...
NM: Needs must when you force me from my dinner.
AK: Fair enough.

By The Avian Household


Book Review

Twenties Girl

EVER listen to your grandma talk about how things were done 'differently' in her time, and wish you could actually go back and see for yourself what the fuss was all about? For most of us who have, wishes like these remain just that: wishes. For Lara Lington, she of the wild imagination, however, there is a crazy, whimsical, adventure just waiting for her at her great-aunt Sadie's funeral, in Sophie Kinsella's sparkling romantic comedy 'Twenties Girl'.

Lara is pretty much living the first verse of the Rembrandt's F.R.I.E.N.D.S theme song when the book opens. Her best friend and business partner has taken an unannounced vacation, leaving the raw and inexperienced Lara to manage the newly opened head-hunting organization, her family is constantly living in the shadow of her famous Uncle Bill, and her boyfriend, the love of her life, has just unceremoniously dumped her. To make matters worse, her parents are dragging her off to the funeral of a great-aunt she has never seen, an old woman called Sadie, whose only distinction, in the eyes of her family, is that she lived to be 105 years old.

So when the ghost of Sadie suddenly materializes next to Lara, screaming about a stolen necklace, while all around her, everyone is impatiently waiting the service to be over, Lara thinks that she has finally lost it. After a lot of theatrics on Sadie's part, it becomes clear to Lara that her spectral problem will not go away, and so she agrees to help the ghost with her quest to recover her necklace, and thus begins a reckless, romantic romp that helps Lara reconnect with the past in a way she never envisioned, and turns her life, and those of everyone around her, completely upside down.

This is a light, fluffy read for the girls, and the perfect one for taking a break between study sessions. The plot is funny, without too many twists, the dialogue humorous, and one might even learn a thing or two about moving on from a bad relationship. If you want something sweet, relaxing and not too taxing, this is the perfect book for you.

By Sabrina F Ahmad
sabrina.ahmad@thedailystar.net


Kid Stars

The Whoozigan

I know a funny little creature
Who is friends with a preacher
And he is called
The Whoozigan

He lives in the deepest crevice of the ocean
And no-one has a notion
Of what he looks like
Or if he likes to ear the fish pike

Maybe he is ten feet tall?
Or perhaps he plays with a ball?
Does he like to read English?
Or maybe, is he a little bit ticklish?

No-one knows about it.
The Whoozigan

My Loose Tooth

I stand in line for the phone booth
Wiggling my loose tooth
People think I'm so uncouth
'Cause I'm wriggling my loose tooth.

By Olivia V. F. Chaudhury
Class Five,
SFX Greenherald International School

 

 
 

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