Manic about Buffy

Everyone has had an idol, a hero or even a normal person to look up to. Someone inspirational, someone extraordinary,
Someone with so much influence, it drove him or her crazy. Yeah, everyone had someone. I had Buffy.

Why Buffy, you ask? Why not Buffy? I mean, Buffy had everything a girl could dream of! Fortitude, beauty, wit, intelligence, amazing sartorial choices and the position as the 'Chosen One'. Well, not many fans dream of BEING the slayer, but I sure did!

I know you guys think I'm crazy. I mean, why would anyone in his or her right mind want to be a slayer, much less believe that the preposterous idea could even be possible? Well, then, let me tell you. I wasn't your average hard-core fan. I was THE HARD CORE fan. I had everything from posters, pictures, books, episode guides, a membership in their official site, a subscription to their official magazine and so much more. I was a walking, talking Buffy guide as well. My friends would all ask me about last night's episode or the probability of Spike turning human. I had all the answers, all the Buffy merchandise and every fan's envy. Still that wasn't enough.

I soon began to fantasise about how cool life would be if a guy turned up one day and told me I was to be the "girl chosen in all her generation to fight evil". The idea, like I said above, was obviously ridiculous, but I somehow saw myself waiting for my 15th birthday. Buffy was 15 when her first watcher, Merrick, approached her to inform her of her new responsibility.

I didn't want to be like Buffy. I wanted to BE Buffy. To me, Buffy was the ultimate superhero. I made sure I never missed out a single episode, so that I could pick up Buffy's lingo and her style. I even started to take karate classes to learn how to fight. In my (over imaginative) mind's eye, I had to be the perfect slayer.

Well, eventually, after I turned 15, it finally hit that that wasn't going to happen. It was quite a blow, but I managed to cope with it. However, Buffy is still a major part of my life. Even after I've come to terms with a fact that I am a mere mortal with no superhuman strengths, Buffy continues to inspire me to be the best that I can. She has helped me realise just how important it is to be able to be confident about myself, to be comfortable with what I am and to do my thing with poise and a little sass.

Buffy may be just a character in a fictional story about stereotypical vampires and demons, but to me she is my hero. Without her, life would have been tedious and uninteresting. Without her, I would never have been able to dream (even though some of dreams have been way too out-of-reach. And without her, I never would have realised, that I wouldn't be ostracised by just being a little different from my peers. All in all, I was not only able to find a friend in a fictional character, but with the help of Buffy, I was finally able to find the slayer in myself.

By Sumbal Momen

To get a good husband

Just like countries all over the world, on 8 March, International Women's Day was observed in Bangladesh. Although in recent times women have been empowered significantly in our country, there still remains a lot to be achieved. I firmly believe that the vast majority of Bangladeshi men must change the way they view women. Why? Well, an incident that recently took place in my classroom will explain my remark.

On 10 March a teacher at my educational institution was explaining the factors influencing 'perception' to us. During the course of her lecture she asked the females to tell her what they would expect from their future husbands. The women promptly answered sensibly that they would expect them to be caring, understanding and respectful towards them. On the other hand, when the teacher asked the men to tell her about their expectations from their future wives, most of them answered that they expected them to be good-looking & fair. They also went on to add that they would be strongly against the idea of letting their wives work. According to them, wives should just simply carry out household chores and rear children. Hearing these comments the teacher asked them why they were against letting their wives work. One of them went on to say, "I will earn enough money and so my wife will not have to work." Another one stated, " They will face harassment from their male colleagues at office and so they should not work". The teacher became dumbfounded hearing all these ludicrous remarks. However, she managed to keep her composure and asked them to tell her why women should bother to study then if they did not want their wives to work. To my utter surprise the answer was: "TO GET A GOOD HUSBAND". I was shocked to hear such an answer, as I am sure were the teacher and all the females present in the class. Just imagine a woman going through the trouble of doing her O-Levels, A-Levels, BBA & MBA in order to get a good husband! The very thought of it sounds grotesque to me.

Although we have a woman as our Prime Minister, the status that women have in Bangladesh is generally poor. Most men still view them as somebody who should just take care of all the housework. Some men are even narrow-minded enough to view them simply as a symbol of sex. They fail to accept that women can play an important part in the economic development of this country. This is the 21st century and therefore it is time for men to 'grow up' with their attitude towards women. Women should be allowed to work because they are perfectly capable of carrying out a task as good as men, if not better. If a woman works it does not necessarily mean that she will abandon her responsibilities of housework and child rearing. What it means is that she will share these responsibilities with her husband. In other words, both partners will equally carry out household chores.

For far too long women's rights have been ignored. All men should make the year 2004 truly significant by vowing that they will help to empower women. And above all, they should refrain from making remarks like: "TO GET A GOOD HUSBAND"!

By Sayeed Mahmud Nizam

Sleepwalking

With hands raised in front of her and eyes closed, she swayed in the gentle breeze of the night. From a distance, it was possible for anyone to mistake her for a ghost standing in a corner of the roof. One more step would have deadly consequences. She was unaware of the danger that lay before her. She raised her left foot another inch and was about to plunge into darkness, when a pair of strong hands pulled her to safety. That was the third time in one week that she went sleepwalking up to the roof, and only God knew how many more times she would be doing it in the near future.

Freaky! Even though I have been a pretty regular 'sleepwalker' ever since I can remember, I never did anything half as scary as that! All I do is say a few absurd lines, which is mostly witnessed by my sister with whom I share a room. In my case, it is rather difficult to say when I am awake and when I am not, since I never have my hands raised or eyes closed when I am sleepwalking.

The night before a certain Half-Yearly examination, I had forgotten to put the clipboard in my bag, and somehow, I realized that in my dream. One moment I was snoring contently in my bed and the next moment I was busily rummaging through the mess on my table. My sister was definitely shocked to see my sudden burst of energy, and asked about what I was searching for. This simple question got me so angry that I forgot what I was looking for in the first place. But I frowned and involuntarily said, 'Daath!'
'What?'

‘'I am looking for my daath! Oh god, daath! Don't you understand? Teeth? Daath? I am looking for my teeth!' With a huge sigh of frustration and a vain attempt to find my 'daath,' I went back to sleep. God knows what sent me looking for my teeth in the middle of the night when I do not have any fake gold tooth or braces!

Then this other time, I jumped off bed and pounced on my sister, who was leaning down on something, grabbed her shoulders and made her face me and screamed, 'He didn't do it! I swear he did not do it! He didn't!' After mumbling it to myself a few more times, I was back in bed, snoring peacefully once again.

I love playing chess and had once attended a chess tournament. It had been a nine day long tournament where each player had to attend nine matches in total. On a night during this period, I was fast asleep before my sister even turned off the lights. When she finally did that and came to sleep, I covered her side of the bed and said, 'No! Don't sit here. It's my opponent's seat, not yours!' Bewildered, she tried to remove my hands from her pillow, but I was adamant! After protesting for a while, I finally woke up, and figured out what the whole thing was all about, and without saying another word, went back to sleep. At least, I woke up at the end!

Another time, I was dreaming that my sister was not home and I was asking everyone else at home where she had gone. The reply that I was getting from everyone was that she was out, but no one was telling me exactly where she was. This got me absolutely infuriated and I opened my eyes and screamed at the person who was around. 'But where is she? I've been asking everyone this question for so long, and all that people say is she's out! I know she is out. The question is, where is she?' Funny though, it was my sister that I was talking to!

Two or three days back, at night, the lights were out and I was sleeping but my sister was awake next to me. I was mumbling at first but soon began talking clearly as if I was awake. 'Tahiya was online. She was still supposed to be online. Where is she now? She wasn't supposed to go offline!' I sat up and squinted in the dark. 'What's wrong? Why can't I see anything? Why is it so dark?' My sister, who had finally learnt to play along, said, 'It's okay. She just went offline.' 'No no, no! She shouldn't have. She wasn't supposed to!' I said once more, and, as usual, went back to sleep.

Sleepwalking is sometimes seen as a sign of depression by psychiatrists. Of course, it does depend on other factors too. Surely, it cannot be the case with me! Otherwise, I would have had committed suicide by now after suffering from depression all these years!

By Marwa

Of make-up, mascara and madness

I have to admit that being a member of the fairer sex isn't an easy job. You have to spend your entire lifetime on pointed heels,

Straightening and then re-straightening your hair and applying tons of make-up for no good reason at all. So why do girls love spending so much time in front of the mirror? I must mention here, girls aren't the only ones concerned with looks. Nowadays the men are giving the women good competition.

I don't really know what the point of this article is, but I am hoping that it at least has a point! Now, we were discussing girls and their never-ending quest to achieve Barbie doll looks. So what really drives a woman to wake up every morning and put on the make-up, the lipstick, the eyeliner, the mascara, the nail-polish and…(it is impossible to mention the entire list in just one article)? Now, not all girls paint their faces every morning and have a matching shoe with every dress. Some of us are actually quite indifferent about these things while some of us can't seem to get enough. There are some who cannot imagine stepping out of the house with one hair out of place or one inch of the face unpainted. God forbid if their nail polish doesn't match the colour of their dress. Then there are those who always seem as if they have just rolled out of bed, but that, I am told, is their "style". No matter how girls like to dress up, it seems very obvious that almost all girls enjoy looking good. Even youngsters, nowadays, love to copy the fashion trends set by their older role models. As soon as they enter the senior section, their hairstyle becomes more fashionable, their eyebrows become shapelier and their wardrobe is updated. Some of it maybe brought about by peer pressure, but we all know deep down inside that they enjoy looking like the older girls or in some cases, the Indian film stars.

Nowadays, dressing for a party no longer means putting on a nice dress and a little lipstick. The "complete" woman should have the perfect shade of eye shadow, the right amount of make-up and millions of other things I do not even know the name of! In the end, you should look as if you are actually wearing very little or preferably no make-up at all. Therefore, the point of the entire tedious process of putting on tons of make-up is to appear as if you are hardly wearing any! This concept of "subtle" make-up is catching on very fast. Then there is the "slight" matter of clothes and those perfectly matching shoes. Believe it or not, most girls give their shoes more importance than any other part of their attire. There is an unwritten law that the less comfortable a shoe is, the more stylish it is. Getting our feet into these high-heeled atrocities is a great achievement indeed and walking through the streets of Dhaka wearing them is an even greater feat. Most girls agree that jewellery is an essential part of one's attire. It is no longer appropriate to wear just a single pair of earrings-you must have at least 3 pairs on. Then comes the bracelets, the anklets, the necklaces, the bangles…(and once again, the list is too long) and let me not even mention about all the places in your body that you can pierce! I don't really understand the purpose of weighing yourself down with so much jewellery but then again, I suppose I'm an exception.

The truth of the matter is that when girls look good, they feel good about themselves. Some admit that looking good gives them confidence. However, it isn't a good idea to become obsessed about these things and to spend your entire life staring at yourself in the mirror. No one wants to talk to someone, whose most important thing in life is the shade of her lipstick. After all, looking good isn't half as nice unless you have a beautiful personality to go with it!

By Ayesha Sanchita Mahmud