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DREAMZ
It was a pleasant afternoon in July when I was told that I was to go to a primary health centre, that our hospital
runs in Chennimalai about an hours drive away, the next day. Now as it was pleasant that day with skies overcast but no rain
the kind of day custom made for dreaming, it was exactly what I did started dreaming about what I would
do the next day.
I imagined a lovely scenic drive with the weather as pleasant as it was that day, watching
palm trees and fields and lakes and happy waving children go by as we raced smoothly alongcurving country rads with the wind
whipping across. Once we reached I would be greeted by a crowd of patients who wanted some treatment from doctoramma and would
go happy that they had gotten what they came for. There would be in-patients for whom we would do life saving interventions
and deliveries to conduct and we would do all this without the patient paying through their nose for this. Tired but happy
and satisfied, I would leave the place.
Sure enough, the next day dawned as pleasant as the previous
one. The drive was indeed scenic and idyllic but there the dream ended. We were waiting for an hour for the staff nurses to
turn up (they later explained that the timings are very difficult reaching at 8:20 am is almost impossible.) We then
had to stop to change punctured tires, which took an hour. When we finally reached there we were greeted by hundreds of ..er.
mosquitoes and one patient who just dropped in. And sure enough hse number of inpatients was overwhelming zero. Over
the next three hours we saw three patients and the staff insisted that they were very busy (We need one more staff here)
as they had to dispense medicines _ about 15 tabs of ferrous sulphate to each patient as there was no pharmacist. We
had lunch and spent the afternoon staring at the wide gates in the hope that at least one patient would arrive, but alas,
not even the mosquitoes returned. And the one dog that was on campus ran away. So the we packed up and came back a driver,
four nurses, a lab technician, a doctor, an accountant, a cook, a sweeper, a gardener not to mention 6 nursing students after
seeing 4 outpatients.
This made me think how much of our facilities are wasted in areas that do not
need them. Sure enough this village of hundred people boasts of a GH, 10-15 private practitioners, 5-6medical shops and an
X-ray and scan center. I then think of the pictures shown on TV, of the poverty in Orissa, the homeless hungry people in Gujarat
who would have to travel miles to reach any kind of medical care. Why are some areas so thickly populated with doctors
that there are more doctors that patients while those who really need it do not get anything. Why isnt charity directed at
a place where it is needed the most? Why does a place which has so much need a (of all things) a primary health centre? Think
about it. Pray about it. If you have any opinions do write in. Signing off, Priya.
Ouch! That was a mosquito announcing
its presence and heralding its death.
Bye, Priay.
SOME POEMS FROM OUR OLD TOAD - POTENTIAL DIFFERENCE AND OTHER EDITIONS
RUN AWAY?
Like the shadows of the withered tree
I feel
I feel so useless;
No birds can chirp around me
Let alone nest.
Like a drop of water in the sand,
Sinks my soul;
This is not my land,
My land is farafar.
In the shadow
of my mother,
In the house of my father,
Theres my place next to my sister.
Oh how I miss my land.
My purpose
here;
I am fulfilling not.
So why here?
When I could run away?
But,
Its their tearful prayer,
Its
His grace,
That keeps this caravan moving and
So will it till the last drop.
- Renol M Koshy
A GIRL ON THE PLATFORM
Down falls the earth, down n down,
Nay God! Never come the dawn.
From the tentacles of the sun
The silence of
deaths touch,
The moistness of eternity run
The chill in skull, yet not much,
The smell of earth in her saree
fold.
The rails have stories buried, untold
Lo! On the platform she stands,
Out of her frozen eyes, she stretches
her hand.
No motion, no request, just silence
Still stood I staring at her silence,
Away she walked, away into
the dark.
A breeze wafts past me into deaths arc.
- Anoop Mathew.
CLOUDY
Strange sounds of Korotkov, in the deep right
Moving from window to window?
An exploding fire that summoned a fire
engine ?
A rustle of turning leaf & approaching foot steps
A glimpse of a shadow, unseen and lost?
The
mystique of mystery will still remain
To confound the Mithrans till the very end
And when they but try to refrain
They find it is but their journeys end.
They all think it is, but the Cunning Saul
But I tell you he is the
righteous Paul
Woe to you O numbskull bloats
From me the one who scares thy souls.
HA! HA! HA! HA!!!
-Anonymous in its truest sense.
IN SEARCH...
Its a dark night - my life
With flashes of hope
From a few stars
That twinkle and fade.
But still I live
In search of my moon.
- A lonely soul!!
THE VALUE OF VALUE
A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a Rs. 500/- note. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would
like this 500 note?". Hands started going up.
He said, "I am going to give this note to one of you but
first let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the note up. He then asked, "Who still wants it?". Still
the hands were up in the air.
"Well," he replied, "What if I do this?". And he dropped it on the
ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. "Now who
still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.
"My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson.
No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth Rs. 500/-.
Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances
that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never
lose your value. You are special - Don't ever forget it!
MORAL of the Story :- Never let yesterday's disappointments
overshadow tomorrow's dreams VALUE HAS A VALUE ONLY IF ITS VALUE IS VALUED BY YOU. People don't plan to fail but they fail
to plan!
SENT TO US BY HARIKISHAN
SCIENCE EXAM PAPER - EXCERPTS
THESE ARE ACTUAL EXCERPTS FROM STUDENT SCIENCE EXAM
PAPERS:
The theory of evolution was greatly objected to
because it made man think.
Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and
caterpillars.
The process of turning steam back into water again is
called conversation.
A magnet is something you find
crawling all over a
dead cat.
The Earth makes one resolution every 24 hours.
To collect fumes of
sulfur, hold a deacon over a flame
in a test tube.
Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both
of them.
Algebraical symbols are used when you do not know what
you are talking about.
Geometry
teaches us to bisex angles.
A circle is a line which meets its other end without
ending.
The pistol
of a flower is its only protection against
insects.
The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is
even deader.
English sparrows and starlings eat the farmers grain
and soil his corpse.
A super-saturated
solution is one that holds more than
it can hold.
Blood flows down one leg and up the other.
The hookworm
larvae enters the human body through the
soul.
When you haven't got enough iodine in your blood you
get
a glacier.
It is a well-known fact that a deceased body harms the
mind.
For fractures: to see if
the limb is broken, wiggle it
gently back and forth.
For dog bite: put the dog away for several days. If he
has not recovered, then kill it.
For nosebleed: put the nose much lower than the body.
For drowning:
climb on top of the person and move up
and down to make artificial perspiration.
To remove dust from the eye,
pull the eye down over
the nose.
For head colds: use an agonizer to spray the nose
until it drops in
your throat.
For asphyxiation: apply artificial respiration until
the patient is dead.
Before giving
a blood transfusion, find out if the
blood is affirmative or negative.
Bar magnets have north and south poles,
horseshoe
magnets have east and west poles.
When water freezes you can walk on it. That is what
Christ
did long ago in wintertime.
When you smell an odorless gas, it is probably carbon
monoxide.
PARENTS AND PATIENCE...
This is something about one of the greatest gifts god has given us - Parents.
An old man was sitting in the courtyard
of his house along with his son who had received high education. Suddenly a crow perched on a wall of the house.
The father asked the son: What is this?
The son replied: It is a crow.
After a little while the
father again asked the son: What is this?
The son said: It is a crow.
After a few minutes the father asked
his son
the third time: What is this?
The son said: Father, I have just now told you that this is a crow.
After a little while the old father again asked
his son the fourth time: what is this?
At this time some
statement of irritation was felt in the son's tone when he said to his father with a
rebuff.He said "Father! It
is a crow, a crow".
A little after the father again asked his son: What is this?
This time the son replied
to his father with a vein of temper. "Father, you are always repeating the same question, although I have told you so
many times that it is a crow. Are you not able to understand this?"
A little later the father went to his
room and came back
with an old diary. Opening a page he asked his son to read that. When the son read it the following
words were written in the diary:
"Today my little son was sitting with me in the courtyard, when a crow
came there. My son asked me twenty-five times what it was and I told him twenty-five times that it was a crow and I did not
at all feel irritated. I rather felt affection for the innocent child.
The father then told the son the difference
saying "between a father and a sons attitude, while a little child he asked me this question twenty-five times and I
felt no irritation in replying to the question twenty-five times and when today I asked him the same question only five times,
he felt
irritated and annoyed."
SENT TO US BY ABRAR
ENGLISH IS A CRAZY LANGUAGE
Let's face it -- English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in
pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies while
sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted.
But if we explore its paradoxes, we
find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of
tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese... One blouse, 2 blice?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but
not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If
you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed
to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play
at a recital? Ship by truck
and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
How
can a "slim chance" and a "fat chance" be the same, while a "wise man" and "wise guy"
are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while "quite a lot" and "quite a few" are alike?
How can the weather be "hot
as hell" one day and "cold as hell" another? Have you noticed that
we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung
hero or experienced requited
love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable?
And where are all those people who are spring chickens or who would actually hurt a fly?
You have to marvel
at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling
it out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and
it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That is why, when
the stars are
out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, butwhen
I wind up this essay, I end it?
Now I know why I flunked my English. It's not my fault, the silly language
doesn't quite know whether it's coming or going.
SENT TO US BY ANTON
SOME MORE BLONDE!!
Legend has it that there is a coffee bar in New York where, in the
Ladies Room there is a very special mirror. If one stands in front of the mirror and tells the truth, one is granted a wish.
However, if one tells a lie "POOOFF" you
are instantly swallowed up by the mirror, never to be seen again. Soooooo....
A redhead of questionable looks walks into the ladies room and stands before the mirror and says, "I think I'm the
most beautiful woman in the world."
"POOOFF" the mirror swallows her up.
Next a rather large brunette stands
before the mirror and says, "I think I'm the sexiest woman alive."
"POOOOFF" the mirror swallows her.
Then,
an absolutely gorgeous blonde comes in and stands before the mirror and says, "I think..."
"POOOFF"
SENT TO US
BY ANTON
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TELL ME NOW WHAT IS LOVE? A group of professional
people asked a group of eight-year-olds, What does love
mean? The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined! Love is that first feeling you feel before all the bad stuff gets in the way. When
my grandma got arthritis, she couldnt bend over and paint her toenails
anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. Thats love.
When someone loves you, the way they say your name
is different. You
know that your name is safe in their mouth. Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a guy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell
each other. Love
is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs. Love is when someone hurts you. And you get so mad but you dont yell at them because you know
it would hurt their feelings. Love is what makes you smile when you are tired. Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK. If you want to learn love better, you should start with a friend who you hate. When you tell someone something bad about yourself and youre scared they wont love you anymore. But then you get surprised because not only do they still love you, they love you even more. There are two kinds of love our love and Gods love. But God makes both kinds of them. Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday. Love
is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends
even after they know each other so well. Love is when mommy gives daddy the best piece of chicken. I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and
buy new ones. I
let my big sister pick on me because my mom says she only picks on me because she loves me. So I pick on my baby sister because I love her. Love
cards like Valentines cards say stuff on them that wed like to
say ourselves, but we wouldnt be caught dead saying. When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you. You really shouldnt say I love you unless you mean it. But if you mean it you should say it a lot. People forget. - Priya.
THE FUNDAS OF LIFE
* > If your father is a poor man, it is your fate but, if your father-in-law is a poor man, it's your stupidity.
* > A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where train stops. On my desk, I have a work station....
what more can I say..........
* > If it's true that we are here to help others, then,what exactly are the others
here for?
* > Every man should marry. After all, happiness is not the only thing in life.
* > The
wise never marry, and when they marry they become otherwise
* > Never put off the work till tomorrow, what you
can put off today.
* > "Hard work never killed anybody". But why take the risk !
* > A
dress is like a barbed fence. It protects the premises without restricting the view.
* > The more you learn,
the more you know, The more you know, the more you forget, The more you forget, the less you know So..why learn
*
> Q: What's the difference between Biology and Sociology?
A: When the baby look like the father, its Biology. When
the baby looks like the neighbor,its Sociology.
* > Q: What is the difference between a good secretary& an
excellent one?
* > A: A good secretary says, "Good morning, sir." & an excellent secretary says, "It's
morning, sir.
- FROM A FRIEND'S MAIL!
SOME PLA(I)NE JOKES
Aircrafts!!
The airhostess when the plane is about to land: Please
do sit down and fasten your seat belts. We do not want any of you reaching the airport before the plane!!
Nobody can
win a war of words with an airhostess. It was the turn of
Cassius Clay or superman. When thse airhostess reminded him
for the umpteenth time to fix his seat belt he said, Superman does not need a seatbelt to which she replied, Superman does
not need a plane either! He duly buckled in his seat belt.
A guy on a plane noticed that the person next to him seemed
very
nervous. So he asked him, are you afraid of flying to which he replied, Im not afraid of flying. It is crashing that
I am afraid of!
A pilot on his way into the airport was describing the beach they were fling over, to your left you
can see the lovely rocks and on your
right is the blue water with all its frilly waves .. He was interrupted by a passenger
who got up to say, look where you are going.
A teachear as she alighted from a plane after a rather bumpy landing
told the pilot, Young man Id give you a C for tha landing to which
he replied, In our course there are no grades It is
either pass or
fail.
A lady on her first flight was very scared and thinking of crashes and
deaths and funerals.
To get her mind off such things she struck a
conversation with her neighbour and asked him, what do you do for a living.
He replied, I am an undertaker!!
An announcement on a plane which was usually late and for once was reaching on time,
I regret to announce that we are coming in on time. We apologise for the inconvenience that this might cause to our passengers
and promise that we will be late in the future!!
It is a nuisance when passengers stand up to collect their bags before
the plane taxies to a standstill. An airhostess found the right
solution for this. She announced when the plane was coming
down, " Thanks for joining us. We have a lot of cleaning to do. If anyone would like to help us, please do stand up before
the plane stops." Ha! Ha! Ha!
THE NEW ABRIDGED MEDICAL DICTIONARY
(Source: Edmonton Journal, Friday Aug 4, 1995)
BARIUM: What doctors do when patients die.
COLIC: A sheep
dog.
D&C: Where Bill Clinton lives.
DILATE: To live longer.
FESTER: Quicker.
HANGNAIL: Coat hook.
IMPOTENT: Distinguished, well known.
LABOR PAIN: Get hurt at work.
MEDICAL STAFF: A doctor's cane.
MORBID:
A higher offer.
NITRATES: Cheaper than day rates.
NODE: Was aware of.
OUTPATIENT: A patient who fainted.
PAP SMEAR: A fatherhood test.
PELVIS: Cousin to Elvis.
RECOVERY ROOM: A place to do upholstery.
RECTUM:
Dang near killed 'em.
TERMINAL ILLNESS: Getting sick at the airport.
TERMINAL ILLNESS: Getting sick at your computer.
TUMOR: More than one.
URINE: Opposite of "You're out".
PROVERBIAL CONTRADICTIONS...
Talk about contradictions...here are some proverbs
He who hesitates is lost.
Look before you leap.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Opposites attract.
Youre never too old to learn.
You
cant teach an old dog new tricks.
Ask no questions and hear no lies.
Ask and you shall receive.
Dont change horses in midstream.
Variety is the spice of life.
Doubt is the beginning, not the end,
of wisdom.
Faith will move mountains.
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
Two heads are better than
one.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Actions speak louder than words.
Dont cross the
bridge till you come to it.
Forewarned is forearmed.
Silence is golden.
The squeky wheel gets the
grease.
Clothes make the man.
Never judge a book by its cover.
The best things come in small
packages.
The bigger, the better.
If you lie down with dogs, youll get up with fleas.
If you can't
beat'em join'em.
SENT TO US BY BASU
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO STOODINTS...
One of the fringe benefits for an english or history teacher is the occasional jewel of a student blunder in an essay. I have
pasted together the following "history" of the world from genuine slip-ups collected by teachers. Read carefully,
and you will learn a lot.
The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah dessert
and travelled by camelot. The climate of Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas are cultivated
by irritation.
The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were
created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, once asked,"Am I my brother's son?". God asked Abraham
to sacrifice Isaac on mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Isaac, stole his brother's birthmark. Jacob was a patriarch who brought
up his twelve sons to be patriarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph gave refuse to the Israelites.
Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the red sea, where they made
unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments.
David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar who fought the Philatelists. Solomon, one of David's sons had five hundred
wives and five hundred porcupines.
Without the Greeks we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three types
of columns - corinthian, Doric and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth states that the mother of
Achilles dipped him in the river Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in the Iliad, by Homer. Homer also wrote
the oddity, in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by
Homer but by another man of that name.
Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Greeks. Julius Caesar extinguished
himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero
was a cruel tyranny who would torture his subjects by playing the fiddle to them.
Then came the middle ages.
King Alfred conqered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the ages of Shivery, King Harold mustarded his troops before the battle
of Hastings and Joan of Arc was cannonized by Bernard Shaw. Finally, Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged
twice for the same offence.
The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human
being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death being
excommunicated by a bull. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Another important
invention was the circulation of blood.
The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. He never
made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lives at Windsor with his merry wives.
During the
Renaissance, America began. Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships
were called Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Fe. Later, the pilgrims crossed the ocean and this was known as the Pilgrim's progress.
One of the causes of the American revolutionary war was the English putting tacks in their tea. Also the colonists
would send their parcels through post without stamps. Finally, the colonists won the war and no longer had to pay for taxis.
Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log
cabin which he built with his own hands.He wrote the Gettysburg adress while travelling from Washington to Gettysburg on the
back of an envelope. He freed the slaves by signing the emasculation proclamation, and the fourteenth amendment gave the ex-negroes
citizeship.
Meanwhile in Europe the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also
wrote a book called Candy. Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in autumn when the apples are falling
off the trees.
Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half
Italian and half English. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf, he wrote loud music. He took long
walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.
France was in a very serious state. The French revolution was accomplished before it happened. The Marseilles was the theme
song of the French revolution and it catapulted into Napolean. During the Napoleanic wars, the crowned heads of Europe were
trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorillas came down from the hills and nipped at Napolean's flanks. Napolean wanted
an heir to inherit his power but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't bear children.
The sun never set
on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the east and the sun sets in the west. Qeen Victoria was the longest
Queen. Her reclining years and finally the end of her life were examplatory of a great personality. Her death was the final
event which ended her reign.
The nineteenth century was a time of great inventions and thoughts. The inventions
of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper which did the work
of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented a code of telepathy. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was
a naturalist who wrote the organ of species. Madman Curie discovered radium and Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.
The first world war caused by the assignation of Arch-duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of
human history.
-Richard Lederer,
from readers digest, March
1993.
sent to us by PRIYA
THE EIGHT UNKNOWN FACTS...
1. Coca-Cola was originally green.
2. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from
history.Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne,and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
3. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
4. If a statue is a park with a person sitting
on a horse and has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in
the air,
the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of
natural causes.
5. "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
6.
If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"? One thousand.
Note : One Hundred "And" One etc. cannot be included
because 'AND' is not a number.
7.
What do bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield , wipers and laser printers all have in common?
All
invented by women.
8. This is the only food item that doesn't get spoiled? Honey
SENT
TO US BY ANTON
JOKES CORNER
The blonde... (sardarji of the west!!!)
A blonde walked up to the information desk in a hospital and asked
to see the
"upturn."
"I think, you mean the 'intern,' don't you?" asked the nurse on duty.
"Yes," said the
girl. "I want to have a 'contamination.'"
"You mean 'examination,'" the nurse corrected her.
"Well I want
to go to the 'fraternity ward,' anyway."
"I'm sure you mean the maternity ward."
To which the girl replied:
"Upturn, intern; contamination, examination;
fraternity, maternity.... What's the difference? All I know is I haven't
demonstrated in two months, and I think I'm stagnant."
SENT TO US BY ANTON
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