There aren't many times in my life where I have questioned my nationality, or my heritage, or just questioned what I am. But I was having a conversation with my father the other day about money. A very trivial conversation mind you, but it brought up a few issues, such as culture, and time, and society. I had rented some videos last week that I was a day late on returning. I had to go to work, so I asked my dad to just return them to Blockbuster for me and I'd go there either that night or the next day to pay them back. Well one of the first things he tells me when he picks me up is that he returned the videos and paid my fine. Which, to the un-trained eye (that being one that has not lived with my father for the past 24 years) is a very nice, fatherly gesture. To me however, this is completely disregarding my opinions and feelings about the aforementioned actions. I think if I had a fine, then I am responsible for it, therefore taking said responsibility into my own hands and dealing with it myself. Rather than running to my father to bail me out. It wasn't that I didn't have the money to pay my video fine, I just wasn't able to pay it at *that* minute, and I would have done so *after* I got home from work. However, when I mention this to my father, he turns it into a very cultural affair.
"This is how it's done in India.... In India the parents always give money to their daughters.... In my family my sisters were never without money because that's the way it was, even I gave money to my sisters.." And so on and so forth.

That's great. Good for you. If that is your tradition then fine, live it up. You know, I really have no problem with receiving free money. What I do have a problem with is people thinking that I can't afford things like these. Granted, I'm no Jennifer Aniston in any sense, I don't have gallons of money to throw around. But I can certainly afford to pay my own video fine, and my desire to do so, along with my frustration towards the matter certainly has nothing to do with culture. I don't believe that it's the "Indian way", I think if you do something wrong, then you have to own up to it. That's something I've had to learn a very hard way. So why try to hide behind culture as an excuse? Too many people use culture or nationality as an excuse these days. I'm all for equal rights and whatnot, but there's equal rights, and then affirmative action. Sometimes the right person for the job *isn't* the person that is hired, but companies have quotas, and quotas are very demanding things. and when you (general you) find that you have been treated unfairly because someone takes a second glance at you, that doesn't necessarily mean it has to do with your race, you could be smelly, you could be really hot, you could have a really huge wart on your neck of football sized proportions. Maybe the person interviewing you is having visions of leather straps and feather boas. You just don't know sometimes.

Speaking of annoying things. Sometimes friends can be annoying. Especially friends that think some jokes are funny after the 20 millionth time they've told it. Well it's not funny, and you shouldn't keep trying, I will not change my mind, maybe I'm not happy with my life but who is? And frankly, you are not my keeper, so I don't need, nor did I ask for any, advice on how to live my life. Sometimes asking the same question over and over again doesn't get the other person to change their mind. It just reminds them of what they are surrounded by.

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