#true stuff

That's the kind of bs most of these religious gurus spout. They're always so hypocritical and they don't even care about the religion that they follow but rather how they can prey on young girls.

On one hand, they say that we should believe in the teachings of Hinduism and on the other, they say that children should get married.

Because my religion never said that children should get married. Something that we were even in taught in school, about ancient India and lives of the people back then was:

The ages up till 25 is for studying aka Bhramacharya, in which one is supposed to dedicate their lives to education and practice chastity.

Then the ages between 25-50 is Grihasta which is about marriage and starting a family.

anyway the thing is that when we were 16 we got a nasty virus and our family doctor who was in so many ways a fucking idiot put us on penicillin which is probably the most efficient way to find out you're allergic to it

so we got a rash but also were in some sort of not quite coma for two weeks recovering from the penicillin by sleeping - and we just kept dreaming (so we thought) of snowscapes - of being on horseback on snow covered steppes, of journeying through snow covered forest in a sleigh - and this is why "dashing through the snow, on a one-horse open sleigh" does really weird things to us, because we get these vivid af flashbacks to what we now suspect are past life memories of living in snowed lands

but also because we always find ourselves wondering: so are there one-horse closed sleighs? what would a closed sleigh look like and could one horse pull them? also for the sake of the horse please do not try any sustained dashing, let them plod, it'll give you more time to be awestruck by the incredible scenery and your mysterious place in it all

and we had a book for it, which also came with a CD which basically included all the texts read aloud, some songs and some listening exercises.

nobody - and I can't stress this enough - NOBODY I knew ever listened to this CD. The teacher had their own CD and we sometimes listened to that in class, but using the CD at home was optional and absolutely nobody ever did it.

I did. I even listened to the material ahead. (I don't remember why, I think only ever did it that one year. There were some catchy tunes in it.)

There was this one text, I can't remember what it was about AT ALL. It might have been art or it might have been names, but someone said "Picasso's full name was actually..." and then said Picasso's full name in its wonderful entirety.

We didn't even really read it out loud in class, because it was an English class and we didn't care about Spanish names or how to pronounce them. BUT, I had actually listened to the audio for this text at home. A lot. And the girl in the CD said Picasso's name out loud. And it's so much easier to learn something when you hear it over and over as opposed to just reading it, that by the time we got to this text in class, I impressed everyone by actually telling them Picasso's full name - incidentally in the exact same accent and intonation as the girl on the CD. A funny little game.

This has continued to serve as a party trick in the years since then. I joke about it a lot, how kids' brains are marvelous and I still remember Picasso's full name as if it's a poem, twenty years later. I've impressed friends, teachers, colleagues with it. It lasts a few seconds but it's always amusing. My brother keeps forgetting the whole thing so I still surprise and impress him with it every five years or so. (Mind you, I'm not sure I can spell it all that well.)

The memory resurfaced a few days ago and I remembered the girl going "Picasso's full name is actually Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso!"

and for the first time I thought how random this dialogue was. Who the fuck just name drops Picasso's full name in a conversation like it's nothing?

And then it hit me!

I do!