Be yourself - which yourself?

The best advice I've received from others(or I've given others occassionally too) when faced with any dilemma is "Be yourself" and the rest will fall in place.
Digging into it further, I want to find who I really am ....

so which is the real me?
one who hates to get up early in the mornings or one who loves to go for early morning walks?
one who is lazy to call people or one who is bored to receive calls?
one who loves movie songs or one who forwards all songs while watching movies?
one who likes reading books or one who falls asleep after reading 2 pages?
one who is excited before meeting friends or one who has nothing to say after meeting them?
one who postpones everything for weekend or one who just wants to sleep over the weekend because everything can anyway wait till monday!

I'm probably none of these or all of these ...

will I forever live with the mysterious me? will I ever know who I really am?
waiting for the days of enlightment ..... till then I continue to ponder ....

Time off

Any holiday is a reason for celebration. The luxury of getting up at my own will completely ignoring the alarm calls ,is, according to me, the best way to start any day! So was this thanksgiving holiday. I had no plans of meeting anyone, no friends visiting, no assignments to complete and basically nothing concrete to do. My roomie was off to her friends for her thanksgiving celebration. I was too lazy to venture outdoors ... especially not when I have to fight the cold. So me being the only living soul in this house, I suspected it would be a boring day at home.
It was honestly like any other holiday, but I was glad with the time on my hands. I realised that I dint have to do big things to keep myself occupied. There were plenty of teeny weeny to-dos that I had been putting off for several days. My checklist started with calling grandparents back home - A casual talk but one of those that makes your day for no specific reason. "Why do you have a holiday today"? was the question on the other side of the phone. "Its some thanksgiving day ... an american thingie of family gettogether and feasting and celebration" was my explanation. "That is certainly nice. But you get a holiday for that?" - a counter question. Failing to find a suitable explanation, I mumbled incoherently and moved on with other topics for conversation. (Its another thing that after the call, I tried to google up and find out about thanksgiving history and blah blah).
Then ofcourse I had to bring out my latent culinary skills....my irregularities at cooking had to be fixed. So I fished out veggies that were lying in the fridge and spent a good one hour in the kitchen. (My tolerance level is by the way 45 minutes. So I actually managed to bring up the bar. kudos!)
A self-proclaimed delicious lunch combined with a good movie .... that was my next plan of action - and executed accordingly, simply because there was no other backup plan!
As the end of the movie was nearing, I dint have to think too much as to what to do next. My drooping eyelids sub'tly suggested the next best thing for me... oh yes, a small nap would do me no harm. And sleep-like-a-baby I did, for I dont know how long and I dint care either. What was the hurry?? none that my neurons could think of!
After a refreshing doze of sleep, my brains needed some activity. So it was time to catch up with updated blogs. this was long overdue and I had a lovely time lapping up all the new entries, some of known friends and some through random browsing. Time well spent I thought!
Time to update mine I decided after spending considerable time reading others thoughts. And as I write this, I decide its time to end it. Why? No clue, its my blog and my decision!
Wouldnt be fair to bid farewell without a "thank you" note on thanksgiving day. There would be millions of people I may have to thank... so to keep things simple -

Thank you everyone
All that u've done
means a ton!

... kiddish - both in content and feel :)

An eternal wait ....

Waiting nowadays has become a norm, something I expect, although not long for, day after day. Painful, but a necessary part of my daily existence. darkness surrounds and a chill passes through my spine as if to punish me for an unpardonable crime. I cringe, suffer in silence ... and .... wait. Have I mastered the art by now? I surprise myself. I have done this yesterday, am doing it today and in all probability will not miss it tomorrow.
Yes, wait I will, for I know this is not forever. Oh pray, when am I going to see you? I stretch my neck out and strain my eyes to as far as I can see. No, theres no sign of you anywhere. But you will be here - I know. You wont let me down - something inside makes me believe so. Yes, I trust you and this will push me to wait longer.
Moments of yester days flash past when not so long ago things were different. There was warmth and happiness everywhere. Why do things change? Why cant happiness prevail forever? I dont know and I feel completely drained and empty from within to think any further.
And thanfully I dont have to, atleast not for this day. I see that my wait has come to an end. I see you. Yes its you. I hope its you. My hopes rise as you approach nearer. I already feel elated. I cant wait longer to be with you. Please do tell me its you - and only you. Alright, now I can see clearly. It is infact you. 168T, my bus to New York. Am I glad!!. More than anyone could imagine. Now I can have a cozy sleep till I get to my destination which is another long wait by itself. But its not a painful one outside in the cold. I can take this. Thank you God. Another winter morning wait comes to an end. But only till the next day. and the saga continues...... when will I see the warm sun again!! sigh

Frequently Asked Question - with no solution as yet

I dont know if its the passing(rather flying) time or the idle mind or the cold weather ..... watever the excuse, I have once again been faced with the most recurring question ...

wat am I to do next in life???

I do have short term objectives...atleast 2 more semesters to go before i'm out of masters ... but i still cant figure out wat i want to do after tat ...

i had almost vowed that i wud never get bak to working in the software field, but luks like tat is the obvious path i have to tread given my lack of aspirations or unclarity on my goals ... i sympathise with myself for tat and i also hate doing that :(((

lucky are those who have intersting hobbies like dancing, singing, painting and so many more things ..... i have seen people shift paradigms completely and pursue their hobbies at professional level ....and to be honest i am so envious of them ... For one, they know what is it that they want to do and they also have the guts to give up the cozy(but boring) existence and risk doing something different. Theres nothing next to enjoying your work. Being passionate adds so much of meaning to life (sigh). I wish I could do the shifting fields someday... but again .... if only i knew what i wanted to do ....

I dont aim to be famous, rich, recognised or blah blah ..... the tags are not attractive..... its just about being happy and satisfied with what I'm doing!!! I want to wake up everyday with an urge to rush to work and not feeilng compelled to do it as a matter of duty.

Well, dont know what life has in store for me. The mystery element will always remain ... but can only hope that someday I am doin what I want ... or atleast hope that I get to enjoy what I'm given to do!!!

Travails of buying a phone

Graham Bells invention of the Electrical speech machine enhanced communication among people across boundaries, and the latest variation of mobile phones has changed the meaning of "being in touch" with people crooning into the sleek hand-pieces almost 24*7. However, there are some unfortunate "paapi" ppl in this world(pointing fingers at myself) for who its impossible to be an owner of one such communication marvel.

When I landed here, I felt it was unnecessary to buy a mobile since the house I stayed in already provided a landline ... and morevoer I was paying extra monie for the rent, so it was a gud idea(or i thought so) to postpone buying of phone to the next semester. And there begins my never-ending saga of my unsuccessful attempts at getting hold of one :(

Attempt 1:
At the mall -
Alok, lil, GG and myself walk into the mobile stall .... the guys are more interested in the blondes attending to us at the counter than the original purpose we were there for . One blonde especially impressed with Aloks name heaps praises and looks and then hands out a form to be filled. While Alok and I filled them out, (the former much slowly cause he couldnt decide on whether he should look at the paper or the gal for longer), the other 2 had all the time to enlighten the damsels about the pronounciations of our names. Well, bak to the forms...... the mobile company was not as sweet and approachable as the girls there and hence decided we were not eligible to be given the plan we had opted for...the damn credit history, which meant we had to shell out extra monie for one. And me being the poor one tat i am decided against it :( so tat was the end of attempt 1.

Attempt 2:
Browsing through all websites looking for free handsets ..... but alas all required a driving license to be filled out on the e-forms. It still hasnt made sense to me as to why only people with a driving license are allowed to buy a mobile. Does it mean people who cant turn the steering wheel cant talk on the phone??? ... how bizzare can this logic get ...... how i wish to get back to my land where there are more pragmatic thinkers!!! In short it was end of another futile attempt ... attempt 2 to be precise.

Attempt 3:
Lil with his network of friends digged out a website which did not require a driving license to be given...... sounded like gud news to me. I would at last possess the mobile no matter how ugly or basic it was .... yuppie ..... HOWEVER, as luck would have it, my application got rejected due to bad credit history.....the same silly reason again....and there ended attempt 3.

Attempt 4:
I had almost given up hopes of getting a phone.... and ... on one fine day.... vini tells me bout another colleague of hers who had a cool phone to give away to someone if required...... and me was the only one left without one in this place .... so i had to be the rigthful owner of that one ....
all seemed to be goin fine and i almost had the phone couple of days bak . I was supposed to meet the dealer at home when he would hand over the phone to me and thus ending the long saga of my fight with fate. But who was I fooling here...... the colleague came home sans dealer only to tell me tat they had run out of stock and I had to wait for another few days for one :(((((
End of attempt 4!!!

I guess after a few more days I could write a continuation blog ..... with more futile attempts ... sigh :(

Happy Singleton

some of the unanswered questions in life:
---- how did people manage to survive without cell phones and laptops in the stone age???
---- why did newton not eat the apple wen it fell on his head, but instead got into the realm of gravity ??? (this question was raked by my coz bro Viksi wen he was sick of solving physics problems with the g constant)
---- why is it such a issue to be 25 and still single!!!

guess blogging on the first two topics would not be tat intersting .... so on to the third one ..... "single but not ready to mingle" ... (phrase - courtesy: Soms)

It was not a long while ago, when a couple of friends gathered in Coffee Day ....... all of us singles ...
after the usual rounds of gossips and bitching .... we moved on to the topic of why we were still un-paired??? If XYZ cud find a boyfriend, then y not us!!! .. wat is it tat takes to change the "S" status????

There could be several issues behind that we reasoned. Maybe we are just too smart that the guys are intimidated.. the male ego u see . It could also be that there is no soul who is gud enuf to catch our attention to convince us that there cud be a match. Or we are destined to bow to parental pressure some day and get hooked to some lalloo tat parents get so easily impressed with.

but wat the heck!!! werent we having gr8 fun this way ...
Coming to think of it, we dont hav to feel guilty flirting with > 1 guy .... nobody to answer to thr ... and we could laze around at home over the weekends without having to meet anybody anywhr ... more so in boring theatres .. and hiding frm parental eyes too. Also, theres no problem of forgetting BFs birthday, first meeting day, promotion day and more such silly days ....
after more such analysis, we decided it was time for conclusion .... "Life is too short to waste over a single person" .... we girls do rock, dont we? ;)

so, here it is .... Three cheers to singles all around the world....especially if ur 25 :)

The Lost Mind

Fantasy has always been a huge draw with me ...... especially wen I’m bored with the work I’m doin ... it’s a different thing that nothing seems interesting to me after a couple of minutes (or is it seconds or might be nanoseconds).

Going back to the original topic,....of fantasizing I mean ......

A normal summer day with a parser to write ......... going nowhere .......... and then robbie’s (my professor) face looms large in front of me ........ and the inner self threatens me with dire consequences if I don’t live up to the expectations of my over-expecting professor :( ....
But being the disobedient and reckless me that I hav always been, I float into that world of fantasy, and it happens so often that I don’t even realise wen it happens ....

Something like,
what if I could switch places with my professor ........ and torture him to finish the “substantial” work I hav set aside for him.... and me being the mean me would definintely hav higher standards with the “substantial” work... so much so that he would dread to use that word ever again in his life >:) .......

Or it would be just me somewhere far away ... away from the crowd of the homo-sapiens ....... close to nature..... preferably mountains (like the ones we saw on our way to Bear Lake). In addition a small waterfall or fountain..... with the water falling into a small pond ......... and the pond containing colourful weeds, with probably a papa duck, mamma duck and 2 to 3 ducklings wading in the water ..... and all I would hav to do is soak in the feeling of ecstasy ...... I swear its great to be able to just feel with your heart without having to strain the neurons for sometime ........

Well, it could also be as bizzare as me on an expedition to Mars ...... travelling on a super fast rocket (or whatever it is called) ..... wen I’m half way through, the gas goes empty ..... and theres no refill station nearby on space....gosh ... panic sets in ..... and as expected, the rocket starts falling ...... I don’t intend to defy the theories of non-existence of gravity in space...... but nyways....the rocket is falling.... and falling ..... and falling.... into the abyss ...... NOW,will this falling ever end .... this is getting boring .... I cant fantasize the end ...... so here it goes “Cut Cut” ..... needs modification ...

So it starts again ..... me on an expedition to Mars ... blah blah ..........rocket starts falling into the abyss ....... and suddenly lands on a cushion like platform .... the most sophisticated helipad one cud ever imagine ..... fellow crew members get out of the space-ship, examine the contents of the cushion and proclaim it to be a unique unbelievable isotope of astantine ... which incidentally is the rarest element on the earths surface ..... we just realise that we hav made an incredible discovery and got ourselves entry into the list of the famous and brave young scientists of the 21st century ......... wow .... we then use this content to charge our space-ship sufficiently to get bak home with the gud news to share with our ppl bak on mother earth ......... aah .... I luv happy endings :)

theres never an end to ones imaginations ... and more so if one is a little more towards the other side of the scale of sanity (just like me) ... watever it is ... it does give the much required break to the brain cells .... infact sharpens them ... and makes one feel lighter and happier .....

which makes me remember Wordsworth ..... although the context may not exactly be the same ....

For oft, wen on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye,
Which is the bliss of solitude ....

Hmm .. It truly is :)