MY COOL AWARDS!!

Frankly, I feel so self-indulgent posting my awards and all...but hey!!, tis cool recognition!...Thank ya! Ram ol buddy!!

DEDICATED TO ALL THOSE GOOD THINKERS OUT THERE

Something has been disturbing me real bad lately (of course, other than the "early adulthood crisis" and mum's blabberings and the decision of what I am supposed to do next and holding on to the person I believe I am...). For a long time I could not put my finger on it, but now, I think is the right time to work it out and actually put it down in words.

I remember when I was little, I used to wonder why people thought too much and why they did it even when they were sure they would feel miserable in the end. I used to watch big bro immerse himself in books and brood over a lot of things, while big sis and me knew he was the most brightest among us and when his friends admired him and when my parents doted on their only son. I felt that all this love and admiration was lost on him and he somehow couldn't feel it coming from us. When time passed by he was still charming to me, although VERY BORING when he spoke about his great philosophical ideas (because it used to go over my head). I used to manage to cough when he cracked light-hearted jokes just to be polite. Well, after all the psychology I've studied, I know my bro's perfectly normal but he's suffering from what I'd wish to call the ' Good Thinker's Bug'. The bug had bitten him at a very young age and the illness makes ordinary things look boring, most people around not all that important, blocks out all the affection we feel for him and somehow makes him altogether cynical in his view of life. His mistake? - he thinks too much and he's good at it!

Another college mate I admire (most people either admired her or were jealous of her) is so successful in life now - working at a young age, independent, has the most charming smile, can capture you with her words, has a brain that can match Einstein's and was a rock n roll person during her school days. However, she too was bitten by the Bug somewhere at the end of her High School and WHAM!! everything was diffferent. Like as if, someone cruelly broke her rose-tinted glasses, threw it away and shoved her a black tinted one which she so innocently put on. Even now she's a legend in college because of the most astounding marks she got without putting in much effort. One day I decided to let her know that she was simply the best because I knew she hardly realised all this or maybe didn't care even though she knew. Chating with her made me realise that she was not doing all that well inspite of the fact that she was performing well in her high-class job. I noticed the symptoms and tried talking to her and changing her point of view. Since we weren't all that close during those college days and since I was talking like those shrinks she had consulted in the past, and since she was really cynical herself, I knew bringing about even a little difference would take ages. I stopped there but didn't give up. I won't give up because her only fault is that she thinks too much and she's good at it!

Another friend I only vaguely know but who makes me laugh, has this bug in him too. I simply couldn't imagine how he could be so BORED and LOUSY when he had that perfect sense of humour. Now I understand that it's not his fault and it's just that he thinks too much and he's good at it!

I've been going through a number of blogs at random just so that I'll have some food for thought and I can come up with a solution for these great thinkers. Most blogs I went through were simply great but had the heavy note of sarcasm and pessimism I thought could scare away a number of those around them or maybe dissappoint those who really love them. I'm not going to go ahead and preach for two reasons: Firstly, I'm not a good preacher and secondly, I'm sure people who can actually think will scoff at what I have to say.

Why then did I type in this post? To stress the fact that "Life is so beautiful and all we have to do is reach out to it!" What I just typed in sounds so lame and so simple that it's hard to believe but I know it's true. If someone out there starts talking about the pain and suffering and the war out there, and about how fake people are, I'd say being cynical is not going to help us go through all this, but hope can. Hope, a good sense of humour and love (a word I feel some of us use so casually without understanding the actual meaning.)

The Bug has bitten me too, sometime in the last 2 years but I refuse to succumb to it. I somehow think a lot nowadays and I sometimes feel I'm drowning. But I don't drown because I think too much but I'm not good at it! Moreover, there have been a few people who have unexpectedly come my way and showed me that life is not so bad altogether and that I should relax and not be too judgmental towards others, myself and towards life altogether. To those, I'd hold up the first glass of real wine I drink and give them a toast!

Rampi's tag!!

1. What is your current obsession?
Thinking about the rain

2. What are you wearing today?
A salwar with big brown and blue flowers, my sister bought me with her first salary

3. What’s for dinner?
Sambar and Aveel (remains of onam special)

4. What’s the last thing you bought?
A packet of bread (since I cook breakfast, I make different things with bread-tis easy!)

5. What are you listening to right now?
Stab my back - All American Rejects

6. What do you think about the person who tagged you?
Rampi!hmmmmm...dunno, mayb i'l type it in after i meet him...

7. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
Birmingham, England

8. What are your must-have pieces for summer?

A live-in fridge!! I simply HATE the heat!

9. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Greece

10. Which language do you want to learn?
Malayalam-my mother tongue...something tells me that I just mite get married 2 sum1 who prefers to speak in malayalam to his wife

11. What’s your favourite quote?
The human spirit is tougher than anything that happens to it

12. Who do you want to meet right now?
The guy I have a vague crush on

13. What is your favourite colour?
I favour dark violet but I like to wear black

14. What is your favourite piece of clothing in your own closet?
A black kurta which I dare not wear in front of mum coz tis all worn out

15. What is your dream job?

Researcher in a hi-tech organization.

16. What’s your favourite magazine?
Reader`s Digest (same a urs Rampi). I get inspired by even the most dullest story they publish.

17. If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on?

Lots and lots of casual tops (It's time to change my wardrobe!)

18. What do you consider a fashion faux pas?

Me not one bit fashionable...but of one thing I'm certain-that overdoing your make-up is YUCK!!

19. What would you do if you have a time machine?
I'd go back to my school days and punch those guys in school who used to tease me

20. Describe your personal style?
Uuuhh! Dunno really, right now, I just wear salwars only coz I dun't wanna b glared at by da oldies round here...as for the way i talk and act - I think i'm undergoing some kinda transformation and so i'm not sure...

21. What are you going to do after this?
Zzzzzzz...tis 1:45am now...

22. What are your favourite movies?
Chronicles of Narnia (part 1), LOTR, Pirates of the Carribbean, Princes Diaries (part 1), Shrek, 27 dresses...I know der r more, but can't remember...

24. What are three cosmetic/makeup/perfume products that you can’t live without?

Surma...I always draw my eyes even if i dun't apply any powder or cream...nuthin else really!!

23. What inspires you?
Music and a genuine friend's advice

24. What do you carry in your bag?
My purse, lotsa pens and pencils, my mob, handkerchief, comb (my hair is difficult to tame), a note wid all da phone no.s n important notes-to-remember, my Mp3 player...da rest depends on xactly wer I'm heading to...

25. What do you do when you “have nothing to wear” (even though your closet’s packed)?

I just take any dress my hand gets hold of

26. Coffee or tea?
Coffee, coffee!! mum never makes coffee at home-she thinks it's not gud for kids...but hey, I'm a grown up now!

27. What do you do when you are feeling low or terribly depressed?

I just brood over it and keep it inside and just go on wid life till da phase pass by! Previously, I used to hibernate (sleep for a long long time)

28. What is the meaning of your name?

Tis actually a combination and modification of my parents and siblings names. It can be only that coz luk wat I found wen I luked up da meaning in the dictionary

" reni-

 

a combining form meaning “kidney,” used in the formation of compound words: reniform.

---

Origin:
< class="ital-inline">rēni-, comb. form of rēnēs kidneys"

29. Which other blogs you love visiting?
Have a luk at da right side. u'll c a list of "other cool blogs"

30. Favourite Dessert/Sweet?
Fruit salad with ice cream (the way mum makes it)

31. Favourite Season?
Winter. Aaaah!! da cold and the cuddling wid ma blanket or sweater!!

32. If I come to your house now, what would u cook for me?
Noodles, to be on the safer side

33. What’s your current mood?
Euthymic

34. One book/movie/song that made you sit up and think?

Here I am- (from the film Camp Rock)

The rules are:
Respond and rework – Answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, and add one more question of your own. Then tag eight or ten other set of people.

I'm stopping the tag here Rampi!...34 questions!!

THE EARLY ADULTHOOD CRISIS

Haven't been blogging for a long time, I know and I am to blame for it. I have decided to take full, and I say full responsibility for what happens to me. I have decided that I have come of age and it's about time I control my own life. From this time onwards what happens to me depends on how smart I am able to deal with the situation and NOT on how smart my parents are. Now that my Master's course is going to get over in the next few days, I've got to jump to another phase of my life and start to take the initiative to do something. Well, I've already started to take action, and I'm working on Plan A. If Plan A does not work, I know I should not feel disappointed and I've got to work on a Plan B. This one month will decide what I'll be doing for the next one year and frankly, I'm nervous. It's the turning point in my life and I'm not going to passively sit back just waiting for my parents to get a perfect guy to marry me. I'm going to speak up and tell them exactly what I feel so that they can understand.

But one thing is for sure, "With Freedom comes Responsibility!"



In the meantime, I'm learning how to cook and my mum's my guide. Since I'm not so used to doing the cooking, I am "all thumbs" and mum's getting exasperated. Now, I make the breakfast and tea everyday and I'm doing okay, I guess. At least I don't burn the bread nowadays and I think I deserve a pat on my back! The tea has the right proportion of tea leaves, milk and sugar and I don't wrinkle my nose when I drink my own tea. The rest...well, I' ve developed a few defense mechanisms which will help me survive mum's wrath for the time being:

1. Don't sulk when mum scolds you. Don't try smiling through your frustration either, because your mum knows you best. Just maintain an innocent blank expression and just make sure you don't look stupid either or else mum will have the impression you can't look after yourself.

2. When mum asks you if you need some help while you are cooking, just gracefully accept it because she knows when things will start getting difficult and she's only trying to make your dish taste good.

3. Initially, when you are a beginner at this job, don't think you can leave something on the stove and get back to it at the right time. Just hang around, put on some music and give those vocal cords some exercise while you watch the kettle on the stove.

4. You can try being daring now and then but not always, because if things go wrong continuously it might dampen your enthusiasm.

5. Agree to clean up after everything is over since it is a symbolic gesture which says, "I can handle things myself, don't worry!"

ENJOY!!!!

GOODBYE HOME SWEET HOME!

Today the 20th of August 2009, I finally vacated the hostel and to my surprise, I was actually feeling really sad and depressed about it. A part of me will always belong there because it was my home for 5 long years. I used to grunt and stomp around, I know, saying that I don't have the freedom to do ANYTHING and all that bullshit, but somehow, staying there with all "ma girls" made it a lot fun. Yesterday was the last time I was doing a lot of things: last time having dinner, praying the common prayer, jumping around and yelling without a care in the world, teasing the rest and being teased,...sigh! "Ma girls" could not believe that I was actually leaving coz I've been there even before all of them had come. "You going?!!- TOMORROW!!-so fast!!-go after onam!!-why so fast?!!", were the usual dialogues to which I tried to cheerfully smile and respond by saying, "Hey, I've stayed here loooong enough, dun't ya think?"

Yesterday was wednesday and we all gathered on the terrace for the common prayer. The sky was beautiful and the stars were shining bright. For once, I didn't doze off during prayer because I knew that it was my last here. At the end while we stretched out our hands and legs my Sister warden officially announced that I was leaving the next day. With everyone's eyes on me, I felt glad that it was dark and there was just a small bulb lighting up the place. Sister said a lot of nice things about me, which, I must admit, sounded really unbelievable to my ears. The rest listened to it and looked at me with awe. Then they requested me to sing a few malayalam songs which I had tried to learn and which I had modified in my own way to make people laugh (among them my master piece is the malayalam version of the titanic song). Ma girls then sang a song dedicated to me which could have made me cry if I had not lost the ability to shed tears. I gulped once or twice though because I was feeling heavy somewhere in the chest region and wanted to get rid of it. After the song, there was complete silence to which I responded by saying, "Ehhhhh, Thanks". Nobody moved or even uttered a word and that's when I realised that they were expecting me to say more. I cleared my throat and said a few words which I made sure didn't sound like a church sermon.

While getting in the car I looked back and thought to myself, "That place was no ordinary hostel but it was a home for people like me."

DEAR DIARY...

I've been trying for ages to maintain a diary in which I would write all about everything I feel, think and do. Being the lazy bum that I am, I never succeeded to do it for more than 2 consecutive days in a year. It never occurred to my young mind then, that writing everything down can actually exhaust you, leaving you with no energy to actually do anything. I now blush at what I had written in my diary when I was little and think that if I did somehow die young, my father might send it to a famous publishing company with the tittle, "THE DIARY OF A YOUNG MORON". If it did happen, young morons everywhere will be inspired to be a "somebody" in this big competing world (even if it's by writing a diary).

Jokes aside, I've noticed that writing in a diary can actually be therapeutic. It helps you to ventilate your mind (try writing "ggrrrrrrrrr!!..." on a piece of paper, the next time your boss is sitting on your head), make your thoughts seem more clear and actually reason with your (sometimes) "irrational" beliefs. There are times when the young mind actually expresses an untouched and pure kind of wisdom that makes you wonder about who actually robbed you off your innocence.

Philosophical ideas aside, I feel obliged to mention the fact that most eminent psychologists use the "diary" technique under a more professional name - "Rational Emotive Therapy", a name proposed by it's founder, Albert Ellis. Ofcourse, RET involves writing down emotion-charged events and the feelings and thoughts which accompany them, along with side notes indicating ways on which one can deal with it. Furthermore, progress is noted and commented on. It really helps...try it once in awhile and you'll think that the result is almost miraculous.

How does it work for me? Being the lazy bum I am, I will never know...

WANNA GROW OLD WITH YOU

I'll have to start from scrap because I've lost all my readers (even my big bro does not read my blog anymore) and some have even canceled my name from the "blogs I read" list. Well, all I can do is swallow my pride and continue to write bloggy posts.
Lately I have developed a renewed interest in high school/teenage movies and I've realised that deep inside I haven't exactly grown up. The High School Musical made by Disney has 3 parts and all three are superb. Although predictable and so disney-like it reminds me of my former days when all the trivial things used to worry me and I along with my friends used to cook up ways to get out of trouble. Sometimes our ideas and plans were so far - fetched that only the most sensible among us would realise that such plans work only in movies. Camp Rock and The Minute Men were great too and I can't help but wait for Disney to make more movies like it.

This reminds me of a conversation I and my friends had in the Chemistry lab in High School.

Fatu (an unorthodox Muslim from Pune), pouring the chemical into the burette: School life is almost over and the actual fun is just about to start...I mean, we'll all be in different places, doing different things...

Joe (a Phillipino and Pak mix), almost tearfully: I'm gonna miss all the fun I had here (to which I and Fatu grunt coz she had quite a long list of boyfriends)...and besides you guys won't be with me anymore...Man, I love you both...

Me (quiet till then because I was sucking an acid into a pipette): you'll have friends wherever you go (and not to mention boyfriends ) and besides meeting new people can be very exciting...

Joe (showing a lot of emotion and affection): Nobody's gonna be as good as you gals....

Fatu (rolling her eyeballs): Cut the crap please! What I meant to say is a few years from now I'll finally marry Mr.U-kno-who, Reni's gonna finally fall for someone (and I think to myself, "finally get the courage to admit that I've fallen for someone") and you'll be a great doctor...you see, all the things we thought were imposssible is going to happen...

Me: What makes you so sure?...

Fatu: You can't possibly be a nun, I can't love anybody else but him, and Joe, weeeeelllll.....

Joe: WHAT!!!? Ofcourse I'll be a great doc...

Fatu: Eeer, yea, ofcourse! It's all destined to be that way!

A "few" years have passed and Joe drifts off to the graphic designing field and sings in the church choir (I bet she finds the male lead singer cute), Fatu has found out that she can love somebody else after all and gets happily married off to another guy, and I'm still going around having only minor crushes...Life can be so unpredictable :-)...

NUTTY DOCS!

I feel very much like a teen, not knowing what to do, where to go and and how to do what. Sometimes I feel so crazy and weird that I end up doing the wrong thing all the time. Maybe it's the lack of sleep (but seriously I sleep for 6hrs), or the growing up process (but am I not big enough to actually stop growing and start feeling stable?) or maybe it's the prodromal phase of schizophrenia (great, I think the name of my blog will give me away). It's weird the way you go on talking to a number of psychiatric patients and when you start to slowly feel that there's nothing wrong with them feeling the way they do because you feel that way sometime or the other or because you know someone you know very well who feel the same. Many a time the brain gets exhausted and you feel that you are losing control (the plus point is that it makes it easier for you to relate to the patient more). I'm on the verge of embracing a profession I'll be practicing for a life time and something I'll learn to love and cope with. I take it as a challenge because even we say jokingly among ourselves that one day we'll all go mad ourselves.
CHEERS TO ALL THE SHRINKS OUT THERE!! YOU DESERVE IT!

A QUIET COMEBACK

It's funny the way I've been trying to hang on to my life lately...I've realised a lot of things that have made me well aware of the fact that what I do now is going to decide what my future will be like...What kind of people I ought to hang out with, what kind of attitude I should develop to live life to the full as well as go ahead in life, how to be me and live with a clear conscience....are all questions I want proper answers for. I'd like to believe that I'm on the verge of getting all the answers coz there's nothing more disturbing than being doubtful of your own self. I'm excited and feel like a teen although I'm very much an adult. Maybe in the next few months I'll be walking in the path I choose and be extremely happy with it.