Status Update: Grad School

It has been … a couple of years since I last blogged. I’m in grad school now, close to finishing actually, and I barely get time to keep up my writing in this blog.
I didn’t have tons of regular readers anyway, and the ones I had, I stay in touch through THEIR blog, so that’s that.
As of now, I don’t know if/when I will get back to writing in this blog. I started it at a particularly strange point in my life, and wrote whenever I felt the need to escape from my life into a parallel blogverse. Thankfully I’m out of that phase now, and perhaps that means I’m better at handling strange life situations too – although I think it’s mostly the fact that I don’t have the liberty to escape from my life (and responsibilities) any longer.

I think it helps that I have super cool friends (even though I often default on my social obligations to stay in touch with them), and an extremely patient partner, who has stuck with me through a lot of thin, and very little thick. I still don’t understand why he does that – other than his “we shouldn’t abandon ship the moment the smallest thing goes wrong” ideology.
(True, but he stayed onboard even when the ship seemed to have been struck by huge-ass icebergs every now and then, and he wasn’t even the captain at that time – by which I mean, even at the very start of the relationship. Strange, but good for me.)

But hey, now you know what I’ve been up to!

50 Things to do Before Graduating Part II

Sometime back I did a post on 50 Things to do Before Graduating. Now that I’m actually graduating, let’s check what my score is. 😀

1. Feed the campus wildlife – My campus doesn’t have any more wildlife than a few dogs and cats!

2. Have an epic karaoke night at your house using just YouTube, booze, and your natural star quality

3. Go on a date with someone you would normally say no to – give them a chance

4. Hand in an essay early

5. Busk on campus for a charity (even if you have zero talent)

6. Teach someone something

7. Read a book that isn’t study-related

8. Hire a bike for a week and see how it works out for you – Hire a bike? I Own one!

9. Study in every library that exists at your university (like you’re ‘on tour’ – but studying) –Only one, hah!

10. Drive to a beach. Swim. (If your uni is miles away from the coast, you’ll just have to stay over) – I just did that in my last vacation! Yay! Didn’t go from the uni though.

11. Make your own booze

12. Go to a university sports team’s game. Get vocal and animated with your support.

13. Have an incredibly elaborate picnic on a uni green space one lunch time

14. Sit in on a lecture that’s completely out of your field, but that you’ve always been fascinated by – Done that! Went to a lecture my friend had to attend – she’s in MED SCHOOL!

15. Join a society for something you’ve always wanted to do, but never got round to

16. Apply for internships and jobs

17. Turn up at a 9 am lecture along with all the other students dressed in your PJs and dressing gowns – I turned up for a class in pajamas once, only to find out that I had no class that day. T.T

18. Go to the careers office and speak to them completely honestly – whatever your thoughts and fears, loves and hates…

19. Go on a weekend country jaunt with friends – get as remote as possible

20. Start a conga at a big union night. See how long you can get it, before leading it as far from the music as possible (if you can get it to a house party or another club night, you can officially retire from doing stuff. Your work here is done)

21. Go and see the art departments’ end of year shows

22. Go to a play put on by the drama department or a uni society

23. Get involved in a play or some kind of performance (e.g. fashion show, etc.)

24. Visit all historical building and monuments in your town (including churches)

25. Go out sober and dance all night (at least once, repeat as required) – Happened once when they refused to give me the Not Underage tag because I looked to young to pass of as one. T.T

26. Swim in a fountain (campus if possible, town will do)

27. Go paddling on a hot day

28. Hold your own Come Dine With Me with other student houses

29. Take part in a protest

30. Write in to the uni radio station or newspaper

31. Dress up! As a fictional character, an animal – anything

32. If you think a lecture was particularly good, try and instigate a standing ovation

33. Do something – anything! – silly, for charity – I thought it was silly but I had to do it anyway, cuz I was volunteering with a charity organization.

34. Give your parents a in depth tour of all the great stuff you do and love at University (It’ll make for an amazing trip for them, and make them feel happy whenever they think of you at uni)

35. Have a sleepover

36. Play an elaborate prank on a housemate

37. Win a pub quiz (whatever it takes)

38. Make a kite and fly it

39. Have an 80s montage house cleaning session, with appropriate outfits and music blaring

40. Go on a blind date

41. Find out the names of all those people you know far too well to not know their names

42. Dye your hair

43. Sleep out under the stars

44. Make a movie starring your friends and your favourite places

45. Celebrate something by doing the classic shake up a bottle of champagne and spraying it all over yourself and everywhere (or at least do it with sparkling wine..!)

46. Make friends with a student from a country you’ve never known someone from or been to before

47. Go inside (and have a little explore of) every building that is part of the university

48. Become a wise mentor for a Fresher doing your course. Tell them what you wish you’d known

49. Learn a new sport or instrument or activity that you never thought you would – ‘Twas yoga for me!

50. Get loads of discounts, free things and cool stuff by joining the UK’s largest student money saving club studentbeans.com, of course! – I don’t live in the UK 

29 out of 50 is my score! Hmm, 11 new things done since then.

Regrets

Dear Future Me

I was reading a thread on Quora about common regrets that people have in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s.

For posterity’s sake, I’ll reproduce them here:

Answers below mention (in no particular order):

• Not Having Children.
• Not Getting Married Early Enough.
• Getting married too soon.
• Being Lazy In Your Twenties.
• Getting Involved In Community Service/Politics Earlier.
• Not Taking Health Advice Seriously.
• Not Having Enough Fun (or Sex).
• Not Being Ambitious Enough.
• Losing Contact With Old Friends
• Not Traveling.
• Not Taking Risks.
• Not Spending Time With Loved Ones.
• Not living true to yourself
• Not expressing your feelings courageously
• Not allowing yourself to be happy
• Working too hard.
• Not quitting your bad job/relationship early enough
• Not asking more girls out
• settling for the wrong person
• thinking you have all the answers.
• Not doing better in school
• Not marrying rich/well
• Not Renewing A Library Card to Read more.
• Signing up for facebook, E-harmony etc
• Not standing up to bullies while younger.
• Not Regretting Early Enough
• Regretting.
• Not telling people that are gone that you love them.
• Time wasted on deleting unwanted emails.
• Not investing wisely.
• Choosing the easier route.
• Nothing.
• Ignoring Mental Health issues (self-medicating)

Apparently, “regretting” also makes the list. Too much time spent regretting past actions. Or not regretting early enough to take corrective actions.

I don’t think life is possible without some regrets. It’s just not possible that you are always satisfied with whatever you do. So when you do have regrets, don’t be too hard on yourself.

Why does life have to be so complicated? A thousand variables, a thousand ways to go wrong/regret, yet, you can never guarantee happiness/success by fixing each of them.

Perhaps life is complicated only because we make it complicated.

There is no time line for regrets, marriage, investing, traveling, studying, reading. No single “right time” for x, y or z.

You do what you do when it makes sense for you.

No one else’s list, advice or experience can prepare you for life. Make your own list, advice and experiences. And don’t regret too much.

Love,

Present Me

It’s Time to Say Goodbye

 

 

Had our Farewell a few days back. Over here, a farewell is different from a convocation, with the latter being more formal and held after our degrees have been awarded.

A farewell is just an excuse to dress up, take lots of photos, get together with your batchmates and your juniors, and have fuuuuun.

It was a good night.

And I love the sari. 🙂

Dream

What I wouldn’t give for all of this to be an extremely cruel, extremely elaborate April Fools’ prank.

Or a bad, bad, feels-too-real kind of dream. It certainly feels dream-like, at times.

What I wouldn’t give to turn back time. Just one week.

And I can see why owning the Resurrection Stone would drive someone crazy.

Sometimes I imagine my grandparents, reunited finally, quarreling away to glory over board games’ rules somewhere.

But this only exists in my memories now.

Letters

I like writing letters.

Letters, not emails.

Pieces of paper with my scrawls and my thoughts and my phrasing and re-phrasing and my post-scripts and after-thoughts.

Then I will carefully put them in an envelope, stick a stamp or two, and send them on their way. To someone, who, like me, likes receiving mail in the post. Not email in the inbox. But real mail. And who will read it and will like it despite the handwriting that comes from not having written anything in ages, or the language that comes from not having a Backspace key.

And who will, maybe, write one back to me!

Lolita

I finished a book after a really long time. A difficult book, at that.

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokv.

The theme is a little creepy. The book is full of many innuendos. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if I was reading too much into the words, or there really was all that double meaning.

Verdict: Despite the theme that often sent shivers down my spine, I enjoyed the wordplay, the rambling narrative and the subjective descriptions like you were inside the narrator’s head. Indeed, the innuendos and references to sexual encounters are what keep you reading through the sometimes overly descriptive prose.

I want to read more books now.

Meanwhile, many unread blog posts pile up in my inbox. Fear not, I’ll get to them one of these days.

Mission Accomplished

It was a road trip to a small bird sanctuary some 200 kms from where I live.

Nine people, one car, one day.

But so much fun.

A Leap of Faith

Dear Future Me

Now and then, you need to take a leap of faith.

Start off small – maybe tell a new friend something about yourself and see how they react.

Sometimes they will be rewarded. But quite often they won’t be, and you will end up feeling stupid.

But well, I don’t need to tell you that – you are, after all, the girl who is the first to tell your crush that you like them!

Putting the ball right back in their court, haha. 😉

Love

Present Me

 

Yet Another Year Goes By

I’m not one for new year resolutions, but when I saw photos from my yoga days, I decided I have got to start doing it again.

The last year has been full of ups and downs – meeting lots of new people, going to new places, finally deciding what I will do in life,  breaking up with A, losing a grandmother, but to end it all, coming to the marvelous conclusion that my life is what I make of it, and resolving to take more time out to do what I like doing best – exploring, discovering, learning.

I’ve been to more new places (1. the new city where I interned at, 2. the Tibetan settlement, 3. the two hilly, misty, foggy places, 4. the place where I went to for the sports tournament) the last year than any other year ever, and I hope that I can continue to trump the number every successive year from now on!

After a while, you come to realize that you’re only 22 (almost!), and you can still do tons of awesome, potentially embarrassing things (like crashing formal dinners meant for professors and sleeping on the classroom floor) without having to feel even the slightest bit embarrassed about any of it! You can get lost and find the way (and yourself) again, you can be completely clueless and land up in a city where you don’t speak the language, you can go driving without a destination in mind – things which make memories, epic memories.

I sound so high on life, haha.

I’ll end this post with a photo from one of the places I went to this December:

And wish all of you a kick-ass new year!