randomness...need I say more? CHAPTER 2

randomness...need I say more? CHAPTER 1 - Written on August 1st, 2007 exactly a year ago.

I haven't been in the best of moods lately. I'm not sure what it has to do with, but 'pissed off' is all I see written on my forehead when I look into the mirror.

My third year at college starts on Monday and no, I am in no way ready for it. It also is not my final year, as a result of which there isn't much to look forward to. I don't want to go into college on Monday feeling all blah, because I'm certain it will screw things up for the rest of the year. Yes, that's the little superstitious person in me talking. So I need to get out of this funk I'm in, so the rest of my year can be slightly less crappier than it usually is.

God, I can't even listen to myself anymore. I hate being so crabby. I'm going to blame it on my genes.

Its actually a couple of hours past the 31st of July but I couldn't bear letting this blog have only three entries for the month, so I'm cheating a little and pushing the date back on this, so I'll have four posts under July. Why, you ask. Because I feel a little guilty, and maybe this will help ease the guilt a tad. You see, the thing is, I've been sitting on my ass this whole month, doing nothing, and I couldn't even find the the extra few minutes it takes to get myself from wherever I was lazing, to the seat in front of the computer to supply this dear little space that I love so much with a couple of words. So an attempt to redeem myself is in order.

The thing with me is, its either all or nothing. Either I bring total mayhem and madness into my life by making myself completely busy or I sit around doing nothing, and by nothing, I actually mean nothing. I said the word 'nothing' thrice in the last sentence so you'll know that it actually means 'nothing'. As I was saying, either I kill my self with work without sleeping a wink, or I do no work at all and sleep until 3 pm. Either starve myself and work out like a maniac or just eat whatever I want in insane quantities. You see, the word balance does not happen to be in my dictionary and trying to achieve an equilibrium at things is something that's way beyond my league. And this I'm going to blame on being an only child. The 'siblingless-ness' of it all brought it out in me.

If you haven't noticed by now, blaming other people, things and situations is something I do on a regular basis. And this I'm going to blame on my nuclear family. My father blames my mother for things, my mother blames my father, they blame me, I blame them. Its a vicious cycle, this blaming game. And one that's isn't planning on dying out anytime soon, I'm afraid.

Another thing you didn't need to know about me. Seriously I should rename this blog 'Unnecessary Confessions Of a Sour Lemon'. Way more fitting, don't you think?

Messiness, thy name is me.

An extremely untidy person by nature, I pretty much spent my whole adolescent and teenage life listening, to my mother scream at me, to clean up the pig sty that was my room. Disobedience, being my norm, I hardly ever adhered to those frequent orders.

I'm still as messy as I've ever been at home, but I've noticed that when I travel, especially alone, I am freaking obsessive compulsive. Turns out there is some of my mother's blood flowing through my veins, after all.

I went on two trips this year with college. We were a bunch of four in a hotel room, an inexplicably tiny hotel room might I add, with one double bed and barely enough space to put our feet. Four college girls doesn't exactly spell the bare necessities in terms of luggage. So there we are, all cramped up in this tiny room, which we unfortunately will call home for the next two weeks, and I get this rabid urge to tidy the place up. So my best friend and I start to clean, stowing away luggage, folding clothes, picking up wet towels off of the floor, throwing away food that's gone way past its 'best before' date, you know, the usual 'living-out-of-a-suitcase' scene. So we finally get done, and sit back surveying our work. Proud of the job we'd done, I pick up my book and continue on the adventures of three young women in Dublin (yes, I live on Chick lit, so sue me!!) when I see a comb that's on the table, slightly askew. I don't know what came over me that minute, I lunged across the bed, jumped over a couple of suitcases barely escaping landing on my face, and moved the comb two centimeters to the right so that it would be in place.

The moment I did that, I stopped. Disbelief washed over me, as I realized that I, the girl who went months without washing her bike, actually moved my fat ass from one end of a room to another to put a comb, of all insignificant things, in its place!

The reason I bring this up is that I've been home for two months now, and only a couple of weeks ago, did I get around to cleaning my room. I can safely say that while the task in itself was no piece of cake, it definitely would not have taken the amount of time that I took on it, which give or take was about three weeks.

Here are some pictures to prove it. (Sorry about the quality, a very sad VGA camera phone was all I had to work with!)

Three weeks later. Not perfect, but awesome for my standards.

So, that's the result of three weeks hard labour. Translation : Two and a half weeks of procrastination and 3 days of work.

Oh, and I hope I didn't scare you guys off with the filth that I lived in. Just trying to keep it real here folks.

Next week, my monstrosity of a closet.

Don't ask me how I get clothes outta there. Its a modern mystery.

While I'm the epitome of untidiness in this aspect, I expect nothing less than perfection from myself when I turn in work at college. Having to attain perfection in a room of crap can be quite a task. And that's something I'll have to repeat ten times everyday hereafter, so I can stop messing up my room.

Can you see the difference between ME - 'The Traveller' and ME - 'The lazy slug at home'. The difference is truly phenomenal. Now the only thing left to do is find someone to sponser my travel so I can learn to be a tidier person or learn to be happy living amongst the filth.
Though the former is extremly tempting, I'd be completely satisfied doing the latter.

Now THERE'S something you didn't need to know about me.

Random much?

Its very unbecoming of me to get serious on my blog. And also slightly scary. So lets revert back to the usual nonsensical crap that I so easily manage to churn out, shall we. Bulleted list of all the happenings in this little life of mine.

• After many failed attempts of getting back into my former obsessive reading habit, I have finally finished my first book of the summer and am halfway through the next one. For someone who used to live in the library, practically the entire summer, the TV and the internet have truly wrecked havoc in my life. I'm not complaining though.

• For a person who 99% of the time, thinks she's right, having to say "I was wrong, you were right and I'm sorry" doesn't exactly happen to be in my repertoire. This is definitely not something to be proud of, but it is something that I have been working on.

• Being on the heavier side, shopping for clothes is painful to say the least. If I was trying to be descriptive.. indescribably, excruciatingly horrific would be an understatement. Now this shopping experience wouldn't be half as bad if you had a mother who say, was not that into shopping for herself or a mother who wasn't half your size. Unfortunately, my mother happens to fall into both those categories. So while the experience of trying on a billion outfits and finding that none fit you is traumatic enough, whats worse is your mother walking out of the store with more clothes for herself than you, even though you originally went to shop for yourself.

• Sitting at home and lazing around is something that I have elevated to an art form. I should write a book on it. It would probably be a best seller.

• I have horrible hair. Its curly one day, its wavy the next. It never stays the way its supposed to and is terribly tiresome...is what someone who actually cared would say. I have never been one to look after myself. I use zero hair products except for shampoo and conditioner, zero moisturizers and creams, zero makeup except for kajal, that is if I can find it. I'm very low maintenance in this sense, but I got my hair cut a couple of days ago, and trust me when I say, it is by far the worst one I've ever had, and trust me I've had my fair share of bad hair cuts. The worst part? It cost me six hundred bucks! If it were up to me, I'd have gone to the fake Chinese salon down the road, but no, my mom convinced me to go someplace "nice", because I don't cut my hair too often. And that is the story of the worst hair cut. That and being called 'Simba' because of my wild mane.
  

• I love my google reader, have I ever mentioned that before. Its the first thing I check in the morning, and the last thing I check before I go to sleep. Yes, I realize I need some sort of detox, but I don't want any and its a choice I'm happy to make. I subscribe to over 120 blogs ranging from personal blogs to tech blogs to design & photoshop blogs to cooking blogs to celeb blogs to pop culture blogs to craft blogs. Basically my point is, I read A LOT of blogs, but I've come to notice that it is never enough. I spend the whole day refreshing the page, because I read them all so quickly and I'm left wanting more, which isn't exactly possible because not many people update more than once a day. Anyway, the bottom line, I need more blogs to read. I love going to other people's blogs and stumbling upon other blogs, but that gets tiring after awhile. I know there are a lot of people who read this site and don't comment. I want to read your blogs! You don't ever have to comment again, just this once to leave your blog address behind, so I'll have more stuff to read. Its only fair! powerdrunk.blogspot.com...I'm talking to you! Send me an invite will you, I'd love to read! To people who already comment, I read all your blogs and love them all!
  

It took a week to post this cause I'd sit down everyday and write only one point.
I think I can proudly claim the title of queen of procrastination after this, don't you?

Of the future, life and of hope...

Walking down the road the other day, I found myself in the middle of what seemed like a gaggle of freshmen from a nearby college. They were walking together in groups, and as I crossed the road, I landed right between two of these groups. The pair of girls in front of me were chattering loudly and me, being myself, walked a little faster to catch up to them to listen to what they were saying. Yes, I eavesdrop. Its a vice or rather an activity of mine, that I tend to indulge in, on a regular basis. It ends up giving me a lot to laugh about but also having to deal with people who catch me laughing to myself in public. That can be quite embarrassing, although completely worth it.

Anyway, as I caught up to the girls, I heard them talking about marriage and astrologers and the like. One was the girls had supposedly gone to see her family astrologer the previous day, who had told her that she might get married the following year or something in that context (I couldn't hear too well). The other girl replied saying that her astrologer had told her that she might get married the year she turns 23. Both the girls were mighty excited at the prospect of their future weddings and were giggling the same way I remember doing when I was their age.

I remember sitting around friends at slumber parties, imagining all our weddings. The time, the place, the clothes, the shoes, the men...we talked about it all, delighting ourselves with each little detail, our giggles laced with hopes for the future and for the rest of our lives.

Now, when I think of the future, I don't see weddings, or husbands, or babies. I see myself, sitting down at the end of a hard day's work, looking out a window at the pouring rain, thanking God that I had made it home before it started. I also see myself happy, albeit the absence of the cushy family life that was previously a big chapter in my book of images of the future.

Its weird the way your outlook on things can change in a short period of time. The way I saw things in December are most definitely not the way I see them now. I can actually feel this surreal transition into adulthood and let me tell you, it is not pretty. I'm beginning to realize my strengths and my weaknesses, and finding out that I have more of the latter than of the former has been pretty tough. At times I feel like I'm being cynical, but then I actually think about it and I realize that this is reality, this is life. This is the thing that everyone screws up at least a couple hundred times. Life isn't gonna be a bed of roses, heck it isn't even gonna be a bed of malli poos*! And exams aren't gonna be the worst things that we face! Its scary this realization. I've learnt a lot about myself in the past month, some stuff that makes me happy, and some stuff that makes me sad, wait, scratch that, a lot of stuff that makes me sad, but I've also learnt, that these are the things that make a person. Not necessarily a perfect person, but a person none the less. And this is the only person that we've got to work with, so we better make the best of it.

Life is funny. It makes you smile one day and it makes you cry the next. I guess that's the great thing. Not knowing the future is a perfect gift because it allows room for hope, and hope is something we all can do a little of.


*malli poo - tamil for jasmine flowers