I believe in magic. The magic of a full moon cradled in its aura of light. The clarity of air after a storm. The shy furtive dances of lizards when they think no one is at home. The spicy tang of a samosa crumbling and then melting in your mouth. The lilt of a theme catching your breath when you are surfing aimlessly. The flash of a suddenly pretty face when she looks innocently in your corner. The white silhouette of the library nestling its little gardens and palms. The slow rising chorus of crickets as the sun sets and the moon rises. The peace of nigh-dawn amidst its darkness when the world's worries have not woken.

And we come full circle. 2010, I hope to love you.

I am a messed up little girl who refuses the epithet of woman at 26. I am teetering on the brink of many things and drawing back from mistakes made. I have lost my beloved dog and even the newest of years could not bring him back. But tonight I am content to just be.

And to be prosaic, I love Merlin. Me like tv shows!

Sure you can go crazy over the mythic world of Pandora but please let's not forget everything at home. the mists over Kinabatangan, the orangutans in the trees, the massive crocodiles in the murky depths and the trees and green reaching in joy upwards to sun.

There is so much beauty outside. I appreciate someone bringing it to all of us in a movie as enchantingly lovely as Avatar. But I will go out again and breathe the deep brown growing smell of rain and stare at everything alive

Edit: must stop resting on my laurels from that single trip through the rainforest. Must make more. But the point is, a single trip did this to me...

So many cryptic entries. It's hard to balance a sense of privacy but still be able to remember why i said whatever whenever.

I like being back in Singapore. I'm up early and the dawn is just creeping over the furthest swathes of sky. There's a hoarse voiced koel screaming out desperate endearments. The sound of traffic hums in the background and it's warm.

Had a nice long conversation with a friend. It is good to know we are still friends despite the distance between us and that we hardly ever talk when I'm in Chicago.

It is good to be back. I only wish I had something to do. Restlessness will be the death of me. I feel like I didn't really do much or learn that much this last quarter, being content to rest on laurels. The game is swift and will pass me by if I don't pick up pace again. And how swift the time flies is beginning to worry me. What will I do with all the friends I have made? Just give them up? I can't, I can't.

Today is not a good day. I hate this limbo feeling. Of waiting. of neither doing something in Chicago nor of being in Singapore.

It's a good day for beginnings and a good day for ends. I call it auspicious. I prepare to throw off this baggage which was this last quarter and move onwards. I did not get done what I aimed to do but it was not time entirely wasted. I am starting to feel old. I'm beginning to ask questions such as 'And then? And then?' till I exasperatedly answer 'And then they die' or 'And then I die'. Me dying is not so bad suddenly. I was thinking this over for a casual acquaintance and realised with a shock that I don't even want them to die. It's so final. And then I think about my beautiful Brutus whom I will never see again.

Morbid thoughts. I want the gleam of winter sunshine even if it comes with bitter cold. I want to be away from here. Or I want to really grow up and get my priorities straight.

Miami was beautiful. I enjoyed doing nothing. But one can only do nothing for so long. I secretly am glad to be back in Chicago in the midst of all this life and activity.

Even the things that bring me down seem small in comparison to all the things that buoy me up and make me glad

Today is one of those days when I am actively and acutely aware of the joys of being alive

Family guy has made me cringe, laugh, gape, sneer but it never made me cry till now. Dog gone.

My new love: dancing. I hope I'll get time to continue with it after I start working too. I am working very hard at it too though I dare say my teachers won't believe it. My goal is to learn as much as possible with the limited time I have.

Dr Belle de Jour

I didn't need to know that she had a PhD and was a scientist. Every word she wrote showed her beautiful balanced personality and intelligence. I admire her so much.

I hate Larabar

I used to like the cherry flavour breakfast bar. But there's something about it that makes my throat choke and itch. And now I completely hate it. So much so that when I see it in the aisle I want to gag.

Interesting psychosomatics

I took a dislike to someone yesterday and then was quite mean to them. I can't take it back but I know who'd be proud of me

Someone else feels the same way

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/10/tanya-gold-bright-star-keats

Cringe

I don't think I am going to step out of my house ever again.

I got locked out of my house in a night dress, had to make my way to the front desk, was redirected to the management office and then got my keys.

Everyone saw me in my night dress. Ipshita prepares to self combust in embarassment

I really was going to whine about something where I was being nice. What's wrong with me. I shouldn't complain so much.

but I know what I mean

I don't understand people who just let the rain fall on them. Why give in? Why give up? There may be times when I may take a little respite and give in but I refuse to stay that way. I'll stop fighting when I'm dead.

God. One life only? Really? (throws arms about) but there is so much space and so many things that are waiting to happen.

I am really waking up from a sort of stupor I have been this quarter. I like it. I like it very much. There's is life tingling in my fingers and toes. And when I think of what I should do next there's a lot to choose from. It's a warm day and I am going outside. I don't care who I meet. I am doing this for me.

I am a person with a piece of chalk drawing patterns in the space around me. I am done.

I apologise to everyone who loves me. If I can barely speak to myself sometimes, it's no shame not to speak to anyone. I am just who I am and I will be cryptic. We will just have to bear it.

I am not who I want to be, but I am what I am just the same. Would I make the same mistake again with the benefit of hindsight? I'm tempted to say never. What are these things that I wont even speak to myself. They grow deep inwards and curl secret by my heart and I can never speak.

May I find kindness in all whom I meet

I really just want to get back to work. I look around at people I could become and say no, I don't want to become them. And what will distinguish us is the honest hard labour that I shall revel in and bury myself into. All this leisure is fine and fun but I need to slog, to be patted and praised.

I love my innate ennui meter check. I can trust it to go beep and tell me when I'm wasting time. There's plenty to do, you know. I'm still not "client-ready", I would tremble to public-speak and I have much brain sharpening to get into. Good. Now to get to it somehow...

Love is a strange and inexplicable thing. It is many hued, catches the light of our lives and twists them, throwing tortured rays. It grows like a plant from the earthy soil and bursts forth in green abundance. It grasps us by the most painful nerves and pinches. It creeps up unawares and shocks. It blunts a new facet where none was. It gives and takes, hurts, forgives, beats us senseless. It walks like a ghost beside one. It whispers strange things and lays grey fingers upon faces. It sings music into the monotonous waves of time. It twines into your soul, twangs heartstrings and is a

parasite in your stomach.

I may just go on and on. I hate being human and in love and so far from my objects of love.

I need to get a grip on myself

Everything is alive and I'm glad again. A cup of chocolate and the people thinking and smiling at each other, the warm unseasonal day and me

Is it so hard to listen to me that I must be interrupted without a thought?

I hate it. I am not to have enthusiasms. I am not to have interests. I hate cold, snide, sarcastic people.

From now on I am taking my enthusiasms and interests elsewhere

Got my halloween costume today. I refuse to plan any further. Too much planning does not have positive returns :p

But what am I going to be? Ah, that's a secret. I promised Soo not to tell.

So I'm theatrical with you

I'm still doing fine in school, respected as a person. I have a dear boyfriend. I have a loving caring family.

It's just that I can't be happy all the time. I had a fall out with someone I liked but it was not my fault. My loved ones are far away and all my friends are stressed with recruiting. I am bored, tired.

And I don't want to be. My goal is to be happy. So I'm trying for my happiness in the drawl of the current pace of life I'm in.

Anyway. It's Diwali today and the party. Dressing up will cheer me up

I look back at all the strange posts I've been making to you, Bloggy. There's only one explanation. I have too much time on my hands to think and analyse even the smallest things. I can't help it. I'm nervy, unsettled and emotionally adrift so far from my loved ones. I'm so tightly wound up, yet I don't have much I need to do.

Outcome of this extraneous bit of analysis: get more busy.

Dangers of not doing this: The 'what was I thinking' groan that will inevitably come once the phase passes. Also, the very real fear that I could become depressed and listless. It would be inexcusable. I have nothing to be depressed about.

Risks: Treating the symptom by keeping myself busy. May not be addressing the root cause of the problem, whatever that may be.

Hopes: I can feel myself winning. There's a reason why I keep writing in you about all of this. It's because I am actively fighting every tendency against regaining my balanced moods and self.

Pitfalls: The way up and out is sticky and dirty. I am really my own worst enemy. Noone could willingly do worse for myself than I would if I lost any sense.

Aims:

That I can judge myself by my own scale and won't get blown around by praise or damnation

That I will be at peace with being myself and being by myself

That I will be able to choose the influence people will have on me

What I've done well so far: Kept my balance despite the everything, despite my nerves and loneliness. I've worked hard, not slacked, not given in to self pity. I haven't let myself go.

Set me free why don't you, baby

I stare down the alternate paths my life could have taken and I wonder what they could have been like. Sometimes I really wish for the power of going down these roads and come back to this one. I know I've made some good choices but I understand the impulses of making bad choices.

Curiosity. Simple curiosity will trip me up one day.

I must not be self destructive. Pain isn't always fleeting. The best solution is to live a happy life.

Inertia is my worst enemy. It keeps me from necessary change. It turns little swerves off the road into wide sweeping detours.

"You don't really love me, you just keep me hanging on"

Today I was feeling good about a few decisions I've made but I need to stay strong in the face of internal opposition. I'm even more proud of how well I've managed to convey my decision and peace of mind to those who would prefer to see it disturbed. If anything, at least let pride keep me strong. I have no mood or mind to feed other people's egos.

I was actually kind of mean. But it was either me or them. And I'm tired of playing nice and consenting to being used. I am going to miss the company but the net outcome was coming out negative. It was like being in a love affair that causes a lot of grief for a few moments of happiness.

More innocence lost.

long distance blues

I dislike long distance relationships. There is nothing good about them. It's more about the opportunity cost of staying together versus getting a step ahead in your career while you put your relationship on hold. because that's what it is. A relationship on hold. There is no hope of progress and all the two of you are working to do is to make sure that there isn't any back tracking.

And in the meanwhile it's the long lonely hours of waiting, all the negatives of being single and all the negatives of being attached rolled into one, guilt from smiling too much at someone, wondering if you're fading away and that there's noone to look at you and tell you that you're looking bright happy and pretty. What's the point, I mean. I might as well dress in rags, scowl and let myself go.

I should be happy, things are working out fine. Somehow, instead, I am beginning to understand what is important to me and that is to have someone to relate with and relate to, all the time. To have that someone whom you're thinking of with you.

And due to the unnatural state of things, I will moderate all my inclinations, think big picture and plow on with my good resolutions. I will be unhappy now to be happy later.

Ah, the nice *clean* feeling of anger

I must submit with grace to the inevitable. I want to look back and see that I didn't thrash in protest against what must be and should be

I feel there are dried patches of paint in my past. Did I like them fresh and smelling pungently of thinner? Now they're done, glazed and set. And I can look at it indulgently and almost forget how hard it was to paint it. And what shall I say of the flaws in the painting?

Kindle

Love, Love, Love

I have lost my head. What are boys to this?

True love. My insides are twisted in joy and I can't stop staring at you, my Kindle. I must and shall name you. You are mine. Holding back the kisses, lest they smudge your pearly sheen.

Nearly crying with satisfaction.

I shall move to a monastery and live, just me, my Kindle, and an electrical outlet to charge it.

I lovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvve you.

Pact

I loved my internship. I loved it, loved it, loved it. It was useful sensible work which tickled my fancy amongst people who were smart and keen in a city and place I like. What's not to fall in instant love with?

Yet, I see people who may have come in with similar hopes and happinesses turn jaded and tired and I worry. Here's a pact, bloggy. You and I will weather this. Our enthusiasms are built on strong foundations. And as long as we can keep finding challenges, we will manage. What is more wonderful than to find out one day that you've come through something you thought that you'd give in to? That is true happiness, as true as I've ever felt.

We've been through many many bad things. I've cried secretly on planes from hidden sadness, I'm weathering the loss of a most loved one, I've managed depression and dejection. I am not going to borrow trouble. I am going to remember how much and how badly I wanted the job while I was there. I'm going to remember the praise, the constructive criticisms and manage.

And secretly to you, my Bloggy, I acknowledge my dearest friends who have been my bedrock and pillars of strength. I love them, I love them, I love them. What did I ever do to deserve such perfect people?

What happens when one wants something badly but one knows it's not going to be worth it? Does one give in to the weakness of the moment? Or does one wisely decline?

Chocolates, unwise friendships, naps, purple flowers... they all fall under this category and the outcome is too varied for there to be a single answer to my behaviour.

The revenge of the spiders

It's karma, I tell you. I didn't let that spider in on that rainy day. S/he sent his/her brethren to assault me. There I was in my window alcove when I turn around and this huuuge spider is dangling from the ceiling, hanging in the way of freedom. There was no way to go but through the window. I went into hysterics: crying and screaming for help, for here was this spider dangling inches from me, nearly on me if I moved.

I wasn't ready to jump out of the window, so I emptied my pencil box (all the while still crying hysterically), and opened it on its hinges. Quickly I snapped it shut around the dangling spider. Still crying, I ran to the lift lobby and to the other end of the corridor, where I dropped the box which fell open. Crying still, I ran back to the safety of my house.

Shattered nerves. Had to call Lily and cry. And now I feel silly. The rational has regained control. Why am I so frightened of spiders?

Also, a moot point; if I'm getting murdered, no one will know or care. Because for sure, if I was getting murdered I would scream a lot lot less than I did now. Hmph. Some unfeeling neighbours I have. A real neighbour would have come running to find the damsel in distress.

Greed

I dream of white truffles shaved onto a bed of steaming buttered pasta. I had that at Otto in Singapore. I can't stop thinking about it.

O, my poor mouth. We must not splurge now. You are the mouth of a poor student

Spiders and rain

I sit here by the window and I'm watching the rain come down in sheets. And there's a spider outside my window. He/She is sheltering in a little nook, which can't be much shelter. I'm a monster though. I look at his/her eight legs and they are very long and black and frightening to an arachnophobic like me. But what harm will he/she do me? Why don't I have the courage to open the window and let him/her in?
I don't and I'm almost helpless between my irrational and strong fear and my outrage that I would let anything stay out on a night like this.

What Ipshita wants

Hmm...

What do I want? I want security, I want peace, I want silence. And the only reason I want these things is propbably because this last year I had none of it.

As more and more security comes my way, stress I didn't even know I was carrying roll off my shoulders. And now if I could have one place I could call home, I don't deserve to ask for more.

Only, as it should be, there is always one thing that keeps everything from being perfect. I will never ever have my Brutus around again. And I wonder how much of this would I have traded for another year of his continued life and health. Love and attachment are terrible things. I still can't believe he's gone.

I've just come from Paradise. It was so unbelievably beautiful. I want to take everyone I've ever liked with me on a long trip and jump up and down as their jaws sag with admiration.

I fell

I flew

I climbed

I drifted

I sped

I rafted

I gazed

I slept

I ate

I stared

I screamed

I laughed

I didn't want to ever leave

Moo cows and baa lambs and good people and the world out of some fairy tales. backdrops of moutains, canyons, ravines, ice blue rivers and glaciers, birds of paradise, skies of aquamarine, horizons of undefined distances

The skies of Agra are full of birds. Parakeets, crows, mynahs, kites and the odd hornbill or two. If you have to imagine a world where the spirits take animal form side by side with our existence that would be how I'd see it.

I've enjoyed my little break thus far. I am gritted up to plough through my 'working' holiday in NZ. And after that, it will be good to get back to studying. An idle mind is a very boring workshop

Everytime I think I am getting better, I'm not. Home was the worst place to come to. I keep looking over my shoulder expecting the old routines. Sit for tea, my dog's not there begging for biscuits, go to sleep, no snuffling noises at night. No walks, no pawing for food at meals. No shuffling around the house quietly to be near us.

The house is full of memories and ghosts. My dad speaks of moving. I understand. I would like to shut up the apartment as a mausoleum to our grief. If I were rich and famous, it would be a touching tribute if I built a monument to Brutus. Being ordinary, it is 'just' my dog who has died. Everyone understands, but only a few really do. I am bereaved. If it was a brother I'd be given time off, given space to heal. People would expect me to be shattered. I am shattered on the inside and this grief is globulous and growing inside me, not a romantic metaphor but true.

Brutus, my Brutus, my dearest dearest Brutus

It is easy to forget Gandhi and Satyagraha as a past and distorted through propaganda. Looking back and reading the actual events from the world press from around the time of the Bardoli Satyagraha, I am stunned. The very real shrewdness displayed by Gandhi the mobilising of such enormous crowds and the people the civil disobedience reached and the significant crippling of the british government from the movement. No taxes, no income, mass resignations, disobedience from Indians in the army, reporting lines broken. Amazing. No amount of terrorism could have come close to the effect this had.

It is astounding. The commitment, the deep and real motivation of these people. How dare we be blase about our lives, apathetic about unfolding events when so many died to give us what we really really really take for granted.

I am moved to tears from frustration at the littleness of my life and from awe of our independence movement. I am truly proud and I am truly little.

I am sorry Bloggy that I've been unable to talk about anything else. My superficial thoughts have returned to normal but my inner thoughts are still very wrapped around Brutus. How can I make you understand the grief?

My internship ended today. I was touched by how kind everyone was. I think Wouter's right. It is indeed all about what I learnt from these 10 weeks. What follows is important but is a separate issue entirely. I won't know what to do with my free time now.

Or do I? All those chores and tasks have piled up pretty well and high

I am mostly alright. I am normal and am going about my life in the usual sense. I laugh, I live, I love I learn etc etc.
But I am not okay. I am at the tipping edge a lot. The slightest memory of Brutus makes me flush. I can't open emails my dad has sent with his photographs because I know I'm going to spiral down and cry. I dream about him a lot. That he's alive and all of this is a silly mistake. Then I wake up and realise that I am never going to see him again and the only place he lives now is dreams like these. I regret waking up. I am cruel to myself.
But I am okay. When I first smiled and laughed after his death a mere two days after the news, I felt aghast at myself, a traitor to his memory. But this grief is new to me and it's not a long sustained sobfest. I now realise that grief is a longer term feeling atop everything else in normal life and living. I suppose with time it will slowly lessen.
I am okay. That is the best part, I suppose. Who would want to wallow in sorrow every moment? I also remember him vividly with all the best of me. That is also a good thing.

Love is a beautiful brown nosed labrador. He was such a good boy. But I don't want to talk about it.

Life goes on in other news. I'm almost offended that it does. I laugh and live normally though I do get achingly sad when I remember. But I can't remember all the time. I would end.

Work is going on. I feel like perhaps I should have a burst of enthusiasm but more and more it feels like business as usual. I am just working. not to prove a point or anything but because I want to, I suppose. Tia's wedding is coming up and I'm glad to go home. Some of her presents I ordered came today. I am 'appy.

February 10th 1997 - August 8th 2009

Brutus is dead.

Riddle me this

How should I separate what I do into what I'm doing for other people's sakes and what I am doing because I want to? by doing something for other people's sakes I include doing things to communicate inten, to impress people, to fit in etc etc.

And except when I am doing something to make our combined lives easier, I dont really think I ought to care that much should I? But not caring can be taken too far as well. I find myself wondering *why* I am changing my Gtalk status or posting something on facebook. Is it because I feel something in some way or because I wish to tell people something.

And is it a bad thing if I do wish to tell people things?

I don't deal well with
Uncertainity
Disappointment
Instability
Be prepared, Bloggy, to hear a lot from me if things do not go well.
In other news, I was chatting with certain persons. I'm not really sure why I do. It's a waste of time, I don't like them, they don't like me. Where is the connection? I think I should resolve to let go of emotional deadwood. At times like this, it's good that I'm terribly pragmatic. However stupidly I think, it always comes back to my long run happiness. Of course one can argue, do I know what's good for my long run happiness. Sure, maybe I don't always know that but some things are certain and I'm certain that some things do NOT contribute in any which way.

Opened up my bag today and a single hair fell out. An inch in length, turning white to brown from end to end. Oh Brutus, I must have left my bag next to you when I was home. Did you snuffle inside it?

Edit: Symbolism and blah. I kept brutus's hair tenderly aside. I got a call, got wrapped into work and brushed clean my table without thinking. No hair.

Further Edit: Will the symbolism stop? Nopes. I got up and there was my reminder of my Dog neatly resting on the black cover of my notebook.

The last possible Edit: I keep that one hair with me all the time. I wonder if I can get it set in crystal or a glass locket. What a good boy he was...

I so did want to go to KL. Ah well, oh well

Read a book by Stroud today. It was deeply uncanny. Shades of Kitty in Emily. I love his work. I shall read more. I wish I was younger so I could legitimately read em. I'm glad I'm able to get back to reading amidst my schedule. It takes me out of myself. I need more of it. At the same time I also need more educational reading. What happens post the MBA? I dont want to go back to being just a babbling idiot. I still want to keep the babble.

Ah Stroud...

joy

The deck I created went on to distribution to the client without a single change. Not one!

Wheeling wonderful world.
Screaming sheer joy in my head

Out of my skin

I am a tree and I stand before a human being. She has given me mobility and vitality. She made it possible for our kind to come free of our passivity and the latent anger has come growing out of our hearts. We have killed every one of them and she stand before me wishing for her continued life. I am thankful for that which she gave us in a moment of feeling and love. Yet she is one of them and I kill her.

I cannot help but feel his rage above. I am him. And she is me. Yet I would kill her.

I am feeling strangely restless and moved. My head is full of history, the celtic missionaries, the frankish kings, the kingdom of Al-andalus. I am also ashamed to say I only today realised the actual dates of birth of Islam. But it's only adding to the whirring of the brain cogs.
My sister is through to the second bartimaeus book and she asked me if nathaniel turns evil. I replied cautiously but my voice broke. I can't think of those books without a surge of emotion.
Finally I can't help but think that I am too nice to the undeserving. And even while I think it I can't change the way I feel. I may flare up at the moment of irritation but my follow through in resentment and anger is weak. And while I am rationally telling myself that my emotions are irrational, irrationally, I can't change those emotions one whit.
So you see, my head is very full today. On top of all this I am actively working. I feel like it's about to explode (a non-headache metaphor mind you. this is a physically painless process and is only mentally disorienting)

I'm feeling crabby, my head hurts and I'm tired. There are too many negative thoughts in my mind. I am worried, envious, upset, sneaky, cross, slothful

I think its time to sleep

I complimented my PL today on a presentation and immediately felt revulsed. It felt so wrong, so sycophantic. I'm shuddering. I had to insert a cynical comment after it... how to sleep otherwise?

Thank god for civillisation.
Wake up in the morning in a bed (most ppl didn't really have raised beds till after the industrial revolution)
Bathe, brush teeth, groom self. (people bathed once a year, toothbrush? and moisturiser was not freely available.)

I could go on and on.. I could lie down and want to die. And being female I am triply, quadruply glad for modern era of comforts. May it never end.

There was a get together of Booth ppl today. I left early to get some work done. I like getting work done and I didn't mind missing the networking and alumni at all. What kind of an MBA grad will I be? I love my work though. I don't tire of it at all. I want to seem responsible and worthy. Love me back, please?

I wait online and wonder if I should message people. And then I wonder what I'd say if they messaged me. I think so much about it that I don't click and I turn away to another tab. But sometimes, while the tab is open somewhere while I work I'm thinking, 'should I chat? I shouldn't' Finally, I get tired by all these derivatives of a simple act and I'll snap and shut the tab.

I've been kind of low, since I've heard about Brutus. For a day or so I was really miserable, like I didn't know I could be. It finally dawned on me that it could hurt more to be left behind than to die oneself. I'm so afraid of dealth that I couldn't imagine this before.

I flew down on the weekend. Ready to see him the one last time. The old rascal is hanging on to life, cheerful even in his last gasp. I cried every time he tried to do something normal. But he's being spunky. And thank God he's not in any pain. My beautiful waggy dog. The best dog there ever was. Our Brutus.

Keening

The burden of grief is an intensely personal thing. I don't really know if I'm fine. But I just really want to find that out myself.

Bloggy, I've told you often about my fears but all that time I was borrowing trouble. I was hoping when the time came I'd bear up better. I don't think I am.

Writing is faintly a narcissistic activity, at least for me. When I read back on anything I write, I am always trying to capture the mood I was in at that time. Whats the deal with that? What's done is done and I know myself well enough to make sure I learn from my experiences. Is there really a need to dwell on past good or gory myself in old agonies?

Bloggy, I've been two timing you. I had a little diary I wrote in every now and then (less often than in you, I promise and not neaaaaarly as long). But I found myself reading it over and it was a faintly pleasurable exercise. As soon as I realised it, I was disgusted with my self obsession. So I killed that diary.

You're my one true love

Trinity

It's getting late and my lazy self wants to go to bed.
My better self is sitting and trying to get over my incompetence
And my incompetence is sitting by looking on apologetically.

The need of the hour is really to throw the kitchen sink and all into the work and not to throw up the shovel. Excuse my mixed metaphors

I don't blush from shyness, from awkward topics, from coyness, from unexpected advances, nothing. The only thing that has ever made me blush is a word of check from a manager and teacher. How my cheeks are burning! And just because someone kindly showed me how to make my excel spreadsheet better. It's actually painful. Oh my burning skin and oh the violent shame

All of the world, all of a life could not be supported without the backbone of goodness.

When famous people die, all I feel is a curiosity.

And when the opinions fall from the sky each unique like a snowflake, I stand under their drifts and think: I never knew you at all

God. Talk about being thrown in the deep end. I feel completely bewildered. There is so much stuff to churn through and so much is expected of me. Really need to bring the A-game. As of now all I can demonstrate is my willingness to learn and responsibility. I have had no 'eureka' moments, no great aptitude demonstrated. But I've got grit. I'm going to fight. Oh god. To think I may look back on this post in 3-4 months' time and cringe

Liopleurodon

I could write about scenes from Singapore, about the dried flowers on the pavement being stirred up into a vortex about me, about the crowds of pleasantly Singaporean people, of singlets, shorts and flipflops. Or I could seeth at me and how selfishly I work these days. I've honed my manipulating myself into an art. I know exactly how I react. I feel as if I could cultivate reactions, trim the ones I don't like and grow the ones I do. Something of spontaneity is lost. I was telling someone about this and they said, "Ah, you're growing up." But it's not as if I do it for the better, just for the better for me. At forty I may be a beautifully balanced personality but I'd be cold as a fish.

Or I could be overreacting. Spontaneous things are usually combustions, explosions, collapses. Negative sudden and irreversible things. And what's so wrong with being cold blooded. I rather admire some of the extinct cold blooded marine creatures

Ha, if only. I'll continue to be me for a whole lot longer. At any rate, it's going to take me all the way till forty to be a lovely 'little' liopleurodon. Looking forward to it, arrrrrr. I lovvvvvvvvvvvve lios. I admit it. I just wanted to compare me to one. I want to be one. Ah time, space and biology.

Dear Diary

At a period of low self confidence it's good to get one's grades. I know there's no correlation between these and success at work. However, I'm always scared that I'm completely stupid. And I've been a little overwhelmed by the smarts and the tough as nails attitude at work. Everyone exudes a quiet competence. It's not bravado or smugness. I am going to have to really step up my game here to stay put. I think I could but I'm not certain. And I'm really scared the infrastructure isn't in me. So confidence from any source is welcome.

And it's a relationship isn't it? I love central banks, Bloggy, and so it's a real pleasure to know that central banks has loved me back. Mmmwah. Here's looking at you, kid.

Singapore has been good to me otherwise. I feel more grounded, less volatile and more sensible than I usually do in Chicago. I was out last night and it was good to be in Suntec, hanging out with the old crowd. I have a lot of people to meet yet, and I shall, I shall. While the jet lag slowly recedes. Do you know what i find I never noticed about Singapore before? The smell of humidity in the evening. It's a sweet fragrance of earth and leaves that rises as the sun sets and the temperature begins to fall. I noticed it with surprise on Tuesday and I've noticed it every evening since. It's partly like the smell after rain and it's galvanising, the smell of life, water, soil and makes me fairly dizzy with the joy of being alive.

On a side note, I used to think that this dizzy ditsy feeling that gets triggered unexpectedly every now and then was just youth but I'm glad to see it's not receding. If I live to seventy, I think I could wake up and feel intoxicated with the pleasure of being.

Day two. I had a good day yesterday but I was so tired. I dont think I was at my best and I'm worried. Today I need to be really on my toes and feel it. I don't think I really felt it yesterday. I have a habit of being overwhelmed easily. I don't understand why I have all these self image and confidence issues. Surely, you'd think, I'm really full of myself :p Maybe I don't believe it.

I find out my staffing today. I am excited. Only, I think my worse self is holding me back. That worse self who is lazy, sleepy, irresponsible and flesh-pot loving. Begone worse self!

Jetlag and other pitfalls of moving base

Am jetlagged. Enough said, except that this time I'm coping better than in december last.

I'm having a few 'Frodo back in the shire' moments. 'how do you pick up the threads of an old life?"

I'm wondering what my classmates are up to, how my other friends are doing? And I'm wondering if they're wondering the same about me.

But the water was blue today and the sun enough to turn my usual T.V. camera settings to overexposed. I felt glad to be back and to see everything and be with everyone. It felt like coming home.

Work tomorrow. What's the feeling where you're excited, anticipatory, worried, all at once?

Forever

Everytime the concept of eternity comes up, I find it too large too big to understand. So everytime I have a 'forever' moment or a 'never' moment in my life I'm scared.

A feeling of 'I will never be here again'

A thought that something has forever changed

That I will never feel the same way about a person

That there is no going back

I don't mean to say I'm thinking all those things right now, but I feel threshold-y. And thresholds are kind of 'forever' moments. If only I knew why I'm feeling like this. Must be less susceptible

also, I get fake-profound when I'm up all night packing

I feel emotionally shattered as I pack. I don't understand. I'm trembling as I fold my clothes. I want to curl up in a ball and stay on my sofa and watch the sun roll over the sky but I dont have the luxury of time. It's all moving too fast for me. Exams get over, I pack up my whole existence here almost, give my room over to a stranger, fly across the world and take up employment with a challenging company. I dont have time to say goodbyes and suddenly people seem dear to me. If I feel this way now how will I feel next year?

I know this will pass. I know I'll feel better when I see Singapore, when I see Rajesh and the others there but I can't imagine it now from this side of the fence. I know I will be happy rather than feel it. But the last time I felt this way, was when I was leaving Singapore. It was worse then of course, but it's the same kind of pain. And it's suddenly come upon me now. yesterday's moodiness has nothing to do with this kind of heartbreak. I'm too old to feel so intensely. Parting is NOT sweet sorrow.

Poisonous little bottles

I don't take tea or coffee. I barely take sugar to control the highs. Everything thats supposed to hit you, hits me just the little harder.

but what does someone like me do when they need to stay the course and not get jittery. I introduce to you, the 5 hour energy drink. Supposedly gives you energy and keeps you from crashing afterwards. I agree with the no crash bit. But it's rocket fuel. It's tiiiiiiny. And I can't even take half a dose to get zinged. Its medicinal. I must take it carefull considering all factors (time of day, fullness of stomach, exercise, last hour of sleep and so on)

Zinging in the raiiiiin

Finally

I was late to gmail. The good 'Ipshita' mail addresses were gone. I was late to hotmail. I barely got any mail address and it was very vague. But I got facebook. Mwahaa

http://www.facebook.com/ipshita

Irrational as I am, that cheers me up immensely

Insecurity never rains but it pours

The second you let a chink in your armour, it cracks. I felt so under-average today in every aspect of being a person. And I can tell these days when it's just a mood swing like now. What an odd feeling it is to know that you're being irrational and being completely unable to change anything about it. Just ride it out I suppose. Maybe in the next 25 years I'll learn not only how to detect it but to turn it off too.

Once I leave

Weather forecast from monday onwards: 70s, beautiful, clear, stable

Sometimes I'm just a little girl. I haven't progressed that much since fifteen. I am sad and mopey today and nothing in the world but common sense will cheer me up. I look for common sense, but I can't find any. Why is it so hard to be okay all the time?

Futurama is Back

I am doing a little whoopdeedoo dance right now. And I quote

""Futurama" will awaken from suspended animation, much like its lead character, after strong DVD sales and ratings for reruns convinced 20th Century Fox Television and Comedy Central to resurrect the long-canceled cartoon series."

I can't study. I just can't. I am too restless and anticipatory of the internship.

Yet I must. Central Banks, you kill me.

Idyll

U's sis, bro-in-law and the nephew are now my idea of the perfect family. I love their house, their perfect rapport, and the feeling of quiet contentment which lay upon it all. Soul food

Beware anecdotes

Turns out Kekule's 'snakes with tails in mouth' anecdote could have been just a joke in a speech he made or something he just made up. Sigh. Illusions shattered.

Someone draw me a pi-cloud, quick!

Edit: Again after more thought why should it be a bad thing that this illusion is shattered. Poor Kekule worked half his life to figure it out. It is insulting to all his work to suggest that the answer should pop out in a dream. He probably meticulously thought it out and researched it. He deserves more credit that it didn't come to him in a dream.

Funny

Moments of fear come in very strange packages. I was just reading about a woman bewailing the fact that they don't sell her favourite perfume any more. A cold chill ran down my spine. What if they stop selling my favourite perfume? I ran to my bottle. It was half gone and I had only bought it in September.

I see some stockpiling ahead.

June?

41 F? Are you crazy? I have a complaint with the Weather God in charge of Chicago. You're off your mind!!!!!

Sehnsucht

"In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited."

The spaceman says, "Everybody look down
It's all in your mind"

It's nice to have old friends around. It gives you a point of sanity. God knows I need sanity.

Bad experiences are good for me. they form strong barriers against repetition of self destructing behaviour. I found out someone I hurt accidentally in the past is in the city. The waves of guilt were fresh. I will remember that person forever, the bonds of guilt and all that. But forever more I will be antsy as hell if the possibility of hurting anyone arises.

Windmill

I'm feeling angry. I hate being persuaded by anyone into something I'm not sure about and then be judged by that person for what I do. My fault. But his/her fault too.

Concertita

I love a good concert. I love the Yeah yeah yeahs. What a great evening. I am spilling over with energy. Karen O is unbelievable and soooooooooo sexy in a vital presence-y way. I should mention my musical and other outings more often to you, Bloggy. It makes my relations to you more real

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations. 
-Edward de Bono 

That quote calmed me down. It made me feel that railing against something I could not change and would not change was useless and reflected on me as a person. Resignation is a talent in itself.

Later: Wait? Now I read it again, I feel it could go both ways. Resignation or working harder to make that talent happen. In the case of not being able to go home though, resignation would be the first order of things.

"A recent study in hamsters showed that sildenafil aided in a 50% faster recovery from shifts comparable to eastward travel experienced by humans and was effective starting at low doses. However, this use has not been tested in humans and is considered an off-label use by the drug's manufacturers.The presence of low-level light at night also accelerates recovery rate in both east- and west-travelling hamsters of all ages by 50%; this is thought to be related to simulation of moonlight"

Aww. East travelling and west travelling hamsters and their little hamster wheels.

I miss my dog. It's one of those days. I miss my dog, I miss my family, I miss Rajesh. 

My dearest Brutus

It's the usual end of the quarter crabbiness. I want to have Rajesh back. 

I was talking to my mirror the other day

Me: Hmm, my nose seems to be bigger

Mirror: Understatement

Me: Cleopatra had a big nose

Mirror: Cleopatra had a lot going for her

Me: I don't like you.

David Reed

is dead

A song is accusing me of not caring and I want to rise up in arms and defend myself. I do, I do care. I care deeply, every wind brings a whiff of stimulus to my mind and I respond always. You know me, my face reflects every thought and I am always thinking. If you must accuse, accuse me of not caring long enough. Caring too much about everything keeps you from focusing all those rays to a point of burning

Get in touch with your Inner Inca

I had a conversation yesterday with some people about eggless cakes and I had a sudden wave of nostalgia for Whatever Cafe. Ah, the food. So good. And such a wonderful quirky atmosphere. 

Being out with couples exhausts me sometimes. I feel very solo.

More alive. I have some work today I'm actually looking forward to do. But the sun is out. I see a conflict of interest here. Hmm.

The four group members sat together today for morning class in the back row. All of us bent double by our hacking coughs. You could have named it the TB Sanitarium row.

Later: Slept like a baby from one to five. how pleasant not to struggle to sleep against the coughing. Could it be? Am I getting better?

Even Later: No, the cough's still around. And its my proper bedtime now. Growl. cough-cough

forever sick.

I feel a glow of happiness when work comes back graded well. Glow glow glow.

When there is arun in the stock market

The power of the space bar

True Evil

Matthias Rath

http://www.badscience.net/2009/04/matthias-rath-steal-this-chapter/#more-1088

Just got a letter from the kid in India. Feeling all warm and fuzzy. She sounds sweet but I guess she's kind of young and someone sat with her and wrote it out for her. Must not expect lisping angels.

Star Trek

Here I go again

Later: back. Some of the visuals are so beautiful. There's something lovely about light and space and lens flares.

Even later: Salon on Nimoy

" He's got the face of an actor who's actually lived, not of one who's tried to hide the effects of living. His youth is alive in him, as opposed to being an indistinct, vaguely remembered thing. And he's perfectly at home in a movie that recognizes how reinvention can be a form of rejuvenation"

It's good to remember that age can be a beautiful thing.

Star trek

An act of love. Beautiful and engaging. I am so pleased.

(holding self back from hyperbole that wants to spill from my lips and fingers.)

Stress test

I'm bouncing between all three of my subjects. I have a midterm exam tomorrow and I'm ploughing away at that. I have a paper due tomm morning in Central banks and I keep referring back to that every hour or so when someone calls me with doubts and I have hw due tomorrow and I have to answer my groupmates.

And I'm sick with fever. How on earth is this going to work out well?

Bloggiversary

I completely missed it. This is now the third year I'm writing in you, dearest Bloggy. You've been a source of strength and a dumping ground for excess and unnecessary thinking. May I write in you till I pop off.

Shame

I think that's the most powerful feeling I can have. The memories which stay with me longest are the ones where I feel intensely ashamed or embarassed. I can potentially wake up writhing in agony over some memory from middle school. Other memories exist strongly too, but not with the power of these. 

That doesn't say much about me. Shame/embarassment is linked strongly to self love. 

Still, I can use it. In a case of right and wrong when my moral sense won't wake up, I can always try and imagine the embarassment of being put in the wrong. I can writhe plenty. Whatever works.

Parlour Tricks

So what I can tie knots in a cherry stem with my tongue?

Edit: Drunk post. Pardon me Bloggy

It's a pity this blog is in the public domain. Though I am convinced I have very few readers (can be counted on two fingers is my guess), it still prevents me from blogging entirely openly at times for fear of hurting people who may stumble on it.

But really, the idiots one meets along the way of life. You change your status to strangelove in honour of the movie, and twerps from the past pop up asking if everything is alright, about love, points of view, the indefinable. I humour them briefly by conversing but then the twerp goes into entropy and how thats a point of view. Love and entropy! Fitting that it should follow from Dr Strangelove. What a complete idiot!

But I should feel glad from a certain point of view. He brought up my 11th standard physics teacher and that reminded me of the immense crush I had on him. He was a tiny little gnome, hopping around with energy, sparks in his eyes as he unravelled the wonders of the world. His equations were meticulous and he understood everything he taught, no question too bizarre for him. My world really spun around him at one time. A case of intellectual infatuation, I suppose. I wonder what he's up to.

Still alive

Jerome David "J. D." Salinger (born on January 1, 1919)

Brutus

He's much better.

I love it that Ma gives me his daily functioning in such gory detail because he's functioning normally and I love that my Doggy is back to his own self begging for food, hungry, snuffly, lazy, sleepy, cuddly and lie-upside-down-on-the-lawn-in-the-sun-y

This is real love.

Ivanhoe Introduction

I quote

"Many times in Ivanhoe a character disguises him or herself simply by pulling the hood of a mantle over the face or by muffling the face in a scarf. In this aspect and only in this aspect I find the plotting of Ivanhoe less than convincing- but what the heck gentle reader, I advise you to just roll your eyes and keep going; the book's worth it.

I suppose that perhaps, in an age of no electric lights, it must have been very very dim in those torch-lit halls- with bad lighting and no corrective lenses, it might have been possible for a man of normal intelligence to face his own disowned son across the banquet table and not know him"

Credits to Tia for pointing this out to me.

24

One class

One group meeting

One 4 hour call with Singapore,

One bout of clearing away debris in my life

One trip to the ER

One house party

One trip to the clinic in the morning

One marathon to avoid

One protest march to detour around

4 gallons of gatorade

7 taxi rides

Some sleep

Well, what happened was after my 3 hour corp fin class, I had a call with Singapore, met up with an acquaintance, went to jeannice's, got called away because Soo was very sick and had to go to the hospital. I find out in the morning she's no better and we go around chicago trying to find a clinic thats open only its a terrible day to fall ill. half the roads are cordoned off for a marathon, the other half for a march for something or the other. We get to one eventually but the rain is coming down in sheets and we can barely see across the street. It turns out that Soo is still dehydrated and so we buy gallons of gatorade and I take her home. Aditi's taken over the nursing now so I feel easy in my conscience in coming home (through pouring rain, did I mention?). Finally, I'll drop by again in the evening with more gatorade if necessary.

Settling down to enjoy my cereal. I've earned it.

I should just start my own central bank. All these weeks of passing criticism on governments and their monetary/fiscal/exchnage rate/blah policies have left me wise beyond my years 

(hunting around for a country to acquire)

Hateful

Brutus is ill with liver disease. My mother just called with the news. She said they should find out how he responds within a month.

My mouth was so dry and my throat so lumped, I could barely reply to my mother. Why am I in fucking Chicago where I can't even go home when he's ill?

Edit: I've wasted the whole of this day. Since I am in this hateful city, I might as well get the work done I'm supposed to. I hate myself wasting away what I'm supposed to do while my dog is ill

Cruel

Where has spring gone?

Kutuzov and Javert. When you can write characters like them, then you're a great writer.

Babblita

It's ordained to be so. I am not going to think straight through all of my life. There are some parts i will treat as pure fantasy and let them just be. I can't always worry about right and wrong and pretty things should live.

Also, the place I went for dinner has  GIANT margueritas. 

Too much maudlin stuff went on the blog today. On a cheery note... oooooooooooooooooooh I love economics

Had a long and really interesting chat with my dad today. Some of the times, it happens that I'm busy and can't emote, or he's feeling a little sentimental and then we can't really connect because we're really passing news and information and then passing by. But today I was a little more relaxed and he was in his informative mood and things were just right for a long chatty call. It was really nice to talk to Ma too.

I was crying quietly when I heard that Ma was crying over Brutus. You don't know what that dog means to my family. He's getting old and his time with us is limited and I am miserable at the thought. I love him fiercely, that it hurts across the miles and miles. I have to remember that though dogs feel emotion they do not anticipate events and he is happy. I feel unhappy about Ma too. She is deeply attached to Brutus whether she shows it or not. If Brutus has been a brother to me, he's a son to her. He's made our family stronger and often has been a thread of sanity when all of us are giving in to our inherent madness and inchoate ways. If the unhappy day comes when he is put down, I'm going to fly down for his last day. I must be there, not for him, but for me. There will never be a dog for me like him again. Only once can you love like that. Sure, they may be other dogs in my life in the future and I will love them too, I'm sure. But it will be a different love, possibly as deep, and meaningful. But not the same.

I am unhappy and grieving. This evening has not been a good evening for me. I am haunted by memories of people and now I am tormented by the impending death of someone I love more than anyone else in the world. Great globs of tears are rolling down my cheeks as I type. I am going to preserve every ugly fibre of this emotion. If I love and I can't be there to show my love, let my grief be a disgusting monument to it.

Teacher

A strange bit of poetry I read recently by someone called Taylor Mali. I don't know if Taylor is famous or a just someone who's trying his luck but I don't care. I liked this verse a lot.
"I make kids wonder,I make them question,
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful
over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math
and hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand if you’ve got this [brains],
then you follow this [heart],
and if someone ever tries to judge you

by what you make, you give them this [the finger]."

I think back to my teachers and realise that both my favourite teachers are dead, both from road accidents. I feel awful. I'm making new favourite teachers but they're stratospheric, intellectual influences. What is that compared to someone who took a human interest in me and really added to making me, me? I feel like those awful women in movies keening from their grief but the room really did a spin when it came back to me now that both Rani Chandran and Praveena Devarajan are dead. It's suddenly appropriate that winter hasn't left my windows and the ghost of tribune tower is dimly seen through the driving rain and fog. 

I'm going to be dead someday. I can't begin to fathom it. Especially now. I feel so alive and I can't really get my head around the fact that this factory is going to be shut down. Oh bother, I can't even express myself. I bet Anais Nin would have gone prose poetry on this. Well, too bad. She's dead too.

Hurdles

I worry, I worry. its the Peter Principle. Rising to the level of my incompetency. I fear that finance classes bring me closer and closer to my final incompetency; the discomfort is intense. Corp Fin will be the death of me.

I'm reading my other stuff way too casually. Its like the stress is so high, the workload is so high the only way to survive an dsurvive comfortably is to read away, chip away lightly. But I like economics. There's a difference. it gets my blood happy and stirring. I even thrive on its ambiguity.

I am going to be so unhappy when I finally reach that threshhold of no further achievement ever. Till then I am going to fight a little longer. Perhaps this is just a hurdle.

On another note: Egad, mine schnoz. I keep telling myself its not the nose, but the person peeking over it. Soon it's going to get really hard to peek over.

Aches of missing people.

And yet, how soon will I be swept back into work. A busy mind will make the time go fast at least. I am happy but restless and I am missing Rajesh

Airport. Where I wring my hands anxiously and wait. People walk by with meowling cats, cowering dogs. A father waits with his restless children who get under everyone's feet but they perk right up as they run up to a scruffy woman and they hug her 'I love you, Mom'

Ah, saccharine.

I should clean the house, I should clean the house, I should clean the house....

but I'd rather go to sleep

Can't Study

I feel like this:

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."

Every now and then when I get too full of myself I get a little insight of funny that makes me laugh and realise the smallness of me. I was in the middle of my macro exam, feeling good about it and then I realised, there I was grappling with the cases of countries, solving them all confidently, with slashes of pencil. There moves the lines and changes the equilibrium, there comes an incentive and there is your country safe and sound from the evil dragon Recession, I take no fee, but a toiling Knight am I.

I nearly laughed out in the middle of the exam. Beware geeks bearing formulae indeed.

My Daily Workout

When the night grows long, when all the lights go out in the city and my studying draws to an end, I switch my lights off and let the music take over

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5d0yVRoHHQ

My feet won't give up 

I am not a good person

Right and wrong, up and down. That's me. But I try and I am fiercely determined not to harm. If I have to put myself through the wringer so be it.

but I'm lucky. "You suddenly complete me"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAXsjEpP8q4&feature=related

Criminals of Philadelphia

An interesting look through crime that seems straight from the noir eras of the movies but is real

Deviant Ancestors

"The king of the Panchalas killed the courtesan Madhavasena by means of the wedge during congress. King Satakarni Satavahana of the Kuntalas deprived his great Queen Malayavati of her life by a pair of scissors, and Naradeva, whose hand was deformed, blinded a dancing girl by directing a piercing instrument in a wrong way."

Ancient texts warning the reader against some extreme practices in intimacies. I feel a shudder of ugh. People are barbarous still, but I think we've come a little way since then hopefully.

The meanings of sky

The most meaningless of things happen everyday. It makes you sigh and wonder where your time is going. People are good and nice, sure, but more and more I long to take a little boat out to the lake on a sunny day and stare at the sky which has outblued itself today. I want to think of words to tell you how it looks. It's like the blue glass stones that bead cheap hookahs, like blue topaz in earrings caught in the sun, like a deep pool of blue chemical noxiousness, like a tunnel reaching away into space. I lie here by the window and I feel like gravity will reverse itself and I'm going to fall upwards into that sea of atmosphere. It's easy to believe.

Nothing new but this tickled me all over again

beware of geeks bearing formulas

It's Saint Patrick's Day today. Chicago has gone nuts and erupted in green. The river has been dyed an glowing emerald and everyone is in green (except me, I don't own a green thing in this world save a cocktail dress). Men are marching up and down the streets, beer in hand, singing strange Irish ditties. The pubs are overflowing. People have faces painted and there's music in the streets my feet itch to dance to.

I didn't even know Chicago had a significant Irish population. 

Another absurdity I read today. Was reading about the human papiloma Virus (HPV)

"In 1935, Syverton and Berry discovered a relationship between RPV (Rabbit Papillomavirus) and skin cancer in rabbits. (HPV is species specific and therefore cannot be transmitted to rabbits)"

The two thousand yard stare

A Lecturer's Plea

In my lecture notes:

"Please, please, please, please realize that Investment will be changing for two reasons."

Emotional stuff.

EDIT: There's more to it.

"the LM curve would shift (please, please realize this)"

"And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

 "Like most sophisticated hunters, they are curious when they encounter something unusual in their territories"

Is it weird if I say I feel a sudden outpouring of affection towards sharks based on the above line? There's something endearing about a curious shark who really has no way to explore but with its mouth. Nopes, I don't grudge it anything. That wouldn't be such a bad way to go. A real meaningful foodchain death.

"In his classic study, "Manias, Panics and Crashes", Charles Kindleberger recounts how the Bank of England averted a run on its own finances in 1720. The bank managed to get its friends to the front of the queue and arranged for them to be paid, very slowly, in sixpences (then worth a fortieth of a pound). The friends then came back through another door to deposit the coins, which had to be laboriously counted again. This delayed the ability of other depositors to withdraw money until confidence was restored"

A few warm days, many snowless days and the drifts had all melted off. I wake up this morning shivering and look outside and it's a winter wonderland.

Well, if it has to be cold, I'd rather have it in white.

Peace.

A strange feeling after a rather mixed up day. I couldn't take my quiz as scheduled, didn't get my negotiations work done, didn't make out my receipts, rushed to dinner where I wasn't at my most charming.

But there was no harm done through any of these omissions. At the end of the day, I feel peaceful. All of it will be done tomorrow and what I am today will be the same tomorrow. I am allowing myself to slowly feel happy, not in the rushed rapid way I sometimes do, but more like a slow creep of colour.

I want to look back at me through my different stages. What did I want? Would I have been happy with what I am? I think so today and thats why I am peaceful.

A cube in time

A rotating four dimensional object (a tesseract or a four d version of a cube) depicted in three dimensions. I'm glad to be alive in this HUGE world.

Limitations

Sometimes I come across sentences I do not understand. Sometimes I could just go around, read and eventually get it. Sometimes I know it's going to be a lot harder. This one falls in the latter category

"By the way, only in dimension three and four do the exotic polyhedra such as the icosahedron and its four-dimensional cousin the 600-cell exist. This is a reflection of the fact that four-dimensional geometry is very special."

Pretty

The cold virus. Beauty hides in the strangest places.

Friends are such a bonus to life. You're built in with a manual for survival, to be prepared for air, water, blue sky. But you meet people, you find all kinds and you find some wonderful ones.

And now I'm older my standards are higher and people dont always meet them. That doesn't mean I dont make friends, it means they are just friends. But sometimes you meet people who meet every standard you throw at them. And there is this special aura around them. They're better than you of course, who has ever lived up to one's own standards. And they make you better because you want to stay worthy.

That is such a bonus. Gratitude to luck, circumstances or a divine one...

Email from a friend that made me laugh. I put down my laugh moments here because it's been such a while since I get those laughs that burst out from me when I'm alone.

Why is my boyfriend sending me this . . . ?  Is he trying to tell me something??????
Sexy foods that put you in the mood - CNN.com*

update: email from another person

he's asking you to eat them and be in the mood. no more thai green curry for you... 

Peace

My mind is always troubled. Sometimes I achieve a moment of solitude but then the river picks up and send me eddying into whirlpools and rapids. I like it but I wonder if I'll burn out. If madness is waiting for me at the end. I don't mean 'I am napoleon' but dementia, senility or just virginia woolfness.

I am now wondering how I got here. Whether I am worth it. What I need to do to prove myself. How I can keep this going when I don't even know what I'm doing right. I feel like Rose the Nose, desperately seeking to find why this is happening and worried what on earth I am going to do when it stops.

Laughing helplessly. Got this typo on gtalk today from someone

"That's okay. I'm sure you cant talk now, you must be very busty"

Audio Vomit conquered. May I never need to listen to any song again in slow. Perhaps I should pick up songs with a slow tempo and fewer glissandos

Unhappiness is a potent feeling. It makes me move. You can't teach me with love, I can only be taught by fire. If I was happy all the time I would never change, never stir. For all that I hate being in the dumps, I recognise my motivation to get away from the dumps as the strongest force in my life so far.

And then I think, what do I know about unhappiness and the dumps? I'm just lucky.

Not Depressed

I feel like such an idiot. I enact greek tragedies and when things work out, I feel foolish. Perhaps I should keep heartbreak to myself. But when I'm sad I don't know that I might be happy in the future, how could I? I'm truly and honestly sad, Bloggy. And if I have to censor a basic emotion like that from you, I might as well keep it all to myself then.

I am happy. But with caveats. Perfect happiness does not work and is a sure step to disappointment. Still. I am happy.

Puddles

Parth's puddle picture reminds me of a picture I took less successfully but with similar things in mind

K2

"...just the bare bones of a name, all rock and ice and storm and abyss. It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars. It has the nakedness of the world before the first man - or of the cindered planet after the last."

fosco maraini

Audio Vomit

Am trying to pick up this new song on the flute. I'm stuck on this annoying part where three notes play together really fast and in quick succession. I'm trying to untangle the rhythm and tone behind it, but it plays way too fast. I could simplify it but I chose to slow down the song to hear it. And now my teeth are on edge. Go, play your favourite song at half speed. See what I mean.

It was the best of times

Worst of times. Definitely

NY... In the words of my cabbie "pure joy to live in, puuuure joy.... But a horrible city" I look jealously to compare it with my current fling, Chicago. Chicago has a stately demeanour like a politician but you know he aint clean. New York is too new. And this is no time to make any judgements. I want to stay in my room and slumber. I haven't slept well for a long time.

I wanted to blog that, but the reason I came online was because I remembered a little quote..

"In the whole history of the world there is but one thing that money can not buy... to wit- the wag of a dog's tail."

Do you know that slow dawning the dog's posture and stance when he sees you coming, the rising of his ears, his shoulders eager and that sign of sure gladness, the slow side by side wag of his dear tail . And his eyes! The deepest love of a man, the tenderest affection of a parent and the devotion of a friend couldn't touch the well of love a dog holds for you.

I am going to remember that. When I am upset, when I am low I am going to remember that I am lucky. My parents, my sister, Rajesh and my closest friends love me as I love them. And my dog loves me too. 

Sleep depends on peace.

I can't listen to a song I used to like because I learnt she bought a rare fur coat.

I don't have to give up on Psychobabble

She told me there was Beauty in the Breakdown

Snow comes down in real flakes, just like they claimed, unique beautiful crystals you can see

They found a new planet

False Alarm

The mercury fell again. How perfect. Now I can really feel like I'm out of a Russian novel. Cold and depressed. The Idiot, anyone?

Extracts from an email

This was an email I wrote to someone but I felt like parts of it belonged here as well.

You've seen me depressed before  and you know the only thing that's going to really pull me out is a solution to the problem. Till such time I'll be on average, a little low. Only on average.

And right now I'm going to rip into Frank Capra's Wonderful Life. That was a sappy feel good movie which did not do that much for me. I was actually saddened at how he had to shelve his ambition away and horrified at how he ran the bank. Just because there was a little Christmas miracle doesn't mean it changed any of my sadness or horror. I would rather live a year longer in misery but in complete recognition of the truth than a lifetime of telling myself that everything is fine.

True, I'm moping

True, it will work out

but it's still true that every rejection will sting and smart. Ever since I was a kid, I made for a sore loser. That's just translated into moping as an adult. I wont spiral into destruction, I'm more sensible now. I'm going to keep studying and keep applying. Only effort pulls people out. 

It sounded a lot less sappy in the email. But I edited out all references and humanity out of it

Depressed

Above zero today.

My blood is singing and the sidewalks are wet. 

My knees are bare and my teeth are flashing.

My hair is free, my neck is scarfless

And then the wind descends and I shudder and tuck my chin in.

It speaks a little of my state of mind; I was reading Dorothy Osborne's letters and found my face wet when I came to the end of them. Why are all my emotions and troubles so inextricably linked to my tear glands?

Really. Utmost misery. Inability to function as a human being. I've emotionally shut down and all I can do is apologise to the people around me because I can clinically see that its not good. But I'm unable to really rouse myself from this. The only positive thing to do is channel it fiercely and declare war.

Something must work out. I demand it.

Deeply miserable and I dont want to talk about it

"The ships are lost. Mindarus is dead. The men are starving. We know not what to do."

So mindnumbingly STRESSSED!!!!

There were actual footprints across the river!

You tell me you've seen that before and then I'll stop saying it again and again to myself. I can't believe some things: that the river is frozen enough and that someone would be as stupid as to try. At least the footprints went from end to end instead of ominously sliding into a hole in the ice (evil grin)

It's been a tiring day. I had my first interview. That damn interviewer put me at my ease and I was fairly myself. Not good. I am not so hot as a candidate when I'm being chirpy and full of energy. I seem like a pre-schooler. And he shook my hand in a funny way when he bade me goodbye. All of this points to a bad interview. 

I am so tired and stressed. Gosh. Bwaah.

I took the long train back home. I could have taken the express but I wanted to sit awhile and look out and see the houses go by and idly imagine. There were dogs playing in the snow and I missed my own snuffly dog. Sigh. The day is short and it's night already. No balm for this injured soul.

Beam in my Eye

This little tale happened this past December. I was in the cafeteria with a friend and it was very crowded. Right next to us, there were two black men talking. They were dressed simply if a little carelessly and had broad southern accents. At first, I didn't hear what they were talking about. I felt irritated, we were studying for an exam and we were students at the school. these two guys were clearly not from our school and they didn't look like faculty. My internal reaction was high handed, snobbish, contemptuous.

Then I began to hear what they were talking about. They were discussing African literature, the consciousness of this in the literature from diaspora and the roots of African American cultures and the emergence of this into current behavioral trends. I can't tell you how amazing it was to listen. They were energetic and invested in the topic and there is nothing more fascinating than to listen to a person truly passionate about his subject. I had my accounting finals in 3 hours time and I tell you I stopped studying for a full half an hour to listen to their conversation.

I am so ashamed of myself. Is this racism? Was I being racist in my initial assessment of these two men? In a cafeteria of tired exam weary students, I assure you, theirs was likely to be the most intelligent conversation. But I started with such unnecessary and biased judgements. Here is the beam in my eye. It's frightening and I am scared but I have to ask myself this question. Could it be that I saw two outsiders who were black in my cafeteria and I felt something akin to superiority? That is an ugly ugly question and I don't know how to answer it. What I do know is that I was the fool, I was studying something as stupid as accounting (ugh) and they were fabulous conversationalists, genuine thinkers and definitely intelligentsia (probably faculty or graduate students from the divinity school or from the arts). 

I am so horrible. I swear to myself that I will be aware of this tendency and work hard to overcome it. 

The First Fall of the Season

I had a group meeting at 5 yesterday, the weather was a balmy -8 and I was rushing up the slope across to Wrigley building. My left shoe began to lose traction. I felt it happen in slow motion. It slid to the right, unbalancing me, and the right foot left the ground and all of me fell in a heap atop my left knee.

Ouch.

Long have I tried to put this day off. The first days of snow and ice, the roads of sleet in November; I thought my time had come then. Alas I couldn't keep it off forever.

Lump on my knee, ouch.

Update: Fell again today. The right knee this time.

Everyone in Chicago is talking about the cold. Weather is always classified as polite conversation, a filler for when there is nothing else to say. But the weather here has personality and a malevolent presence. It walks with you, you feel its absence and changing moods. Talking about the weather is as active a topic as you could wish for.

Yesterday we plunged to -27C. The cold bit, gnawed and clawed at every inch of skin exposed on my face and the wind needled its way into my bones. My marrow, my essence was cold, the roads were white, the trees were black and the sky iridescent in midnight.

They tell me this is as cold as it gets. I am so glad, I was getting to the end of my resources.

Clutch away at the knots but they have been tied many many years ago. Cry futilely as you see the decisions made again and again. It has happened and no amount of wishing or pain will undo it.

I can palpably feel the gossamer shadows of the world that might have been. oh I don't mean one thing above any other. its just sometime when I read of anything in past tense and I am idle, I begin to imagine things go different and the years tumble out of that cusp like a roll of tape, each inch growing differently. 

I am alone and the books about me change their titles, throw longer shadows and the world outside begins to look strange.

"In 406 he was a member of the Boule, and his tribe Antiochis held the prytany on the day the generals of Battle of Arginusae, who abandoned the slain and the survivors of foundered ships to pursue the defeated Spartan navy, were discussed."

A horrible sentence. Nothing in it gives away any of its meaning, the convoluted structure hurts my eyes and I understand two words out of three. Why do people write like this? Do they think it makes them sound more scholarly? I'll prytany them..

(Heading over to wiki to try and unknot brain)

A tabasco boat made my heart thud.