What Do I Know?

What does it take to write? An idea? An inspiration? A frame of mind? What? What? I mean, why is it so hard to think of something worthwhile, when I spend so much of my waking hours pondering over trivial (and sometimes not-so trivial) issues?

What about that thing Rene Descartes said, “I think; therefore I am”? Am I not? Really?! I am thinking about it, aren’t I? Therefore that implies I am. But, is that what I want to think about…whether I am or am not? I want to think about other things that really need my thoughts, for example, say saving the world! Well, I am thinking about thinking, but not really thinking. Is that a waste of time? Am I rambling? Yes, I am. So, that definitively confirms I am. So now that that is out of the way, what am I? A product of this sadistic society? A product of the bourgeoisie, who disclaim it? A product of my peers’ influence? A product of my own thoughts? Or all of the above? Or none of the above? Or am I not a product yet? Do I have to pass through Quality Check, Quality Control before I can actually think and be taken seriously? Do I need an approval? Why do I need an approval? Do I care if I am approved? Who approves of anything anyways? Does approval/disapproval affect my thoughts, my thinking process? Will I become a better person if I am approved before thinking? Does thinking right really matter, at all? What is thinking right? What is right? What is wrong? I can decide, if I think.

But, what if I am denied the freedom of thinking?…whatever you call Right is right, right?!



Everyday, I see the predicament my girls suffer…. deprived of their most basic freedom and utterly uncertain of everything. It disturbs me, immensely.

Discovery for the day:
Death Cab for Cutie are f***ing awesome! Why didn't I listen to their music earlier?!
*sigh*

Ladies and Gentlemen...

Someday You Will Be Loved - Death Cab for Cutie



I once knew a girl
In the years of my youth
With eyes like the summer
All beauty and truth
In the morning I fled
Left a note and it read
Someday you will be loved.

I cannot pretend that I felt any regret
Cause each broken heart will eventually mend
As the blood runs red down the needle and thread
Someday you will be loved

You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

You may feel alone when you're falling asleep
And everytime tears roll down your cheeks
But I know your heart belongs to someone you've yet to meet
Someday you will be loved

You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved
Someday you will be loved

Bert Haanstra

I heart YouTube!

Who is Bert Haanstra?!

Glas (1958):


Zoo (1962): (Part - 1)


Zoo (1962): (Part - 2)


:D :D :D

Day!

Gems, I tell you. All my students. (Not Cadbury's Gems, that being the case...I would've liked them better, or not, or I'm unconformed on the issue.) Today's topic of discussion in my class was about hereditary metabolic disorders that can be identified and studied using cell cultures. After rambling for an hour about how certain cells have mutated genes, how that leads to non-expression of enzymes vital for cell metabolism, therefore rendering the cell incapable of functioning properly, causing the disorder.
For every class I take, I have a different pet phrase. Today it happened to be "cells lack" so-and-so enzymes, therefore they suffer from so-and-so disorder.
[Cells lacking the enzyme X, cause a metabolic disorder Y. Any further questions on the matter, email me, I'll be more than glad to be of help! :P !]
So, I am sitting in the lab, and a girl from my TY class comes and says, "Ma'am, we are lacking in journal papers, can you please give them to us?!" (Biotenglish Syndrome?! Well we will have to see about that.) I SO wanted to burst out laughing then-and-there. But according to the stupid Teachers' Code (and I don't know it really exists, or if other teachers abide by it) I cannot, rather should not be laughing at anything that my students say or ask, however ridiculous it might be. Don't get me wrong here, I am perfectly OK with them asking me outrageously stupid technical questions. I am ready to answer them all, mind you, with a very open mind. But saying foolish things as is the case, I have to try really hard to contain my laughter inside ...So, keeping with the code, I made a face, moved my tongue around in my mouth as if my molars had food stuck in them and wrote it down in my to-do diary for cheering me up whenever I need some cheering. Desperate measures for those desperately hopeless times. [I know what you are thinking! Don't get all judgemental on me, OK!?! ]



More, I supervised my first test. FY students appearing for Biochemistry test, 20 marks Internal Exam. I cannot begin expressing how kicked I was by the whole darned thing!
I was generally very excited. Almost felt juvenile. Like I was a school kid playing teacher-teacher. Going to the class, distributing papers, being strict (I enjoyed that the BEST!), collecting answer-sheets, you get the picture!
All through the test, while my students were busy writing answers, I was smiling to myself! (Giggling inwardly) I haven't felt this child-ish in loooonng time. It feels good.
[Mental Note to Self #1: Do juvenile things more often :D]



On the Department notice board, my name is prefixed by Prof. All you non-teacher people, you have NO idea how cool it sounds/feels! It made my day!
Ah! Such are the little pleasures of teaching in India. (Seriously, where else in the world will you find a 6 month old teacher being called that?!)



Today was honestly, a very nice day, ignoring the fact that I *almost* hurt all my body parts in ONE day. Bumped my head on the cupboard door, I think they'll have to replace the door. Burnt 2 fingers, thumb and the middle finger, just the memory of which makes me want to hold it out to noone in particular. I got a sore toe, thanks to my iPod. Yes, that is possible, anything is possible. AND to top it all my back still hurts as hell from my workout going horribly wrong!
[Mental Note #2: When you have a good day, leave it at that!]


Anyhoo...
:)
:P
:D
LOL
I'm happy!

The Importance of Being Earnest.

And Now The Crap I Left Unsaid....

I think I have made up my mind about what relationships really are and I think I know that they are never what they are supposed to be, and definitely never what they appear to be...
What they are or what they become after a considerable time-span, if they are still extant, I cannot say for sure because of this very reason. I believe, rather unromantically, that these so-called relationships become seriously stagnated and progressively so with time. In an *earnest* attempt to undersand this mêlée between ideas and hypotheses generated in my tiny little brain with their tangibility, their practicality, I have tried using analogies drawn from real-life experiences (others' not mine), films, books, even agony-aunt-type magazines and blogs to no avail. I have since given up pondering over such "matters" completely, which I'm sure you must have figured by now as I am writing an entire blog. I have to admit, I don't mull over it at all!

I need a break man! I get way too involved in other people's "matters" and forget I have a life of my own that I ought to be Living. The sad part is that I gave to remind myself. Shit! Why I spend SO much time thinking and not actually putting things into practice, is something I honestly don't know. I am brooding over it as I am typing out this crap. And I am saying to myself; thinking about this isn't trivial, it's simply my general interest in other people's business, which "they" mildly refer to as curiosity, it's just my need to be earnest about everything, my insatiable necessity to be Miss Goody-two-shoes Know-it-all!
(Which, for no reason, reminds me of something I read about ignorance in Oscar Wilde's 'Importance of Being Earnest', which has nothing to do with relationships or for that matter to do with curiosity...I just remembered it and said to myself, why not get more arbitrary than my usual self. Besides I find it absolutely hilarious, so....)

Lady Bracknell: I have always been of the opinion that a man who desires to
get married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?
Jack: I know nothing, Lady Bracknell.
Lady Bracknell: I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a very delicate exotic fruit. Touch it and the
bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately, in England at any rate, education produces no effect
whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes,
and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor's Square.

Ah! I have exhausted myself talking about inconsequential things, as is my favourite diversion from mundane, monotonous routine, I loosely refer to as my life. :D So, I leave you think about the importance of being earnest.

*Random-ness Alert*

Please go listen to this song by Oasis called "Importance of Being Idle"....

I don't mind
As long as there's a bed beneath the stars that shine
I'll be fine, if you give me a minute, a man's got a limit
I can't get a life if my heart's not in it

OK, so I'll go listen to the song now, and you get back to whatever it is that you were doing before you chanced upon reading and bearing with my random reflections! :D

Adieu! Tata! Bye-bye!

The Relationship Crap.

Met PG after June 2006! I was a little apprehensive about seeing her here in India. I mean we were *buddies* in the UK. It was hard to imagine meeting her in a completely changed context, rather, in the Indian context. I had a million doubts about the Chennai trip turning out 'just-fine'; did we still have things to share? Were we friends because we were automatically put in rooms facing each other, or was there more to it? How would it be like to meet now, without the e-gap between us? I mean we were only in touch online, only once in a while to check up on each other, to find out if things were going 'just-fine'?
Uperse I was meeting her with her classmates, AN and DA. I always find it very hard to gel with strangers. I mean I had doubts about meeting PG after so long and these people were toh complete strangers, I honestly did not feel this would turn out to be good trip afterall. To add to all this, DP decided he would rather spend his time honeymoon-ing with his boyfriend over meeting us...
Oh! Well! I had a brilliant time, AN and DA were really sweet, especially AN, he drove us all over Chennai, just so that I could get a feel of the city and PG could go down nostalgia lane.

I still haven't come to the relationship crap yet! This was just the random intro...which calls for another short intro before I actually start rambling about relationships...
Now, PG is dating AR (who also is from Chennai, now settled in the UK) for over 3 years. She was supposed to be my relationship-guru in the UK. Giving me all the gyan about the do's and don't's of a *healthy relationship*.
After a long day roaming around in AN's funky military Jeep, PG and I retired to our hotel room to catch up on an entire eventful year, to talk about our lives, our love lives; she about hers and me about the non-existence of one!
I was happy that we could still discuss these things with the same intensity and fervor that we discussed them in the UK. Only difference being that, this time I was imparting all the gyan. I was the relationship-guru! Apparently, PG is physically attracted to other men when she has intellectual interactions with them and doesn't find AR intellectually stimulating anymore. He is Mr. Dependable who takes care of her, gives her all the attention she needs, knows when and exactly what she needs, who came across seven seas (literally) just to see her before the new year, who went so far as to do a zillion things just because PG liked them; he started listening to rock music (it was a huge thing for him, from Tamil music to Rock it takes hard work!), tried appreciating her taste in almost everything. Ms PG on the other hand, is very dismissive of him. Takes him for granted, to quote her, "when AR comes, it feels like I am being protected by warm blanket. He feels like family. How can one love anyone from one's family?!" (How perverse! But isn't that the ultimate objective of a love-relationship? to start a family together, to make the other a part of your family?!). I mean this woman wants to jump from one man to the next, eternally, having AR as a back-up for those cold wintery nights. She wants to feel "weak in the knees" everytime she sees him, I felt like shaking her up and telling her that she would be limping around the town if that was to happen everytime she saw AR! I mean, come on! you have been dating this fellow for 3 years, you give him hope, he plans his entire life centering you, what more can you want?! How can you shatter all his dreams because after all this while you dont' feel "weak in the knees"!?
PG wasn't the first person who wanted EVERYTHING from her boyfriend. SS had an emotionally and intellectually sensitive man, she wasn't physically attracted to him after 2 years of dating! Why do these women have these insatiable *demands* that their boyfriends have to be Purrfect!?! How can ONE person be your emotional back-up, be your sex bomb/sex machine (whatever!) and be capable of intellectual conversations with you? (and not just any intellectual conversation, a conversation about things that interest *you*). Why can't acceptance of faults come naturally? (One has to spend their life living with the faults not with the qualities of that other!) Why can't compromises be made with an open mind? Why can't there be sharing instead of compromises? Why are adult relationships so difficult and twisted? Why can't people learn that life is unfair and that is the precise reason they say that everything is fair in love!

People *create* problems for themselves and then wonder how they came about being in such deep shit?! Every damn thing is self-created and self-centered, give a little space to the other, share a little space, have a space of your own and then reflect on where you are in the shit...I'm sure the shit would've disappeared by then, or you would have figured how to get out of it!

I reflected on relationships of my past, not that I've had (m)any, but I've learnt much (At least, I think so). Acceptance of self is more difficult than acceptance of the other. Accept that you are selfish. Accept that there is always a give-and-take in a relationship, that there cannot be a relationship if there is no exchange. If you can accept your faults, it's just a matter of understanding the other has a "self" too.

I am not entirely sure why I wanted to write about this crap, coz as far as I am concerned, I feel I have issues all sorted in my head, if not in my life.
(Now, I feel like I am acting like a daadi, giving advice to bacchas of tomorrow. Haye! Nahiiii. I am supposed to be living the wild life, life on the edge, with the assurance that all *issues* can be handled tomorrow, a care-free existence where relationships don't matter much, where everything is about living in the moment! *sigh*)

Well, I think I am done with all the rambling, and since typing for prolonged periods of time isn't exactly one of my forte, I am going to leave a lot of things unsaid!

Ciao!