The Unquestionables. :)

Hmmm ... I thought I'll have a special release for Christmas. Here it is!! Read on ...

You can make me share, but you can't make me care.

A song can come from the heart, a song can touch the soul but a poem is someone's soul itself.

Conversation can be free but silence is priceless.

Who invented the phrase "true love"? If it isn't true then how is it love? (One of the many reasons why I find this "love" thing complicated.)

Early to bed and early to rise makes a woman grumpy, unhappy and completely unwise!

Sometimes doing nothing is an accomplishment in itself.

That's enough originality for a day!! I'll be back! Adios!

Benumbed.

Sometimes life decides to take its course, you are dragged into the current and you get swept away. You fight, you get overpowered, you concede and (grudgingly) you go with the flow. Well, this is true if you are my type. It's not too bad to be the other type either. There are people who like to go with the flow. I have always been a rebel and sometimes I just don't know when to give up ...

There's a bigger reason to why I ended up being like this. I have always wanted the power to choose, the power to decide what I want and I like to believe that I have the courage to fight for those things (if need be) and attain them. Somehow, the idea of bringing myself down to the extent of having just one option for everything and picking that sole choice seems extremely uninteresting to me. They say beggars can't be choosers. I cannot imagine myself being submissive and grovelling and grabbing whatever should drop into my outstretched arms. It's sickening to think of that, it totally doesn't agree with my spirit of life.

Many a time, I have found myself being faced with the problem of choosing between two options. Option A usually appeals to the heart while option B is what my head says is right. And half the unrest in my life today can be attributed to the fact that I selected option B unwaveringly and rejected option A. (over and over again!).

And as I said earlier, I have waded into turbulent waters, tried to swim my way out and wound up being tossed ashore pitilessly; only to pick myself up and rock my boat in there again.

Sometimes my endless fight
with this invisible enemy
seems to be my only true pursuit;
a constant that I want to change,
a barrier that I want to break,
only to assert that I am free,
that I am the master of my destiny,
and to have that and more,
I might happily beckon my rival,
let ourselves try to destroy each other,
till I've won or I know I've had enough,
should it please me to do so.

And that to me, is the greatest exaltation of life.

(I am not Ayn Rand, I'm no philosopher, I am just being myself!)

Anyway ...

I am reminded of Prof.Dumbledore's words to Harry Potter ... "It's not our gifts that define us ... it's our choices". How profoundly insightful! I haven't really tried to define myself yet, hopefully someday I will and perhaps that day I'd publish a better conclusion to this post. Until then ... here's one more post to my growing list of wisecracks. Cheers!:)

Still Unforgotten ...

And it burned, a lone fire,
flames dancing to the notes
of an old forgotten song,
and it held closer and closer still,
whispering a silent promise to stay
as the night was long.

Yet it died with
such damning haste,
a cold memory left
of a warm embrace ;
had nothing to give
and nothing to take,
just a flickering blur
in its final wake.

It returned, from a distance unfathomable,
a wayward wind ever unstoppable,
and departed again
to another unknown land
sweeping them leaves down
to the still wet sand.

A numb soul it was,
beaten, broken and torn,
in exhaustion and despair,
it trudged so forlorn

But it burned, with undying desire,
for hope it was, that lone night’s fire,
yes it burned, never to die out,
and thus ended the tale
none could ever forget about.

An Alternate Take.

The praises should have come first ... but better late than never.
Here's what makes shopping in the US a lesser exhausting experience as opposed to India.

I like the fact that we don't have to deposit our bags outside the store and carry a stupid token around. Some shops in India give multiple tokens ... now, that is a real(said with a long 'a')drag.

It is a relief to have bags for wet umbrellas.I don't remember seeing much of those back home.

Shopping is a "Do it yourself" thing. All the multi-storeyed structures in T Nagar and Pondy Bazaar can learn a few lessons from here.

When you are done, you proceed to checkout ... just once. Thanks to an insanely large population, some places in India have been forced to have 1 counter for billing, one for payment, one for delivery and if all this wasn't enough ... you can go to the other end of the place to collect your bags after you have dug out all the dirty sodden scraps of cardboard (tokens) from your pockets / wallet and pull your vehicle out from a cramped up godforsaken parking lot and suffer countless traffic jams and fill your lungs with smelly polluted air before you finally give up and call it a day.

I love being a small town girl ... Gainesville rocks! Cheers!

The Real Drag

I had gone to Walmart yesterday. As I am a very sluggish lazy bum, Walmarting is always quite an excursion. In one of my earlier posts , I had been rather critical about a few shopping places in Chennai. (For those don't already know, the highlighted text is a hyperlink. Click to read. :)) This post is for Walmart. :)

Wait a minute, this post is not about just any Walmart in the States. This is an exclusive for the Walmart in Butler Plaza,Gainesville. It has only one level but it's pretty much the biggest store I have seen in Gainesville (heard there's a bigger Super Walmart but torpid and laid back as I am, I might probably never set foot on that side of town, so let's forget about it for the moment).

Yeah, every visit to Walmart is an excursion. I have not been there too many times actually, especially because it usually it takes at least an hour to go there, shop and come back. It's just too huge.
-->So why can't they have a map or something that can make it easier for people to find their way around?
There are so many aisles and sections; so many of them! And I know all the sections now ... but I don't have a dynamic routing algorithm or a spanning tree or all pairs shortest path algorithm to take me around Walmart in the minimum possible running (walking ;-)) time and ... when I can't help it I have a CART with me! And yeah, the cute sign boards that hang from the ceiling aren't a great help. They are rather superfluous.

The Cart! The Walmart carts are so big! There were no carts in the usual place yesterday and other shoppers were quite pissed too. There are narrow passages and manual doors where there should be automatic doors and automatic doors where either type wouldn't have made much of a difference. A nice lady pulled out my cart for me; someone always proffers to do it for me. Lucky! And the nice lady's elementary school going son held the door open for us. Again, lucky!

I went round and round Walmart in circles yesterday looking for a laundry bag or someone who could tell me where the stock was shelved. After circling that part of the store for the third time, I found a store guy. And his reply was "If you are looking for a laundry bag, we don't have any. They're probably going to shipped in tonight's truck or they should be there tomorrow". All I could do was look at him with a slightly sad face and say "Ohhh that's why I couldn't find any when I searched".
--> Can't these people leave a note or something somewhere?
It happens often. This is the second time something that I wanted was not there in Walmart. Jeez!

Another irritating thing about the cart is that there is always room enough for just one cart in the individual sections and we have to keep making way for others or saying "Excuse me" to negotiate the cart. Annoying! And yeah, the Americans never get tired of saying it, even if they know that they can easily pass through the available space without inconveniencing another person. So the same courtesy is expected of us. Why do I have to say "Excuse me" even when there's no need for me to be excused? Ah, I so hate all these redundant displays of politeness! Jharkhand was better. "Side do or thoda side deejiye" is actually not that rude a thing to say!

Anyway, let's get back to the cart. After I came out of Walmart, I had to go to Publix and my cart had to go till the cart drop off place that's closest to Publix. And there are two ways to do that. One is to drag the cart on the road ... the whole wide road, and get stares; or drag it on the passage that leads to Publix and open manual doors at the same time. I chose the latter. I can't tell you how much I love doing that. Words fail me ... (insert mean stare and arrogant smirk).

A person, who looked like he is ten years older than my dad, was arranging over 50 carts at the end of the walkway. My heart went out to him ... what an arduous job! I silently waited with my cart because the cart would have slid down the slope otherwise. He came with a smile and said he'll take it from there. His smile told me how much he appreciated the fact that I waited. I too gave him a knowing smile and went on ahead.

But Publix ... Publix's a good place. They have both carts and baskets. I love the Publix baskets! A full Publix basket is the weight my shoulders can carry without complaints. And this measure makes shopping a pleasure. :) (Laughing at my own rhyme). Nice finish once again. (chuckles). Ciao!

(De)Grading?

I usually have enough self-restraint to shut myself up before an exam. But I am so compelled to write this post that not writing it will only drive me nuts.

2nd Grade - I cried uncontrollably on the night before my Math exam because I did not solve every problem in the textbook. I needed my mom to tell me that I knew how to solve any problem, even something that was not there in that textbook. I was so naive back then.

I remember a certain day that is engraved in bold letters in the annals of my history. It was the 30th of October, 2003. I had appeared for the Regional Level Mathematics Olympiad on that day. I did not make it to the National Level Olympiad, but the fact that I wanted to write that exam notwithstanding a certain medical condition means a lot to me now. I "wanted" to write an exam!!

Before BIT Mesra, every exam was the same ... I was a machine once upon a time. And I am not trying to be funny here. I have had all kinds of exams since my first day in BIT Mesra and yet I feel queasy about exams even now. Experience isn't the best teacher; sometimes, nothing is.

Back then, in BIT, there were some good things about exams. If the course was dumped on you and you couldn't stand it, you could just scrape through with a C and not a soul on earth would ever ask you why. And if you really liked a course, but the exam was unfair, you could get your usual B and still be happy. If your CGPA were to be short of distinction by 0.05, nobody would give a !rak. It was a peaceful life over there.

Come UF and everything turns upside down! A friend of a friend once remarked that everyone in UF is either equal to me or better than I am. I did not like the tone of that statement. I still don't like it. I don't want to know whether I am as good / mediocre or as awesome as anyone else is. I can set my own benchmarks. It's my life and I like being free to do whatever I want to do with it. Or if I want to sound too straight-laced, I can make a thousand voices echo in my ear, reminding me that I take exams because I have the spunk to pay over a thousand dollars per course to show the world that I am an engineer worth my salt. Is anybody out here spending so much to show the world that they are average? You don't want to hear what I might want to say if you choose to disagree with me.

In an exam, your brain may think left and your hand may go right and vice versa. Those who understand Binary Search Tree based data structures would know exactly what I am talking about. It happens to the best of people. Some of the answers may seem like the work of an absolute dunce while others could demonstrate a stroke of genius. An individual is not contained in an A or an A minus something. We constantly update and overwrite our cerebral caches before and after exams. It is a grueling thing to do. Nobody is an empty vessel after an exam. And for people like me, the real wisdom sinks in only after surviving an exam. :)

While the grouch in me is screaming in my ear to end this nonsense talk, a little voice still persists to be heard. And this post will stand testimony to the fact that I have decided to take some time off and hear what it wants to say. Adios!

The blast ;-)

What I thought -> A few calls and wishes.
And what I got -> Wishes in Skype,Gmail,Facebook, over the phone and in person for 24 continuous hours.

What I thought - I'd get smiles, handshakes and demands for treats.
And what I got - Two huge cakes,surprise parties,cards and presents.
First thanks to my roomy and friends.

What I thought- I'd have a quiet dinner and a quieter night.
And what I got- A face pack of chocolate icecream cake and an atrocity of the same on my hair. Thanks to Pradeep and Rajiv.

Expected - A birthday.
and got --> A blast!!

:) :) Thanks for making my day everyone.