The year that was mine.

Entirely mine.

So here's what was going on while I went on blog-hiatus. Gak, these days (months, more like), everytime I blog, the post is by default a comeback post.

• My IIMK life has come to an end. (Tragic sigh follows)
• Which also means that my hostel life is over. Phew!
• Niqah over (I know I make it sound like an army commander reporting about a completed mission. That's how I felt once the hullabaloo had died down.)
• My heart wants a sabbatical, my brain wants other stuff.

Yeah, I wanted to do this post couple of weeks back, but like everything else I plan, this one got pushed down the procrastinated-pipeline-of-things-I-totally-have-to-be-doing-already.

Living Alone
Fending for myself in a new city was daunting, sometimes even aggravating in the start. Especially when you are a lazy bum and a geographically retarded bum at that, like me. Fun nevertheless. I could make impulsive decisions and just go buy stuff when I fancied so. I could do crazy stuff and just be me, and not worry, since hey- no one cares! And the beauty of earning and spending it on my family and myself. I still remember receiving my first paycheck. Great day!

And haunting the second hand book store. It became my favorite haunt in all of Calicut after IIMK. Thanks to Rahul!

Roomie love
Sure this life came with its baggage. My colleague and I had joined together, and lived together. Boy was that mad. We're as unlike each other as possible. To the point where if I like something, I know she'll hate it, and vice versa. We couldn't stand each other's lifestyle. So when she moved out after getting a new job- the move practically saved our friendship. Ridunkulus as that may sound. See, some relationships are like that. It's better not to spend too much time together in such cases cos that will just ruin things.

Anyway, I made a truckload of friends at my hostel. A motley crowd in fact. They came and they went. Some stayed longer thanks to their respective exams or courses, some lasted only weeks before they ran from the crap food and kleptomaniacs that infest the hostel. But despite the number of days they spent there, I fell in love with all the girls who were unlucky/lucky? enough to be my roommates. Some were strong, intelligent and outspoken and awesome like my first roomie Amu. Some were whimsical like Luna Lovegood (Leah!). Some were mature and sametime crazy like Christie. Whichever way, all beautiful, all amazing.

Coming back, main point of the whole crazy hostel life:
I lasted a whole year!
It's definitely something to be proud of, kid. I survived bad food, consequent sicknesses, forthmentioned creepy kleptomaniacs and more.

Niqah-
ok, I'mma be brief about this cos ceremonies and social functions ain't my thing. And the Niqah just emphasised that fact. I love being around my family. Extended family included. I unconditionally love them all no matter how weird or flawed they may be. They're family. Everything's forgiven.
Anyway, my Niqah event was crazy fun thanks to this extended family. We came together as one single unit, had fun, goofed around and in general- had a great time. What I didn't love was the dress-up part. SO not me.

And the wedding songs that I usually am ok with when singing for someone else getting married. But when it's me they are singing to, I'm actually yawning! I can't stand the cheesier than cheesy lyrics (try this: "the girl blushed as they made her wear the pretty flowers". Gaaaaah. Seriously? Seriously? I'm supposed to not laugh at that??!)They're fun as long as you don't sing em to me!

 But it was fun watching my cousins and mom and dad and the photographer who came plead and beg me to Smile like a girl would smile dammit! All I could muster was my half-smile/smirk.
And here's proof that I've had the same smile ever since I was a wee bratty kid. (I was a brat. A spoilt one at that)

Le smirky face

They wanted something else. I tried a grin, but that was ruled out as unwholesome. How? Was it an alligator laugh? Or you find the girl seeming like she's on dope? Maybe it's the second. Or maybe it's just me. Siiiiiigh.

IIM aka Heaven aka Para-para-paradise

Saving the bias for last.
Like I mentioned, my IIM phase is over. And that's a huge void that will never get filled up. Ever. This is where I need a melodramatic emoticon to express all my melancholy and pain at departure from said heaven.
 
    This is where I got over the trauma I had received from my dept head from post grad years. ok, I really want to say awful things about him, but I realize I'll just be damaging myself, so I refrain.
     This is where I grew into a confident, self-assured, strong person. Most of that had gotten wiped off the slate from the above mentioned miserable black hole of a human.
     This is where I lived in an awesomely happy environment, great colleagues and superiors and had the luck to work under the Most Amazing, The Person I Respect Most, Perfection Personified, Frikkin' Amazing Guru - aka, my Boss. Or in simpler terms, the Chief Librarian & Information Officer plus a million other titles he works by. I'm still awed by his humility despite how genius he is. He could have been a mean pig, but he chose to be awesome. Respect.
    This is where I perfected my work ethic and realized I'm a quick learner and pretty sharp at my job. Yay! Major ego boost.
    And how can I forget! This is where I got the chance to meet greats like RBI Governor, ministers of Kerala Cabinet and all. 
    This is where I fell in love with the awesomeness of Tumblr too. And also found and fell irretrievably in love with The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

    This is where I fell in love over and over AND over again with a place. I don't think words can do justice to how unbelievably heavenly my work place is.

See what I'm going on an on about?
The clean, clean, cold air. The long walks downhill, the adorable workplace friends (I love you allllllll!), the everyday joy of going to work here!, and the fact that we get to work in a place where the work ethic mostly consists of 'do your work. no need to stress out. is all.'/ I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting the finer points.
But oh well, one can never explain beauty. Only attempt and fail.

I just made a point to take a mental snapshot of my paradise before I left. (cries into pillow)

   

Waving goodbyes, trying not to cry, trying to blot out misery

Omg.
I must have totally lost my mojo. How else do I explain spending over  2 months away from blogging, and still not regretting that?
I've been the laziest bum that ever was let astray on the face of earth and I've been watching; NAY; marathoning dramas, series and movies like the world's ending the very next day. well, it might. but that wasn't my point anyway.

So..
I'm done with my post-grad years. I'm still contemplating research, but not gonna go down that road for a couple o' years anyway.

Thinking back to these last 2 years still makes me feel awfully queasy. or specifically, that week. Uh, yeah i get it that i'm not exactly making sense- but it will when you read on.

All these years as a student- be it at elementary school, high school, college and beyond- i've been one of those goody-two-shoes kind of student. May not have come out first place during school- but I was always loved by teachers. Never exactly did anything wrong, and i was favorite student for quite a lot of my teachers. I'm not kidding when i say that even after all these years, some of them still talk about me with a smile on their face to their current students. ACCEPT IT! I WAS THAT NICE!

Why am I ranting on when it's obviously making lesser and lesser sense?

Hm, let's just say there's someone who feels that way. Ok, i'll just refer to him/her as Someone in this post for now. Someone is temperamental to begin with. Volatile emotions and highly oscillating mood-swings. So one moment Someone is being nice and talking well with me. Next thing I know, I'd called up Someone to confirm stuff about a job offer s/he made to me. Let's just say s/he was planning on making me and another classmate low paid guest lecturers. Like, real dirt cheap. Which was also probably why the call never went the way it should have.

I has said just one sentence to Someone, in English, to keep it polite and formal, unless s/he found me to being rude to their face. Yeah, one has to keep  literally a million things in mind before saying a word to this person. I swear. S blows up right in my face (ear) about how I'm being rude (cos allegedly i spoke throughout the call in English, being distant [WTH? are u kidding me?]), mean, disgusting and to just refuse the job offer if I weren't interested.

Truth is, I'm interested. And S is my teacher. But S didn't even bother answering whether S would be covering for my travel expenses even. Youch. #worstphonecallever
and since he blew out in a rage w/o answering on the pay, my family guesses they weren't gonna pay me much. probably lesser than less.
i cried.

So next time I went with classmates to collect certificates and get the hell outta that place, I knew i'd be facing the wrath of something I knew I didnt deserve. Boy, was I right.

Things said to me:

• I'm the worst student ever in S's entire life.
• I'm mercenary (not the exact word, but all the paragraphs worth of ranting s/he spewed in my face amounts to that word I'd say)
• I should get the hell outta here if i'm expecting same pay scale as guest lecturers.
• etc etc etc painful stuff.

I kind of cried again right there. Yeah, call me out on being softie, but I can't handle allegations that maketh no sense. I know S can be angry and then go back to nice real quick. Not in my case. Not yet anyway. I also know S regularly abuses every subordinate and hurls fierce insults at them in public. Yeah, not exactly a well-loved person in there I'd say.

Good to have finally gotten out of there. There were great friends, good teachers, beautiful memories.. But why did the ending have to be so messy ?

Anyway,
goodbye my pg years, and dept

adieu,

alvida,

annyeong,

and every other way to finally sever ties with that horrid memory.

Waving goodbyes,
I'll Trying to keep from crying
Closing a chapter of life,
Blotted by black memories and white.

{o my! that was so spontaneous! *must work on it}

PS- Gilsha, you're an amazing friend whom I never want to lose. Sorry for all the times I may have been mean to you. Forgive me =)

PPS- and no, i didn't take up that job offer. in case you were wondering. not worth the insults i'd've to face anyway.

Of heartbreaks and the Heartless

For some, Heartless may remind them of that really popular number by Kanye West, plus the equally amazing Fray cover and makes-me-wanna-swoon cover by Kris Allen.

But, I meant Heartless as in, me. All me.

Last week or the previous one- not sure when; I find it hard to track which day I'm breathing in; anyway, some time back, there was a flurry of break ups, anticipated break ups and all. Good ol' Eddie [Edward] got dumped by his girlfriend. Serves him right, maybe now he'll try to remain single for at least 7 whole days, ha! Then, the same day another friend buzzed about what looked like his break-up related misery. But later it turns out he wasn't even dating in the first place to have been dumped. Or so he says.

Anyhoo, this love is takin' its toll on me.

I just can't stand listening to break ups without laughing at inappropriate grave parts of the "heart-rending" story. When I'm forced to console someone with love failure, I end up overdoing the consoling part, making it seem like someone died.

I never can empathize much with a dumpee. You took the risk and fell in love; you should have been ready for this consequence too! In short, I'm what people call Heartless, all cold-logic, mean. But I'm what I call, self-preserving and practical.

=)

So, don't I ever feel love? Yeah sure, I fall in love, crush and burn every other day. But that's all. All you have to do is show an ion of interest back, and I skitter to the remotest planet possible. Why?

Because I have least possible faith in myself and don't think it possible that I might actually be likeable to people other than friends.But then there are times when I think, hey, I'm too good to be anyone's girl!

I just have crushes on people. Ranging from Sirius Black and Darcy to Keira Knightley. Yes, even Keira. She tops my list of straight, same-sex crushes.

I'm mostly a "So What" and "I Will Survive" kind of person, though thanks to my love for indie and jazz music, I find I'm turning into quite the mellow, laidback romantic.

But right now?

I'm in a very dreamy state thanks to a South Korean novel "Coffee Prince" and the hit drama which followed [same name].

Pause.

I don't and can't read Korean. I'm reading an English translation of the book and have watched a couple o' episodes of the drama which was loosely translated off the book.

End of Pause.

Clickie here in case you had like to check it out. It unintentionally raises a lot of questions as regards homosexuality, which I loved about it. Apart from the unique love story line.

For now I have succeeded in getting dahlings Gilsha and Remya interested in the story.

And here's something I penned down when I was in a mellow and dejected mood. [sure, the 2 emotions can blend together]

Even if I walk away,

Even if I don't turn back,

Even if didn't smile

Or look your way.

Please don't leave.

I'm scared of a lot of things,

About myself,

About you,

About relationships.

Things that make me run away

Every time I fall for you,

Again and again.

So stay.

Hold me tight,

Lock your fingers with mine.

Pull me back

No matter how hard I may try to run.

It's still in the draft mode, so grin and bear.

Scared of loneliness

I know its been a long time since the last post.And it's not bcos of any post-Eid fuzziness!The vacation is getting on me.Really beginning to feel restless.I almost feel like going and doing a bungee jump!!!!!!But obviously,I'm not upto something of that level.Why,even a plane trip drives me half mad! ;) Though the reason's more of my being a slight claustrophobic.
Elevators,cars with closed windows,planes,auto-rickshaws(when they put down the side-flaps during rains) etc.Just some of the things that make me feel wrapped up.Scary!
Nothing special.I'm sort of getting bored in Orkut.Thinkin' of moving on to "Perfspot",that Doc. sweety suggested.It's pretty cool!
Been 5 days since met my college friends.Suddenly nothing makes much difference.I'm almost prepared for betrayal or cheating or anything of the sort from any of my friends.Maybe I'm just being dramatic.Like Ekta Kapur serials.But ever sice that fatal scrawl nothing's ever the same.Do I want them to read this?
Maybe I do.
Maybe I don't.
They are;all of them;such darling friends.
Be it Sleepy,Quiet,Fat,Phony,Sporty,Smily or Dusk..everyone's lovable.

But I just want to be 'armed',just in case-y'know.I don't want to be in for a shock.Better be prepared.I know they won't do anything of that sort.


Anyway,MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!