Month: November 2018

I think I’ve realized now that University is pretty much a self-study thing. Faculty guide you and teach you, but sometimes it’s difficult to engage with what they’re saying and trying to communicate. And I’m not blaming them for it, I think it’s also my fault – in terms of how much attention I pay in their class, how much of an ingrained interest I possess in the subjects they teach, and so on.

But wow, is it exhausting to self-teach yourself subjects that are poorly taught. I think the argument for good teachers isn’t merely restricted to the kind of knowledge they’re able to impart. It’s also the kind of holistic understanding they’re able to provide you about a particular field. Additionally, they’re extremely responsible for the opinions you carry on a particular subject, especially if you’re not going to do outside reading about it, because of a lack of interest.

This is because of the amount of time they’re able to spend with you in crafting a narrative for the subject that they teach. Why it’s developed the way it has, where it is today, where it lies, and where they see it going.

I think the bigger exhaustion with trying to decipher what’s been taught isn’t merely in attempting to understand course material and structure it yourself. It also lies in shaping your opinion about a subject in under 2 or 3 days – something you’re ideally supposed to have 60 teaching hours for.

And I don’t think that’s something I’m going apportion 100% of the blame to myself for.

I miss my beanbag.

I think I will struggle to explain the comfort of having your bum sink into something soft and comfortable, which wraps around your entire backside and offers enough structural integrity for you to shuffle around without ruining your posture, but offers enough comfort for you to sit on it with your laptop without sweating. Wow.

The captain has just announced that we’re cruising at some 36,000 feet. I’m proud of him. And I’m proud of the fact that design has created comfortable airline seats. But to be honest, all I can think about right now, is what life would be like if we all had beanbags to sit on everywhere.

I feel like half the reason adults who work are pissed off is because they aren’t comfortable with how they’re sitting. The other half of the problem could potentially be that they aren’t comfortable or happy with what they’re doing when they’re sitting. But a large amount of adult office work involves sitting, so maybe having beanbags would make everyone happier.

Atleast I think so.

My beanbag is this dark blue piece of furniture that I wish I could carry with me wherever I went in the world.

I miss it most when I’m at college, because no chair will ever come close, but also because my bed does not provide the same amount of comfort while I put my legs in an “n” shape, so to speak.

I don’t know how better to describe the act of folding your legs so your thigh and your calves are basically touching each other, but they aren’t and they’re distant enough for you to be at maximum comfort.

I’m going to take that beanbag with me if I can when I move out of University.

I call this piece, “Alarms”

These distasteful things blare out each morning,

Repeatedly,

With the worst possible tone,

And the loudest possible volume,

Instead of reminding you that it’s the beginning of a fresh day,

These annoying sounds are merely reminders that you’re still tired,

And the worst part,

Is that you set them 5 minutes apart.

Oh – dumb, innocent you,

You, who thinks that the extra 5 minutes of “snoozing” will make a difference to your energy levels,

You, who thinks that the bathroom stalls will be empty even if you wake up a little later.

And as they ring,

You groggily reach out to slide, tap, or shut,

Making a mental note to set fewer alarms,

To pick a better alarm tone,

But as your day comes to a close,

You have forgotten,

And the relentless cycle continues 24 hours later.

When I first moved to University I was super excited about the prospect of dining at a mess. I’m not entirely sure why at all. Especially considering that I ate lunch at a dining hall when I was in school also. I knew I would miss home food – because I’m a sucker for rasam, lemon rice, curd rice, and pasta, among other things like biryani, pulao, and Thai green curry. But I never had an understanding of how much I would actually miss home food.

In my head, I thought that the mess would try, atleast, to satisfy students desires.

Never have I been more wrong.

I think the craziest part about living at home is the variety you end up having in your meals. It’s underrated and underappreciated. We always say “wow, this is delicious”, because the food tastes good, but we never tell someone “wow, this tastes so different to what we had yesterday!” or even “wow, this tastes so different to what you made this morning!”. Even where lunch and dinner were the same food, when my mum reheated the food for dinner, it tasted different. I don’t know whether that was just the impact of a temperature difference, or exposure to Oxygen or whatever, but it did. Also, I’m quite sure we ended up making food taste different at night if we weren’t too fond of it. Like, beans curry. I think we made rolls of it and added carrot or something so it looked different and a little more appetizing to down.

The point being, food tastes different at home when you eat it.

After three years of eating in the same place, and eating the same food daily, I have grown tired of it. All the gravy tastes the same, and looks the same, even though some masalas might be different. The paneer tastes the same every single week now, and anything orange automatically repulses me. I used to be a huge fan of this paneer dish made using this Rasoi Magic powder, but I don’t think I can eat that as much anymore because it’s orange-red in colour. There remain few items on the mess menu I can enjoy without cribbing, which absolutely sucks because I have 3 semesters left.

To make matters worse, I love watching food shows and documentaries about food. Just last week I saw an entire 3 hours worth of Anthony Bourdain (RIP), and wondered why I was so agitated when somebody literally took care of my meals.

Food has always been super close to my heart. I’ve used a kettle to concoct some wild things over last winter, and I’ve grown to enjoy the little cooking I am capable of doing. I love tasting new things, as long as they’re vegetarian, and really, really appreciate cheap, good food.

I think winter break came at the right time. I’ll probably work on getting my motivation to eat mess food back.

Also, I feel like I’ve developed a small Subway addiction. Hmm.

 

So I took a couple of days away from writing, as you can tell. Some of it was because I had exams, but a few days at the end of that was because of the fact that I had no desire to write. In fact, I had very little desire to do anything except sleep and recover before I had to fly to Bombay. At the moment, I’m on my plane to Bombay, so I’m literally writing this when I’m in the sky. I think there’s a fair amount to be said from my last 15 or so days, so I’m going to post a lot today. Be prepared for email notifications and a lot of catch up reading about my life.

I know I said I loved exam time because I could plop onto my bed to catch a quick nap or head to sleep whenever I wanted. But, the caveat here is that it’s very unlikely that that actually happens – largely because I’m either too stressed out during exams to think about sleeping, or I grossly underestimate how much portions I have – planning my entire study schedule horribly, or, the worst, I overestimate how difficult what I have to study actually is – which means I’m constantly reading and re-reading, even though that isn’t really going to help my brain retain information.

My study methods since I’ve come to University haven’t changed too much since I was in school. I still need to write everything out atleast twice in order to know it and understand what it’s actually about. But I definitely need to write everything and say everything a good 10 times before it’s in my brain in the rote manner I’m expected to remember everything at the University level. That takes time, man.

Hence, I don’t sleep much during exams. And worse, I sleep at the weirdest hours depending on when my exam actually is. Therefore, considering I had morning exams this time, between 10AM and 1PM, I trained my body to sleep from 2PM to 7PM. And then survive overnight without much sleep.

A lot of this was thanks to the efforts of my friends in Boston, who called up and texted through the night, even when they were at work, just to ensure I was awake. One of them called me 5 times because I had accidentally dozed off for a power nap before an exam I was most stressed for.

My biggest fear during exam time is oversleeping, so this seemed like the best way not to.

It was a stupid idea. I need more sleep, especially during exam time. I’m surprised four years hasn’t taught me that also. I’m probably going to sleep more next semester and see if my confidence levels remain intact.

On the flipside.

Exams were good-ish. I did not cry, which I think is a small accomplishment worth celebrating. I didn’t freak out too much also because I was awake and re-reading information a lot. And the best part, I think, is that I wrote an answer that I could write in 3 sentences in 8 pages. That, I believe, is the true test of being a Law student in India.

To say the least, I believe I passed that test atleast. We’ll wait for results to figure out the rest.

The air hostess has now put water into masala cuppa Maggi. The flight is now smelling WAY better than it was 7 minutes ago, when I started typing this out.