Category: 2018

Today, I spent time thinking about why I started blogging. What magical thing went off in my brain and said “hey, you’ve got things to say, maybe people will read them! or maybe not, but you’ve got things to say, and you should say them anyway!”

The first blog I started was this formalized thing on blogspot my mother coerced me into. It was a thinly veiled attempt to explore my passion for English. Every post I put up was something I had crafted over a week of ideating, discussing with one of my parents, and then typing it out. Each post had a picture that it was uploaded with – the co-ordination I ended up doing was mindblowing to me at the time. There was a sense of pride with having your own URL. At that time, I was never into creative writing, so I ended up penning posts like “My Visit to Burj Khalifa”, which hahahah, come to think of it, even had this one line that said “AHHH IT WAS SO TALL”.

Looking back, I don’t think much has changed about why I write, or the style I write in. Much like Salman Khan treats his twitter, I treat you, my blog readers (if any) as people – and imagine that I’m narrating something incredibly boring to you all.

What got me writing the second time around was that I really wanted to have a voice at Law School. And the fact that I thought I was humourous – so I’d end up blogging these funny things that went viral and was the subject of memes. I actually ended up blogging from the library about night mess food a bunch of times, because I found it thoroughly fascinating.

Writing for me, however, has evolved now. It’s my only no-filter place. I often type things out on WhatsApp to people and backspace messages because I’m not entirely sure how they’ll respond to things. With this blog though, there’s no double-thinking. I type stuff out. If people respond, they will respond.

I’ll deal with it citing “editorial discretion” or some mumbo-jumbo of the sort I end up concocting.

Writing over the past year has ended up being cathartic. I can write about mundane things like my day, or take prompts and write things based on those. I can write things about friends without using their names, pen sentimental pieces of appreciation.

And then read them and reconnect the dots.

That’s what I love about where I am with my writing. I’m learning to relive things while enjoying what the present has for me.

And I’m trying hard not to overanalyze or overthink.

 

Being unwell sucks for a multiplicity of reasons. This post will chronicle my meeting with the cold-monster, the taker of my voice and the giver of sleep.

My first interaction with the cold monster this season happened a week ago.  He took away my voice instantly. Then he put me to sleep for 11 hours – I literally slept at 11:30 one night, which is super uncharacteristic of me.

Why being unwell sucks is because you end up hearing advice you’re already well aware of. Wear warm clothes, drink warm water, avoid sour things, avoid cold things, sleep a lot, try to attend classes even though you’re sick.

It’s frustrating – largely because you end up undermining your ability to take care of yourself. Questioning your ability to take care of your health is tough.

It makes you do things like begin to love green tea.

That’s what thinking can do. I’m literally drinking hot green tea as I type this – the stuff is amazing.

Also, it can recalibrate your taste buds so far, that you begin to dislike the taste of cold water – something that took you a whole semester to acquire.

Worse, it makes you hate sugar, and love honey.

I now possess, in my room, 2 squeezey honey bottles, and 3 boxes of green tea.

The other thing that annoys me about being unwell is that you feel really lethargic. Every part of your body wants to sleep, but you need to will yourself to get up and get things done.

Then there’s the weather.

It’s pretty bad.

The only silver lining is that you begin to appreciate things like health a lot more. And you consider making incremental changes to your lifestyle to be more “healthy”.

The problem with trying to do something everyday is that if you decide to skip things, you end up skipping things repeatedly, telling yourself you can get back to it tomorrow. This, ladies and gentlemen who find the time to read this blog, is known as procrastination, and it’s how I’ve found myself being 10 posts behind. The toughest part about this is that I’ve had to come up with 10 distinct ideas to reel off blogposts in one night. So, you’re in for quite the ride.

I personally think that’s the biggest problem with planning. You miss one thing and everything ends up going for a toss. Over the past couple of years, I’ve ended up relying on Google Keep to track the things I’m desirous of doing on a particular day. It’s a part of the daily routine – get up, bathe, take 5 minutes to figure out how I plan to spend my day.

And then end up getting sidetracked by something or the other and incorrectly prioritizing things.

I think that’s the hardest/most annoying thing about planning daily life. Something always ends up getting added and it’s really difficult to finish stuff that you want to and manage a solid sleep cycle.

Probably will reconsider the whole planning thing at some point. But that isn’t for now. Keep, in fact, is what has helped me figure out I was 10 posts behind.

 

I’ve woken up in the middle of the night to write.

I literally just woke up with this one question in my head, and I was staring at 3 red dots – because my extension cable/surge protector has these indicator lights, and they were super-duper blurry. So naturally I swatted at them.

The lights did not disappear, but my brain did wake up properly.

Coming back to what made me get up.

Do you ever wonder how it is we came to a position where you need to figure out who you’re not before you figure out who you are? Like, over the course of the years I have spent figuring out my likes and my dislikes, it’s happened over time in such a way that I’ve had to figure out that I naturally dislike things that maybe some others might like. And that just because others like a particular thing, that doesn’t mean I need to like it too.

Society sort of puts pressure on you to behave a certain way, or have a certain type. And it’s super weird, but this mentality forces you to figure out the kind of person you never want to become. Which ultimately helps you figure out the kind of person you want to be, and how you can get there.

As I type this, I realize these thoughts are not supremely profound.

For example, it is completely possible for someone to figure out who they are by finding the characteristics in other individuals that they enjoy seeing, or the characteristics of another individual that they can relate to.

My thoughts at 2AM in the morning are wildly incoherent.

Much like my brain. Which coerced my hand into swatting at indicator lights in the darkness.

I will return to my slumber. Class starts late tomorrow morning. GNLU sometimes gives you the best surprises.

 

If there’s one thing I can say with absolute certainty, it’s that when weather changes roll around, I will fall ill. I even tried Chywanprash – regularly, that too, last year. But that hasn’t seemed to creep it’s way into strengthening my immunity.

One July/August day, you guys, I will be unafflicted by a throatache that burns the inner linings and makes my voice deeper than the regular deep, and my screams hit the pitch of a cow mooing while running away.

There are stages of colds, y’know? You can describe these stages as runny, solid, one nostril clear, and both clear. Your breath, ordinarily at the temperature of the air around you, goes from cold, to HOT, to matching the temperature of the air around you, and that’s when you know you’re okay.

I, however, describe the stages of being unwell based on the clothing I wear. There’s “normal”, which is when I’m not yet affected, to the point that I start feeling a small throat itch, to “okay lazy shorts” to where I need to be in super comfortable shorts and an oversized t-shirt, to “time for PJs” because there is nothing else that can make you feel warm.

But, this is Gujarat. Hence, this evening, when my cold hit peak PJ time, I had a very important decision to make. Do I choose to subject my body to Gujarat humidity and wear PJs where I sweat through the night? Or do I wear comfy shorts?

I have ended up, friends, wearing a shirt I can proudly snot on without worry and PJs which are so comfortable, you will wish you had an overall of this kind.

If you ever come across checked patterns on male pyjamas, you should feel the fabric. Oh wow, the fabric of these checked patterned clothes, man. Gentle to the skin, and elastic on the waist. Man, that’s a double whammy.

Added to this, I have discovered a new show I might be borderline hooked on to.

AND, I have moved my bed to the wall.

Will I wake up for class tomorrow?

Tune in to find out.

Not much to type out, yet I shall type out one sentence.

Also, HBD 3000!

So there’s this insane scene in The Social Network which pretty much characterizes exactly how I’m typing this out. It’s that scene where Mark’s broken up with his girlfriend and he first comes up with the idea to use the ranking algorithm to create facemash. He blogs about her and then begins to post blog updates as and when thoughts pop into his head, as he crashes into drunken excitement. There’s this rush on his face as he types and he takes a sip of beer.

This is exactly what I am right now. Minus the drunken excitement and the break-up. It’s dark, my only source of light is a table lamp. My roommate is asleep. I don’t have WiFi access so I’m using hotspot, and I have an idea that’s mostly going to keep me awake all night. I’m super excited.

Let’s see if I can carry through with it.

I’m also wearing super comfortable clothes so life is pretty swell.

*sips chaas*

Today, when I was at the gym (yes, that’s a thing now), I saw this kid roller-blading for the first time. Her father bought her these extendable skates and brought her to the “rink” (which is basically just newly constructed/clean granite), and slowly helped her fix up the laces, pad up, and held her hand as she “walked” her first steps. And then he left her hand when they came around the second time. She fell. Promptly.

I know I described a beautiful, emotional scene, but the father laughed. And I cracked a smile too.The girl got back up immediately and smiled at her father. She knew this was going to happen – and wanted to make sure he knew she was right all along.He ran to her and picked her hand and they started right where they had left off. Walking across the rink.

In about 30 minutes, that kid was attempting to skate backwards. I loved that scene. It felt like it was straight out of a Bollywood moment, but took me straight back to my childhood.

Here’s the deal. My parents thought I was a multitalented rockstar when I was born. So they kept sending me to classes – in the hope that I would find my one true passion in one of them. I spent days taking vans to different classes, and had the time of my life being pampered by receiving class after class.

The only one I didn’t like was UCMAS. Thankfully there were enough reward certificates to keep me motivated, and the 2007 Cricket World Cup (yes, that one) was ongoing, so it was super fun.

I essentially got a pair of roller-skates when my feet were growing rapidly. So we bought one of those where you could mess around with a slider and they’d fit you for 5 shoe sizes (UK).

What is it about shoe size systems that they’re different? Why on Earth are units of measurement different around the world? We really need one metric.

But I digress.

A couple of people tried teaching me to rollerskate, and I used to dream of being able to skate with the wind in my hair. I even carried my skates to Abu Dhabi in an attempt to have a champion rollerblader in my Jayant Uncle teach me to work the darned things. He spent a week trying to get me to muster the confidence to try alone.

Then I did. After lots of screaming at a high-pitched voice I decided to go alone. And it was super fun. I did feel the wind in my hair.

That lasted a minute.

I then fell.

The same result as every second time I got onto a bicycle (my knees have scars) and when I went ice-skating.

Did I get up? I don’t remember.

My next memory is eating cupcakes at home. There is a clear memory lag, which means I  obviously must’ve slipped unconscious and been carried in Jayant Uncle’s arms to some haven that is cupcake land.

Mmm. I want cupcakes now.

Yet here I am, with an orange.

Curdrice out.

 

 

 

There’s this song, “Youngblood”, by 5 Seconds of Summer, that I absolutely cannot get out of my head.

Speaking of music, I recently discovered that there’s musical theory based on this concept called entrainment. Entrainment is when your heart beats in synchronization with a piece of music that you here. It’s the concept that drives electronic dance music artists to continuously produce music that’s at 120 BPM (best explained in the movie We Are Your Friends).

It’s also supremely interesting that there’s actually Scientific application to this. There’s a band called Marconi Union that created a track called Weightless that works to calm the mind. It’s rhythms apparently put people into a state of “biting sleep”.

I’ve also heard people use it for therapy. There’s much more to read up on this, but I think it’s pretty darn cool that this exists.

Curdrice out.

 

 

All attendance systems are flawed.

Calm down. Breathe. This is not an attack on an institution in specific, but a sharp critique of what attendance systems really are.

If you’re in the foreign and you are reading this blog (which is highly unlikely), you might ask: but what is this system of attendance you speak of?

I’ll explain.

An attendance system, for the purposes of this post, is any educational setup that penalizes students for not attending class. These penalties could be in the form of a prohibition on writing exams, a deduction in marks, or a fine. Conversely, an attendance system could potentially be any system that rewards students for making it to the classroom: whether by way of marks, or awards, or anything else.

The purpose of educational setups is pretty straightforward: impart education, assess, and award people with degrees or diplomas. Bright-eyed, starry students come to Universities expecting an education – the quality of which they assess/expect based on which  University they’re attending.

The fallacy of an attendance system, is that from day 1, it creates additional pressure to attend classes, versus incentivizing students to internalize that attending class for the pure pleasure of attending class and learning something new and of their interest is sufficient. The harm that creates is measured best by the number of students to drag themselves to class when they’ve pulled all-nighters (irrespective of the reason why they’ve pulled an all-nighter). Sitting in class for how many ever hours, and being forced to pay attention after a night of no sleep can create long-lasting impacts on student development.

And there’s an easy rebuttal here: ask students to manage time better and to sleep more.

But that’s not the point of an educational setup, is it? University is where several students “discover” themselves, or whatever that is. It’s where they use the freedom of being away from home to participate in activities they have been curious about, or to spend time how they desire to spend time. Impinging upon that would be restricting freedoms.

Additionally, another harm created by incentivizing students to come to class is that they will always associate the educational experience with a reward or a punishment, and therefore, be unable to qualitatively assess the education they are receiving. For example, a kid will be satisfied he made it through 5 hours of classes, irrespective of the fact that he learnt absolutely nothing interesting.

That is mildly problematic because it marginally diminishes the value of education in the eyes of the student. It does this by creating rewards outside of “knowledge” in the mind of the kid.

But that’s just students.

For faculty, they’ll never actually be able to assess how good their course is. Considering classes are compulsory, a large portion of kids will be attending to ensure they do not get penalized. That diminishes the faculty’s interest in ensuring that everyone enjoys the class – because they realize that some students are here only for “attendance”.

This is dangerous on two levels.

One, faculty are no longer incentivized by the system to innovate. What I mean by this is that it will take extremely motivated faculty to come up with a new course plan or a new method of teaching to keep kids engaged in the classroom.

Is it a role of faculty to keep students engaged in the classroom?

Yes, because engaging classes can lead to more interest and greater imparting of knowledge.

Two, faculty will no longer interact with the class on the same plane as they would without the attendance system. Considering that some students are attending class not for course content, faculty are less likely to be teaching at the same level as they would with a class that was 100% interested.

It’s why mandatory courses also ought to be restricted. The same argument runs there as well.

This problem largely exists at University. By senior classes in school, students begin to recognize they can actually enjoy classes (because you’re around your friends and you’re learning fun things). Considering University courses are often specialized and chosen out of interest, it’s quite terrible that the same idea can’t be carried forward.

Attendance is just one culprit of this.

I haven’t thought this out entirely and I’m sure there’s more to add, but all of these thoughts hit me in the washroom this morning, so you’ll have to excuse any logical leaps I’m making.

 

 

Things that remind me of home include beanbags, texture painted walls, and the smell of Comfort fabric conditioner.

Having unpacked the day I arrived, I vowed to myself not to use any of my freshly laundered clothes until I absolutely needed to. I wanted to exhaust the clothes I had left behind on campus, and some stuff I carried from Bangalore before actually wearing clothes that had been in the washing machine in Dubai.

I recognize that the above paragraph oozes “luxury” and “privilege”. I’m well aware.

But the purpose behind that promise was to prolong the scent of Comfort in my cupboard, hoping it would waft it’s way to other clothing items (I’ve been let down by Science once more).

The promise lasted all of 10 days.

I had to slip into these incredibly comfort-able shorts (hahahaha pun), and as I did, my mind traveled a few kilometres to the couch I lounged on at my parents house. While it was far too small to occupy the giant I have become (both in width and in length), I stuck my legs out and slithered my head to rest in what has to be the most comfortable sleeping position.

It was too tempting.

So tempting, that I slept for an hour in the afternoon I was meant to depart for Ahmedabad, without any sense of the packing I had left myself to do.

Anyway.

The smell of Comfort reminds me of home. If you’re looking to buy me a present, please send across some fabric conditioner.

Thanks in advance.

 

Today, one of my fresh friends (which means they’re someone I met recently, and not an ode to their deodorant), observed that I live my life according to a lot of rules. That took me by surprise.

If you’ve known me before my “University” stage, you’d completely agree. My life was driven by routine in high school, especially senior secondary. I lived from class to class, came home, loafed on my couch, and got to my studies fairly quick. It was just that I allowed myself time to play FIFA a fair amount and get carried away. Nonetheless, sleeping had fixed durations, and eating had specific times.

But I came to University and stopped being a creature of habit. I began to do things in the moment – because I felt like it, and stopped being rigid about how I felt when things I set in mind didn’t work out. Earlier, I used to let emotions overwhelm me. If I set goals for the day, it would piss me off no end if I went to sleep without finishing them. I sort of got into University and became, well, chill. If something didn’t happen and it wasn’t urgent, it was something I could do tomorrow. And so on. Being in charge of the way you spend your time can lead to a lot of change for people – and for me, not having supervision about how I spent my time, meant I surfed the internet way more.

And worked, of course (my parents are reading this).

So it caught me off-guard when someone told me I lived life by rules. Here I thought I had become chill.

I thought about it for a while, and I realized that aside from me beginning to procrastinate, not much else had changed over the years. Yes, I don’t have a schedule for life any longer, but I still enjoy planning things. Yes, I’m comfortable with a deviation in plans, but it needs to be for a specific purpose. But most importantly, unexpected changes in plans and unexpected news can make me very frustrated when I’m in a “zone”.

My mother can attest to the fact that when I set myself to work, I can be the most painful person to be around. I will set myself up to have everything I need within arms reach and not move from any location until (a) the tool I am using runs out of battery power, and therefore I need to move closer to a wall socket, or (b) I have completed everything I needed to in a single sitting. I sometimes forget meals as well (which is hilarious).

I will make limited conversation, but will reply to texts, and I usually float off into a world of my own while working.

So if you tell me something I don’t expect, it pushes me off-guard a fair amount.

Which basically means I still life live with (a) expectations and (b) plans.

Turns out the observation was fair.

I’m not too worried about the fact that I live by rules, because it doesn’t affect me too much when my daily schedule changes (unless I really have someplace to be). But, I still do let me emotions overwhelm me when someone tells me something new.

And it’s terrible because I ask a lot of questions in general – very specific ones. So, fresh news can lead to a bombardment of questions to an individual that all sound very passive-aggressive.

That’s something to work on, eh?

(all of this stemmed from a conversation about how I like finding new music)

(wow, my brain thinks.)

Curd rice out (and hopefully going to sleep?)

I’ve been watching too many food videos.

I adore food. Some people eat to live, but I’ve always lived to eat. While I’m mindful of the food shortages that prevail in this world, and how fortunate I am to have been born into a family that could provide for me, I enjoy eating food.

And now I’m dieting. I find it ridiculously difficult to cut down the kind of food I eat – since I like fast food, and junk, and I enjoy exploring different cuisines, so I’m attempting to regulate the portions of these foods I eat. Maybe that’ll work. Don’t ask me why I’m doing it, or follow up on how it’s going. I’m unlikely to ever respond, because I’ve sheepishly given up on the diet within a week.

Coming back to what I started off wanting to write about, I’ve been watching too many food videos. And there’s so much food to eat and share and bond over. It looks so good also.

I wish all of it could just ship to Gujarat.