Divya Recommends

Its very surprising that I write a post about people calling my behavior irrational and the next day a friend points this out to me. This is long read but a good one.

Women are not crazy!

I told you so and other things

While its always satisfying to say it, its also annoying. It means people totally disregarded your advice and went on to make the same mistakes you did. A lot of my friends who totally dissed the bouts of loneliness and mood swings I had during my first quarter of grad school (and still do have) and classified them all as "random things girls do" or even "Divya's unexplainable behavior" are now going through the exact same thing. And what annoys me more is that they are so much better off than i was. The have me for one. They shouldn't be complaining at all with my awesomeness around. And yet they do. But yeah "In your face!" does have a nice ring to it.

Also, girls are such simple creatures. We get depressed, we have a crappy day. People yell at us, make us feel insignificant. Things are generally grey. And we look into the mirror and notice our hair is perfectly straight and the light really brings out the very expensive highlights we got put in and our mood instantly lifts. Its like the last couple of hours just didnt picture in the story of our lives. We wear good clothes on moody days just so we might have a reason to be excited. We get all smiley when someone takes out a camera. We ooh and aah over the smallest and cheapest of trinkets. And all you need to win us over is a fluffy $5 toy. How complicated is that!

On the personal note, I just dealt with a couple of deadlines and am just chilling now. For the last week, i slogged my ass off. I couldnt remember the last time I took a bath and slept peacefully and didnt wake to drag my laptop over and check my project mate's updates and start coding. And I feel sick at myself because I am dropping the course that I've really learnt a lot in just because I am worried about my GPA. It is an extremely cowardly thing to do and I feel so bad at doing it and keep fluctuating about it. But for some reason the idealistic me seems so much easier to quell now than a couple of months back. So drop its gonna be!

I have a constantly irritated throat. I've had it ever since I got back from India which is actually worrying since that was a whole 2 months back. I have decided I am gonna test out and learn how the medical system here works, which is about time. The systems here always confuse me. Why cant I just walk into the hospital and ask to be treated again?

Also, I bought a new lens!!! Its a Canon 50 mm F/1.8 lens. If you've been to my blog in recent times and also before recent times, you would have noticed the new change which is my Amazon wishlist on the bottom. I decided to add that in case some generous readers fall so much in love with me that they starts contributing to my well being and the prolonged continuation of my writing a la Julie as in Julie and Julia. Somehow, considering the fact no one even clicked on my ads and got me any revenue with my Amazon Affliate program, I strongly doubt it, bu hey no loss in trying. So anyway, that lens was on it for a long time before i decided I'm just gonna get it for myself. Like I explained to a friend, happiness doesnt seem to be coming my way by itself so I'm just gonna create my own. Pretty deep, huh? So my new lens is here and its waaayyyy awesome! Unfortunately though I haven't had a chance to test it out yet. Sadness. In case you feel bad that you couldnt get it for me, there are still a whole bunch of stuff in there that you can get. My bday is coming up in less than a month and I'm so excited!!! I hope it doesnt work itself into being a damper which is highly possible considering none of my friends are gonna be in town. But I'll be damned if I let my bday not live up to its expectations yet another time. I promise you I am gonna have one hell of a whopper!

I am on an FB detox diet. Like I said, I get to log in only once a week or so and I've realized that when you do limit your accessing, it is not as interesting anymore. I look at sappy statuses and laugh. I look at pointless updates about Aishwarya Rai's new baby and I laugh. I look at random shares of stupid moderately sexist photos and I laugh. Its like nothing excites me any more there. And now that I am actively job hunting, LinkedIn is more my thing. I check my page every few hours to see if someone's taken a look at it. And it always makes me so happy when I get a notification saying someone's downloaded my Resume. Well, as Bradley Cooper said in some show I cant even remember the name of, what is life if not replacing one addiction with another. 

Ta for now!

The first of many blog tweets

I wonder how many years grad school has taken off my life. Not just the best two years of my youth but all those years I am going to lose off my lifespan from all the stress and excessive caffeine I have been exposed to. I wonder why no one warned me that grad school would drain your blood and suck your soul and drag your lifeless body through the streets before dumping you into the sewer. And then poke me in the eye and wake me up and tell me I have a degree and a job (we can always hope!). And I also wonder if the idealistic me that tends to resurface early mornings when the sun is out and the coffee is fresh and the music is fast and there are no deadlines in the horizon would have made a different choice. And if my mom would have let me anyway.


P.S.
To increase productivity, I made my friend change my facebook password and let me only use it once a week. I have to admit it makes me feel like an addict checking himself/herself into rehab but, hey, it works. But now I want a place to showcase my quirky/witty thoughts. Which is why I'm here. And which is why you'll probably be seeing a lot of micro blog posts (No, I am not on Twitter) in the coming few weeks or months if i manage to hold out. Watch this space for more.

Also, I was just hunting for a free note to type this out in my laptop, when I found this scrawled somewhere...

Better the sorrow of the future

Than the sorrow of today

I have no idea why I wrote that but it really sounds nice. Very poetic and profound and all great-Yoda-master kind of deep. Sometimes, I impress myself.

Midday epiphany

Its surprising because I have most of my epiphanies in the middle of the night, not just because nights do something to me, but also because there is more likelihood of me being awake at night than this time of the day. But I was cribbing to a friend about how some annoying guy and he told me something I should have realized a long time back. About how since I was just so open with everything, guys think they can talk to me and treat me anyway they like. And how their interactions with me are so much different from their interactions with other people. And how it was wrong that they can never say a nice word to me in public, that the only comments they can leave on my wall are lets-pull-her-leg sorta comments, how they'd ping me in private to say I look good on a picture or how my status in nice, but they wouldn’t be caught dead saying that in public, how they wouldn’t even acknowledge the fact that we are friends when we are in a group but would tell me their life secrets and text me every morning in private … how its just so so wrong that guys who are actually nice get laughed at. Also how it is wrong that all this and most social inappropriateness is considered acceptable guy behavior 'coz you know guys will be guys. And it seems to be exclusive to certain groups or communities of guys (thank God for that!). Since it is all I've ever seen back home in Chennai and since it is something that sticks out in particular groups now that I am here in LA, I tend to generalize and say that’s how Tamil guys are. I try to tell myself I am exhibiting the same narrowmindedness and prejudice that I laughed at my family for but statistically my prejudice is justified.

I was reading this article about how in this economy, people are scared to be rude but sometimes you have to be rude. (I tried hunting for the article, I cant find it now). Its true, you know? Its not ok to stew over a misguided comment or an ugly joke for a whole day and take it out on your friends and let it upset you but smile and act cool to the person responsible so that he/she can do it again. Sometimes people have to be put in their place. And if they are anywhere as nice as you deserve your friends to be, they'd understand and not hold it to you.

My October Snapshot

Well this is more an anthology of posts than a post in itself. Its just that with my mind in the stressed out and jumbled state it is in, I can only refer to other people’s writings to express myself than to try and put my own words to my thoughts. Plus, why reinvent the wheel, as we engineers like to say. I once wrote that writing a blog helps maintain a politically correct if not completely honest account of everything I am feeling at any given time, so that when I look back 10 years from now, I will know exactly what I was doing and thinking. Also, if I ever get Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia or just plain old bonk my head and lose all my memories, I highly doubt there is someone as hot as Ryan Gosling recounting my life story everyday to revive my memory. (Technically its James Garner doing the recounting but when has my blog ever been technically right?) So as I was saying, maintaining a blog does have its own benefits as a virtual semi-permanent record (as a friend was sweet enough to remind me in an attempt to urge me to right more often). But one thing I failed to mention was how writing a blog (and reading others’ blogs) can give you a feeling of belonging and not being so screwed up after all. Many a time have I ranted or cried out loud in this space only to receive a mail or a comment a couple of hours saying “hang in there” or “I’ve been there” or something of the sort. Its like how we Master’s students console ourselves after getting our grades. Even if you are below average, you are not far off the standard deviation after all. (Damn, Grad school is a veritable Zen House). All these benefits apart from being a showcase of your super huge go of course.

To start with my anthology, a long time back I read this post here. Its one of those posts that come back to you at random moments and with greater frequency as your friends start getting married. You stand at receptions, in lines, all dressed up and sparkly looking and tut to yourself at how your friend is throwing her (sometimes him, but mostly her) life away and all the things she could have done with her independence and youth. You feel jealous of all the fancy honeymoon pics in fancy locations and yet you smile condescendingly as you type out a “Wow! You guys look great” on FB. And sometimes, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a pile of ACM papers and coffee cups and a mobile phone that hardly ever rings anyway, you wonder if you are any happier or using your so called independence and youth any better. And sometimes after you’ve said “No” for the n-th time to a friend who enquired if you were in a relationship, to which you’d be greeted with a “why?” to which you’d stare blankly and give some platitude like “I don’t have the time” or “I haven’t met anyone interesting yet” and they’d smile condescendingly at you and say “Dont worry dear, you’ll find someone soon”..... sometimes after all that exchange of mutual condescension, you ask yourself “why?” and you wonder. Is there ever a right answer? Ever since I got back from India, I’ve been thinking why. Every friend I met has asked me that. And every time I’ve been stumped. What do you say to a question like that? Why are you not in a relationship? Why don’t you have a boyfriend? And it gets worse if you’ve just got back from a foreign country, which is surprising with me since I’ve also had the same choices and same opportunities regardless of the place I’ve been in, so not much changes, really.

I also read this post a while back and it reinforced this weird jumbled-up feeling. And it also is what I meant when I said blogs make you realize a lot of people are feeling the same way and you’re not as unique a snowflake as you think. It also made me wonder what I’d discovered when I was 20 (a lot, I realized, and a lot more in 21) and if I’d ever thought what I wanted to do with my life in the next decade. I’ve never been one for long term plans and planning out your life just seems morbid to me, though I do have some vague idea of stuff like Marriage and Career and going to Europe and buying a House. Anyway that post made me wonder if I wanted to wonder what I’d be doing in 10 years from now and I decided I’d rather not know. For one it might just lead to disappointment. Where I was very sure about what I’d do with my money when I get it, now I am only filled with doubts as responsibilities already peek in through the door. So I know not much good can come out of having a whimsical dream decade destination. On the flipside, now I can never say I did what I wanted to do and what I knew I would do when I turned 20, ‘cause I just didn’t think about what I wanted to do.

This blog, I discovered during my internship and fell in first sight love with. But as I read more and more, I didn’t know and still don’t know if it is something I want to be in love with. For one, it is a lot darker. And a lot more depressing. And doesn’t cut a lot of slack. And doesn’t let you tell yourself its ok to make mistakes and mess up a couple of relationships and ok to be airheaded and a little goofy. I read it and wish I never become that person who’s always right, even if she is, who’s always mature, and who’s judging even if it means she doesn’t make as many mistakes. Dont get me wrong. I really admire the blogger. I wouldn’t be able to do what she does. Its just that I don’t want to be her. And I cant stand talks of the One anyway.

And finally, I just re-read this poem and let me tell you I loved it. I know the person who wrote it and it surprised me as it always does when I don’t give as much credit to people as I should and it rears up and bites me in the ass. Dont read too much into my posting it here. I’m not going through a decision making crisis. I just think its an awesome poem. And yeah I agree that choices aren’t always as easy as choosing 1 out of 2 and yeah they never seem to end.

On a personal update note, life is the same as always, doing its up-and-down-thingy. Not much has changed except that I am finding it extraordinarily hard to keep up with its pace, even more so than usual. The contours of Divya’s map of friendship levels are changing again and I’m still getting used to not talking as much to people I used to talk a lot to and talking a lot to people I hardly ever spoke to before. I am addicted to Big Bang Theory. Its my new Master Chef Australia. Also, according to this algorithm, whatever it is, I am a happy-most-of-the-time person. All I have to say is, I hate to think of the 9683 people who got ranked below me on the happiness scale.




P.S. I just realized after publishing it that this post sounds a little lonely. Let me assure you I am not. Lonely. A little annoyed at the bent every conversation with my friends seem to take these days and some new restrictions about bringing up old flame stories of married friends, yes, but lonely, no. So to the people who might worry, dont. 

I stand where I stood a year back

...at the threshold of my life filled with wonder at what I am sure lies ahead. If I could say the same every year, isn't that more than what anyone can ask for? Thank you for being through it all with me.

Lots of love,
Divya