Unsurpassable

What is? Well 'Gone with the Wind' is 'Unsurpassable" according to some critic. That's what i'm reading at the moment. I watched the movie a couple of years ago and have heard my dear friend Alva praise it immensely when she was reading it and also many times after she finished reading it... and well, I guess everyone knows that the story of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara is one the greatest love stories, ever told. So, I'm quite excited about this book although it is HUGE!
I'm falling in love with Mumbai slowly... Shocking? Well, I dunno, my dad did warn me that this city really grows on you and some other lady told me exactly the same thing. I guess its true. Everytime I walk on the streets, I see all these millions of people and think what brought them to this city... Well, some of them, it was just by default so to say - born here, brought up here, live here, never thought of going anywhere else... but then there are other people who came here with dreams and aspirations and you almost feel it in the air, you can breathe it. Not sure how to explain it. But attitudes are different in this city from Bangalore. Somehow in Bangalore whenever I went out, I got the feeling that people just hated their lives, hated their jobs and that sort of made them bark at you like you were the last straw, the icing on their very bad cake. Or maybe it was just me. I always had fights with auto guys and was always disappointed with the service, but here, people seem to be nicer, friendlier, a sort of we're-all-in-it-together-so-we-might-as-well-get-along attitude. But then again, maybe its just me.
Can't remember all the million other things I wanted to say. Next time I will make notes, as Meghana wisely advised!
Love,
Tina

Melting Icecreams

When you put an ice cream in the freezer, the general idea is that, it won't melt. But apparently its a mistake to think that in my grandma's house. It melts. Why? Well, maybe the fact the the fridge is a million years old has something to do with it, so you end up with choco-mango goo from a choco bar and a mango bar.
Gah.
I've almost died of boredom. Thank goodness for Colleen McCullough. She wrote this fantastic book called 'The Thornbirds' which I have been glued to for the past couple of days. I hate finishing books, and finishing this one, I have a feeling is going to be worse, unless I quickly get into another one soon.
Right now, we're waiting for the first of June (Not because Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and Shrek 3 are releasing on that date, although I am looking forward to that!) cause that's when I have to apply for this eligibility certificate that will let me study in this state. The first step on a long and winding process of application for aliens like me... And then we have to wait till the results come out so we can get the application forms and finally apply...
Till then, its just waiting in the ghost house, that happens to be my granny's place.
Anyway, I had some company today. This little girl who is somehow related to me (my family is way too complicated!) is staying with us with her mother. So we watched a movie together on my little laptop. Its a movie called "Benny and Joon" and has Johnny Depp and another equally good looking actor, whose name I don't know! Its a great movie about this mentally ill girl and her brother.
That's all for now,
Toodlies,
Tina

Vanishing Acts

I wrote a post on my laptop at home and then forgot to bring it! Anyway, doesn't look like there's any place to plug in my pen drive so no point.
Nothing much happening. I'm trying to keep myself occupied with reading and listening to music and I brought a bunch of movies with me which I watch on the laptop. So far I've seen Blood Diamond and Holiday, which I've already watched... But I had missed a lot of the beginning of Blood Diamond the first time I watched it so that was good. Such a good movie... Really worth watching although there's quite a bit of violence in it... I also watched Ta Ra Rum Pum with my parents at a mall yesterday, which I totally enjoyed. Its a fun movie and the songs are great too.
I stayed up last night reading finishing off Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult. Good book but not as good as her other one - My Sister's Keeper. THAT was fantabulous. Now I don't know what to read. I have this book lying at home called the Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence but I'm not so good at reading classics... Anyway, let's see. I might have to go buy a general knowledge book cause i'll be having interviews soon and my GK about India especially is terrible and they might just ask me things like who is the Chief Minister of Maharashtra or somthing equally uninteresting to me and I will have no clue!
More later,
Cheerio!

The Big City!

Hello Readers,
I'm writing from a little cyber cafe (with AC - thank God!) just 2 minutes away from my Granny's house which has is not equipped with any modern contraptions. But the good thing about this city is that you will find anything within a 200 metre radius from where you are. And I mean anything from Laundry to Fish.
Its actually good to be here. I'm totally over the whole Christ College mishap. Its not even a great college.
Thankfully my parents are here, because Mumbai is like five times bigger than Bangalore and I would totally have been lost on my own. Its hot and crowded but there's still something nice about it. Like Kolkata, Mumbai has an old feel to it and isn't quite as square as Bangalore...
We travelled on the local trains today which is the supposed to be like the most efficient mode of local transport in any Indian city. There's a train every three minutes and a whoppig 6.1 million commuters travel on these trains on a daily basis!! Can you imagine that!? Of course these trains are extremely crowded and during peak hours you will be lucky not to get crushed in the crowd.
So as I was sitting on the train, the thought of the bomb blasts that happened last year passed my mind and I turned around and asked my dad, "how can you stop something like that from happening?!" You can't really! There are 6.1 million, probably more people walking in and out of these trains everyday. Nobody gets checked, its not really possible. How can you check every single person? So it was really a cowardy thing to do. Setting off a bomb on a train is well, easy. Too easy. And yet I still can't figure out how they could do it. I mean, physically actually doing it is easy. But getting yourself, actually being mentally prepared to do it.... How? Especially knowing the consequences... How can you do it?
Anyway,
Just a thought.
College hunt is going well. I'm sure something will work out. I'm not so worried now that my parents are here to help...
More later,
McT

WHY ME!?

I've been living out the horrors of my passport office experiences over the last two weeks and if you knew me then, you know a part of how horrible that was - as much as a listener can know or understand or empathise with the experiences of someone else. It seems that anything that can go wrong with my life WILL. No matter what, I must get the answer after a series of painful and [what seems] unnecessary events. And I just don't understand it. I went to Christ College today praying that whatever happens, Lord let this be OVER today. Help me to graciously accept a NO if it comes to that, but let me get a clear answer today. But no. Once again I got sent from one office to another. I waited for hours for my chance to come. I go in and they can't find my application. I wait. They call my number and I go in again. "We thought we found it, but it seems to have gone missing again." Seriously. WHY?? I've heard the answer, "because God wants to teach you something through this," and "God has something better in store for you," and all the others but honestly, that's not what I want to hear. I'm so tired of this. I've had the worst day. I'm tired, I'm angry and upset and worst of all, I'm failing to see God's purpose for my life, I'm failing to see God at all.

On Fire!

The bloggermania continues!
Check out the new kids on the blog (block - blog, get it?) Okay, even i'm shaking my head at myself for that one!
Cheeseburger
Tribal Kid

Its a baby girl!

Its been a long day. Half of which I spent at Christ College, which wasn't (I suppose) a complete waste. Atleast I got to see someone and know that my admission is still in consideration, although I would rather have heard that my admission has been accepted. Apparently they will tell me about that one on Friday morning. Apparently.
Anyway, that's the not-so-great part of my day. BUT, while I was waiting there, being annoyed at the stupid gaurd who wouldn't let me go and see the vice-principal, I got a message from the pastor who preaches at the church i've been going to for a couple of weeks... His wife was supposed to deliver on the 5th of June but the baby obviously had other plans and decided to come today!! And its a girl - double joy! Sorry boys, baby girls are just much better! :P So that totally had me smiling from ear to ear and hopefully i'll be able to go see the baby some time before I leave for Mumbai this weekend.
Also while I was waiting around at Christ college, I met a girl from Kolkata who happened to know Freesia from our class! Its a small world. So we went to lunch together, the three of us and it was pretty good.

Give to the Winds Thy Fears

Give the winds the fears,

Hope and be undismayed.

God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears.

God shall lift up thy head.

Through waves and clouds and storms,

He gently clears thy way;

Wait thou His time; so shall this night

Soon end in joyous day.

Far, far above thy thought,

His counsel shall appear,

When fully He the work hath wrought,

That caused thy needless fear.

Leave to His sovereign sway

To choose and to command;

So shalt thou, wondering, own that way,

How wise, how strong this hand.

- Paul Gerhardt.

Still waiting.

You humble me Lord...

"Why do you confuse the issue?
Why do you talk without knowing what you're talking about?
Pull yourself together, [Tina]!
Up on your feet! Stand tall!" - Job 38: 2-3

Fun morning today... I was volunteered to help with a playgroup for disability kids with this american girl (well, really, she's from all over the place! Yay TCK's!) from my church called Mary-Grace. She's been living in India in total for about three years volunteering with this organisation that distributes wheelchairs and stuff like that to disabled people. Once every month, this organisation arranges a little playgroup for disabled kids who come with their parents and the idea is to just have some fun and let the parents have a break for a little while and also to give them a little encouragement.

It was really great. You sort of get the chance to become a kid again yourself as you colour and play with these kids. Such a wonderful experience... Really helped to take the focus off my own life and just forget everything. Its the best thing.

Anyway, after that, Mary-Grace, this other girl, Shweta and I went to commercial street to shop, which was fun. I haven't been to commercial street in eons... although I didn't but anything but it was still fun.

Righto, that's all for now.
Love,
Tina

Oh how I miss Hockey...

Just a random photo I found.

I had my interview after waiting for a VERY long time in a VERY long queue but atleast there were some nice people next to me and we had some good laughs. Anyway, they've put me on the waiting list for admissions and they said they will let me know in one or two days, which i'm guessing means, sometime next week... It could still really swing either way but I am disappointed. I'm just really tired of doing this uni search thingy and I was hoping it would come to an end today but it didn't... There's more waiting and I'm finding it difficult... So please keep praying.

More later,

Joy, joy, joy!

WAHAY! Internet at home is FINALLY working! I really bugged them people at the phone company for the past two days. Only way to get things done in this country. Keep calling till they get the picture...
My certificate from Ooty still isn't here, which is not really good seeing as I need it for my interview tomorrow! Oh dear. I promised myself, I wouldn't freak out about it though, so I'm trying not to. Still another 4 hours till offices close so hopefully it'll get here today. They told me to be at the college at 9:30 tomorrow but you know, Indian Stretchable Time, so my interview could be any time between 9:30 and 5:30 or there may also have been some misunderstanding and I don't actually have the interview tomorrow. I know Meg is frowning at me for being such a pessimist, but trust me, in this part of the world, you have to brace yourself for anything!
Anywayyys, not much else happening.
Later,
Tina

Roobaroo....

Does that actually mean something?? Who am I asking... its a hindi word! Hmmm, I must find out.
Anyway, hello people!
I have a prayer request... I have an interview at Christ College on Friday which they told me about after I called them, so had I not decided to call them, I may well have missed my interview, because I didn't know about it!! GAH... Anyway, the point is that apparently I have an interview. And I really want to get through it... The course is a Bachelor of Arts degree with a combination of Psychology, Sociology and English and I can also learn some French as a second language and its a course that I am interested in and also I am just so tired of doing this uni thing, I want to get in and be finally enrolled in college. So please pray! I can't think of anything else to do, but to pray and I need y'all to pray with me...
All else, is fine. Nothing out of the ordinary. I called school today cause I needed to get some migration certificate and talked to Mr. George. That was nice and he sorted it all out for me, which was also nice for a change. Over the last couple of months living in Bangalore i've seen how difficult it is to get things done sometimes cause its hard to find people who do stuff simply to help you...
We now have a treadmill at home, which is quite fun! I walked to Jars of Clay this morning. They're really good!
Thanks for all the comments of the Guest Appearance. I have forwarded all of them to Taryn incase she doesn't see 'em on here... Oh and to clarify the confusion about AJ's guitar playing, I had some recordings of his jammin' on my comp which Taryn listened to...
More later,
Love,
McT

Rediscovering Delirious.

After Taryn came home, I got into listening to Delirious' songs again and discovered this amazing song called Take off my shoes.

I’ll take off my shoes, I’m coming in,
Untie this rope, I’m staying with him,
Love of my life, I’ll live and die,
Just for the moments for my king and I.

Why did you call, why did you wait,
For someone so guilty, someone so fake.
There are no words for my beautiful song,
Now I’m in the arms of my beautiful one.

Hold me, blow all the pride from my bones,
With your fire.
Hold me, breathe on this heart made of stone,
Keep it pure.
Hold me, saviour of heaven and earth,
King forever.
Hold me, love of my life lead me on,
Through the fire, lead me on...

I’ll take off this crown and fall at your feet,
The secret of joy are the moments we meet.
How could a man with all of your fame,
Pull me from darkness and call me by name.

So hold me today, as I carry your cross,
Into the desert to find who is lost.
Look at my hands, they’re still full of faith,
God keep them clean till we finish the race.

Guest Appearance...

Yello! To make things a little more interesting I thought i'd get Tazzo to blog for me today...
So over to our guest writer... Taryn!

Why, thank you, Tina. I'm honoured to be on your show...er, blog. (Actually, I've never blogged before. I like the sound of the word 'blog', don't you? It's like a blob but better. A blob and a bog put together, maybe. Ah, etymology. Okay, am I supposed to be sounding intellectual here? What do people DO on blogs?? The blobby bog is suckkkiiing me in! blub glub gargle aaargh.)

Um. Hello, readers of Tina's blog, i.e. Ajay and Meg. Yes, i'm talking to you. So you want to know what we've been up to since I arrived here yesterday evening? Exciting things! Earth-shatteringly brilliant things! I'm not going to tell you, though.

Oh all right, if you say 'pleeease' like that, I guess I could let you in on the secret of our top-um, secret activities. We started off by putting in the new Jars of Clay CD (Redemption Songs... buy it at your nearest music store. Hey, Jars should pay me for this.) and then Tina produced from her fridge a large pile of vegetables. A very large pile. By the time we cut it all up, we were surrounded by absolute mountains of multicoloured vegetables. Then Tina made prodigious amounts of pasta, and somehow combined all these vegetables in a rainbow-coloured pasta sauce. (And I grated cheese. Very skillfully. Yes, I know, my culinary skills are gaspworthy.) "No flavour" is her verdict, and she puts garlic in. "It's not spicy enough", she says. And puts green chillis in. "It's still not spicy enough" she says, and chucks in a handful of red chilli powder. "Taryn, it doesn't taste like annything" she complains, and pours in a few packs of Dominos chilli flakes and oregano and rosemary and then she wanted to put more garlic in. I thought it tasted fine. (But then again, I like Cerelac.) So. Dinner turned out surprisingly well.

We stayed up really late, reminiscing and sharing the latest news, until we got really sleepy and started talking absolute nonsense. And this is how Tina calls Lulu: "What's up dawg?" Either that's really fitting or really funny. Or both.

Anyways, these exciting activities were interspersed by much vegetating on the hammock and the beanbag, watching Hebron Highlights, listening to the SC cd, etc. (Ajay I finally heard you play! And you still haven't heard me play. Nya nya. :P Meg your song was awesome.) It's been gooooood fun. You should have been here.

Thanks Taz! Fantastic job, this is possibly the funniest post i've had!

Cool Slideshows

The little Lulu adventures...

Episode 1: Lulu discovers the use of the Hammock

hmmmmmm.... what is this thing!?

she cautiously goes in for a sniff...

ropes everywhere.... what does one use ropes for!?

of course!! to bite at!!