Honululu?

Before the exam today, I was so restless. You know the fight or flight syndrome? Where your body gets all set for a danger situation? I was ready to run. Just run. Not really away - I may be a coward in many ways but I wouldn't run away from an exam! But just to run. You know what I mean? Expend all that energy that I really shouldn't have had after an entire weekend of studying (well, sort of) and... umm, less than eight hours of sleep. I know you should really just study in advance and get enough sleep and eat healthy and all that crap before exams but hey, that's for perfect people in a perfect world. We humans - college going humans - NOT going to happen.

This subject was actually really difficult to study for me. In fact, three cheers to Jo without whom, let's just say it would've been bad! It's not that I don't like Socio, the problem is that everything was given to me - on a silver platter. It was just a whole lot of information in beautiful packaging in a nutshell and all I had to do is pretty much memorise everything. I cannot do that!! Call it bad memory or whatever but I think I'm just not programmed to do that. Throughout IGCSE's and A'levels, it was drilled into my head to break down everything I was given and analyse and give examples - your OWN examples, like go figure out how and where this works - and case studies and then put it all together in your own words. And here I am with information so precise, all broken down for me and there wasn't much scope to put it in different or simpler words so I had to just remember it all. I know it sounds stupid, (it's probably less work so what are you complaining about?) but I just cannot do this. This is really difficult for me. If I don't understand something and if I haven't really worked towards putting something together myself, I will simply not remember it. It is not meaningful to me.

Anyway, still the exam wasn't bad. It was difficult studying for it but I managed to remember a lot of stuff (again, Jo, I don't know what I would've done without you!) It was one of those where I wrote and wrote and wrote all I could remember and didn't have time to get distracted and didn't notice the time go by. It was Socio, the subject I want to major in so it had better be good enough!

Anyway, I think exams are a terrible way of measuring how much a person actually understands the concepts. As if I'm actually going to remember all that. Where's the practicality? But who listens to me! And that's a whole 'nother debate on how the education system, especially in India, according to me desperately needs a major makeover. Anyone with me?

As for now, I'd like to go to Honululu, sip on cocktails, eat sea food, swim in the ocean, read a really good book and sunbathe.

But alas, five more exams to go :S

And anyway, where exactly IS Honululu?

Following That Star...

The three wise men are on their way...
Matthew 2:10-11 (NLT)
"When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh."

Oooh, I love the Christmas story. A King born in a smelly stable. Mighty God becoming man to be among us, to transform our lives. Predictions and years of waiting coming to fulfillment in the form of a screaming, helpless baby.

Trust God to cook up a story that no one could've imagined.

We're expecting pomp and glory and He gives us a barn, complete with barn-yard animals. We're expecting a warrior-King and He gives us a servant who washes the feet of His own disciples. We're expecting Him to kill all the bad people and He dies on the cross - the ultimate sacrifice.

But He lives. So that you and I, also, may live.

We may not always understand God and the strange things He does but He is good. I believe that.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

P.s. A Baby In a Barn. Brilliant!

We(blog)

We talked about blogging in our Mass Comm(unication) class today - to my utter delight! :) I was introduced to the wonderful world of blogging just before I left school when AJ told me about his sister's blog. I checked it out, was totally enthused by the idea and the rest is... archives.

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If you thought you'd seen the last of all my Ooty Trip photos, well you were wrong! ;) I took this one at a guest house called Brooklands in Coonoor. Pretty cool, no? I suppose it would've been nicer if that flower bud had bloomed in all its glory.

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5 days to go!

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Today morning I was standing by the entrance of my fast train to college and whining to God about all the things that I want (D-SLR, Laptop) and all the places I want to see (Australia, France, US, Egypt, Kashmir, and the list goes on... and on...) and all the things I want to do (get married, travel the world and take photos, work for National Geographic maybe or at least subscribe to it, have kids - not in that order, don't worry!) and then the train stopped in its tracks somewhere between Bandra and Dadar and just stood there for a minute or two, probably because the tracks were not clear and they were waiting for the green signal but anyhoo... the point is that it stopped. And it stopped at a place where I could see men bathing on the sides of the tracks, women washing clothes on a dirty rock by the side, children playing and blue tarpaulin hanging in a tent-formation over the boundary walls constituting the only shelter this harsh city can afford them and suddenly all my whining seemed almost... ridiculous.

I wonder what these people want... Enough earning that day to buy their next meal? A moment of peace and silence so that their every chore isn't done to the rhythm of the noisy passing trains? A little enclosed area so that they can bathe in privacy?

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Let There Be Light

Yesterday was Diwali - which is the festival of lights in India. Traditionally we light candles and diyas outside the houses on this day. Un-traditionally or rather according to modern tradition; people burn up thousands of rupees in firecrackers. I don't like firecrackers for two reasons:

1. In India, there is a large and unfortunate exploitation of women and children in the firecracker industry which is a very very dangerous one to say the least and these lives are almost disposable to the capitalists who just care about their profits. I don't support it.
   
2. They're just so LOUD! Okay, not all of them - but people around here have a strange, incomprehensible affinity towards the bombs and the crackers that just make way more than the legally permissable levels of noise. Its really ridiculous - they light a whole line of the them and just stand there with their fingers in their ears watching them burst for minutes on end... what's the point, I say? Where the HELL is the fun in that? To me Diwali is a reminder of how badly the world needs to see the light.

I was reminded of this song last night while D, Dada and I were lighting the candles:

Give me oil in my lamp;
Keep me burning, burning, burning,
Give me oil in my lamp,
I pray.
Give me oil in my lamp;
Keep me burning, burning, burning,
Keep me burning
Till the break of day.

Keep me burning for YOU!

Painter-Song (Ooty Trip Part 1)

I am back from Ooty. I have LOTS of photos. I think some of the best ever - thanks to Joyee's wonderful Sony Cybershot. (Note to self: the first thing I will buy for myself when I earn enough - SLR camera)

There are 520 photos on that camera from our trip to be precise.

For starters, here's one of my favourite --

Somewhere between Bombay and Bangalore. Leaning out of a fast-moving Coimbatore Express train capturing the reflecting sunset off the train. Magic. Truly.

I love my God. My God paints.

And.

Wow. What a country we live in.

Only in India (Part 2)

Bombay Twilights

When: Today, 7:30 pm
Where: Outside the window on the 4th floor (?) of a building in Santacruz where we have dance rehearsals

Bombay by Night
When: Today 9:45 pm
Where: In an auto on SV Road, close to Shoppers Stop
What: Late night traffic!

Only in India (Part 1)

Where: Bandra (West), just outside the local station

When: Friday 22nd August, 2008
What: Friday afternoon Namaz