Why I smile so much

During my entire life as a kid, I never even in my wildest dream thought that I would ever get to see any place outside of Mizoram. There were rich kids in school who had been to Silchar, Calcutta, and some even to Bombay and Pune! And kids with 'rich' relatives who'd bring them gifts from Madras, Guwahati, and Kathmandu - fancy pencil boxes, tiffin boxes, pretty pencils, and erasers. I thought them the luckiest people on earth.

I read a lot, books were a way of living a life I never thought I would get to live. Because traveling and owning fancy things was for kids with wealthy parents. So all I ever did in school was look on with envy. And read, and wrote, and dreamt. And slept with National Geographic magazines with their tauntingly beautiful pictures of the world.

I remember the day I first saw the Taj Mahal...how I was thinking back on those school days, and how happy I was for the fact that I'd finally been to some places outside of Mizoram and even get to see something like the Taj Mahal.

When I passed out of college with a Bachelor's degree, my only dream was to get my Masters. Zoology was one of the very few things I was really good at, and it was all I wanted to do. Then my mom said no. With 3 other siblings in college, it simply wasn't possible, there just wasn't money for it. I cried and she told me God will have other things for me to make up for the education we couldn't afford. But I hated her and I hated God, and I cried for months.

I don't know how things turned out this way. I know prayers are answered, but I never asked for all these. It's been a dream, living has been a dream -

I have eaten food that I've only read about and seen in books and on TV....
Drank exquisite wine and champagne that I thought only the rich drank...
I have seen and touched animals that I thought lived only on 'Animal Planet' in my world...
Now I know what kangaroo meat and crocodile meat tastes like :D
I know how it feels to dive into the ocean and jump out of a plane and freefall thousands of feet up in the sky...
I have met people I read about in books and saw on TV....
I have done things I have only secretly dreamt about, and things I didn't even know about to dream about them...
I found out America isn't really sprinkled with gold dust and that people in fact do take off their shoes before climbing into bed :-)
I also found out neither America nor Australia is filled with 'racists who don't treat us third world citizens as human beings' like I've often been told. They're full of kind, wonderful people...
I have lived in a luxury apartment in the tallest residential building in the city, swam in the highest indoor pool in the southern hemisphere...

All these superlatives and me, I joke about it to my old friends and family and it makes us laugh. But when I sit and think about it, the wonder of it all astounds me. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if everything's real - right down to the bed I'm sleeping on. I mean really wonder, not just as a figure of speech. It may not be a lot for many people, but for someone who never had anything, everything I do, eat, buy, every new place that I see, they're all a miracle to me. And more so to my family.

When I saw the Taj Mahal, I thought "Now that I've seen at least one of the seven wonders of the world, I can die in peace now if I were to die!" But now that I know how many possibilities are in this world even for poor kids and poor people, I just don't want to die at all. I want to live and explore this possibility. I want to keep living and see what other wonderful things life has to offer.

Australia has been a dream. And now I'm finally heading back towards the truest dream of all - Mizoram.

...where I rambled as a child
Makes me cry and makes me laugh
My reflections on the past
And the family, friends, and faith that shaped my life
It makes no difference just how far I roam
I still cling to that part that is so dear to my heart
My faith in God and memories of home -
The mountain angels sing
A bittersweet refrain of my Smokey Mountain Home!

Merry Christmas everyone! I wish everyone has the best Christmas this year, better than any that they've ever had, I wish everyone could be happy, and satisfied...

Guess what I went and did today!

The one thing I've always dreamt of doing all my life, I went and skydived! And it was one of the single most exquisite adrenaline rush I've ever had.
And to all of you that used to say I was just talking big when I'd say I would skydive given a chance - HAH! In. Your. Face! I've been given a chance, and I've jumped. I hate to say I told you so but I told you so! And you thought I'd never really have the guts :P Just because you don't have enough courage to jump from a plane 14, 000 ft up in the air doesn't mean I wouldn't. Time for humble pie, suckers! hehe

How many times do I think about sex?

First tag I've ever taken up - this one's from Nags. I'm taking this one up cos' I thought it sounds like fun. But I decided I'd just try to be honest with it, no funny or wittily evasive answers. If I didn't answer, it's only because it's too stupid to be answered.

1. How do you feel after a one night stand?

Shitty. Lovely. Gorgeously naughty. Guilty. Marvelous. Ashamed. Sexy. Dirty. Sinful. Round and round like a kaleidoscope.

2. Do you ever get used to wearing a thong?

No.

3. Does it hurt?

No.

4. Do you know when you are acting crazy?

Sometimes yes. Lots of times no. I do something that seems perfectly normal to me and 10 people would come telling me later that I did something very crazy...***sigh***

5. Does size really matter?

Yes. Works the same way C & D cups 'matter' against A cups.

6. When the bill comes, are you still a feminist?

Yes. I'd be a true feminist by expecting and allowing my date to be a man and pay.

7. Why do you take so long to get ready?

Skin that has to feel soft. Hair that has to be clean. Lipstick that has to go on just right. Body that has to smell good etcetera etcetera. The extra time goes in to all the things that make you love us more.

8. Do you watch porn too?

Hello? We have hormones too!

9. Will something from Tiffany's solve everything?

Not at all.

10. Are guys as big of a mystery to you as you are to us?

Not at all.

11. Why do you sometimes think you look fat?

Because I sometimes look fat?

12. Why are you always late?

I can't answer this one. I am never late.

13. Does it bother you when we scratch?

Hell yeah! Nobody's going to want to 'get close' to your crotch if you keep scratching there.

14. Do you wish you could pee standing up?

In public toilets, yes.

15. Why do so many women cut their hair short as soon as they get married?

Do they do that??

16. How often do you think about sex?

A healthy amount of time is devoted to thinking about sex. Not an obsessive amount of time like a certain *ahem* 'gender' group.

17. What do you think of women who sleep on the first date?

Lucky! The guys must be really hot :-)

18. Would you?

Depends.

19. Do you realize every guy wants a girl just like his mom?

*yawn* Can I pass? I personally think 'every' is an exaggeration. However, even if it was, it would only help us 'strategize' better.

20. Why does every woman think she can change him?

I don't think, don't try. But I know many men who thinks they can, and even worse, who thinks they have to change me....

21. Does it matter what I drive?

To a certain degree - yes.

22. Do you ever fart?

Pass. I'm not even going to ask this time.

But really, I don't think anyone's ever as good, or as bad they appear to be. Even us women :P Especially in India, we are so used to being ashamed of so many things that we should be proud of it's sad. Which has led to a whole swarming mass of pretentious population. But that doesn't change what we are inside. Believe me, every girl, or at least, a majority of women - the normal majority that is, would love to find that guy who's worth losing their reputations for :P

The Sweetest Things

The adorable, loving, but almost-stupid things friends say and do to keep you happy or just to keep you from being hurt:

1. You're out for a walk with your friend, and you've just spotted the guy you really like (who also just asked you out) kissing a girl, and your friend insists it could be his sister, when the guy is Caucasian and the 'sister' he's kissing is Asian.

2. A guy you're interested in suddenly seems to have lost interest in you, and your friend's explanation as to why? "He must be gay". And that's the only explanation there is.

3. You're in different continents, and they're going out to party without you and they send you an apology message - 'We're going out without you, sorry Jer, we love you!'

4. You sporadically keep canceling your travel plans, and they give you a farewell party and nice pressies each time. Three cancellations in three weeks can be pretty painful.

5. They refuse to talk to that 'friend' who didn't call you while you were sick.

6. You're going out with a new guy they don't trust, and they call you every one hour just to check if you're still alive. Not exactly funny when you're already 25+ years of age.

7. They lie for you. Even though they are terrible liars, and it most of the time don't work.

8. In their eyes, there's only one place you can go to when you die. Heaven.

9. They sit with me through a 4 hours long Church service in a language they don't understand a word of and still say it was fun.

10. Your contribution.

My friends have been my stronghold, my tissue boxes, my sleeping pills, my pick-me-ups . I don't know what I would do without them. Be bored stiff. Have no one to go out with, therefore stay home all the time. Grow depressed from all that staying home and self-companionship. Grow morbidly morose. Extreme clinical boredom. Lose all will to live. Start depending on chemical substances to want to continue living or shoot myself. So, technically, I owe them my life :D

I've fallen in love

With myself, the ocean, and Cairns! "I" am the only person I can fall in love with over and over again and never get tired of. Also fell in love with about fifty hot men in the course of my one week trip :-) Yep, plenty of those up there in the jungle. Nothing like these sickening, suit-wearing, expensive cologne-smelling, snotty executive types in the city.

The past week was the best ever I've had in Australia. I snorkeled, scuba-dived, went white water rafting and jungle surfing, jumped into a very deep river with no thought of what was going to happen to me (I can't swim), fed Kangaroos.... I spent a lot of time in the water, and I'm terribly proud of everything I did in the water because I'm an air baby, and for me to jump into the ocean or the raging river, it takes an extreme amount of willpower.

Snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reefs - it was terribly scary so I had to force myself to stop thinking. So I donned my protective suit (jellyfish season) with a non-functioning brain, and jumped with a non-functioning brain.
And it was so easy! And everybody said I snorkeled like a pro :-) I can't say the same for diving though..

However, I ace in the air, always! :-) I was so good at this that when it was over and I had to get out of my harness, the staff were teasing me about how I should take the harness home with me.
Cape Tribulation - We skipped our fancy prepaid lunch and fed on coconuts on the beach instead, used rocks as tools to break them open and I laughed so hard my sides ached. And even though I hardly ate, it was one of the best lunches ever. The beach was completely deserted, and with the rainforest on one side, it felt like we were the only people there - shipwrecked and stranded. I thought of 3 people - Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday and Tom Hanks...
Also went cruising on the Daintree river and who did we run into? Mr Crocodile the monkey-eater!
One of my most favorite spots was this strip near the beach house where we stayed in Cape Tribulation. Hauling my massive survival kit bag - books, pens, pencils, ipod, camera, sunscreen, change of clothing and I'd sit there writing, sketching, taking pictures, whatever I wanted to, and it was just impossible to want to be anywhere else on earth.
I never stepped into the water, as inviting as it was, because of fear of stingers and stray crocs. Got all the sun that I missed in Sydney. So much so that this one guy at a club we went to refused to believe that the the girl in the picture on my passport was me and almost denied me entry. But in the end, he finally agreed that I've just been spending a lot of time in the sun.
Also, I was a little paranoid by the time I got there because on my entire way there, all that our driver talked about was how dangerous the area is, full of creatures on land and sea whose bite/sting is always "potentially fatal" :(

But despite all this, I loved Cape Trib! If I were to pick a place to live in next to home, I think this would be it. I know it's a little hot, a little humid, a little "rustic" but I think I can live there and be good and happy and satisfied.
It looks a lot like Mizoram, maybe that's why I fell in love with it so easily.

I have a secret plan that if it works out will be the coolest thing ever - and will be as helpful and enlightening as Edison's light bulb. How to make traveling here for any length of time as easy and affordable as buying a bottle of beer :D - for anyone!

I hope I'll figure it out in about a year or two. Well, I have it already figured out, but I need enough time off work, around 3 months to a year, to test my idea and see if it works. So start saving, the only expensive part will be the air fare from India to Australia :P

I feel SO blessed!

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden:
.....

For He that is mighty hath done to me great
things; and holy is His name!

Fresh Young Sexy = Kill 'Em All!

I'm not even 30 yet and I already feel so ancient sometimes! I will admit - at the risk of sounding like a loser, that I often feel threatened by young people, fresh blood with their unbeatable talents. But if you're anything like me, you will also find these brilliant, young, college graduate-types who seem to naturally excel in everything a little annoying too!

Unbeatable in looks and other physical attributes, including 'height', and general 'coolness'. Their grey matters are just bubbling over, while mine seems to be already starting to fizzle out. They are filled with a passionate yearning to learn. I'm sick of it.

They pepper their sentences with words like 'Incessant', 'Esoteric', 'Throbbing' (and not even mean anything remotely sexual by it!), and 'Asinine' (often in reference to me, I fear.)

They write about pain and loss - the kind that would put all the hurt I've known in my entire lifetime to shame. They write about the loves they've had, and my grandest dream of love cannot live up to their smallest reality love affair.

They usually have been in relationships that have lasted longer than their time on earth. Their hair's always neat and tidy and shines - even after a major roller coaster ride. Always sophisticatedly fashionable, always manage to look like they're either trendily a few years early or late in style.

They drink Martinis and cranberry juice and Vodka. They can wear 3 bulky sweaters and a heavy coat over it and still manage to look thin. They can even wear pretty padded bras and still don't look like they're carrying the world on their shoulders - chests, I mean. They mostly speak at least 5 different languages fluently.

Me - quickie relationships; wild, unruly, orphan-type hair; predictable with fashion; mundanely always manages to shuffle along with the rest of the masses - the less fashionable mass that is; drink masala chai when other people on my table are drinking earl greys and jasmine tea; beer when they're sipping their Chardonnays and Sherries and Chiantis.

I can inarticulately make-do with 3 or 4 languages/dialects (have never really been able to tell apart these two). 3 or 4 depending on who wants to know. 3 if it's someone who I know or who I think might speak French. 4 if it's someone I'm sure don't speak French. :)

**sigh**

Seen the Mighty Ducks 'Miracle' movie? If yes, you know how loveable the Mighty Ducks were in the movie. Made by Americans, all good things must come to no end for the American team, while the poor Russians could only haply play their dark roles and earn some money to pay for their vodkas.

So the result of the Americans making the movie is this: rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed young American boys coached by a blue-eyed, dimple-cheeked coach. The opponents are the Russians - rough, violent, and consistently displaying extremely bad sportsmanship. They also got Dracula's long lost brother to play their coach.

All this combined with the fact that the Russians are playing on the enemy's home turf results in this - the odds of them being the hot, or even minor favorites, are zero to none. The movie was made in such a way that you sit there and watch and think how absurd it is, and you start to feel a little sorry for the reds, but you still can't help but adore the Americans and cheer when they won.

I reckon I'm pretty much in a similar boat as the Russians in that movie. Odds stacked all against me. Born out of sync with my sophisticated world. I can't compete with the sexy fresh talent. Maybe I should move to Russia....

I'm leaving for a one week trip to the Great Barrier Reef tonight. Not exactly Russia, but it'll have to do for now.

.