16 December 2008

Dreaming of a not-so-white Christmas!

It's difficult to believe that in a couple of weeks, 2008 will be over! Kinda scary...but I love this season! It's gift receiving time, and I'm such a sucker for all things free and given :-) Just the other day, I got chocolates and super sinful tasty cake from an anonymous gifter. Bozo also got a card and a bone from I'm guessing the same anonymous person.

I'm leaving for home tomorrow, and I look forward to spending some free, restful time at home with my folks. But I am going to miss Bozo enormously :( After all, who else can pee with excitement on seeing me?

On to other things, did you see the news about Bush being thrown a shoe at and his 'size 10' comment? I just loved the man after that comment. And I thought it was such a shame that lots of people including Americans went around saying the man deserved it. No matter what he did, I thought it was just wrong of the thrower to be that disrespectful towards a leader of a country. And Americans not even knowing how and when to stand up for their own president is just sad!

Enough about politics, this is also resolutions making time, and I already have some idea about what my 2009 resolutions should be - learn to swim, see the Valley of flowers, learn a new language. Suggestions are welcome, of course, no promise that your suggestion will be taken seriously :P

We had a quiet farewell dinner already, because we're all leaving this week. And only Bozo and Orpi will be around in Hyderabad for Christmas. Poor things! I'll miss them both, even though I'm going to be away for only a couple of weeks.
Anyway, wish me a safe and happy trip! And have a happy a beautiful, lovely Christmas and New Year!

10 December 2008

The language of our dreams

Marian has been frequently talking in her sleep, and funnily, she talks only in English when she does this. But it got me thinking - what language are my thoughts in? Or my dreams for that matter? Are thoughts really processed in words, languages, sentences, and even subject to (God forbid) grammar? Or is thought not restricted to such rules or attributes at all but we just think they are because when they are processed and ready and we get them out they are in the form of words and sentences?

But if it were, are you aware of what language you think in?

And when you dream, even when you remember exactly what you said or heard in the dream, do you ever remember if it was in any specific language the next day? For me, it's always just conversation that I remember, talking, exchanging ideas, communication, but language? I never remember.

There's this one dream I had - a little kid that hung on to my arms and when I told him to let me go, he kept chanting "Not unless you promise to take me home with you!" I told my sister about it the next day, and when I told her that part, she jokingly said "So you dream in English!"

But to contradict this, I had another incident to prove that I don't dream in English. At least not always. I was sharing a hotel room with a colleague, and one night I was sleeping and dreaming (hazy dreams I remember), and my friend was watching TV. I woke up at some point, and asked her what the time was. "What?" she said. I repeated the question. "What??" she said again, I asked her again, to which to again asked me back "What??!" I was pretty mad by this time, and asked her what was wrong with her, and if she'd gone deaf. She, equally angry, shot back "How the hell would I know? You're speaking Mizo!" So I must have been dreaming in Mizo...

I think the way the brain works is so complicated that sometimes your tongue and your dreams can't catch up. I often suddenly use Mizo words with my friends who don't understand a word of Mizo. Some of them are quite used to words like 'Chuan,' and 'Mahse' now. When I talk too fast, I think I mix up words without even realising it. So what's the one failing to catch up? My tongue or my brain?

Then there was that time I was buying something from some small shop in a tiny village in Mizoram, and without thinking asked "Kitna?" :-)

I also had a friend who didn't really speak anything other than Mizo. He was trying hard to study English, French, and Hindi all at the same time and I think his brain worked the same way as mine does now because whenever he wanted to say "My name is Kima" in French, he would always end up saying "Je m'apelle Kima hai" - notice the Hindi hai?

And he was a sleeptalker too, and always talked in English or Hindi when he talks in his sleep. But in his consciousness, he never spoke anything other than Mizo.

Sometimes I think we may be we are more brilliant in sleep than we are awake.

08 December 2008

A post of poor taste

Aren't the mornings just so divine these days! They feel almost like my childhood Mizoram winters, just minus the chilling cold. And I love it so much that I go to bed early every night just so I can rise early the next day. And I'd wake up early, and a sleepy Bozo trying to appreciate the morning as much as I do but failing miserably would just melt my heart.

It's such a good thing to wake up feeling so much love I thank God for Bozo because he makes me think good and clean thoughts, and because my day starts so well, in thoughts and in actions, I think the quality of my days and everything else in my life has improved with it.

I also stay in most nights because I'd rather be warm and cosy at home with an adoring Bozo than be out with friends with loud music and loud voices. Bozo is really good for me, I'm an overall better person because of him.I'm only afraid that my friends may start resenting him because they complain about how I never join them anymore and how I stay home all the time, and they know it's because of Bozo. How do I explain that this is what I've always wanted to do but haven't been able to, but that Bozo helps me in achieving to some degree an attempt at self-improvement, that he's not the cause at all? Unfortunately, this part of me hasn't improved too much - my inability to explain me accurately.

Anyway, I was talking about mornings. I think it's because everything is beautiful I feel nostalgic all the time. I miss people all the time - sometimes my sisters and my mom, but mostly Kal-El.

Kal-El, my beautiful disaster, who drowns in his dreams, soft to the touch but frayed at the end and breaks, magic and myth, as strong as what I believe, as damned as he seems but more heaven than a heart could hold, a tragedy with more damage than a soul should see...He's never enough, and still he's more than I can take.....More mostly, he's just never enough.

Corniness overload :P

Back to a different kind of corny, we have a blog for Bozo :-) Please visit it if you have a couple of minutes to kill. I know this sounds kind of disgusting, I hate people throwing little parties for their cats and go crooning 'cho-chweeeet' and make smooching sounds and all that crap. Always made me want to bop them on the head and tell them to shut up. But this I guarantee is not annoying, cheesy maybe, but not annoying!

Bozo's blog is here.

If you think it's annoying, don't forget I tried to warn you on the post title.

And oh, our new video. Our version of M Sailo's Hmeltha sensiar :)