Words have meaning and names have power

I love interesting names, particularly Hebrew names. For me, more than anything, what a name means is important. I love my name, even though for the first maybe 16-17 years of my life, I hated it. I had to endure a lot of teasing because of it, when I walked in the streets, it was common to hear people singing 'Jerusalem nute'n an fate Isua hnenah....' or 'Jerusalem lamah tukverh I hawng em?..' :-)

My housemates have pretty interesting names -

Marian (Hebrew) - Sea of bitterness (Also Egyptian, which luckily means 'My beloved')

Orpah/Orpi in Mizo (Hebrew/Latin) - She who turned her back (because she was disloyal and turned her back on her mother-in-law)

Tina (Old English/Latin) - river

Quite honestly, not names I would give my children ever :)

My name is also Hebrew, it means 'married' or 'possessed/possession,' but in essence, they mean the same thing. Once a woman is married, she becomes her husband's possession. In the name, it doesn't mean physically married, but being spiritually owned. It means I am God's possession. It's a very blessed name.

When I have a son, I am going to name him Uriel (Hebrew) - "fire of God," also analogous to Uriah - "the Lord is my light" - after the archangel Uriel, and also partly after Uriah of the Bible, the soldier David ordered killed. I've always liked that man, he was a man of honor - "And Uriah said unto David, The ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in tents; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into mine house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? as thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing." - 2 Samuel 11

I'm not sure about girl names, but I think I would like to name my daughter Elisheba (Hebrew) – “My God is my oath” or Anaiah (Hebrew) - Whom God answers (this name is male originally but I think it sounds kind of feminine). As a parent, giving the 'right' names to my children would be a way of blessing them. I know I would feel very blessed to be christened with a name like Anaiah, whom God answers! Much more special than being named Cindy, or Baby, or Julie, Tommy, Timmy et al - for no reason at all, or after random rock stars, or even worse, politicians.


Other than names with religious meanings, I also like names of seasons and months of the year. I know an Autumn, a girl, a June, a May, and an April . I met a man called Winter once - sexy man, sexy name. Me and my friends developed crushes at first sight. I don't know what I found attractive more, the name or the man himself :D I think I may even have a picture lying around...

There, found one! Cropped to death and hazy but you can tell he looks very 'Winter' haha! That's him standing behind me, he called me James though (because my helmet had James Bond written on it), not a very flattering name for a crush to call you by I must admit :P

Other names I like:
1. Gabriel - the Lord is my might
2. Jonathan - gift of God
3. Pi Hangi
4. Chirhchohpuii
5. Biangtaituki

:D

Something I found out while researching names - Orpah/Orpi, Ruth's sister-in-law of the Bible is the giant Goliath's mother! Did you know that?

Hyderabad and us - updates

1. Ganesh Chaturthi is over, and the gods are now finally resting on the shores..
But it's Dussehra tomorrow - according to Macavity, the day Durga vanquished Ravana :-) I know enough to know she's wrong and to find it funny, but not enough to correct her. And that's okay, I'm just happy that it's holiday tomorrow.

2. Hoarding at the train station warning coolies not to deal in any shady online money-making deals I assume...
3. DDR freaks! Our new major obsession - the Dance Dance Revolution. However, since we don't have a machine of our own, we have to go to the mall to revolt, and pay Rs 60 for a single uprising. It can go to considerable amounts when you are used to 5-8 rounds in a single go.
The funniest part is the amount of crowd we attract LOL! You would not believe the amount of people - kids and full grown adults, male and female, who will stand around for hours just to watch 3 girls making a fool of themselves on a little machine. But quite honestly, I think the mall's management should pay us for using their DDR machine considering the amount of crowd we collect for them, thereby popularising their arcade, which ultimately plays a part in popularising their mall :P (And if anyone knows where to get a DDR machine really really cheap, I'd love to know!)

3. My sister - the fearer of ghosts and mirrors, has decided to grace me with a long overdue visit and finally got to meet and love Lucky as much as I do :-)
Complete sweetness, both of them!

4. One of our favorite restaurant's Bengali food festival a few weeks ago now leaves us craving paani puris all the time. Paani puris, Golguppas, Puchkas - whatever you want to call them.
Shake off a few calories DDRing, then stop by on your way home to make up for the lost fat with unhealthy amounts of paani puris. Heaven!

5. Hussain Sagar - the filth and the stench is never going away. And I find this eternally depressing!

Issues of National Security

Do you ever feel safe these days? Not me! Crowded places immediately bring thoughts of bombings and deadly stampedes. But one still has to venture out for one reason or the other. And I'm pretty sure most of you are now used to being frisked everywhere you go - malls, parks..people feeling you up while you just stand like dumb animals.

Anyway, they annoy the hell out of me. These friskers (?), or whatever they're called. And their endless checking of bags, and their poking their sticks at my water bottles and my food and everything they can poke it at. And their orders to turn off my cellphone or camera, and their telling me to turn them on.

I know I know! In the interest of national security, it is my duty as a responsible citizen to cooperate. I'm only frustrated because none of these makes me feel the least bit safer. I have absolutely no faith in their shoddy equipments nor crew. (Just wondering, when they poke in your bags, do they know what they're looking for?)

We walked past "tight" security with a gun once. It was a toy gun, and a stupid dare that made us do it. But it certainly cinched my suspicion about their incompetence. We walked past security, who despite heavy groping failed to find the poorly concealed gun!

But guess what happened at the park yesterday? They found and confiscated my cigarette lighter. A tiny, pretty little thing, pink with pictures of little fishes and butterflies. How could they miss a gun (albeit a toy one, they didn't even find it to determine if it was real or not) but find and think a tiny, pretty, harmless thing like that would pose a threat!

Anyway, lots of this I know is crazy. But I'm angry because they took my lighter, a very loved gift all the way from Queensland. (And I was only entering a park, not a plane! ) And despite one cigarette lighter confiscated, I still don't feel safe. Maybe it would be worth it if I knew it would at least guarantee a certain degree of safety.

It freaking feels like the middle-east is all I have to say.

The Curious Cat has meowed!

I asked myself, "Will this make me sound like I'm shouting to the world 'I'm a self-important, conceited bitch!'?" and the answer was "Probably yes," but I'm going to write it anyway. And let me hasten to assure you that I am not conceited at all, well maybe I am, just a tad! But truthfully, I'm just curious. So pardon me this little show of vanity or whatever you may call it, because I've been itching forever with it.

So the thing is, like your everyday, normal, average blogger, I have several tracking software running on this little blog of mine. And pretty much like the blog itself, all of them started out as experiments, lessons to teach myself stuff that I needed to know because my work demanded it. That was ages ago and I no longer need them, but I still do go in once a while to check whatever data they've faithfully collected for me - to oil my ego (or shatter it), and to appease the Gods of boredom.

But sometimes I become seriously curious about the 'people' I see there...Like today, I saw a person from Al Manamah, Bahrain searching on Google for "jerusha dignified cow" and I can't think of anyone I know who knows me in Bahrain, I am just dying to know more about this person, besides the fact that his/her operating system is a Windows XP, and that he is using Firefox 3.0.1, and that his computer screen resolution is 1280x1024, and he's got Javascript enabled, and his internet service provider is Batelco...

Oh who are you, mysterious person from the city of Manama in the Al Manamah region of Bahrain?!

There's another person from Islandia, New York, and another one from Atlanta, Georgia, whose absences are very conspicuous to me now and are causes for slight disappointments because they were almost like real people that I was used to seeing regularly. Then there are the IP addresses that I know by heart, and I can tell which friend it is and which part of the world that friend is from by just a quick glance at the decimalised numbers.

And I feel terrible everytime I see someone who's reached my page through a search done for "sexy girl(s) blog," "bad girl blog" (not that I'm not bad, just not that kind of bad bad..), or even "blogger help" (for I offer no support of any sort), and the ones looking for info or pictures of famous characters, for example, Samurai Jack, Thor, and more recently, Dorflein. And especially the ones searching for the 'my cup runneth over' song or the Bible verse.

To everyone who was looking for something, and you came in here because you were misled - I'm sorry. You can close me, and block me forever, and I promise I won't be hurt.

But./I'm late for dinner. Will continue later. If there;s anything worth continuing for..

One less marriageable man

Did you ever read about Knut, the orphaned polar bear? Anyway, this is not about Knut, but the wonderful man who took care of him, lovingly nourished him and hand raised him - Thomas Dörflein. Dörflein died last night, and it just breaks my heart.

Knut's mother rejected him at birth, and "Thomas Dörflein, a modest, good-natured man selflessly stayed with Knut round the clock for 150 straight days, slept by Knut's side, fed him, cleaned up his mess...Knut would have died shortly after his birth without Doerflein's care. He nursed young Knut in his arms behind closed doors and wrestled with him after the bear grew old enough to play. When Knut made his public debut in March 2007, Doerflein was at his side." Total cuteness!
*sigh* Why do men like him never ask me out! They're both so adorable I just want to pack them in a bag and run away to Alaska with them. Knut now, big but still beautiful, and still loving Dörflein. "As long as he's with us, he will always regard Thomas Dörflein as his father. Knut now howls plaintively whenever he picks up Dörflein's scent" (source)

Awww...just how adorable and sad is that! Poor Knut :( He's gonna miss his friend so much.Rest in peace, Thomas Dörflein.

Apparently, some women considered Dörflein as marriagable as I did. He received a lot of marriage proposals, love letters, songs and poems women wrote for him :-) Some men, who clearly will never be as lovable as Dörflein was, joked about that a lot. "What do they want to marry him for? For playing with Knut? haha" they say.

I will not bother to elucidate. This is something where disambiguation is worthless, one either just understands, or never gets it at all, if you need someone to explain to you why men like Dörflein are worth marrying, it means you'll never get it.

But oh! for a man like Dörflein! Big & strong, with a ponytail, big boots, whose good heart overflows with love for all of God's little creatures...and a log cabin in Alaska, and a big dog, and clear skies, and clear waters...nine bean rows and a hive for the honeybee... ***sigh*** Bliss!

And the sad thing in my life, is that I will most likely never get to meet a man like that unless I go hang out at the zoo every day. In my environment, you only meet men who sleep with their computers, a lot of them pretty spoiled, money to spend but no warmth to share, men who love designer clothing and good food even more than women do...

While all I want is not someone who is rich, or handsome, I want a good man who loves animals. To throw in a good example, I found this little dog some days back while out walking, I at first thought it was dead. It was lying motionless on the side of the road, but on closer inspection I saw it was alive. It was literally skin and bones as you can see.
I couldn't leave it, and my apartment being a no-dogs one, I called a friend and told him I was on my way to his place with a gift for him. And turned up there with the dog, fearing he would refuse. But he found it pretty funny, mostly at its size (it was incredibly tiny!). And without any complaints, took it in, fed it - 'hand fed' it because the dog refused to eat, well, it was just too weak to eat...

And as I watched all this, I swear I fell half in love with him. :P

-

Paranoia

Have I mentioned here before that I'm planning a trip to Thailand with a few of my friends in October? Anyway, I already have my tickets booked from the 17th - 26th. Which means 9 whole days of fun of sand and sea. But there's something that bothers me now, and I need to know if I'm being ridiculously stupid or should I listen to the voices in my head?

I am not prone to nightmares as an adult, but for the past few months, I've been having this recurring dream about being caught in a massive tidal wave. What always plays out in the dream - I'm on a beach somewhere having a good time, the first part of the dream is always good. Then out of the blue, I see this massive tower of water over me, like wayyy high, several storeys high, crashing down on me, and there would be absolutely no time or place to run. And it always ends there, I never see what happens after that. I would wake up terrified, my heart racing. The feeling would be so intense that I would still feel disturbed even the next day.

The day we booked our tickets, I started thinking about our little island trips (we're planning on going island-hopping), and instead of getting excited, I just became anxious because the dream kept coming into my head. and I have been feeling uneasy about it ever since.

Then, to make things worse, my mom, who is a worry wart by nature when it comes to her kids going on long journeys, but who is understanding and usually keeps her worries in check, freaked out on me. She kept saying she's got a bad feeling about my upcoming trip. She who can calm down when I go halfway across the planet alone, now refusing to see reason, acting like a super-nervous cat when my destination is only a mere 4-hour plane ride away.

I have a good mind to go cancel my ticket, and just not go. But I've been looking forward to this trip for a long time, and I really really want to go.

Am I just being irrationally nervous, am I being paranoid? Or should I listen to the voices and cancel?! But I'd feel sooo stupid if I decide to cancel. I'll feel better if I get some sleep I guess. I need the trip.

.....

Pictures & lessons

This is a picture of my desk. This is how it looks on any normal morning. I took this picture because I saw it in a completely new light when I walked in the other day. Me, I have never considered myself a lover of colors. If you open my wardrobe, you'll see lots and lots of blacks, whites, and mostly dull colors. I scoff at people who bedeck their work desks with cute, colorful pictures, or stuffed toys, or pictures of themselves/boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses/kids/relatives/even starngers. Until I was struck down with the light and it opened my eyes and I realised that I'm as bad as everyone else. I'm as disgustingly sweet and banal as the common man! Oh woe! :P Well, it's not too bad. I guess. At least the tables in my room at home are not that colorful. Did I ever mention that I use 3 tea bags in one cup? Yep, I like my tea strong, just like my men! :D

Check out this picture I took of this massive eagle the other day. I was in the kitchen cooking when I saw this bird perched atop the neighbor's toilet pipe. 'How romantic!' I thought, and went to get my camera. It must've been camera shy though, because it took flight the second I was about to take a shot...
A toilet pipe is a good perching place to perch on I suppose, if you're a bird. However, if you're human who loves perching on toilet pipes, you'd be a birdbrain.

Birds, they're just like humans. We all seem to always find a reason to take flight, even when there is none.

Thlahrang I hlau em nang?

Ka nau bawk hian an hlau leh mai mai khawp ah! Kan inbiak na anih nih na angin ka rawn ka rawn paste - misspellings, typos etc a ngai ngai in. Ka nau mi dawih chanchin ani deuh ber :-)

Me: Emily rose an exorcise a an aw vel an record tak tak kha ka ngaithla a
Ka nau: uii
Me: i ngaithla ve duh em
Ka nau: ka ngaithla duh teuhlooooooooooooo
Ka nau: oi min ti ewnchakkk
Me: a message received from a Carmelite nun from the district of Allgäu in southern Bavaria. The nun had told the parents that a vision had revealed to her that their daughter's body was still intact, and that this authenticated the supernatural character of her case.
Me: an lai chhuak leh
Ka nau: chuan engtin nge alo om
Me: a lo trawih
Ka nau: henu hi chu van rapthlak tak
Ka nau: vanram kai ang policy in a om lehnghal
Me: en teh hei ka thawh pui pa pawh hi, mi 1 an exorcise lai kha a lo hmu tawh ani awm e. Chuan a rawn buai chho tran kha, a rawn trap a, a mittui chu bawnghnute ang chiah ati
Ka nau: ui ka rap ltkkkkkkkkk

--------------------------------------------------

Me: misual a thlahrang lam post kha i chhiar em
Ka nau: chhiar e ka hlau rapthlakkkkkkkkkkk
Ka nau: buannel ah poh son thlahrang a om
Me: spikey ziah kha ka rap tawp, i hmu em
Ka nau: oo, ka rap ltk alom...amah kha hmelhriat ka chak ramhuai a hriat hnem hmel top
Ka nau: thlahrang a hmu hma em anih kha
Ka nau: a rilru ah a cham tlat toh aniang
Me: bawng trial ang a trial ramhuai kha i la hria em
Ka nau:uiiiiiiiiii
Ka nau: soi suh kha mi ang em em a ka hlauh ngai kha ramhuai ah ka la hrelo
Ka nau: mahse ramhuai poh hi ka hlauh chi hi a inthlak kual reng
Me: enge tunlai i hlauh chi
Ka nau: tunlai chu
Ka nau: darthlalang hi ka hlau a, chu ani deuh ber
Me: awiiii, i mak eee. enge darthlalang chu i hlauh nachhan
Ka nau: min lo melh ang tih a hlauhom alom

:-)

---------------------------------------------------

Thihna lam ve thung;

Me: thih chuan thi fel hmak mai ila te hi ka ti thin
Ka nau:chu2 ania ka ning
Ka nau: anih loh tal pon hremhmun ai hian vahvaih tur ni zok se te ka ti thin
Me: vahvaih tawp mai chu
Me: khawi ah
Me: thlarau khawvel ah maw, nge he khawvel ah hian
Ka nau: hremhmun ai chuan a zia alom
Ka nau: ka ngaihtuah dan chuan mars ang deuh velah hian
Me: vahvaih tur habn tih tawp mai chuh
Ka nau: aaa........hremhmun tlak ai te chuan a zia em mai
Ka nau: chutianga boral topp leh khovela om char te ang chu expect chi poh ani lo a
Ka nau: chhan chu kan sualna ang ang chu kan phur tur ani ta a
Ka nau: chuan kang kher lo in vahvaih ka duh hremhmun lo tla tur hi lo ni ta ila
Ka nau: hremhmun hrehom dan tur chu
Ka nau: kang mai bak ah khan ramhuai hlau re2 in

Ti tawp mai ang, ninawm a thui ee mai.

--------------------------------------------

Making Vietnamese Pho

OMG I just amaze myself sometimes! Check out this Pho I made this Saturday, and tell me truly if it looks any different from one made by an experienced Vietnamese who've made Pho all his life. But I've never even imagined myself cooking something like this, even though I love Vietnamese food in general.So one night I was reading about how rice noodles are made and the importance of Pho in Vietnamese culture. And I really felt like some but because I don't know any place where we can Vietnamese food in Hyderabad, I figured if I wanted it, I'd just have to make it myself. So I woke up the next day, ran to the store and picked up the ingredients, and threw them in together and out came this! Keeping all false modesty aside, this is the best Pho I've ever had :o) And I've had Pho in many different places in several countries :P I'm not sure how real a Pho this would be, maybe it's more Mizo-Pho...
To be honest, I think it's all wrong. I just threw in whatever I thought would taste good. Lots of prawns, lots of squids, some chicken, some spring onions, capsicums (these I know for sure are out of place), ginger, garlic, and some thyme and I don't remember what else. Like I said, all wrong, but damn, yummy still!
I've really started cooking a lot, mostly because the girls seem to genuinely love all the results of every experiment I decide to carry out in the kitchen. And it's a good feeling to cook when you have someone to cook for.
Oh, and check out these "winged sunglasses" I got for the girls. Cute aren't they? :)

Man I feel like a woman!

But the thing is, it's not enough you feeling like one. You have to feel like one. As in when somebody touches you. That means no cracked heels, no stubbly chins, or hairy body. You also have to smell like one. I'm no expert but I feel strongly about these things so I'll pretend I am an expert so I can feel better about what I'm going to write.

What some women have wrong, is that they don't seem to realise that you can't go around acting giggly, put on fake girly voices, act dumb, weak, and helpless, it's not even so much about batting eyelashes you know. The thing here is this - If I'm a normal, average, healthy Indian woman, and I walk around with cracked heels, dirty toenails, smelly armpits, I'd consider myself a failure somewhere.

This may sound materialistic, but I also can't understand why women who are financially stable, raking in the healthy side of a 5 figure salary a month, who are very interested in the opposite sex, the outgoing mall-going, expensive dinner-eating, 5-star club-frequenter can think it is okay to wear the same shoes every single day and night for months even when it's scuffed, visibly falling apart, glues leaking.... (Of course, it's a completely different ballgame if one faces extreme financial c0nstraints).

'How can you walk in those shoes?!' "Where did you learn to wear them?!!" How many times have I heard that? From women!!! And not crazy hooker type heels, but normal high heel shoes that normal women wear. They infuriate me!

I'd consider myself a loser if I'm a woman that don't know how to wear or walk in heels. I would never think it necessary for a woman to have to be taught how to wear heels. Shouldn't that be all part of being a woman? You were born a girl means you have heel-wearing genes in you, all you have to do is grow up and reach heel-wearing age. Even if you've put them on for the first time, you should walk like you've worn them forever.

And to these questioners, I never would but if I could, I would tell them to go and wear one themselves. And to make sure they're clean. But if they absolutely have no time to do too much cleaning and have to pick between tasks, your armpits come first. I can safely say this is not an issue back home, I can hardly think of a girl who had stinking armpits. But the amount of smelly women in other places is, to say the least, disturbing.

There was once this girl who was crazy about my closest and best friend at the time. The guy never liked her too much but she got lucky one night, and got him alone at her place for one whole night. She made her move, and given that men are weak preys, and that she had a lot of time and advantage, she even almost succeeded. Only almost.

Her reason for her failure? Hairy armpits! I later learned that he had almost given in, until it was time to take off her dress. You don't want to gross out men with hairy armpits and force them to feign sleep. If there's any feigning sleep, we should be the ones to do it, not them.

Then there was another friend who got all excited because he bagged a date with a hot girl he'd met once. He never asked her out again because after much prying I found out she had 'mean dirty fingernails.'

The things we think don't matter does matter. We're not going to get somebody's utter, eternal adoration because of our pretty nails or shoes, but it's still a step in the right direction :P And even if there were no hearts to win, we must still strive to have the cutest tootsies and finger nails around because it's just not becoming for women to have dirty, uncared for digits :-)
Even if you were blown apart in a bomb and your big toe is the only piece of your body left, it should be pretty enough for anyone who found it to know it belonged to a woman :-)

And cracked heels...why should I even be writing about that?

I know all this makes me sound shallow, when people are rushing around tending to important matters. But I'm tired, let the world debate over stem cell researches, gay marriages, and greenhouse gas emissions, I want to sit back and debate over which color nail polish I want to paint my nails tonight.

Want a fun job with oodles of money?

Oh! The many wonders the internet brings into our lives! Life would be so much more boring and less colorful if this world didn't have this amazing system.

Therefore, first, before I jump into my intended topic, a million kisses for Vint Cerf - the father of the internet (Have I ever mentioned that I've met him in real life? Not to brag or anything :P But yeah, Vint and I - we ARE tight! hehe..Not. But yeah, I've actually met the man! Woo-hoo!)

I've had two real jobs in my life, the kind that finally gave you the muscle to stand on your own. And both those jobs would not have been and will not be possible without the internet. Really, I think I would be jobless now if this world was internet-less. Unemployed, or I would be doing dishes in a restaurant or something. Or maybe I would be married with 10 kids and completely dependent on someone for my everything. **shudder**

Anyway, I just want to share with you the wonderful, exciting opportunities that lil' ol' me have been receiving through the internet, because these are offers I never dreamt even in my wildest imaginations would EVER come my way. Never ever. But here they are now, as clear as day :D

Okay, exciting offer #1: A Karaoke singer! hehe

Sample of offer email - "I am a solutions provider for Karaoke products and you being from the North eastern part I'm sure you are a good or decent singer and well, all of you look very presentable etc . I need to use you to canvas for biz dos, promos, meeting corporates etc . I am sure your renumeration will be attractive."

Exciting offer #2: Okay, brace yourself... A model! Woo-hoo again! LOL

Sample- "My name is ____ doing my own business in events & entertainment in Dubai. I went through your profile and it sounds interesting. If you are interested in modelling or fashion show or anything related to events & entertainment, please write to me on____"

There is something about events and entertainment and me! Sometime back, this one man walked up to me trying to hail a rick on the street and asked me if I would be please be 'the presenter' for some event he was managing. Of course, I told him no, and you know he was begging me to do it! Like really, seriously begged :-) I suck so badly at so many things, but I'm good enough for some people - hoorah!

Exciting offer #3: Oh, happy day! A model again. You can laugh all you want, I will not be offended I promise :-)

"I am looking for a good looking girl to create a fashion portfolio. I use the Nikon D300 camera...I'm a software engineer and you can check out my works at _____ I can pay you for the portfolio photo shoot. Please mail me at ______"

Exciting offer #4: This one is more up my alley - A housemaid. Or rather, a house made :-)

This one's email was not as 'eloquent' as the others, so I'll take out bits and pieces from it to make it easier. My gracious offer-er says he is "a Saudi man working far of my parents and they are 70 and 65 years old." Says he needs someone to take care of them, and that he will "provide the residences, I need them as a driver and house made." Preferably "trust full Indian couple (husband and wife)," which kind of disqualifies me :-( since I'm unmarried and can't drive.

Let me stop at #4, and maybe continue with the other interesting offers later. So now, I know what I would do if there was no internet, I think maybe I'd be a model and walk and sashay out my livelihood, or I can be a Karaoke singer, or I can be a house made! So I won't be completely out on my ass after all :P.

**sigh** tears of happiness !

If anyone's interested, you can pass along your details to me, I'd be happy to forward them on. **wink wink** @ sandman :-)

All's right with the world!

- People talk about Madonna and her body. They all seem to think her body is fantastic and that she looks great, they say she's so sexy, she's so hot....bi-da-bi, bi-da-ba...Honestly, I just don't see the fantastic in that body. And to be frank, as imperfect as my body is, I like mine better than Madonna's. I don't want that body on me at all! Despite her fancy trainers and gyms and diets and what-not, and all her money, I still would much rather have my life sans millions, trainers, Rambo-body, hot husband, fame. I'm pretty satisfied with my life (and for some unfathomable reason, this bugs certain people no end).

Something funny - I told this friend of mine this morning that McCain's chosen P.Diddy as his running mate, and that the new McCain campaign slogan is 'Diddy's your daddy!' And she believed me!! Yet she doesn't believe in love. AT ALL. Beats me how one can believe something like that so easily but chose not to believe in love. Gullible enough to fall for almost anything, no matter how insane, except when it comes from a guy.

Me, I'm stupid enough to believe some men occasionally. This may not be altogether smart, but some of the things I believe makes me happy. Sometimes a little stupidity doesn't hurt.

Anyway, while on the much hated topic of the US election, that old guy that Obama picked, doesn't his name sound like some sort of portmanteau (? is that what they call it?) of Bin and Laden. Bi-den. See? Obama has such strong terrorist tendencies.

I used to think I was dealt a pretty rough card when my dad decided to name me Jerusha. But then you get people with names like Biden, and they make the world seem fairer. I mean a name like that, which just mostly makes you think of two things - the most wanted man on earth, and a bidet. I don't know which one's worse.

War & Peace

I found this picture of a scene from the Georgian-Russian conflict, I've seen tons of graphic war pictures, and maybe it was because it was the morning when the heart is still good and soft that I saw this, but this just went to my heart.

The dead soldier lying in the puddle on the side of the road just breaks my heart. I keep putting people in his place. My dad, my brother, Kal-El, my cousins, my close friends...it'd kill me. I don't know how it would be for someone who loves him to get through the pain of seeing something like this. I know I would never recover.
This is the site where I got the picture from, you can check it out for more images, but I have to warn you, some of those images are REALLY graphic.

Again, I'm just really, truly sick of war and fightings and everything that comes with those. Sick with a capital S.

Okay enough about the war part. It's morbid and morose and utterly depressing and I don't want to think about it anymore unless I absolutely have to.

So now, for some peace and fun :-) Actually I should have captioned this (with all due respect to Mr Tolstoy) 'Peace & Lust.' And here is the Lust!
*sigh* Sinful thoughts, sinful thoughts!

And then, I've also fallen in love. My newfound subject of adoration is this man...
A Persian actor by the name of Bahram Radan. I happened to see one Persian movie called 'Santouri' one night. The movie turned out to be really good, and Radan acted brilliantly. I fell in love, and have been obsessed with him ever since. Now just picture a man with Radan's face and Phelp's body.. mmmmmm :-)

We had a thunderstorm in style

'Last night we had a thunderstorm in style
The wild lightning streaks the airs,
As though my God fell down a pair of stairs,
The thunder boomed and bounded all the while:"

Been raining continuously for the past few days, and I love it! Of course, the city is so badly equipped for rain that you have to be ready for some chaos, and rain is bad for shoes, and it killed my internet, and the street is full of moldy smelling people, and it messes up your hair, but I still love it. Rain is a beautiful thing, beautiful to look at, and beautiful to feel and hear. I wish we had a tin roof at least only for the rainy season. Well..ONLY for the rainy season to be truthful.

We bought new umbrellas that we love to death. Some of my friends think it's silly and stupid to be carrying them around, but I like them, they're perfect for slight drizzles, and they make people smile.
And as tiny as they are, one can still cover two heads. And that's a lot if one of those is mine because I got a pretty big head.
The night this picture was taken, I was going out for dinner, one of my house mates told me that she liked my dress, my coat, and my shoes, but that I was spoiling everything with the horrible umbrella sticking out of my bag. 'My god! You can NOT be serious, you can't go there with that umbrella!' she said, she said the restaurant I was going to will never let me in with the umbrella. As it turned out, they looked pretty happy to see me and my umbrella and very gladly let us in.

Another good thing about the rain - my flowers love it and just refuse to stop blooming. These are Zennias, my grandma always had different colored Zennias in the garden when we were kids, and we used to call them Sap pangpar and I hated them (bet you thought I was going to say I loved them) :-) I thought they looked plastic, love them now though...
One thing I don't like about the rain - Lucky spends a lot of time playing in it, and with that heavy fur, he smells like a wild animal. I avoid all bodily contacts with him now and intend to do so until the rainy season is over.
I'm lying. I can't keep away from him, so in the end, I end up with muddy paw marks all over my clothes, and smell like a wild animal only slightly less wilder than him.

Also, I don't know if this is just about me, but the rain also has a way of dredging up long-lost memories and images from the past. Does this happen to you? Me, my brain seems to clear out some cobwebs and I start remembering things from so long ago I should not even be remembering them - my dad and I building paper boats, and letting them loose on muddy puddles, and how big and fat the raindrops on the puddles were....

...A nice woman who used to sing me a lullaby '...Kan kawmcharah tuihawk a luang dem dem e (?), a fim hmasa Lalngoi'n thal zo zel e...A khi ah khian lungpui a lo lum dawn e, ka nau-i kha suan khat, suan hnihin suan rawh u..' Who was she?...

...My sister, aged about 5, dressed in a blue frock and running barefoot on a muddy track in the rain...

Another fact about rain I bet you didn't know - when rain falls through dry air and evaporates completely before reaching the ground, it is called virga. Yeah I know, it sounds like mispronounced Viagra :-)

9 Things I'm frackin' sick of

1. Barack Obama & the US presidential election. But mostly Barack Obama. I want to be able to watch the news and read the papers without seeing his face for once.

2. The Brangelina twins.

3. The Beijing Olympics.

4. Bollywood. The industry and almost all its actors, if they can even be called that - stuck in a state of perpetual "talentlessness" and idiocy. They're all still in the Stone Age as far as acting and making movies is concerned, and I have a feeling this state is going to be an eternal one. I see no light in the future. (But then, I also believe that the lack of genius in our actors is in perfect equilibrium and harmony with the hopelessness of our politicians and the way the country is being run, so maybe it's all good after all. Balance is always good.)

5. Fuel prices.

6. North Korea and Iran and their little nuclear programs.

7. Mars. Sorry Mars :( You used to thrill me and it's not even your fault but the endless speculation and the crafts that gets sent your way and the hype that goes on and on but you've never shown us even one weensy picture of little green men with antennaed-helmets, or even little wiggly worms. I saw on the news this morning about some more find - perchlorate! Oooh..perchlorate! They found perchlorate on Mars!!! So exciting I could barf! Perchlorate, whateverchlorate, don't give a flying fuck anymore. You're just boring now, except on Longfellow's hands. You know I wouldn't even be sick of you if these media people will just stop reporting 'news' that isn't there.

8. Bombs and bombers. Sick of being scared to go shopping, eat out, go see a movie with friends, do even the simplest things. All because of a bunch of retards who think blowing up poor, innocent people can further their cause or whatever shit they're trying to prove.

9. The ever unsafe, ever filthy Indian railways. I find it amazing that practically nothing's changed in the last decade. In this age when we're talked about not because of our poverty but because of our booming economy and amazing talent pool and power and progress, our trains still have the same stench, same ticketless passengers forcing their ways in, the same cruddy seats, the same Hijras demanding money, the same general chaos...Will there ever come a day when an average Indian can travel cheap, clean, and in peace?! If there is, judging by the look of things now, the moon will disintegrate into little pieces and the sun will die and turn into a black hole before that happens.

John McCain almost made it to the list, but I forgave him and left him out. Why? For being seriously hot at some point in his life :-)

Plus the fact that he's really funny, and not fakey lakey like Senator O makes it easy to forgive him.

And..he's not intent on taking my job away. Very important. :D

Got Milk?

Lucky posing for me for our own Got Milk? ad :-)

Thil mai mai

Kan naupang ber tun a Bangalore a awm lai mek min rawn biakna hi kan paste mai mai lawk, ka nuihpui nasa em a.

Ama sawi dan in "Anu ka han phone a...inthlarun hmel took in ka trong a. Teh nu...ka hmai hi te tak tein a ron bol vak a...a kaw trek2 bok a. Chuan voiin tlai khan ka va entir a...doctor in skin disease hlauhom dam thei toh lo ania, plastic surgery i tihloh chuan a dam thei toh lo a ti a ka han tia. Chuan.....ka tia ka tho vel hok a. Sing nga a ngai a ka tia. Oi.....a mang ang hmel ltk a, trong poh a ron trong chhuak mai thei ta lo a. Ka khongaih leh ta a, ka han nui vak vak a. A thinrim lutuk a, 'LALZAWM!!!! nangmah leh nangmah anchhia i in loh ange, a bol tak tak mai ang te a ti. Ka han hau let ve leh a, ka rap leh sia....trongthu chhelo ah ti roh ka ti vak2 a.."

Ka nu hneh atrang hian "Nizan chu I nau in min lo phone a 'Hriati I dam maw?' min rawn ti a' tih angreng report hi hriat tur hi a awm reng mai nia, ka nau te pahnih hian an fiam peih bawk a.

Hman deuh ah ka nu mobile phone neih ve hmasak ber ah ka nau bawk hian a screensaver ah animated screensaver, thil bial in vial tep tep, pangang ang deuh chi kha a dahsak a. Ka nu chuan an en kha, a hrethiam ta lo. Ka nau hnenah chuan "Awi bawihte, hei han en teh, a mak lutuk" atia.

Ka nau chuan a en a, "Awi virus anih hi!!" a tih sak a. Ka nu ngaihdan ah ama sawi leh dan in 'virus' han tih khan computer age hma a kan virus hriat pangngai, thil nung, natna hrik chikhat ah a ngai titih ani awm e. A vial tep tep bawk si, vangvat lam te a ang nen, khatia ka nau in 'alarmed' deuh a virus a ti ta kha, a hlau ta lutuk a. A phone chu a paih ta thruai mai, khawih pawh khawih ngam tawh lo chuan, "Awi bawihte, engtin nge kan tih ang?" atia, ka nau lah chuan "Tih ngaihna a awm lo, tikhuan a chhung ah a lut tawh sia.." atia. Ka nu chuan a phone thar chu hal mai a rawt e ati ka nauin :-)

Vawiin ah pawh "Anu zingah khan ka han msg a, 'Hriat have a nice day' ka han tia, 'ka lom e' a ron ti lolzzzzz" a la rawn la ti..

Ho hle si hian, tiang mai mai te hian thih min ti hreh thin..

Life goes on

And we're still making videos :) This is another martial arts movie with a hitherto unheard-of ancient Chinese dialect with subtitles.

Removing the video, will just leave the link here, I'd rather have comments on the youtube page than on here.

The sad squid notes

So funny, I just walked in and this one colleague of mine looked at my arm and exclaimed 'Oh, you got a new tattoo!' (Little black flowers and leaves and what-not scribbled down all over my left arm).

Now how do I tell her "No, this is just the result of a very unproductive hour-long meeting." Maybe I can say "Yeah, I got it done by this black guy called Reynolds in one of the meeting rooms."

I don't know what we discussed in there, I don't have little notes, no important points to carry away. Just this pretty graffiti on my arm.

I may have been a squid in my previous life, I rock ink so well! :-)

p.s - How do you like my Deezer track? The song is in dedication to Kal-El, my loving, unattainable hero, who finally left for his home planet Krypton today.

You know one of these days, I think I will take the much-frowned-upon path of mushiness and utter corniness and write about what it feels like to hold and kiss someone when you both know that that's the last time you'll ever get to kiss each other, and all that's on both your minds is how you will never see each other again after this, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Say my name
So I will know
You're back you're here again
For a while....

**sigh**

There's this song called 'Dreidel' by someone I don't remember, Don McLean I think...that's all I've been thinking of today -

I feel like a spinning top or a dreidel
The spinning don't stop when you leave the cradle
You just slow down
Round and around the world you go
Spinning through the lives of the people you know
We all slow down
How you gonna keep on turning from day to day?
How you gonna keep from turning your life away?

Heh! Looks like I'm already treading on the afore-mentioned mushy path. Muchos sorry. But then, this is not even really mush because it's not so much about romantic feelings, but more about the normal sadness any human being of any gender feels at the absence of another human being of any gender. Simply because that human being was very special to them.

The Gospel according to St.Macavity

Macavity and I are still talking all the time despite the distance - on the phone, online, voicemails, gtalk, yahoo - and before I continue, I should mention that Macavity is a good Christian (good maybe not in our conventional Mizo sense, but better than many of those conventionally 'good' ones).

So anyway, when we talk, one big topic that always reigns over others is God, faith, and being Christian. But we often stray from the main topic and suddenly develop profound interests in a character (one of the disciples, a soldier, a random man whose random act was recorded in the Bible), places, incidents, and we'd do lengthy researches, create pictures and images of these people in our heads and swap them - fun times.

Anyway, the topic of Palestine and Lebanon came up the other day. And I asked Macavity "Did Jesus ever go to Palestine?" to which she vehemently swore "No, never. He never stepped foot in Palestine!"

"Are you quire sure?"

"I don't see Jesus as setting foot in that land.."

"He was born there Macavity!"

"Ooooh yeah, right. Sorry, he was born in Palestine and they chased him out from there to Bethlehem, did they not?"

"They chased him out to Bethlehem - where he was then born.. **long pause** However, if he wasn't born, I don't think the chasing would have been much successful."

"Bethlehem is IN Palestine, they could not have chased him from Palestine to Bethlehem.."

"Oh"

So we finally got it down to Bethlehem, Palestine (which was called Judea), which we assumed was a part of Israel (I still don't know). This perplexed Macavity, how could Palestine have been a part of Israel when they have such history? What kind of history, I asked. All those fighting histories, she said. They fought? I asked. She answered yes, all the time, killed each other all the time.

She said - "You remember back in the day when the Palestinians fought the Israelites? Judea was a part of Israel then, wasn't it? Unless Judea was fighting against Israel and later came to be known as Palestine, which makes no sense. Because back in Genesis and Exodus or the good old books, it says that the 'Palestinians' fought them - written way before Judea was even called Palestine."

"David fought them, Jonathan died to them, so did Saul (not the one that became paul :P). Saul was sorely possesed by demons in the end, even threw something, some cooking utensil at young David, while he was blissfully playing the harmonica."

(Jonathan is her ultimate favorite Biblical character, and she will always find ways to bring his name up no matter what the discussion as long as it has something to do with the Bible).

Anyway, this discourse befuddled me greatly. I asked her who she meant by this 'them' that David fought, and killed Jonathan and Saul. Because it would be so weird for a great Israeli king like David to be killed by his own subjects.

"The Palestinians," she smugly answered.

Then, suddenly a titter, and then "Oooooh, I think I'm mixing up the Philistines with the Palestinians"

Whew!

Anyway, Lebanon and Palestine and Israel are our current obsessions, one day I asked Macavity to find out what the ancient Biblical cities of Tyre (are they modern day Lebanon?) and Sidon are now called. She researched, and her answer when I came back was this - In the modern world, Tyres are pneumatic ring-shaped parts. :-) Cute.

The reason she finds it so difficult to accept that Jesus was ever in Palestine is because of modern day Palestine and Palestinians - well, let's just say one Palestinian - Samir Kuntar. She just can't accept that our Lord ever walked on the same ground that this monster now treads on.

Because of this new found interest, we read up on Zionism, and downloaded and started reading The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. I've never thought much about Lebanon and neither does Macavity, we've got a lot to learn, , but we are pretty sure now that it can't possibly be a great place. A place where they idolise murderers as heroes and role models...nahh, can't be good.

Macavity is still away, I'm never sure where exactly she is - when I think she's in Sydney, she'd call up from Melbourne, and you think she's in Melbourne, and she is in Thailand. I wish she'd come back soon because overseas calls are expensive, and the crazy time zone results in me waking the poor thing up at odd hours all the time.

And she needs to be taken to church and made to sit and listen to one good sermon.

Oh we the evil sex!

By we, I mean me and all the good women who's got the luck to share the same gender and are reveling in their womanhood, the bearers of the double X chromosome, the soft and beautiful, better-smelling, smarter sex. We are all that yes, but I really do believe that we also possess more capacity to do harm.

Men's lack of general spite, I suspect, springs mainly from the thickness that seems to prevail in their cranial cavities. I'm not saying they're dumb of course. Most of the truly brilliant people I know are all male, but it's also true that I strongly believe (and I'm pretty sure I'm right :D) that I am smarter than most men I've met, while I come across women way smarter than me every day.

(That's just to tick off the men. That's the kind of statement that has high potential to pervade that previously mentioned thickness, and somehow reach the sleeping thing that resides in the cavity, and whisper to it that something has been said that is perhaps eligible for deeper contemplation because it's possibly offensive. Deeper contemplation will take approximately 2 seconds and they will have already lost their temper before those 2 seconds are up).

Other statements of similar potential -
* Let's have sex.
* Oops, I spilled soda on your keyboard.
* He's taller than you are.
* I'm pregnant.

You know, stuff like that. By potential, I mean the ability to kick some of those sleeping neurons into transmitting some sort of chemical signals - the end result is subjective and may vary highly from subject to subject, rage and panic and sexual arousal being one of the more common reactions.

If you want it to resume as it is, you can try saying nothing - always works, or 'Take the trash out,' 'Don't forget to feed the dog,' or even just a simple 'Let's talk.' (I believe peace will reign on earth and in all households if all women can adopt this strategy. After all, didn't someone who must've been pretty smart and who put her brains to good use say something about letting sleeping dogs lie?)

Anyway, I'm straying. What I want to talk about here is how we women can be so much more difficult and vindictive and nasty and....you know, just difficult. I will not even go into the whole animal kingdom stories, we all know those too well already. Let's just try to keep it human(e).

How many stories have you heard about the bride not getting along with her husband's brothers or father? Not a lot, I'll bet. Now, replace the male kinsmen with the female relations. See what I mean? Mothers-in-law are subjects of absolute terror, and the sisters-in-law, at best, seems to excel at frosty dislike or plain indifference.

Personally, putting aside romantic relationships, men have always been my best friends, best comforts, and without fail, make the best company. Because they're easy. Put me in a room full of men and I will be friends with all of them in 10 minutes. Forging friendship with women, on the other hand, is a long, hard struggle for me. Like I said, this may be just personal but I love men that way. I shared a house with 3 guys once, and that was one of the most peaceful cohabitation with more than 1 human being I've ever had.

Another example to prove my point: In my gym, we have two trainers - a guy and a girl. For every set of exercise that I do, my male trainer tells me to do two sets of 10, while my female trainer is never satisfied with less than two sets of 20. And she'd stand and watch me huff and puff, muscles quivering, flesh wobbling, tears and sweat streaming down my face and I would seek her eyes for some sort of sympathy, but it'd only remind me of the villain in the Terminator movie after his flesh burned off and only his metallic skeleton remained, with those two sets of cold, unfeeling, red blinking lights. And I'd think about how she should be in a movie, and how she'd make a good villain, you know those types that carry poison darts in their hair. And blow it on little children for practice.

So I keep wondering why these gentle, warm, peace-loving creatures like us so much, we who have the power to disrupt their peaceful existences, and who would most likely put that power to use - intentionally or unintentionally. Because I think if I were a guy, I'd steer clear of us. And I think I better stop right now and sleep because this is going to lead me back to sleeping cranial cavities and I'd go round and round in circles and never sleep and be red-eyed and mean-assed at work tomorrow.



p.s - Men, don't come accusing me again of being sexist, I love you guys :P It's just the way the thoughts form in my head and my fingers fall on my keyboard :-)

What do you think of my new tattoo?

Marian made it for me, says it's the best tattoo she's ever made, out of a total of two. The other being this heart she made on my arm for my Amy Winehouse impersonation -

Meet Lucky - the Persian dog

Lucky is a dog that belongs to a friend of mine. He's a black German Shepherd, and can look absolutely terrifying in the dark, like some creature out of a horror movie. You'll know what I mean from this picture -
But then you know him better and you'll see he's just a big baby, he's just 4 months old, even though he already looks pretty big. He lives with his owner in this big house all by themselves, so I think he gets lonely a bit, and he's so thrilled to have visitors he goes crazy and he'll make you feel like you're the best person in the world ever. I'm mad about him.
He's teething, and he slobbers all over me, it gets messy but it's all worth it for the amount of good loving I get. I can stand a little canine saliva :-)

His owner, who I'll just call Gab, is a good friend of mine, and the funny thing is both master and dog speaks and understands only Persian. But despite the lack of verbal communication, we share a very good understanding of each other and enjoy each other's company.

It's funny how Gab can always sense my sadness when some people I spend hours pouring out my heart to can't. My blue days, he'd know it and he'd offer to come get me, and even when I don't feel like it, I usually end up going in the end more often because of Lucky than Gab himself, but I love them both like brothers.

When it gets late, we just all sit and watch TV, and I feel at peace because I know I don't have to talk or explain myself and that my silence doesn't bother them. We just have to sit and occasionally smile at each other and that's all that's needed. I like the simplicity of their lives and thoughts and the peace that comes with being with them. I want a dog of my own TERRIBLY!

Books & Writers & More

I was looking at some of my old posts and I find it disappointing that I write a lot about hurting and other negative things, but nothing much about what I like, and what's good in my life. And there is a lot of that. So starting today, I vow to write something about what I think makes life worth living - big or small, as long as it's positive.

And as a first post of this great new attitude of mine :), I will write a few things about the one constant love of my life - books.

For as long as I can remember, reading has been the one activity that I've never stopped enjoying. I liked reading from the moment I learned how to, I remember being a kid in school and going shopping for school books with my mom at the start of each new school year, and then finish reading my entire English books before school even started.

Some facts about books, reading, & me:

* I'm not an intelligent reader, just an extremely emotional one. I never understand the literary analyses and intellectual critics.
* I love poetry and I prefer the classics - Longfellow, Keats, the Bronte sisters, Shelley, and also a few more recent ones like Maya Angelou & Pablo Neruda.
*I also love Russian writers - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol & Leo Tolstoy. It seems Russia used to be full of brilliant men, I wonder what's wrong with modern Russia :P
*I think Dostoevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov' is possibly the best book I've ever read, that and Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland.' These are two books I can read over and over and over again and still want to read some more. I used to hate people who would act like they were intellectually superior because they read Dostoevsky and others like him and they'd talk about existentialism and oedipalism and that kind of shit, but they don't even really like it but do it all just to impress people. But a friend literally forced me to read 'Crime and Punishment' and I realised I loved the book and its author, and I've been reading him ever since.
*Books I recently read (ie last two months):

1. 'The Kite Runner' - Khaled Hosseini (Kinda late because I never found it very appealing and it took a friend a very long time to finally convince me to read it)
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3. Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
4. Measuring the World - Daniel Kelhmann (Crosswords recommended, didn't like it)
5. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Paul Torday
6. Literary Lapses and Nonsense Novels - Stephen Leacock
7. The Girl in Blue - P.G. Wodehouse

* I also am a very fast reader, and a good one in the sense that I remember well the things I read. And also a dedicated one, I don't mind being bleary and puffy-eyed and sleep-deprived the next day if it means staying up all night finishing a good book tonight.
* I want the things I read to make me feel things, evoke strong emotions in me, I want to cry over my books, I want them to make me laugh out loud even when I'm alone and it's 3 AM. And even occasionally give me nightmares. I want them to make me think, and maybe even make me a better person, and also make me forget my eyes burn and that my head hurts.
* I generally hate romance novels. However, I do like some of the classic ones, the one romance novel I've never stopped loving is 'The Lady of the Camellias' by Alexander Dumas jr.
* I like sad writers, and the neurotic ones, the crazy ones, and all their dark thoughts. Poe would be a good example.
* I like ghost stories, but again, only the classic ones. I have quite a big collection of Victorian ghost stories.
* Going home when all my friends are out, and I know I'm going to be alone, and I know I have nothing to do, and worst of all, I know I have nothing to read makes me dread going home.
* I don't like Indian writers, I think they are big show-offs, and are mostly pretentious. I always get the feeling while reading them that they're sitting with several fancy dictionaries while writing, and for every word that they're trying to use, they flip through the dictionary to see if there's a bigger, fancier-sounding, more incomprehensible version of the word that they can use.

So you can see with the amount of time I spend at work, and the amount of time I spend reading, and the amount of time I spend going out, I am not a person that needs a lot of sleep. And the amount of time it takes me to read one book ensures that I spend as much on books as I do on clothes. Maybe clothes are more expensive, but at least I don't have to buy one every few days like I do books.

Currently reading: The Brothers Karamazov :D Yes, again. I found a new translation that I hadn't seen before last week and bought it. Also, I'm out of anything else to read. And I will be going to pick up some new books soon, so I'm open to suggestions.

.

Only cos I have to

I have maintained some sort of activity on my online blogs, but it's pathetic that I haven't written on my real journals for months, almost a year. I feel terrible, but I've been zombified, and we all know zombies don't feel anything, so maybe it's justified in a way.

You know all that shit that people feed you about the 'first cut being the deepest' ? I've realised that it is not so. It all hurts. But that's okay because surviving difficult times and heartbreaks is not all that difficult. God made us that way. Our entire existence revolves around pain. And the funny thing is that some of the pain actually feels good.

Anyway, it's really selfish of me to talk about my pain when the world as a whole is suffering so much. Good people dying, evil people living forever, bombings, hunger, cancer, AIDS, Mugabe, plane crashes, and many others - my personal sufferings don't figure at all.

Anyway, it was Orpi's birthday yesterday, and look at what we did for her birthday cake. Tina left for San Francisco the night before, so I and Marian were running around trying to make everyone happy. Flowers for Tina, birthday gifts for Orpi, MAJOR grocery shopping, but despite all our crazy shopping, we still forgot the cake for Orpi. So we went the next morning to the closest shop and bought a plain cheese cake, and made do with what he already had in the fridge to make it pretty - which included some cherries and Kiwis, some Gems and a candle, and ta-dah!! -
I felt we did a pretty good job. I think it's prettier than my birthday cake. And it's personalised, so it's special. And here is the birthday girl herself, grinning as broadly as any birthday girl should!

Always a bridesmaid....

For those of you who wondered where I disappeared to the past few days, or even if no one wondered, I'll tell you anyway - this is where, on this chapel in Bangalore, playing bridesmaid in a friend's wedding. Prettily decorated chapel isn't it?
They tried to do the pretty thing with the 3 bridesmaids as well, with not a lot of success, at least with me. They put so much makeup on me I didn't even feel like I was me, layers of foundations and whatnot, complete with fake lashes. I'm not used to wearing a lot of makeup, and my blinking was out of sync :P So I removed them all, and could finally manage a smile.
It was a really fun wedding, but if I look bored in some pictures, it's only because I'm irrationally sad these days.
Irrationally because I don't know what makes me unhappy, everything's going great and I know I have nothing to be depressed about, but nonetheless, I have frequent bouts of sadness. Fleeting ones, they come and go, but no matter how short they are, sometimes it's so intense I feel like I'm going mad. Hormones I guess.

Other updates:
1. I've been thinking a lot - about God, about life, and I'm filled with more doubts and questions each day. I just can't understand how a God who is so full of love can create something like Hell to punish his own creation, when even a vile sinner such as I would never do a thing like that to my worst enemy.

2. I had lunch with the cutest guy in the world the other day. *sigh* I get a high every day when I run into him and he smiles at me and he says 'Hi' and he makes small talk. It makes me so happy I positively glow. I enjoy this tremendously because it feels like younger days and innocence.

3. Someone left a soft toy and tons of Hershey's kisses on my desk today. I thought it heralded the dawn of a new admirer but it was only Pete finally back from Australia.

4. When I get married, I want to have a dress like that Vivienne Westwood one that Sarah Jessica Parker wore in Sex and the City movie.

5. Are you all as sane as you appear to be?