CXI. Subtitles, Excoticism, & The Such -

I’m watching The Food Network and there are 3 chefs, left from what I believe was originally 4 chefs. All are competing for an executive chef position at a Cuban cuisine restaurant in New York City.

One chef was a lady who spoke very clear and quite articulate English, meaning filler-words along the lines of “like” and “um” were sparse if they were at all present. Indeed, she had an audible Spanish accent when speaking. Regardless, I was confident that anyone could understand her speech.

With that said, I was taken aback and infuriated that the television network felt it necessary to include English subtitles on the screen for someone who was speaking English as it should be spoken.

Only a couple of days afterwards, I zapped on my DVR-saved Four Weddings. On the show, 1 of the brides’ husband was Iraqi. For the less than 2 minutes that he was featured speaking on-air, there were English subtitles projected on the screen of him speaking English. Again, I was outraged. Sure, he had an Arabic flare to his speech, but his English was perfectly comprehensible.

Middle America speakers’ English is far less eloquent than both of the persons I mentioned above.

For those who believe ain’t and y’all are a culturally-appropriate dialect that, is in essence, an evolved version of English: I’m not buying your sorry excuse for botching the English language.

I am not even referring to race in my argument. Forget the majority and minorities argument: Let’s take Heidi Klum for example. Heidi, apparently, has been rumored to have such a thick German accent to her English, that she is being reconsidered for a position as judge on America’s Got Talent.
I personally feel that Heidi is akin to Hilary Clinton; In other words, she is a woman who has done well for the XX-chromosome. She possesses business acumen, she is charismatic, is a dedicated mother, was a doting wife, has impeccable fashion sense, and is aging gracefully.
Watching 10 seasons of Project Runway and only recently claiming proficiency in a language other than English, I have never had a problem understanding what she was saying. In fact, her wit and apt analogies are hilarious.

Let’s speak to America and the majority/minority now:

In the May 2013 issue of Marie Claire magazine, the perfect segue way from the aforementioned Project Runway which is closely affiliated with the magazine, there is a section called: “What I Love About Me.”
An avid reader of fashion magazines, one of the reasons I had decided to subscribe to Marie Claire instead of Vogue, was this human interest section that succeeds in reflecting the internal dialogue that transpires in women’s heads, however, I was saddened by this issue.

31-year old Anna G. professed to loving her “mahogany hair and eyebrows” because they make her “look exotic.” Say what now? Yes, she believes dark hair is exotic, as opposed to what exactly, blonde hair?

Mahogany, another way of saying dark brown, is the same color hair that I possess. Maybe if my eyes were blue like yours, I’d look “exotic” too.
Dark hair juxtaposed with not dark skin is apparently, abnormal in our country.
Then again, the May issue’s section was profiling residents of Charleston, South Carolina; so yes, now I can see you haven’t been exposed to loads of diversity. I won’t say you’re forgiven, but I will say this: you’re a small town gal who doesn’t care to visit wikipedia once in a while.

Maybe South Carolina has not been visited by the Wi-Fi fairy yet.

Then we have the urban-Californian family, who have also spent time overseas: The Kardashians. As I’ve said before, I am a fan of the show. I’m anxiously awaiting the new season to start as well and I could care less if you judge me.
Still, I will not forget 2 quotations stated by Kim. One of the quotations pertains this post and I will list it as the latter.

1. Kim said Indian food was not only not to her fancy, but is bad in general. Let it be known that I boycotted the show for the rest of that season. No one talks badly about my India - no one.

2. *Pertains to this post*: On the Oprah Network-aired show, Oprah’s Next Chapter, Winfrey asked the 3 Kardashian sisters why they perceived themselves to be so popular. Kim immediately quipped, “Oh, you know, we have dark hair…”

This exoticism of having dark hair annoys me to no end. If eastern-ethnicities, for whom dark hair is natural, were to be perceived as beautiful, as they truly are, in general Americana, life would be significantly different than it is now.

Subtitles, exoticism, and the such: Tis’ an unfortunate commonality in the Western hemisphere.

CX. Marketing Yourself -

Marketing one’s self has always been a somewhat foreign concept for me.
Yes, I  know that when applying for any endeavor, It is necessary to project a genuine quality in my essays. I know that I have to be privy of how my resumé is being read; are there any gaps of time where, presumably, I’m just not doing anything, or rather, not doing enough?

I have forever felt like marketing one’s self is akin to the more severe paraphrasing of the aforementioned; the selling of one’s self. To sell one’s self is weighed down by negative connotations.

After all, bargaining and hyperbole are part and parcel of the sales pitch.

Yet, in this ever expansive world that I find myself in, filled with self-made entrepreneurs who seem to make up my entire generation, my Whartonite college companions, and my business-glorifying family, it seems like I have no choice but to operate as a business.

Where can I utilize my ideas? To whom can I sell my story idea? Who will give me a chance to fiscally gain from my writing?

Am I selling myself short?

It feels as though I should be opening up my own cupcake bakery - but I don’t want to.

So here I stand, or rather walk: Full of ideas, plans, patiently honing my writing to a masterful skill.

Yet I am without even a penny found on the sidewalk to show for it.

Clichés strike me as a shameful addition to any language and so I won’t necessarily stand by the imagery of considering myself a “diamond in the rough.” Yet, I can see myself as this lone tulip amongst the weeds growing alongside the concrete sidewalk.

Almost 1 full year since the culmination of college, I have been on a countless number of interviews and each time I feel like I am selling myself in earnest.
Again and again I find myself relating my academic journey and having to justify why I am not a virtuoso in my desired career choice.

Reality has settled in: We all are going to have to market ourselves more so than ever and I think it is unwarranted, if not a tad bit demeaning.

In the near future, I’m anticipating having to prove myself to a group of people for whom boasting no longer seems sinful. Not even a month afterward I’ll be a novice jet-setter amongst an experienced group; fortunately or not, I’ll have to prove myself worthy, not so much of being in their presence, but of being present, there and then; in that place and at that time.

Marketing one’s self means constant repetition. For a person who is frequently nostalgic and dislikes change more so than the same old same old, (note the repetition), I cannot stand this repetition.

I want to move on. Let’s move on.

“Do you understand what the song means?”

I have answered affirmatively to this question, in reply to the same persons, no less than 10 times. What will it take for me to stop having to sell my knowledge? Yes, I understand the language… and you’re not convinced.

Though I have the most distant scope of what economics is, a semester during my senior year of high school has taught me that the market is constantly changing because it is heavily dependent on the quote on quote, invisible hand.

It is absolutely impossible for me, or anyone else, to no longer be in demand at some point of time.

Obsessing over whether I’ll ever find a future husband and thinking, will I ever be in demand, is unnatural and it is an unfortunate thought for anyone to have.
Why should humankind come to an end because of some manmade-influenced-society’s demands?

Materialism have never struck me as lethal; therapeutic, yes, but lethal, no.

Yet, I think it is time for the start-ups, the sensationalized lists such as the Gate’s Foundation’s “30 under 30” and Forbes Magazine’s age-threshold lists, which supposedly define what being successful means, to come to an end.

Start-ups are the epitome of redundancy.

Yet another social media platform; and you are different how? Oh, so you have developed a way to verbally record tweets? I suppose this make you a genius now.

Aren’t we the same people who criticize media for sound-bytes and yet a young'un who develops a sound-byte form of social media is handed money in the thousands. There goes a grant for another person to waste time.

As us old-schooler’s say: Enough is enough.

CIX. To That Person in College -

To that person in college who said that all families are “like that”; those who exchange arguments that foreshadow seemingly never-ending silent treatments.

You were wrong then and you’re wrong now.

To that person in college who said, “you’re still desi”, “just like us”.
“Us” meaning both parents are from the subcontinent.

You were wrong then and you’re wrong now.

To that person in college who said, you shouldn’t complain so much.

If I didn’t complain I would probably be sat down and asked, “what’s wrong?”

To that person in college who said, “I cannot believe you think this! You’re so traditional.”

Well, I believe that some things are just wrong: much like yourself.

To that person in college who said, you must have a 4.0.

You were wrong then and you’re wrong now.

To that person in college who said, “what’s wrong with those short-shorts?”, followed by “do it for the team.”

My answer is the same reply I would give to the first person I had mentioned in this post. Not all families make it seem more than acceptable for their daughters to wear skin-tight shorts that almost expose evolution’s vestige, the coccyx.

To that person who told me not to mention calories while she was sipping away on a fattening milkshake.

You may come off as the carefree person from the exotic/obscure country for now, but I’ll be laughing when science wreaks havoc upon your thighs.

To those persons in college who believe that I am such a serious person.

Well, perhaps you’re not quite wrong, but you’re wrong to assume that this is a bad thing.

It’s survival of the fittest, my friends. That’s what this is.

This post relieves me of my stress, because those mesh-like balls you find in Staple’s do not do squat.

Perhaps I should patent these posts and have them sold in place of the stress-reliever balls.

“That was easy”?

Oh Staple’s, you’re making me a dreamer.

CVIII. Who Let The Dogs Out & Into the Workplace?

Maybe those Frontline commercials are my rose-colored glasses, but dogs, especially the lethargic shaggy ones, strike me as filthy and burdensome.

Let’s say, “to each their own”; that is, until I’m introduced to the dog in the workplace of all places.

My former supervisor for 2 weeks, “former” because the internship was nothing but an excuse for me to do manual labor and be enslaved to an under-qualified candidate, had plopped down a large polyester black bag in front of me.
The next thing I know, she’s talking to the bag while opening it.

OK, I thought. Maybe she’s intentionally speaking in a kind of comedic monologue to lighten up the atmosphere. This is perfect; Maybe I’ll be working with the female version of Stephen Colbert - a non-New Yorker who never seemed to have left the five boroughs.

I was wrong. I was so, so very wrong.

She was not delivering effortless satirical banter that I realize now, I deliver myself, but also find myself around at all times, (that’s a good thing.)

The lady was speaking to the over-sized cotton ball of a dog that rolled out.

She directed the dogs towards me.

As someone who has allergies to most domestic pets and who was beyond excited to see a rabbit hopping around near the highway along the body of water that separates Queens and Long Island, I was alarmed.

Starting my 2nd week on the campaign trail to broaden my horizons as a non-objective observer in the political world, my mind was racing to come up with something that would be favorable to the lady with the dog.

Maybe I don’t have to do anything. Maybe I can just give a quiet smile.

“Go to her,” the lady had cooed to her dog and directed it towards me.

I say “it” because of course, the dog had to have an androgynous name.

The dog looked up at me. I looked down at it, The lady looked at me and without thinking about what to do anymore, I swiped my hand through the dog’s fur and squeaked out, “it’s so cute.”

She then said, “Oh, I’m sorry, he/she’s dirty and needs to be washed.”

Panic - sheer panic. I tried not to wipe my hands on my clothes or anywhere else. White hair went all over my laptop’s keyboard within seconds.

That smelly and unwashed pooch is the opposite of cute.
Maybe the dog’s only here today. After all, the landlord made it clear in the contract that no pets are allowed in the building under any circumstances.

Perhaps the NYC market dictated what happened next: The whole campaign team, except me, fought for the dog’s right to lounge around the office. Apparently the candidate herself had a pesky dog herself.

It then hit me; these posers are taking a cue from our U.S. President who has a white house dog, Bo. The loveable Bo, however, is groomed and disciplined, not grungy and homeless-looking.

Over the course of my time at the office, every time my coat would fall off the chair, dog hair would stick to it. Every time I got up from my seat, my black headphones would fall on the dog’s tail and I would come back to find that my black headphones had become a dalmation-print, black with white hair everywhere.

Progressively, my nose, ears, and throat would start to itch. I couldn’t breathe at night. Yes, allergies to the dog had reached a pique.

The dog’s owner had bought a $40 rug, or dog bed as she called it, and placed it less than an inch away from where I sat. The entire area reeked of dog urine and God only knows what else.

Enough was enough and I sat on the opposite side of the room the next day. Not that this location change made a difference as the dog roamed about freely, all over my oxfords and leather boots.

The lady looked at me questioningly and hinted at me to sit where I was sitting before. I laid down the law: “I’m allergic”, I said.

What transpired next was as far as I could take the nonsensical atmosphere of this sorry excuse for a campaign office.

The dog was staying; whether or not the dog stayed was not even an option. So the predicament was, either I stay, or the dog stays.

I’m too young and motivated to stay in a place that takes doesn’t take into consideration the health of its staff.

What kind of politician can advocate for the people when she cannot even provide a healthy atmosphere for her indentured slaves?

Resisting all efforts to be a behind-the-scenes minion to progress the candidate’s status in life, and not her constituency or myself, I left in the nick of time. So thank you dog, for expediting my decision to leave a corrupt politician’s task force.

CVII. For Practicality's Sake -

Yes, everything in moderation is something to live by.

One may even say it’s a truism; Whether or not you follow a moderate approach, the energy of the world somehow forces a balance either by making a habit impossible to carry out, a product unavailable, or even by means of complete elimination: If you ingest too much of a noxious substance, you can bet that at some point, no amount of stomach pumping will have any efficacy.
It is practical to live moderately, but it is not always a necessary precaution to take. Unless what is not in moderation is toxic and potentially fatal, there is a good chance that all will be set right by natural forces beyond out control.

Why is it that acting practically is inevitably more appealing than acting according to one’s desires and wishes, or, perhaps even dreams, in the event that the aforementioned are not practical?

Surely acting practically reduces risk which is an inherently a skull-and-bones type of entity.

Residing in a place that is all at once new and familiar is a form of moderation.

I speak about moving away from all I know, in excess. The lifestyle in that part of the world, away from Lotto tickets and wholesale stores, is more in tune with a life I want to lead. I am still relatively young to settle down somewhere else and be a part of that fabric of society - I think.

The listeners urge me to stay here. Make it here first and then uproot wherever you so choose, they say. The persons who have migrated to the United States label reverse migration, away from the United States, as a cop-out of sorts.

Yet, what kind of logic suggests that my moving from the only place I have ever known is the equivalent to a cop-out? Don’t you think it is a cop-out to have left a country with far more history than the United States, to have left a country that you can actually call your own, no questions asked, to come over here and settle for something you call “a better life” than the one you had? Why couldn’t you break through barriers in your country instead of being a cop-out?

For practicality’s sake: To avoid arguments based off the hypothetical, I have for the first time, begun to dismiss my desire to lead a life in a place where others supposedly do not “live to work”.
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It is late afternoon, around 3 PM. I have just finished eating an inordinate amount of calories because when sitting in a restaurant with a party of 2 other than yourself, it is difficult to disguise having eaten your share of the food when in fact you have only eaten less than half a portion size.

Submitting myself to such an outright lack of discipline for the sake of being practical, I feel less than vibrant on a day when all outdoor photos taken by my phone are vivid and void of explicit pixels.
To add to this less than ideal feeling, the very people for whom I forsook my desires, themselves did not eat.
Let the arguments ensue, and so they did.
Willfully without a car and the only way to not let a beautiful day and my once beautiful figure, go to waste, I decided to get away and seek my New Yorker alone time by walking.

I didn’t want to be practical and achieve my need for fresh air by sitting outside of my house, stomach filled with chickpeas, kebab, and papad.
I didn’t want to be practical and walk around my neighborhood for the ten thousandth time either.

So I set out in the direction opposite from my neighborhood to make the 1 hour walk to a large bookstore that comes fairly close to my beloved university library.
I was made to walk with more than a couple of pounds of food in my gut, bulky in my long wool coat and boots made for walking the short blocks of Manhattan.
I walked from home, uphill, under 2 overpasses, along the service roads adjacent to highways as well as the full length of a Queens park.

This walk wasn’t practical for someone who is susceptible to vomiting at any given second.

The walk was not practical. I can feel the blisters under my feet and for someone who needs hours of aerobics to work off these newly acquired calories, my stomach has decided to become aerobatic and perform flips as it were.

Yet this walk was necessary. I managed to escape the fight club scene and lose some calories, take to writing, and enjoy the atmosphere of a place that is all at once both familiar and new.
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For practicality’s sake, I don’t take to social media for good news.
When my Facebook friends put up a photo of a gift someone gave to them because they supposedly did something good or put up a compliment someone told them, I swear I can suddenly feel the ground shift beneath me as the world turns on it’s axis in an attempt to catalyze the karmic cycle. There goes their special treatment.

Studies have shown that people tend to only post the good, the great, and the even better on their social media platforms.

If I had a nickel fifty-dollar bill, or my alma mater’s founder, a Benjamin, for every academic and professional triumph I’ve had and then had transplanted to social media, I’d set up home on Park Avenue right now.

For practicality’s sake, I use social media to be social. I share links and interesting anecdotes. I don’t list the newest addition to my resume. After all, that’s what LinkedIn is for.
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For practicality’s sake, many a time, one’s desires, dreams, and duties that benefit a larger realm than just their own personal life, is sacrificed.But if being practical means doing things in moderation, one should live practically so long as they are also carrying out and experiencing the impractical - those long-term, fiscally risky measures..

For practicality’s sake, higher education takes precedence over a quick pay check signed within a Wall Street edifice.

For practicality’s sake, higher education ensures a steadily growing income in the future.

For practicality’s sake in the above 2 instances, the end goal relates to money.

See the inherent balance? I sure do.

CVI. Political Painting -

My first experience inside the world of politics, outside of my political science lectures in good ole’ Stiteler Hall, has only lasted 3.5 days.
I refer to a fraction of time because today is not yet over.
I still have to attend a forum of some type; a filibuster to the regular schedule.

Despite my non-incumbent position in this realm, I have so far learned a massive amount about the culture of politics.

For example, the accusatory comeback, “pictures or it didn’t happen”, is more than just a quip.
If you don’t have a photo of you with a lace veil over your face, you didn’t actually immerse yourself in a traditional Catholic mass, for example.

In order to garner said photos, or press coverage in general, you have to attend a schedule of events.

I believe the role of a socialite may very well have been developed by the American politician.

In the international arena, constituents tend to flock landmarks where a figure of authority is already expected. Rarely do these leaders travel to where the people are.

With that said, I understand that it is  a universal campaign tactic for politicians to display themselves in all their glory.
Many a Hindi film have included  true to reality depictions of politicians traveling among throes of people. These politicians, however, are not going to the people. The politicians are traveling to already decided upon destinations. They are traveling for their own agenda.

Motorcades consisting of a politician’s flags, banners with his/her position on issues and slogans from his/her minions campaign coordinators are meant to synthesize the politician’s celebrity status.

Au contraire, American politicians tend to make themselves available to the people.
When I say, “the people”, I am not referring to the average or even the poor. Rather, I am referring to persons from every strata of society as a collective entity.

In the United States, the politician is only superior to constituents in so far as the number of days they are dressed in a suit.
Even then, this is no longer true.
If the Occupy movement has taught us anything, it is that, in this country, those who wear suits to such a high frequency that they are indiscernible from pajamas, are the business moguls, not the politicians.

The Next Day -

As I sat through the debate yesterday, I was intrigued.

It was raining, my feet were sore, and I still had a long way’s traveling before I could enter the threshold for which politically-incorrect statements are not judged - home, yet I was still sitting on that folding chair with my back erect despite the onus of my backpack and laptop messenger bag strapped across my chest.

I felt that I was a part of something bigger.

As much as I disagree with the politician who’s campaign I am helping to unfold and as much as find American politics, historically and up until now, to be trivial, I love politics.

I love the dialogue that politics provoke.

I love channeling my serious facade into a well-formed argument against points that seem not to have a point.

I love being able to work in an old New York City building with Ivy League grads who, unlike myself, seem to know each other from heir ritzy private school days on Lexington Avenue.

It’s nice to know we’re all on the same page in the present despite our distinct pasts.

Lastly, I love the whole picture of me sitting in this building, working, and finally being able to wear my beloved dresses, skirts, 1 or 2 sizes too large-blouses, and v-neck cardigans.

Call this what you may, but I’m loving the way this painted political portrait is turning out.

I don’t care that the politician and her minions are lacking social skills and ignore my presence when they so choose to. Not greeting people won’t get you far; I suppose this absence of manners is ample evidence of how our pasts are different.
It’s a mutual-coexistence relationship we have here.
We’re both hosts and we’re both parasites but at least I’m not the one running in an election that I could lose.

CV. A Series of Aging Events -

In Spanish there are certain terms of endearment used to address children, just as there are in other languages.

For girls, the term is phonetically pronounced “maa - me” and is spelled “mammi.”

While I’m still a long way’s off from making the full-fledged transition from mammi to mama, a somewhat scary thought even for this traditional person, I can’t help but feel the gears slowly rotating into motion.

Yesterday I was the 3rd wheel, representing the 3rd generation of women that is, when lunching with my grandmother and mother.

My baby cousin, a male, was there as well.

We ate the Cuban food in front of us, all the while feeling somewhat blasphemous as Puerto Ricans, despite the fact that the cuisine is identical.

The dessert eventually came.

Calorie conscious as I am, I only studied the flan in front of me.

Next to the flan was an artistically displayed strawberry.

A restaurant on the Upper East Side is bound to have fanciful fruit.

Suffice it to say, the strawberry was the apple of my eye at that moment of time.

There is nothing like a strawberry used in restaurants or bakeries.

You see, these strawberries taste different from the strawberries that are purchased at the fruit stand or the supermarket.

These restaurant-bred strawberries are not grainy, are not too red and not too white, and are perpetually at the perfect temperature.

These strawberries are not too cold, chilled and void of any inviting sweetness like the ones found in the supermarket.

These strawberries are akin to Goldi-Locks’ bowl of oatmeal, they’re just right.

My parents know how much I adore these strawberries and so every Valentine’s Day for the past 4 years, they have bought me chocolate-covered strawberries from Godiva, no gold-foil box needed.

The strawberries were fresh.

This year, my mom took me to our local bakery and told me to choose whatever I wanted. Having gone to the bakery many a time before, I knew the price range for their baked goods was not at all atrocious.

Staring through the glass, I spotted those delicious strawberries that you cannot find in the supermarket. Since this delicacy only comes around once a year, I did not know the price, and stingy as I am, I didn’t point them out to my mom.

Moms are moms and my mom caught me staring lovingly at those sparkling ruby-like berries.

My mom bought me the aforementioned chocolate-covered strawberries, with a price tag of $2.99 per chocolate-covered strawberry.

Considering the fact that we could have purchased 10-15 strawberries for less than $2.99 from one of the billion vegetable-fruit stands within a 2-mile radius, I was astounded at the bakery’s costliness.

Ranting about the price of the strawberries, my mom told me to stop being so cheap.

I am forever appreciative of my parent’s leaning towards quality and old-school classiness, never letting me adorn myself with costume jewelry as it were.

Any who, I bit into one of my Valentine’s Day gifts and felt like I just had sipped the mythical ambrosia described in Greek mythology.

Yes, I love these (somewhat expensive) strawberries.

Back to the restaurant during yesterday’s lunch:

I was about to tell my mom that I wanted the strawberries that were on the dessert plates when my baby cousin suddenly began to fidget in his high-chair.

He stuck out his little hand and was pointing towards the strawberry.

“Strawberry?”, my mom asked him.

My baby cousin replied with something along the lines of, “Shaw-ba-ee” - his way of saying “strawberry.”

My fears were confirmed: I would not be having the strawberries.

I’m not the baby who gets dibs on the delicious strawberries anymore.

When I came to this realization, I felt like I was aging right then and there in the restaurant.

I was in my own little world and felt old, like years were passing by in that very moment and -

“Have some flan mammi”, my mom said to me, snapping me out of my thoughts.

It’s good to know that for now, I’m still anointed the status of a young'un.

CIV. HomeLand -

My first fall season after college was spent traveling everyday. Once Hurricane Sandy hit, however, my workplace was a war zone and so I remained at home.
As a bulk of my duties were based on my personal computer, I was able to complete all of my work.

It is correct for you to assume that work and work-related stress seems to creep it’s way up my existential ladder of priorities.

Working from home, I was comfortable, in the zone, and altogether appreciative to not be traveling miles away, only to do what I was doing at home.

It was not like I was meeting anyone or socializing outside of the office. Instead, I was always on a mad dash to run to the first car of one train, run through a tunnel, bolt to make the first car of yet another train, etc. By the time I re-winded from the day, I would have to go to sleep only to wake up less than 7 hours later to make the hours-long journey the next morning.

I was also appreciative to not have my new maxi skirt ruffled while in the subway; You know, the classic case of having an amazing outfit, or beauty in general, wasted in a dark office with no possible chance of appreciation by the fashion obsessed or possibly a future husband.

Working from home did not seem bad at all!
I was focused, still am, and I get my work done.

I was also reporting on the side; It is important to note that journalism is not based in any one place;The discipline is somewhat equivalent to a passport, or a MetroCard, if you will.

Reporting and conducting interviews never seemed like work to me. Instead, the aforementioned is something that I subconsciously consider a duty and a service to something that is larger than an office.

Growing up, I always thought home-schooling to be a cop-out, given that public and private schools were readily available. I especially felt that during the formative years of grade school through high school, one should socialize with peers from the same generation.

I’m not saying to part-take in every God forsaken American school tradition, like prom.
I’m just saying that it is critical to speak freely about curiosities in an intellectual environment, as opposed to remaining clueless about the truisms of life that are so often shielded by societal preoccupations.

It is healthy for one’s individual development, in a world where there are so many other personalities, to learn about the ugly, the beautiful, and the in-between.

In college, I found that most of the learning was done outside of the classroom, in parallel to being home schooled.
However, at that point of adulthood, it makes sense to focus on one’s self because one is progressing closer and closer to stepping off the cobblestones of campus and onto that concrete-sidewalk filled “real world.”

I was gradually opening up to the idea of charging through life without teachers and living as an independent individual.
When I say independent, I am not referring to independence as defined by those who cannot trace their heritage beyond America, I.e. it is more than normal to live with your parents until marriage.

With this new mindset regarding individual work-environments as indicative of adulthood, until about 5 months ago, I was still oblivious to the idea of working, with or without pay (internship), being based at home.

Having worked an office position in the Fall, I also worked a
“remote position”, meaning  I could be based anywhere as long as I interviewed who I needed to interview, attended whatever event I needed to attend, transcribed, and wrote.
With remote positions, you are essentially communicating with other team members, or in my case, my editor, via e-mail.

This whole concept of a remote position with laptop, digital camera, and flash drives in tow, was foreign to me, a person who was first introduced to those box-like computers in the 4th grade.

In February 2013, Yahoo CEO and president Marisa Mayer made headlines for having banned work-from-home positions. She had made headlines previously for becoming CEO while still in her 30’s and for returning to work a mere fourteen days after giving birth.

Why did she ban work-from-home Yahoo careers?

Some speculate that she is challenging others to live up to her work ethic.

This lady is a character and has some nerve.

The fact that she attests to having pulled exactly “250 all-nighters” while at Google is not testament to anything but a narcissistic need to self-indulge.

Furthermore, the fact that she is quoted as having said that she prioritizes God, family, and Yahoo, in that specific order, is juvenile and wreaks of a pretentious person who is insecure with being a woman.

HomeLand - Conducting internet searches, e-mailing, and typing, can be done at home. That is all that working at home means. Meeting contacts, conducting interviews, and aggregating research all takes place outside of the house.

Marissa Mayer thinks staying in an office is indicative working hard - clearly, she is terribly mistaken.

HomeLand - It’s like Candy Land for the motivated, secure in their walking shoes, 21st century, adult.

CIII. With Firsts Come Lasts -

For the past few days, this link has been passed around quite a bit, at least on my social media newsfeeds. The webpage that the link opens to is titled, “27 signs you were raised by immigrant parents.”

This is where being mixed comes in - no matter how Punjabi I look and how desi my lifestyle is, I could not relate to a single item on that list. I had PB&J packed for lunch everyday, I read Clifford the Big Red Dog, and I was never told that I had to be a doctor or lawyer.

Yesterday I was sitting in one of the rooms in my house that is furthest from the kitchen. I smelled my mom’s ‘famous’, famous in my household, chicken dish.
I was entranced by a waft of nostalgia.
Those were the days; when my high school work-out regimen and fast metabolism enabled to me to eat anything without thinking about the consequences of an extra 150 calories/day.
I could smell the onions caramelizing on top of  a bed of cumin seeds that were roasting in the middle of the karahi pot on the stove.

This chicken dish was an Indian one and my mom was making it with her own hands.

Isn’t it thought-provoking that what I associate with my childhood is something my mother didn’t associate with hers?

It’s pretty obvious that there was no garam masala in my Spanish grandma’s kitchen pantry.
What once was my mother’s first, trying Indian food, is something that I have always known.

It’s not a first anymore.

Do you know what else is not a first anymore?…

I finally received the go-ahead for an article I want to write. With that said, I started calling around to set up interviews. My first interview was of a Hindu priest at a mandir, or Hindu temple.

I had never been inside a Hindu temple before.

I was under the impression that I would feel comfortable walking inside the temple. Years of Indian drama serials and films had prepared me for Hindu religious tradition, right?

No-
There is a big difference between watching and reading about something and actually experiencing it.

I was so completely out of my element as I watched the priest decorating a life-size deity. He was chanting and ringing a bell. There were small earthen clay-like bowls a lit with fire and smoke everywhere. The fragrance from the incense was strong. The chanting got quicker and stronger.
I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood and watched. I took some notes here and there and stopped myself from ringing the bell hanging  from the ceiling.

When I first came inside, one of the temple administrators who was expecting me told me to come inside. I halted because I knew enough to take off my shoes before standing in front of religious idols that are worshiped by other people.

The crowd of chanting people were around the idol and I was a good 2 feet behind the pack. The priest then walked the 2 feet towards me, away from the crowd that was following him, and made sure to throw some holy water on me.
Suffice it to say, I felt horrible for making him go out of the way to give me this blessing.

It was a first though -
This is what excites me about journalism: I’m made to go out and venture, to learn, and to speak with people I probably would not have spoken to otherwise.

My dad asked me how the interview went.

I was describing to him everything I saw. I told him that I was trying to remain open-minded despite my stress from feeling like an outsider.
I didn’t feel the peace that I get when I go to Gurudwara, the Sikh temple.

It’s amazing  how cultures and religions that were born from the same country, are so vastly different.

Still, I recognized the expression the Hindu worshipers had on their face as they were chanting; it’s a universal feeling of peace. Though I was not particularly at ease in the mandir, I understood why the others felt at ease; after all, how one attains peace is individual

I was describing to my dad the schedule of worship. I only had to speak 5 words before my dad told me the schedule as if he were there himself.

“On Tuesdays they worship Hanuman. The offering they give you is called 'badana.’ They are small, syrupy, and orange…”, said my father.

How did my dad know this?

He casually told me, “Oh I used to go to the mandir with my Hindu friends sometimes. You just grow up with these things.”

Just like my mom having had a different culinary experience from me when she was growing up, my dad had a different social experience from me when he was growing up.

So many firsts, but with firsts come lasts and it seems to me, to be somewhat of a generational cycle.

CII. There is no CHANCE in "Internship": Why "Apprenticeships" need to make a comeback -

The New York Times describes an “internet presence” as being a focal point for employers or, for the people who have the authority to initiate your career-life.
A few years back, there was somewhat of a frenzy, or rather, trending topic: Facebook profiles were being accessed by university admissions and employers alike. Facebook, as we all know, is part and parcel of internet searches.

I, for one, was not phased by the idea of my Facebook profile being accessed. Suddenly, not always thinking and speaking about the latest gossip to spring out from Locust Walk, was advantageous.
This is not to say that what I did share was dry, at least in my opinion. It is just that I do not write statuses that are akin to the horrid smell of the fertilizer that lines Locust Walk in preparation for Spring tulip-bulb planting; No one likes to air dirty laundry in the public realm.

Transplanting resumes to Linkedin, saving recommendations on file, and tailoring position-specific cover letters is a craft that I have been honing since diving into this real world.
For someone who has decided to build up expertise in an uncharted discipline, acquiring as many relevant experiences as possible is necessary to be considered for formal education in that discipline.

I think it is an awesome idea to have a professional internet presence. Obviously, we cannot all have Wikipedia pages in our name and more times that not, we, ourselves are publishing our own information as opposed to someone else. We all cannot start out as interviewees for articles or broadcasts, when we have not done nearly enough to be given recognition in the public space.

Our internet presence is a way of reflecting our desire to be connected to the world and to be a global citizen, with or without any stamps on our passport.

Furthermore, the internet presence gives more than a face to an application. The internet presence gives us the opportunity to project a personality. Interviewing in person, while the ideal scenario, rarely lasts longer than a few hours and as humans, complex beings, it is a trivial challenge to try and let yourself be known as entirely as possible to someone you have never met before. In combination, the internet presence and interview is a great way to keep the applicant in a given context. Just like hanging quotations in text or speech, taking a person out of context can easily lead to misinterpretation and confusion.

I’m asking for a chance- Yeh ap mujhe de sakte hain? Can you give this to me?  *When I am exasperated I tend to express my bilingual self.

Anyway, when I was 16 and knew nothing about lab research, much less cancer pharmacology, I had approached a scientist who had agreed to take me on.
She asked me 1 question, “Do you know what an assay is?”
I didn’t know.
I was stalling and making sounds along the lines of a whimper, but not quite “umm” because I knew that was a public-speaking no-no.
I was searching for an answer I didn’t have; I could not bring myself to say “no.”
She said, “just tell me that you don’t know it.” She then gave me a basic definition and told me to look it up on the internet.

Nothing a little research can’t cure - no pun intended. Not everyone knows everything.

Not everyone knows everything.

So why not give a chance to the good people of the world who want to learn something?

I think this generation’s demographic has begun to think that they have progressed from “apprenticeship” to “internship.”

Is the difference between these 2 terms merely a case of semantics?
It seems to me that the apprenticeship is more meaningful and substantial a concept. In the days where resumes seldom existed, at least in formal written form, apprenticeships were long-term commitments to honing a skill; whether it be an apprenticeship for carpet weaving or pastry making.

An apprenticeship is a somewhat morbid but very realistic understanding that the person in-charge’s, the master of sorts’, demise is predicted to come at a much sooner date than the younger disciple.
As a result, warring egos are not present and appreciation for a discipline is the focus.

Internships can be an apprenticeship.

However, the whole recruiting process and detachment of the applicant from the internship supervisor, or the professional, is ridiculous. Internships, not all, but many, function according to a subordination equation.
Fortunately, all of my internships were not at all like this. If they were, and I had indeed garnered that impression from the interview, it would be detrimental for everyone.
Rather, my internships were akin to the apprenticeships I had described above.
All of my supervisors or advisers,  gave me a chance and had passed down to me skills that cannot be attained unless taught, like knowing just how to hold the brush when cryosectioning brain tissue.

In the days of apprenticeships, once skills were gained, a new-found respect by others who were once in your position, would naturally follow.
However, In the days of internships, like today, skills gained are not so much respected as they are recognized as a hot commodity.

Commodities come and go. With regard to relativity, the value  that something holds is transient.
All those experiences that we’ve had is anything but temporary.

Recognizing our permanency in pursuing a field, our permanency as a good writer or physician, does not mean that we are regressing in time and thinking of ourselves as permanent.

We’re not stupid.

We know that Tuck Everlasting is fiction and that we are not immortal. I’m almost positive that older generations were aware of this too, during the days of apprenticeships. In fact, during those days, the acknowledgment of mortality was all too well-known, hence the need to pass down skills to the younger generations.

The world is not being progressive in it’s consideration of all persons and skills as being transient.
We have progressed from the transient living of nomadic times. How is transient thinking progressive?
Have we become so obsessed with hipster-chic/new takes on the vintage, that we want to return to nomadic ways of thinking?

I understand the appeal behind that expression that is not only passive-aggressive but also confident-sounding: “No one is indispensable.”

That expression is just what it is, an expression.

I believe that no one can be replaced.

Relevancy is not something earned, it is something innate.
You go into an internship just as relevant as you come out of it and no one can replace that void in any way other than taking an open position for functionality sake.

Here’s to apprenticeships, and all that they encompass, making a comeback.

CI. Contradiction Nation -

As I walked into the office/play-pen area, yes, there was a ping pong table that people were actually using, the editor did not so much ask me, but rather told me, “This is your dream.”

No, pretentious sir, this is not my dream. My dream was the Ivy and dream fulfilled, so quit it with the antics.
The degradation by this interviewer was so palpable, I felt as though we were playing a game of whack-a-mole and I was the one developing strategic escape routes while he held the mallet mid-air.

America prides itself on it’s liberal facade and non-judgmental attitude towards the perpetual new generational instinct that is “expression.”

Our nation prides itself on not having the youth decide their career aspirations early on in their academic life, perhaps prior to high school, because that would be oppressive. The idea of “well roundness” is justification for an education that is mediocre and not specialized in a couple of disciplines.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that, is the formula for success in our neck of the woods.

I have lived by this idea and have sworn by this idea . I would even stare down the bridge of my nose at the horrendous dis-credibility of rote memorization used in schools abroad.
Truth is, I always thought rote memorization was an effective method. Many a time I had wished American schools were not so focused on some abstract concept of progressiveness that makes the way foreign schools operate, schools that my own father attended, seem out of date and ‘old school’.

Since when did work become a play pen? Since when did a work environment have napping rooms? Why do we need to alter the workplace in such a way that serves no other purpose than to  supposedly modernize and attract the newly-graduated youth?

The truth is, I applied for a completely different field of journalism in this company and yet they contacted me for something I didn’t apply for: science. I have never seen a science-y person. The closest people in my life, my parents, can attest to my humanities-driven speech and thinking.

I talk politics - in fact, a large part of my college career was in political science. Perhaps I should have stayed an extra semester and received a triple major for legitimacy sake. Yes, that was sarcasm.
Ironically enough, the American educational system always emphasized the greater good of learning, or absorbing knowledge, quality, as opposed to having degrees collected in quantity = Contradiction Nation.

Why did those people feel the need to compartmentalize me into science based on my resume? My major was in history and sociology of a specific form of science. I never claimed to have worked in NASA so I’m unclear as to why I am being quizzed on space.

I was under the impression, as an American, that I was still young enough to explore and steer my life in the direction that I want to.
The good people who I had met yesterday. beg to differ.

They presumed that I was some sort of scientist who had no qualms about playing Trivia Pursuit: Every Type of Science Edition.

We’re living in a contradiction nation; I believe this context may very well be the direct cause of the start-up phenomenon. If someone, for whatever reason, cannot fit the mold, then individuals are forced to create a new mold first ,and only then attempt to break-down the walls and pull out the weeds that are in the way.

We’re working against walls.

This is a contradiction nation and I’m just living it, not partaking in it.

C. That's the Roman Numeral for 100 -

100 posts later and I am questioning, now more than ever, the validity of internet technology in our lives my life.

To begin with, and the foundation for my doubts regarding the internet, are the different types of social media.

Social media has its boons, of course. Some of these boons include being able to connect with those who you are not otherwise easily able to keep in touch with as well as becoming more in tune with social justice issues, (though self-proclaimed activists can be more pretentious than they are good samaritans.)

Social media can be overbearing.

From xanga to sconex, myspace to blogspot, livejournal to twitter, and Facebook ticker to Facebook’s timeline, the historical stenography of our lives has become a digitized version of something that is just short of ourselves.

That lengthy statement serves to reflect just how overbearing I feel social media to be. It is as if the relevancy of a person is determined by the number of “likes” one garners for a very meaningful experience they had and wanted to share.

This urge to share bothers me so very much.
To share what one ate today - oh, you would not believe!
Here, let me snap a picture before listening to my body’s desire to consume said food.

The need to share is not necessarily a desire for validation. Instead, we want to share with others our positive experiences.
It is an endearing and yet subtle definition for the verb, “to rejoice.”
The idea of rejoicing is a human sentiment, and the method of rejoicing, sharing via the internet platform, is non-human.

So we’re at this bittersweet juncture of the human and non-human.

We’re out there, on the internet I mean.

We can be Google-d and as a recent graduate who is ambitious for opportunity and an emerging journalist who is in need of contact information, search engines are a God-send.

Although, there are times when one feels as though their privacy is infringed upon. The most miniscule and seemingly trivial details about one’s life emerges: “So-and-so attended such-and-such event at this time and on this day.”

Then there was the, almost 10-minute long YouTube video, that I did manage to watch until the end.
The video was of 2 friends, roommates actually, who are both socially active and quite popular on tumblr, not that I follow them.
They do have a following that mostly consists of a demographic which can relate to their commentaries on the goings on of their Afghan-American community.
I honestly do not even remember how I came upon their video, but their groupies were praising it’s glory and I was curious enough to load the video.

Curiosity gave way to piqued interest which eventually gave way to appreciation.

The video’s topics were courtship and marriage. The core of the discussion was an incident that had occurred in a restaurant where a mutual friend of the 2 bros in the video took a liking to the waitress.

Both friends in the video had agreed that out of respect for the waitress and her professional work environment, their friend should not pursue the waitress. That is to say, he shouldn’t expect for an exchange of phone numbers to take place.

One of the friends, and I’m paraphrasing here, said that instead of exchanging written notes with phone numbers, he should maybe ask for her name and then Facebook friend her. The relationship can flourish, or not, from there. According to him, that is not creepy, that is efficiency.

His friend in the video was shaking his head the entire time and finally verbalized his opposition in the form of a question: Do you really want tell your kids that you wooed their mom with a Facebook request?

‘Love at first pixelated image’, seemed a little silly to me too.

In the February 2013 issue of Marie Claire magazine, actress Allison Williams, from the series Girls on HBO, wrote a letter to Twitter, part of which reads:

“Dear Twitter,
I have received numerous invitations to join you in a relationship, and I figured it was time to respond to your advances.
First, let me say: it’s not you, it’s me.
I’m also a little self-conscious around you. OK — I’m very self-conscious around you. You’re kind of a tough critic.The thought that you would misread a joke makes me ill.
Being with you would ruin any chance at being present in the moment — I’m distracted enough as it is.”

I want to tell all users of social media that being “present in the moment” does  not make you a specimen that is being harbored under a rock.

At times I think I too have become conditioned to text instead of call.

But in all honesty, I know that I’m not that person.
I don’t tweet, or even have an account, nor do I instagram and therefore, I still have no idea what filters are.

I enjoy meeting in person. I like walking around, observing something other than a screen that I’m sure will contribute to my going blind or developing cataracts at some point in time.

100 posts later and I have my doubts about this world wide web.
I bet you haven’t heard “world wide web” in a long time. Those were the golden days of America Online.

100 posts later and I have this platform to write, or type rather, about the basics and human behavior that transcends the fiscal privileges that some of us may have.

Sometimes I feel like I’m reading an anthropology journal when I read my earlier posts.

That’s what I was getting at though.

Here’s to keep on keeping on until Post CC - that’s the roman numeral for 200.

XCIX. Americans and Portion Size -

“The European system, which most accurately predicted Hurricane Sandy’s severity, shows that this weekend’s Nor'easter storm hitting the Northeast will only leave a maximum of about 5 inches of snow.
Now, if we look at the American system, the potential for snow can go upwards of 24 inches.”

                 - (Paraphrased excerpt from a cable news station; *I know the reader can only take my word for the above quotation; I heard it yesterday and didn’t whip out a pen and paper in time to jot the anchor/news station.)

Say what? From 5 inches to 24 inches. If my chemistry lab from sophomore year taught me anything it is this: The percent yield would be so off that if we were to put the snow, or the precipitate that should result from the experiment, into the vial that was given to us, we would have to fill up at least 10 of said vials: failure of epic proportions.
Seeing as how labs are once a week for give or take, twenty weeks, there is not much room to recover from that “F”, just as there is only so much money that can be allocated from our national budget in a few number of weeks for destruction caused by nature.

When expectations of a blizzard are awry, one can expect the American parking lot of every store that carries perishables, to be filled to capacity. The lines are long and the shopping carts are nowhere to be found.
There is also an unspoken understanding for why shows such as Hoarders and Extreme Couponing exists.
The stronghold opposition to reality television suddenly becomes frenemies with Honey Boo Boo and those Sister Wives.

It’s times like these, during a natural disaster, or what is expected to be a natural disaster, that we all, as Americans, turn aside our differences and stay true to our primordial need to survive.

However, our survival mechanism, much like our weather mechanism, is faulty.
________________________________________________________________
FLASHBACK/ EXPLANATORY ANECDOTE:
There happened to be a blizzard during my sophomore year of college. At the time, I lived off of veggie burgers and crackers from the dining hall on campus and I never ever bought any consumable products to be kept in my dorm room.
Why?
The lack of calories in my room meant a lack of temptation, for whatever reason. I’m not exactly a foodie but I am acutely aware of the money spent on food and I refuse to let money food, go expired.

Keeping with the routine, I was most probably malnourished and definitely low-weight. With that said, I knew that if I was ever too hungry, I could always walk to buy a single portion size to satisfy my hunger pangs, at that time. I would be losing calories during my walk to and from the shop and not have leftover food just sitting in my room.

The blizzard hit; the dining hall was open but the food available was your choice of cheese, fries, and what I think was meat. For all I could tell, the dining hall was closed and I wasted a meal.
Suffice it to say, I was starving. I was going to venture outside to buy something when I heard that everything had been closed and the cleaning person did not pave off the snow build-up. I was snowed-in! So much for the high tuition.

Having drank my 3rd cup of coffee, I heard a knock on my door.
Backtrack - I was living in a suite such that when you open the door from the hallway, there is a bathroom to your left, a closet to your right, and 2 rooms in front of you.

The person knocking was my suite mate. She asked if I wanted hot chocolate. God bless her soul, any other time I would have declined the fattening whole-milk cum chocolate combo, but I jumped at the opportunity.

I think she saved me from going hungry, without food, for almost 48 hours.
__________________________________________________________________

With that lengthy flashback out of the way, you can understand 2 things about me:
                 1. My worst fear is to be fat/heavy/large/obese.
                 2. This was a learning experience; Before a storm, you can be sure that I’m going to be stocking up on necessities before winds cause car alarms to go off and rain causes me to miss my new show on T.V. because the satellite lost it’s connection.

Last night I told my mom, “I wish I had bought that cereal today.”

I’ve noticed an increase in my appetite and if I’m forced to snack, it might as well be on tasty non-fattening, vitamin-induced cereal.

What my guilty pleasures are: Non-fat whip cream (60 calories/serving); Unsalted crackers; Strawberries (with the whip cream).
I have stopped buying the above because I have no self-control when it comes to the list above. I will finish at least 3 serving sizes of crackers a day.
So, no more buying crackers and no more whip cream.
Truth be told, I was sick of them both, strawberries included.

This morning I wake up to supermarket bags on the kitchen floor.

My first thought was, “Ok, we’re set for the blizzard. Great!”

My next thought, “What in the name of…?”

I peered through the bags only to find 5 bottles of whip cream, 2 full boxes of crackers, 2 boxes of strawberries, 2 cereal boxes of a new flavor that I have never tried before and don’t even know if I like.

Are you kidding me? Do you want me to be fat and unmarried?

This is not a survival kit, this is ludicrous. After a lengthy argument with my parents I understood their reasoning: 2 for $5!

Why, America, must we go wholesale with everything?

I only ever pay full price for 1 box because I only need 1. This is portion control.
Why do we have to buy 2 boxes, to feel as though we’re somehow shopping in a more economically-sound way? To buy more for less, per se, is the antithesis of portion control.

American television, if you haven’t noticed from my T.V. show references already, are a metaphor for American life.

Ever wonder why we initiated The Biggest Loser?

Here’s an answer: Lack of portion control.

XCVIII.Depersonalized Disposition -

Depersonalization disposition - an existence that is organic and daily, and that is somewhat reminiscent of archaic simplicity; a state of being which cannot instagrammed, or tweeted about, but instead is just lived and experienced by the individual.

I know I want to live in the throes of New York City, the borough of Manhattan or, alternatively, live in a Himalayan-bound setting where the air is always fresh, the greenery always lush, and the intellectual market untouched enough to be a pioneer.

Until I am able to do the above, post-education and post-income, I am here, at home.

I love home.Still, I feel like I’ve grown out of the area. I don’t know anyone around here really, which is somewhat of a blessing. I can walk around the neighborhood unscathed. I’m not questioned or stared at and I can walk around without gauging possible detours that need to be made in order to avoid someone.

I’ve spoken in previous posts about wanting to move, with my family, from our current home, as planned, as soon as possible. We can decide on brick patterns later!

However, I have to admit, that after a long day of work and the bus, 2 trains, and walking running that made up my transportation routine during this past autumn, I enjoyed escaping from the work world to the homely coziness that is my neighborhood.

This enjoyment usually comes in passing and I tend to forget that it ever existed.

Right now, a part of me wants to reconnect with my fellow ambitious college friends who are inhabiting my city. Yes, my city. Maybe when they’re outside of campus, socializing and enjoying life does not have to revolve around drunken revelry. Or, maybe my fellow motivated peers’ lifestyles are just that way.
 
Regardless, I am here, at home, in a world that is separate from the corporate and away from the tourists that clog up Bloomies.

I’m here and there.

I can escape from either place when I want to. I think it is a nice balance.

Yes, I do not appreciate the locales in my neighborhood who aspire as far as the beaches in Long Island and the outlets in the Hudson Valley.

However, I think there are populations like this in every neighborhood. After all, neighborhoods exist as a settlement of sorts. People want to settle and live a happy, somewhat routine life.

I think my educational aspirations have merged with a wanderlust that developed during my days at the Ivy. If those people could take off on a whim to any continent they so choose, there is no reason why I cannot. Even if they came from money, somewhere down the line, someone had to catalyze this way of life. Someone had to make this life of travel and ultra-luxury, materialize.

I’m going to make sure that in my lifetime, and sooner rather than later, that I will be that catalyst.

I could have taken on jobs and collected troves of income to travel here or there. I could have, but I know what I want.

I don’t want a string of tasks or jobs.

I want meaningful experiences that will give me a plethora of relevant skills. What I want is a professional career. I want to pave my own way and truly utilize my intellect.

So yes, I am that coming-of-age person who is acting on integrity.

If anyone tells me that he/she lied and made up some sort of improvised explanation to get a position somewhere, it is because you haven’t done what is necessary to attain what you want. You are not ready.

Experiences take time. Gaining skills and honing them; it all takes time.

The next time someone asks me what I am doing, I won’t try to find a generic answer that will fit their explanation for what they themselves are doing, a job. I’m working on multiple projects, attaining experiences, and increasingly trying to become a rarity.

With that said, I like this disposition of being a rarity. I like being that person who walks in step with the intellectual, driven, NY Fashion week crowd on her coffee-run in downtown Manhattan, takes public transportation all the way to the outskirts of NYC, and then comes home to a fashion-invested closet and ghar ka khana, home food, which is a microcosmic way of saying, home or family life.

I love that I can walk down one avenue and see Hindu deities in storefront windows and Punjabi written on the sidewalk.

I love that I can walk down another avenue and enter a Hispanic-managed supermarket that when I enter, causes me to conjure up memories of my grandmother’s house; I can smell the adobo seasoned chicken she would have cooking in the kitchen. I love that this supermarket has platanos, plantains, because Stop & Shop caters to the bland mash potatoes/sliced-and-glazed carrots crowd and do not carry plantains.

Sometimes I forget this appreciation for where I live. When I do remember, it is in passing, like that day I came home early from work, ran some errands, and took the 10 minute bus ride home.

“Thank you,” I told the bus driver as I was leaving.

Namaste, he replied. I don’t think I have ever vocalized “Namaste.” As a Punjabi Sikh I only ever say, “Sat Sri Akal”. I was smiling though. There was no getting past the fact that every passenger on the bus so far was of South Asian descent.

For now, here is my depersonalized disposition, that is not any less motivated or determined than the occupant of high cost, box-like living.

XCVII. A Page Turned Over -

Turn the page over in any publication of your choice and you see something new.
Perhaps there is no change, but if something old was presented, (as in something mentioned already within the same text and not old as in a historical anecdote), then there is the redundancy flaw.

Change is an odd entity.
Have you ever heard of the phrase, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it?
Well, so have I and I think it to be annoyingly contradictory. I feel like the integrity of logic was passed up for a need to retain colloquial wittiness.

The fact that something which is presumably not broken can still be fixed attests to the fact that it is indeed broken. Maybe broken is too severe an adjective, so let’s say that this something is defective and needs a little therapy.

I know I am just starting out on the lower rungs of the journalism ladder.

However, I still think I am competent enough to improve on a standard, for my own self.

Let’s break out from ambiguity, shall we?

During my college career I had to conduct a pretty large number of interviews. In fact, I always have felt like meeting someone with the intention of extracting a narrative that can be relayed in an article, or essay I write later on, in other words,  meeting someone professionally, has always been a comfort zone for me.

The interviewing process does not require long-term socializing commitments. The level of professionalism makes it a given that there will be no alcohol consumption.

I found my niche in this setting; the place where I can be that introverted socialite (as mentioned in a previous post).

This comfort zone is not without a natural nervous energy though.

Before every interview, whether I am the interviewer or the interviewee for an internship or the such, I purposely  zone out, have a panoramic of view of my surroundings, and then center myself so that all my peripheries are gone.
It’s just me and this interview now, but I know that this won’t make or break me. Remember, I took a panoramic snapshot to assure myself of the outside world I’ll be immersed into once again when this interview is over.

When I’m the interviewer, I am in control. I think all interviewers feel this way. That is not to say that as an interviewer I am the superior and my interviewee is subordinate. In reality, that is far from the truth. I have interviewed admirable doctorate-holding professors, scientists, and I have recently interviewed someone who discovered an algorithm.

They aren’t superior though.

We’re both standing on equal grounds; both of our names will be published on the same paper or web interface. We’re Just 2 humans trying to understand each other and help project our experiences to a larger public.

So why do certain journalists feel the need to go into an interview with an agenda? Doesn’t this defeat the purpose of interviewing?

I am all for being aggressive and not solely acting as a fly on the wall. I am not for phrasing questions such that they come off as offensive.

For example, why mention a country that they are from, that is also constantly scrutinized by the world, for no purpose other than to stir up an emotion?

Don’t you think it would be better to say, “I understand that you grew up abroad.Have you observed any stark differences in the academic arena here versus there?”

The interviewee is not stupid. He or she will understand the question just fine, will relay what country he or she relates to, and will not feel like he or she is being manipulated.

I know I’m just starting out, but if we’re both human, and we’re both trying to exchange words and knowledge and information that can be shared with a larger audience, wouldn’t it be better to converse with the person?

Wouldn’t it be better to not force a single reaction due to inflammatory diction in a question and rather see multiple reactions unfold during the interview?

The above approach, of asking questions at face value while keeping in mind the interviewee’s background, was the one I started to use via trial and error.

The trial and error yielded a concrete result.

As an individual, I can better communicate with someone by asking thought-provoking questions that are free of any type of suggestive content.
I have only been using what I was taught by various pedagogues: Don’t be wordy. Be concise and be clear. When you don’t place someone on a pedestal or alternatively, when you don’t shine a interrogative-room-like spotlight on him/her, we can both fundamentally connect as humans.
As a result, I would have lengthy interviews or more so, conversations, that would go upwards of 20 minutes.

Since I’m just starting out, however, I have to follow a completely opposite approach. Those were the orders, and I, the beginner, had to follow them. So much for being aggressive.

As I asked my interviewee the first question I was told to ask a couple of days ago by my pedagogical superior, if you will, the interviewee was immediately perturbed and after the 2nd question I quickly reverted to my own style of interviewing.

This was my shortest interview ever, coming in at around 6 minutes and yet, I believe this to be one of the best profiles I think I have ever written.

Despite the fact that I loved the way my article turned out, and hopefully my editor will too, my frustration at the orders  that I received for carrying out the interview were heightened.

It seems that some journalists forget the need for transparency and the need to communicate a story as is, just to stir up some sort of fervor.

Why can’t we rely on our writing to stir up fervor?

It seems to me that I have witnessed firsthand the infamous dark side of media and journalism.

Still, I am so excited to embark on more journalistic opportunities if given the chance. Interviewing is addictive. I get to be that introverted socialite - that person who can never be alone and yet needs her alone time.

Even the transcription process, though tedious, is so completely phenomenal; the amount of substance one could extract from a person you’ve never met before really enables you to identify with your fellow human on a raw and fundamental level. There are no strings attached.

Last but not least, the article-writing phase, aka my alone time: I think it goes without saying how gratifying the writing process is.

Here’s to keep on keeping on -

XCVI. A Consequence of Choice -

I think we all know that we have the ability to control how our day will go.

We know we have the ability to will the way we want our lives to go.

It’s not always an easy feat especially when you choose to move to a new bracket or level that seems beyond reach. It’s hard work. There is no denying the intensive labor that has to be aliquot for every endeavor you pursue.

A post-grad who is immersing herself in experiences with a focused line of sight before graduate school, I am currently in-between experiences.

During this slower-paced time, it becomes stressful. You just want to keep moving but you know everything takes time.

I am  constantly anticipating the next project to work on, the next interview, the next milestone, and the next step. As a result, these past couple of days I have been waking up at some ungodly hour when I didn’t need to, like 6 AM, only to find myself disconnecting my phone from the charger.

I’d hop back in bed on what is a freezing cold Sunday morning, neglect to put on my prescription eyeglasses because I have this pet peeve about washing my face in the morning prior to putting my glasses on, and then proceed to check my e-mail, my subscribed blogs, and my Facebook.

One morning I extended this little routine by watching a video from one of my favorite comedians as a kind of upbeat start to my day.

The all-consuming quality that technology possesses was underscored that morning; YouTube suggested other videos I may be interested in.

You guessed it. My routine was becoming annoyingly longer.

My eyes were parched and could only be quenched with natural light. As if an old Hindi film actress who was endearingly timid, I lowered my glaze in order to reduce the eye strain, but there was no denying the sleek miniature genius spanning the length of my palm.

Again I stared at the blinding white screen from my iPhone.

Two “Being Positive” videos showed up.

2 out of 5 or so suggested videos is quite telling and/or coincidental.

I was unsure as to why these videos showed up. I was not necessarily perky but I wasn’t negative either. Regardless, I ended up watching both videos because I was awake for what was only some minutes and the prospect of having a positive day just by hearing YouTubers speak of positivity seemed too easy a task to pass off.

Also, the fact that these videos were “suggested” the morning I decided to start my day off with something upbeat was too freakishly coincidental to ignore.

Both YouTubers mentioned that happiness or positivity was a choice.

It is yet another decision that has to be made.

One of them even said, at least admitting to it’s corniness, that “you are the CEO of your life.”

As much as I didn’t care for the juxtaposition of something as artificial and man-made as corporate authority with something as organic and natural as how your life course proceeds, I agreed with the underlying idea. My agreement is evident in the opening lines of this blog post.

The other idea, however, of happiness being a choice, seems illogical.

Why would anyone choose to be unhappy?

Isn’t decision-making a conscious process?

Suppose you spill hot coffee on your hand in the morning. That was not your choice.

At this point your choices are not between “happy” and “unhappy.”

You have many choices because the situation calls for what you make out of the coffee scolding your hand. How do you react?

If you’re not swearing, do not have your brows furrowed in silent pain, or whimpering in audible pain, well that would be cause for some concern.

Obviously one would not be happy at having been burned at what is presumably the beginning of the day. If one was happy at this pain, then he/she would not have been happy to begin with and that is a whole other predicament that I hope only rings true in this hypothetical/thought-experiment sense.

So, the choice to be made isn’t between “happy” and “unhappy”. Rather, the choice to be made is many and varied. How do you react? Do you continue to dwell on the coffee spill this morning or do you move on?

I believe the clear consensus is to move on.

So it seems that we are getting closer to the core point of the misconstrued statements that those YouTube videos made about our choice to be happy.

The choice is between dwelling on something negative that may have occurred or moving on.

It is not always better to move on.

If someone did you wrong in the business setting, for example; say a team member failed to carry out his/her appointed task and therefore you’re business plan has a gaping hole.

If you move on, the damage can be repaired.

If you move on, the damage may not be repaired though, thereby risking the chances that human error goes unnoticed and uncorrected.

For the sake of our happiness then, by moving on from the above situation, that person’s apathy may continue to wreak havoc on future business deals, putting many lives into jeopardy.

If not that person, then perhaps someone else may observe that the actions of that person were not dealt with and so he/she feels that apathy is acceptable.

For the sake of our happiness, the public good’s well-being is sacrificed.

We’re part of the public and so eventually, our happiness will dwindle as well.

In conclusion, I don’t think happiness is a choice in itself.

Happiness is contagious, cyclic (almost karmic-like), and is supremely a consequence to a set of choices.

XCV. The Culture of the Cold -

                       
                                  * Not your regular blog post.

When I walk, I tend to walk for miles and therefore I warm up pretty easily. So, I threw on an extra large, short sleeve pajama shirt, my university sweats, and my woolen coat with fleece lining; no sweater or pullover.
My bummy scarf, the scarf I usually reserve for trips to the supermarket, was also wound loosely around my neck.
It was frigid inside my house, not to mention outside. Despite this, I was sure warmth would nag me as I was walking. Consequently, you could say the scarf was a precautionary measure.

A hat would be out of the question if I was going to be warm while walking.

This year I have been wearing 3 different hats, obviously not all at once. I would not even take off any of the hats once I got into a place of warmth because it was just too fashionably-necessary. That is to say, these hats have been beautification appendages for me these past couple of months. I like how the roundness of my face and my large eyes are framed with my hat on.

It was snowing and so less than a half mile later, I was sitting on the stairs to my home, underneath the pseudo-umbrella that is the canopy covering my porch.

A sole car passed by and a person was crooning their neck to see who that person was, sitting with her legs stretched out in front of her, all bundled up, in 20 degree F weather.

‘The Culture of the Cold’ is like that; personal and public, vulnerable to judgment and as a result, classification.

The Hat:
If you wear a skull hat, a simple woven cap that shapes to the skull, you’re that classic person who has a taste for the timeless. The unisex quality of the simple, solid color hat reflects your preference for the basics that don’t go out of style.

If you wear a hat that has a large pom-pom like, or spherical, feature in the back of your hat, you’re that forever young person. Even if your hair is greying, or disappearing, you’re walking in defiance of the generational gap.

The hat with the cap in the front an the bunched up seam along the back: You can either come off as that music video extra, or perhaps Miss JLo herself, or you could look like you’ve been inspired by the Eastern European cultural aesthetic. These hats are never a lone character in the outfit. The counterpart all depends on the wearer. Also, I’m unsure of how this could help keep you warm seeing as how the visor-like cap in the front provides a cool shade for your face.

The slouchier, or over sized hat, is reminiscent of a hidden muse. Something or someone influenced you to make the purchase of that hat or perhaps dig that hat out of an old trunk at home. You’re more hipster than not.

The Hood:

For some odd reason, the handy hood that added an extra $50 to $100 onto your coat/jacket/vest, reflects the hood, as in the place.
Whenever anyone wears a hood he/she is essentially shielding his/her forehead and maybe eyes, giving way to the protrusion of a nose, a shadowy mouth, and chin.
People will literally veer out of you way if you have a hood on and are walking around in an area that isn’t particularly crowded.
Sometimes, you’re just forced to take off the hood to show that you’re not a threat, only to be diagnosed with the flu 9 hours later.

Gloves:
Nylon/ Possibly polyester blended gloves aka the gloves that can be found anywhere: These gloves are ideal for picking up snow; indeed these are the child’s choice of friendly finger-wear.
You’re practical: Why pick up fancy gloves when you can buy these, cheap but functional gloves, that serve your purpose?

Weaved gloves: These gloves come in a variety of color and are deceiving in that like the skull hat, seem classic. They’re not classic though, they’re just clumsily interconnected threads. As a result, they become threadbare. The gloves have been pulled on and/or snagged at.
They leave lint everywhere, and not surprisingly, you’re hands are still cold.

Leather/Suede Gloves - These gloves are obviously feminine or masculine in their tailor-ship. Sometimes you’re seen as a diva, other times you’re seen as upscale. Either way, your hands are kept warm and you may just have outsmarted everyone else that has and have yet to been mentioned so, mad props yo.

Mittens:
Whoever came up with the mitten was clearly a desperate entrepreneur. The mitten will cause your smart phone to slip and drop out of your hand. You’re fingers are being imprisoned and your oppose-able thumb statement so more than a century ago.
If you don’t feel a strong animosity for having to take off your mitten, risking the chances of losing it, every time you need to swipe a Metrocard, make a phone call, check an e-mail, or scratch yourself at some point in time, you’re not human and the whole separate thumb pocket does not do anything to assure me that you are in fact a mammal, much less a human.

Outerwear:
Northface: Honestly, I detest Northface outerwear. They’re just an eye-sore, let’s be honest.
The argument of them being warm is last season’s outdated argument.
The price for one of these jackets is more than the price of a unique coat, that is tailored and also goes pas the knee, ensuring optimal warmth.
The unisex quality of these coats undermines the existence of gender entity and I feel like the whole cult of Northface owners are causing us to regress back in time.

Bubble Jackets: A popular favorite amongst everyone but myself, quite possibly. I suppose they do succeed in keeping one warm. If you wear one of these coats, don’t you ever feel like you’re a walking fun-house mirror at the circus? They’re gargantuan! Still, when you wear these, you’re showing camaraderie with your brethren of humankind, all of whom just want to be warm in the cold.
You’re most likely a friendly person, (not to say that I’m not but I digress), and you’re most likely ok with the concept of re-purchasing a similar jacket later.
Little white feathers start to emerge from every pore in the material.
This is not a sign of the potency of your bubble jacket’s ability to keep you warm, stuffed as it were, with feathers. This is a sign of me saying, I told you so.

The Pea-coat: The pea-coat manages to effortlessly dress up anyone. It doesn’t matter if your slacks are wrinkled or grungy. There is a zero chance of looking like a granola when you have a pea-coat on. What this coat says is that you want to look good even if you’re going out to the pharmacy to buy throat lozenges.

Leather-Jackets: You can be a biker or you can be Rico Suave. Either way, you must be cold…. unless of course your not and you have manged to layer a wife beater, shirt, sweater, among other apparel, somehow. The leather coat is snazzy but what it does to combat the cold is not very convincing.

Scarves:
Scarves are much too complex an item to go through in this day and age when this piece of garb has become so universally adapted, but I will say this:
There are those who wear the scarves with an air of knowledge bequeathed to them by inheritance and there are those who cannot.

For that is ‘The Culture of the Cold’, in as narrated by yours truly according to the observations of  my own geographic locale and corresponding demographic.

XCIV. Antiquated Ecstasy -

‘Antiquated ecstasy’ is not synonymous to nostalgia.

Nostalgia refers to a sentiment that is felt in the past,as does ‘antiquated ecstasy’, however, nostalgia refers to, your own past.

You are either indirectly or directly affected by some past memory.

Perhaps you are nostalgic about the way the school curriculum used to be. Perhaps you missed the idea of that class named “home ed.” The class that you weren’t actually scheduled to take yourself, but that was offered by the school.
Perhaps you liked the idea of domesticity that resonated in the past, as represented by “home ed.”, but no longer exists in the present.

Nostalgia’s pangs can also be felt when inflicted with direct personal memories.

Suppose you think back to the days of high school. More specifically, you think back to your days in high school. Those were the days? Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t…

… and that is why nostalgia can harp on either positivity, neutrality, or negativity.

Nostalgia does not necessarily provide you a residence of recluse.

For example, no one enjoyed the high school lunch period because there were those long tables that made it so inconvenient to sit with your friends without infringing or feeling infringed upon by the adjacent group of friends.
Furthermore, most of our friends managed to be in different lunch periods.
No one would ever miss the inconceivable aromas that would originate from the cafeteria’s kitchen. The aromas did not smell like any of the Italian, Bengali, Slavic, Nepalese, Russian, or Taiwanese cuisine so familiar to us, from our home kitchens.

Yet nostalgia, for all of this negativity stated above, can also be a nostalgia for something positive, like the diversity, also mentioned above in what is clearly a New York City cafeteria.

One could be nostalgic that for all of our differences, we all had in common the ability to sing the alma mater song written for our exclusive high school that we all gained admittance to.
We could feel nostalgic about the fact that due to our exclusivity, the cafeteria was not called the “cafeteria”, but the “dining hall.”

One could even feel nostalgia for the adjoining outside piece of land that the students could opt to go to during lunch, weather permitting.

This nostalgia is the neutral kind because the outside piece of land next to the dining hall was just remembered in passing.
That outside piece of land was so ridiculously ironic in that it was an enclosed square surrounded by steps, akin to a theater, and imposing high walls with only the sky above to assure us that we were actually outside.

So what is this ‘antiquated ecstasy’ I speak of?

This bifurcated phrase first relays to you that, like nostalgia, it is referring to something taken from the past.
The second part tells you that, unlike nostalgia, it is only colored by positivity and happiness.

However, with antiquated ecstasy, a past memory can be generic; that is to say, it could have absolutely nothing to do with you or may have something to do with your life but is not something that is exclusively a past entity.

One example of antiquated ecstasy that has absolutely nothing to do with my generation is a past where women wearing pants was not the norm.
I romanticize the time to be an era of effeminate beauty, ease in movement, and necessary modesty. Then again, imagine if there were no such thing as sweats - just imagine.

Antiquated ecstasy is when we seek a past where things were good and well.

We seek a past when children had the utmost respect for their parents and antiquated ecstasy provides us with this, interest and all.

Antiquated ecstasy does not have to be so lofty either; it can refer to minutiae as well.

For example, just yesterday I was remembering my childhood and having consumed the most delicious tasting daal from a Richmond Hill Gurudwara that was, prior to it’s demise in 2001.
I had never tasted anything like that afterwards.
When I was little, my father used to tell me that it tasted so good because it was from Gurudwara, a place of worship. It was my blessed daal that is no more. Maybe that daal is still out there and can and perhaps is still being made.

This may sound like a trivial example, but what I am trying to get at is that ecstasy does not have to be antiquated. By our will, or the will of another, what causes ecstasy from the past, can certainly arise in the future.

Also, perhaps the past ecstasy is just fanciful and unknowingly, the future is better with change.

I’ll leave you with this entry taken from The Wonder House, a novel that takes place in a past Kashmir, written by Justine Hardy:

”
‘[Lakshman, who swore to Ram that he would protect Sita] drew a line on the ground with the end of his bow and told her that she would be safe if she stayed within it while he went in search of Ram… but that if Sita crossed she would be lost… That is the Lakshman-Rekha, the line that should not be crossed.’, said Lila.

‘And being with me takes you across?’, Hal asked.

She walked away towards the tailor’s shop, stepping over her line in the dust.
”

XCIII. A Little Adversity Never Hurt Anyone -

“A little adversity never hurt anyone”, said no one ever.

No one may have vocalized the statement above, but certainly people have said that it takes hard work to get whatever it is you want.

Is hard work equivalent to adversity then?

Perhaps they are equivalent because adversity can be a calamity or distress caused by yours truly or someone else other than yourself.

Every people has been through adversity. Every ethnic group, minority, and/or other collective group of people have faced injustice.

Remember grade school days devoted to preparing for standardized exams? Now think back to that verbal reasoning prep. Remember generalizations, identified by key words such as “always”, “everyone”, etc.? Generalizations were the most obvious wrong answer choices.
As you grow older you come to realize how wrong generalizations fundamentally are. The negative connotation that generalizations possess, go hand-in-hand with the idea that no one can be perfect.

See, I just made a generalization when I said every people have been through adversity. However, l would argue that this generalization rings true. Even if I did feel that a group of people did not have to face any calamity collectively, a member of that group may speak to the contrary.

In that same vein, are we so cynical to criticize without being placed in the context that is the target of criticism?

Not long ago I read a Facebook update of someone experiencing something that was “to be expected” or was “no surprise.”
One, lose the attitude.
Two, do you have the authority to make a massive generalization about a country on the basis of something that may or may not have affected you?
Do you realize that you are contributing to a phenomenon that could adversely affect the people who are actually living in said context?

Here is a more concrete example: One evening, out for dinner, a fellow Sikh was criticizing India. I swallowed hard, let the person talk, and chose not to participate in the sorry excuse for a conversation.

The fact that the prime minister of India is a Sikh is no small feat. His image superimposed with his position is extremely helpful in so many regards. So what if he couldn’t pass this or that bill affecting his own Sikh or Punjabi community? He’s not a dictator. The country operates according to a democracy and therefore it is difficult to pass this or that according to the interests of some constituents, that may even include himself.

You cannot be that cynical. I cannot be that cynical.

I don’t think we are this cynical.

It may seem like we’re attempting to victimize ourselves.

More times than not, this is not the case. However, there are times when this is in fact the case. (Exhibit A for why generalizations hold no weight. Thank you elementary school teachers.)

Another example: I constantly tell my father in particular, about my peers from college, many of whom are rich and don’t think twice about spending God knows how much on a perfume-sized bottle of alcohol.

They attended ritzy private and international schools. I remember in freshman year, during biology lab, one of my peers, also from New York City, but who attended a private school in Westchester and spent his summers in his own Manhattan apartment, having said, “no matter what happens, I know I’ll be successful. I’ll be ok, I don’t have to worry about anything.”

That statement sounded so complex; so positive and yet so narcissistic.

I’m sorry, but am I the only one who does care about the consequences of failing this lab practical?

My father made me realize that my outlook of those children being unfairly handed everything was skewed. My dad is right. Sure I didn’t go to an international school, but I earned my way to one of the top high schools in New York City. I earned my way to an Ivy. I’m just as entitled and elitist as my peers. When I become a parent I most definitely would want my children to attend schools where boxer-bordered pants and metal detectors do not exist.

Honestly, I have always thought my life has been filled with luxuries and I still do believe that. We’re not rich by any means, but yes, I feel I like I have more than enough subsistence-wise. However, in my own trajectory of ambition, I am still very short from having all that I want to have professionally and as a result, fiscally.

I guess what I was trying to tell my father was that, in essence, a little adversity never hurt anyone. Or rather, a little adversity is necessary.

What happens when adversity is depended on so much that it characterizes the way people interact with you? What happens when this adversity is not as a construct of cynicism, like speaking for a country, but something that is personal? What happens when the individual’s adversity goes beyond the “necessary” so to speak?

Enter - The Sob Story that can have the alternate title of, “Lo! For I am a Victim.”

I thought a lot of us did not care for sob stories, but I most definitely cannot speak for more than myself where this is concerned after these past couple of months.

I’m actually shocked at how much praise and credence is given to a person who sheds a tear when asked a simple question.

Why do we have to turn something serious into a crying fest? There was and is no reason for that.

What I experienced some months ago was unnecessarily depressing.

To be serious or not sport a happy countenance does not mean you transport yourself, and everyone around you, to the river Styx.

You may say, well, this is his/her personal sentiment and who is anyone to judge?

I stand by what I say and if I could have recorded the sob story circle of tears and embedded the resulting video of what I had observed, I have no doubts that you will see the domino-effect that the sob story has, so much so that it has seeped into social media (ahem, Facebook.)

With that said, why do we have to keep living with a mandated dark cloud over our heads?

I’m the last person to sport a smile for no reason, but since when has adversity become something so common?

A little adversity never hurt anyone.

Still, it is time to stash those Costco cards away and stop going wholesale with the adversity.

XCII.Fictional Escapism -

Way back when, in fall of 2012, I had volunteered to write a short children’s story.

All I knew was that I had the opportunity to write for a conducive and tangible project. The whole idea of the story being for a child or even fictional, had skipped my mind.

I have never been a fiction writer.

The closest I ever got to writing fiction was for my philosophy of bioethics course that I had taken the summer before my senior year of college. For the course, I had to write using thought-experiments. If you have ever taken a philosophy class you would know that thought-experiments frequently use aliens as their subjects. Clearly, aliens are fictional.

Every time I went to the library growing up, I would make my way to the new nonfiction shelves, completely walking past the fiction novels. 

As a child I would pick up nonfiction books in the children’s section; mostly books on world cultures and religions because dinosaurs and plant-life were not particularly interesting topics, in my opinion.

In fact, I somewhat involuntarily, still make a conscience effort to walk briskly past the new fiction shelves. It was as if the newly excited air currents would upset the fiction novels, which would be to my liking.

This Christmas I received 5 blank notebooks; Leather bound notebooks, a reporter’s pad, a lined notebook with a nifty string-closure mechanism too.

I was a solid paper-and-pen writer until my junior year of high school when I came to realize the pages and words were far too many and the transition from what I wrote on paper to the word processor on my computer would cause me to lose sleep unnecessarily.

I am still that writer who would take a walk around the block, or when I got to college, take a walk to the Starbucks on campus, and formulate a blueprint for what I wanted to write.

I think those Christmas presents I received put things back into perspective. If I want to be a professional journalist, I may not have my heavy laptop, charger, and flash drive with me at all times. I need to take note of what happens as I observe it.

I need to stop making the excuse that I am a perfectionist who can never keep a diary because I will re-read what I have wrote and  will inevitably rip out the entries until I am left with the front and back covers of a notebook filled with vestiges of ripped pages.

The above was the primary reason for why I have chosen to utilize this platform to post and access my writing. However, if this truly were the reason, could I not have just re-read what I wrote, disliked it, and easily click on the trash bin icon to delete my post. Deleting a post on tumblr is easier than ripping out a page in a book, is it not?

There has to be other reasons for why I post on tumblr, or on the internet in general, and I still have not yet formulated the full list.

I think one of the reasons is that my writings, published as a manuscript sitting in my room, will not reach anyone. What I post online can reach more people. As a result more conversations can occur on any given topic that was written about and therefore our minds can expand, together.

This reason goes hand-in-hand with the idea that my writing published on tumblr is anything but fictional; it becomes more real when I can talk to others about what I had relayed from my head to written prose.

The written word on paper, when not read by anyone but myself, suddenly seemed too intangible. That is to say, what I wrote seemed too intangible to be read by anyone but myself and dare I say it, fictional.

No matter what, I will never favor fiction over non-fiction, whether it is reading, writing, or otherwise. I even prefer documentaries save for my separate love for fanciful Hindi films.

I needed to write that children’s story. I was rethinking the whole prospect and said it out loud.

“You have to have integrity. You gave your word; that you would write that story. Get it done.” - Said by someone who shall remain unnamed.

In an attempt to sit down and get this story done, logically, I went out for a walk.

It was not unusually cold since it is winter.

The sun is in hiding and the air is brisk. My new preference for leaving my hair out and about without any hair-tie is wreaking havoc on my vision. Clearly, it’s windy outside.

I take about an hour-long walk and am motivated to write the story.

My muse was not the weather.

My muse was the beginning and end of my walk.

At the start of my walk, I dropped my new iPhone 5, my first smart phone ever, on my sneaker. Yes, on my sneaker. When I picked up my phone, the entire screen was cracked. As I walked, every time I looked at the veins of a leaf, or the sidewalk, I saw the cracks on my phone screen.

If only I could turn back time to 1 second go. If only my phone didn’t fall. I don’t care for the iPhone, honestly. I felt horrible because this was from my parents.

I saw the cracked screen everywhere.

You know how you if you stare at the sun too long and then look away and close your eyes in an attempt to gain some relief, you end up seeing lines whenever you blink? Well, that was how I felt. I ended up seeing the cracked lines of the phone screen every time I blinked.

If this were a fiction story, I could just re-write the events.

This fiction story isn’t looking like such a daunting task right now.

I made my way back home. When I walk home I have to pass a particularly green and lush area. Growing up, me and all the other children on the block called this area “the jungle.”

Remember, it is winter, so “the jungle” should technically be non-existent, and it was, save for the picture included with this post.

Those spherical blue-purple things growing on the backdrop of those green leaves are not fruits. They’re actually budding botany.

Imagine if this were a fiction story and the picture was actually of grapes. Yes, these are grapes growing during the summer and it is not cold and dreary but sunny and light.

This fiction story wasn’t looking like such a daunting task right now.

No, it was not a daunting task at all.