Of this and of that

18 October, 2009
2:17 am
The matchbox

Starting today, I hope to begin a journal of sorts, of my highly dull adventures as a new-born student at Cardiff. All of 21, its my first time out of my little nest, into a completely new city, on my own. A little late for the “freedom” student life, its better than never anyway.

Through this journal, which I will try my best to stay regular at, I hope to record every stupid antic of mine (maybe others’), every minute discovery I make, and every bubble of thought that pops about at random. It might be dull, and it might be interesting. Whatever, it is, you read at your own risk.

So today, I officially complete a month and two days at Cardiff. And what have I achieved so far? Jobless, cashless, unorganized, stressed for time, messy and unbelievably lazy are just a few adjectives to describe me here. But we’ll take it on a day-to-day basis.

Sleeping at 3:30 the night before, I got at 9 in the morning today. Not bad. Ten thousand thoughts rushed about at once, as usual.

“Take a bath! Go back to sleep! Dissertation topic! Exercise you gummy bear! Happy Diwali! Check the news! Clean your bathroom please!”

You get the picture?

I did end up stretching, cleaning the loo, and getting dressed in good time. Breakfast was the quick fix Nutella spread on pita bread. I even decided to make Rice with cumin powder early morning today. As I am, thankfully beginning to understand that I’m NOT supposed to be ravenous to start cooking. Because then I never want to cook. I just want to eat! Having done all that, it was time for me to CHECK THE NEWS of the day. I opened up the grand BBC News website and the Indian Express News, and of course, Facebook. And how did I juggle with the three? I uploaded some latest pictures on facebook, and read a news item each on Indian Express and BBC – Kapil Sibal okaying the construction of IIMs abroad, and the interview of the animated Pixar film UP director, Pete Doctor respectively. And then, lady luck struck and I came up with two of the most amazing dissertation ideas till date. Feeling happy with the day, I decided to get on with my 3500 word essay, due coming Friday. And replying to facebook comments obviously, took up all my time! When it comes to work, I shirk it to the best of my ability.

Its DIWALI today. The biggest festival for the Hindus. The festival of lights. A day of happiness, celebrating the return of Lord Rama to his home country Ayodhya after beating the demon Ravana and rescuing his wife Sita from his promiscuous clutches.

Playing cards is a culture of sorts in Diwali. Since we also pray to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, this is considered to be an auspicious time to gamble with money. We had a card party a while back in a friend’s kitchen. Was a crowd of ten people. Since I am a dimwit at it, I just decided to be a mute spectator at the game. And I thought I made some very intelligent observations (modesty my middle name).

H, a good friend, is an ace at cards. And she loves organizing card parties in her kitchen. While playing, she is generally the most aggressive of the lot and comes up with a range of innovations to the games being played.

But when she’s outside this zone, she’s a different person. She’s extremely quiet in class. She doesn’t contribute much in group discussions. And a one-on-one interaction with her generally results in monosyllabic response, unless of course it’s about shopping or playing cards.

Another friend, D, takes charge of the situation when we travel together. She will be the first person to call for the cab, or the one to take an initiative while looking for a place.

What I’m trying to get at with this random discovery is that people have certain hemispheres where they are completely in control of the situation. They know exactly what to do and how to go about doing it. For F, it’s the kitchen and her own subject of Journalism. Ask her about the issue of the day and she’ll give a pat reply. Ask her about the latest sale at M&S and she’ll be blank.

What’s my zone of confidence? Writing? Talking one-on-one with people? I think its about having a zillion thoughts at one go and the great inability to articulate anything. Or maybe its plain laziness.

I admire my friends. I really do. It’s awesome that they have a talent, their own distinct skill that gives them their niche in the world. I’m still struggling to find mine.

Till then, I’ll keep running around the trees.