ramblings from a frustated soul....

I am not sure, really not sure, even after what, 6 years of going to architecture school if the initial frustation of not knowing where the hell are you going with this, leads to some truly innovative, interesting ideas or are just ringing death knells for the rest of your semester. This time its different, there is a weariness I feel, an exhaustion with the "idea" of what i should be doing. Maybe if my life was more structured, atleast my design program was it might help, if i was told to do this and this and this I would do it.

I don't think so though, I taking classes...and i feel the same weariness there....do you know what is the worst part...when you KNOW you can do better, when you know you should be striving for the best of your ability and you dont care enough to get to that point.

My greatest fear and my strongest inspiration has always been a crippling fear that I am not good enough - my first ventures in uncharted territory are always with hesitant steps that what I am doing isnt what I should be doing...and after the first step its easy, I realise that I can do this, i am not quite as hopeless as I thought I was , and I can be pretty good at this. I have lost that confidence....and I dont know why. I dont know if it was the studio I took last semester and blightly jumped into something I was terribly interested in but had no experience at all, or just a resignation borne out of my advancing age:) or just 4 months of doing absolutely nothing academic.......in that studio I learnt that interest doesnt automatically generate skill, and repeated failures at "getting the point" can just make me give up instead of striving for more...and most importantly I can have a theoretic interest in something and have developed absolutely no interest in the actual working of these theorys. Sounds too complicated to say a simple thought? too bad.... I feel like being obscure.

Thats another game I have liked to play with my diaries...I remember making obscure references to things that have really really upset me, playing a game with myself, - natasha, it feels like the end of the world right now, lets see by next week if you even remember what the hell you were talking about!...and more often that not I never knew what got me so riled up in the first place....theres a profound thought in there someplace....i know there is:)

For all that postulating, what I am doing these days is actually extremely fascinating. Even with my resignation and lack of confidence, I still jump feet first into things I have no idea about...with the confidence that I will pick it along the way....or maybe I just gave up on expecting to do well at all.....anyways, my thesis explores the divide between the real and the virtual....what do we mean by this.....why are we , for example writing web blogs instead of diaries?...only because we can? obviously not...there is this huge shift in our perception of our world happening in front of our eyes, exploding almost...and we are acclimatising to it so fast that we dont even stop to understand what we are doing. It is this new world I am interested in exploring...and what it means for architecture.....am I straying from the topic? no doubt....am i taking on more than I can handle? OF COURSE.....will that lead to miserable failure?...probably...but hell...if i ever thought about what I was doing...i wouldnt be where I am right now...and for all my cribbing I dont regret a moment of what i have done till now....

....so back to this new world....i found this fantastic book by David Weinberger called "Small Pieces Loosely Joined" that talk about these really profound ideas of what the Web means to us as a social structure but in the easiest reading possible. He uses examples we take for granted, like for example me adding a link to his page , without his consent, effectively creating a new "pathway" for people to travel on ....this tiny action of mine, in parallel terms in the real world have huge consequences.....I would be persecuted for creating a back door entrance to his life(his webpage etc.) and the ramifications of creating pathways to connect these differents nodes would be just mindblowing. His perspective is fresh and unusually startlingly resonative with how we think...

more on my extremely fascinating academic life...milenge, break ke baad....

We have a new visitor!!!!!

life marches on...relentlessly....sometimes thats good and sometimes it bad....always always inevitable....
the day my brother called me and said he was getting married to priya....i wept.....he emailed me...saying...what are u women all crying? (beginning from my mom of course:)....and i wrote a long mail telling him on how i can see him married soon and with kids.....and to imagine the boy who would chase me around the house to hit me;)....or fought with me over the last basan ka ladoo...will someday have kids of his own...and will have to suffer everything mom and dad went through bringin him up:).....i cant but cry...
well...the good news is.....that day is finally here.....we wait with bated breadth for the entrance of lil pepsi luthra:)...pepsi..for the adorable little thing he/she is gonna be.....she(only for you priya)...cant help but be that with the gene pool she comes from:)....
love you guys can express my happiness in word...written or spoken....

So what are we here for again?

so what do we write blogs for? Do we really think we are that important each one of us, that our private thoughts or our various "important" activities are of use to anyone?
I think they are just a fascinating peak into our inner worlds...we are all narcissists , all of us who write blogs....I know i am .....my previous blogs...few as they are have been referred to as ramblings of a "private angst" or proving the dictomy of my life....i wrote them in anger..repressed pain and fear....but I did want to tell people about that in the most indirect way i could think of.... reshma spoke of suicide in her blog some time back....mentioning how if you need help just ask...dont hold the fear of death as a toy on a string....i dont think it can be that calculated...we all need help...some of us are better at asking than others....and some of us need to ask not in so many words ...sometimes through anonymous blogs...and sometimes through a cry that say I see no way out...can you help me?

no one wants i think to die....sometimes i wish i could just Not Exist ...and sometimes ive thought of ways to make that happen...but that would be just too proactive to the way I am feeling then....the feeling of not existing should not need work...should not need action....I wish i could just fade away not ever having existed....coz though I may not have "touched" many lives....i am a daughter , a sister and a good friend....and no one deserves the pain of losing that just because I find my path too hard.

Im ready now....

Its one of those days...after being given subtle hints by arul;)...on how i should be more "upbeat" in my blogs...im finally ready to see the joy in life...having successfully blocked out all the bad in my life right now...i begin to enjoy the shear joy of learning. Its a good feeling. Believing that you are going to know more everyday!... also have a new passion....the idea of virtual reality, VRML, interactive environments and their relationship to architecture have begun to excite me. Thats what im going to look at in my thesis and like my chair Kent gave me a fantastic inspiration..it maybe the beginning of a life long interest and passion. wish me luck guys and the stubborness to hang on when the going gets tough...when nothing makes sense and i Curse the Day i thought of this silly idea.....

sloooooooooooowly things starts getting better...you realise that you could crib all you want...lifes not changin....so slowly you start accepting the fake mask of happiness on your face and start believing your own deception. Become the character you pretend to be.

I have been told this time and again...natasha your thoughts makes no sense you have powerful ideas but hell no logic...i jump from topic to topic barely taking a breath in between.

some people are better abt saying that than others. I remember a prof I was writing essays for....she "discussed" my essays in class and was like "i like natasha's abruptness....she keeps me awake when i read her stuff:)"

well...for this blog...it looks like saurabh is the only one who reads regularly..so too bad saurabh this diary isnt geared towards public consumption...its my thoughts...in writing thats all...make sense if you want too;)

spoke to dad last night....the call to them was just a im so homesick but i dont wanna admit it kinda call....i told dad abt classes i wanna take...comps i wanna buy and then i start bawling....i wanna come home!!!!!....do most ppl do that or is it just me?...i will practically never ever cry for the reason im upset abt...ill pinch my lips together, sulk (as sanketh would put it;) or pretend nothin ever happened....till something else triggers it off....my coffee isnt hot enough maybe?....i guess i musnt be the only person....i mean Ross does that too...and he is SO a real person right?

Just another day.....

A brand new days dawns again...will this ever end!?!?...since when did life become a chore...since when did opening my eyes includes a desperate urge to shut them again...pray that my mind not start working....i can hear the dull thunk...u gotta do this and this and this...and u didnt do that yesterday so it is imperative u do this now...and pray no one notices that you didnt get that done yesterday.......
sigh...life will get better eventually...
azmi and I had a long talk yesterday...life,universe and everything....what she says makes sense...I have to just wrap my mind around it and take a few unpleasant but necessary steps....eventually...when all reasons for procrastination run out....