ohhhhh...2 posts in one day...

...All this talk about careers and 5 things that I love........made me think of 5 jobs that would be the most fun to do....hence this is quick post to jot them down....


1) - Writer of those funny little "new words" on the paper bags of Burger King stuff....for example......

Bagglers-Some fries are
mavericks. Free spirits that slip over the cardboard wall and make straight for
the bottom of the bag, where they can then plan the next move. We call there
spud separatists bagglers, and they’re especially delicious. Maybe it’s because
they’re a little out of bounds. Life can be like that.
Right to fries-You have the
right to dip these fries in ketchup or mustard or a vanilla shake if that turns
you on. You have the right to stuff them in your sandwich or stack them like the
boyhood home of Abraham Lincoln. You have the right to have these fries your
way, even if it means eating them like a normal human being.

or to be a writer of the by-now very famous Amul ads...

2) - Jalebi maker.........Im not even that fond of jalebi(not a sweet-loving person per se) but there is this memory etched in my mind of this fat lala in a banyan and lungi...sitting over a large kadai of hot oil, with these vapors rising from it that though invisible distort the whole atmosphere around it.....sweat pouring down his face on a balmy summer evening......and using a muslin cloth to squeeze this soft.moist looking dough into the dough...round and round in circles and watching that creamy looking dough become a crisp orange in a startling firework display of bubbles exploding on the surface................umm......

3) - the designer of the google text that appears on their home-page.....one guy i believe picks out occasions and adds a little pizzaz to the word "Google"...

4) -...oh oh oh.....to be the doodle-guy who draws doodles on the board (i forget what its called) on the back of Joey's and Chandler's apartment...I KNOW theres a guy whose job was just that!

5) - Work for an 83 year old lady where the job description is to introduce her to the wonders of the internet (open a yahoo account!) and in return get paid well, and be regaled by stories of the II World War and accounts of when she and her husband were World-famous artists................................oh hey, wait a minute....I have that job:)

Pedagogy or the real world....

So Azmi thinks if she doesnt like some of the courses being offered next semester, she will just extend her course by another semester and take a course then.........Nikki and Swapna are taking another semester to finish Thesis(they have already spent a year on it)....Mittra is in nooooo hurry to get anywhere close to graduating (his words - " where am I going to get a life like this again?.. a place where i can smoke up and go to class...etc"....I dont remember his exact words....but you get the gist:)....Jason wants to extend another semester too...Mark wants to find another master's to do after he gets his Master's degree in Architecture and Bryan wants to study in Australia after he gets his DUAL master's degree in Architecture and Media Studies (all of the above except for Mittra and Jason already have an undergrad degree in architecture) whereas Chikita is quitting her Phd program only to apply for an MBA.

What is happening to all of us?...Why arnt we in any hurry to get out of school, get a real job and become contributing citizens of the real world ? Are we all jaded with the job market or the work we will end up doing once we graduate? or are we just frightened out of our wits? hasent alllll this studying given us some degree of confidence to greet the real world? and if it hasent.....isnt there something terribly wrong with this???

I realise that I am in an environment where the natural tendency is study (i.e. graduate school in a big research university) but lets just examine everyones stated reasons to stay here........

Jason - hasnt been assigned a thesis chair and committee, but he has the option of taking a studio.......


Nikki/Swapna - dont want to go on their OPT in June some long funda on how its not good to get a job here........

Mittra - ask him!.........

Mark/Bryan- having the advantage of american citizenship and disadvantage of a lack of a practical education consider studying as the only interesting thing to do..............

Chikita - doesnt see herself where she wants to be in 5 years in the program shes in....but considers MBA the way to get her there....

I have a feeling that the underlying reason for all of these is a way to keep reality at bay....as long as you stay in school....you can believe that you will eventually be whoever you want to be/do whatever you want to do...verses being on the lowest rung of an increasingly cruel work environment doing job that gives you no satisfaction ( I am NOT saying this is where we will be....but this is where we THINK we will be)....

This place is then like a fantasy world......

Welcome To My World people....

hope you have a great stay;)

5 Things I love About you........

so...one way of being not so morose..is always nice to thinkof 5 nice things that happened to you today...its harder than it sounds....and waaaaaaaaaay more helpful than you think.....

let me start with my 5 things...

1. early in the morning i got to watch DDLJ..a whole 2 hours of it...on big screen!...it was like this unexpected rain ( the indian rain...the one that comes after a parched earth cries out for relief.... the one that lets the earth perfume us all with its sweet smell, the one that forces me every single year to go out on my terrace and dance...really i do that..the first rainfall every monsoon -and not the american rain-dank,cold and boooring:(
2. I had to finish some work in the library before i sneaked out....this work would have taken me 3-4 hours normally....i finished it in ONE.......i guess inspiration is all i need;).... but its always nice to prove to yoursef that you can be the very model of efficiency and organisation....i just choose not to be so most of the times;)
3. I met a friend called Swati in the Media studies department,(shes the one who showed the movie to a bunch of undergrads both indian and firang-she teaches them about Bollywood movies...can i call this my official dream job?????),......anyways so Swati is making a documentary about sensuality and Indian women - their perception through Hindi movies(i think this abt sums it up i should suggest it as a future title)....and she wants Mal and I in the movie!!!!!.....she will interview us...and we re gonna be on film!....im all excited now:)
4. I got to visit the Albright Knox gallery.......thats always fun...and for Free too;)
5. Mittra's making lamb for dinner....havent had that since i left India.....yay!!!!!

hmm...so no comments.....

.......hang in there natasha......this is what happens when you dont blog often enough...or write stuff people just wish you would deal with on your own instead of boring them with it......and for your information this is how i write in my personal diaries too....always.....ummm...negative i think is the word.....

anyways lets try and make this one not quite so negative......i worked this morning....im at work very often....but i rarely work.....

So i work in the library, cataloging, sticking bar codes on books, printing out records of books that need to be barcoded....sorta, kinda, boring....but today we did some really fun stuff .

....heres a titbit i didnt know...in 1994 George Kelley donated 25,000 "pulp fiction" books to the UB library......i even found some info on it online.......and we had to catalog them , check each one put them in boxes...so get to look through all of them (the titles atleast) and the little blurb on them...and it was positively hilarious......some of the blurbs were like....." the deep desires and fantasies about women without men".....or "the definitive lesbo book"......french translations, italian translations, spanish translations..

then there were a couple of cheesy sci-fi books and drew my attention sooo much that I was hard-pressed to actually do the work i was supposed to...i just wanted to browse through all of them. Joan, the woman I was working with is this beautiful old lady, who has the wit and humor of a naughty adolescent...so we had the time of our lives , laughing uproariously at the titles and their meanings;)

cant wait to get back there and work on this!:)

another morose post.....:)

so...im thinking...i will take a break from a sabbatical and write a blog BEFORE my very regular monthly post....yeah i know i know...some people write like EVERYDAY!(fools...Don't they know the value of building up to a post....hmm...ok...so they have like a hundred readers and I have like...2?...so what!...I will not sacrifice my creativity for...readers!!!:)...

its been a while since I wrote(obviously)....But I have been sort of buzy...I FINALLY got my student loan...the wheels of it in motion.....I am constantly amazed at my procrastination.....and this may sound like another excuse....But 99.99% of the time it is not procastination.....it is some sort of fear...

It seems funny but if I really think about the decisions I ve made in my life...the things I have or have not done...or the facts I hold true....can be boiled down to a couple of words.....Fear is one....Control is another..

I live in constant fear....Fear that I will not succeed.....Fear that I will......Fear that I will not be good enough....Fear that people wont like me...Fear that people wont leave me alone to my thoughts.....Fear that I will be left all alone.....Fear to be open and the center of attention and to put myself forth.....Fear that no one will consider me important enough to remember....Fear that I cannot control my destiny......and Fear that my I am responsible for my future......

Control.....itself is a very very powerful word to me...I understand it.....But not in the same way many people do...I DO not want to control the world (jeez be responsible for more than myself???...no thank you...Im in enough trouble as it is:)....I just want to be in control of me....I want to decide how I feel...(not anyone else....hate the fact that other ppl can control my emotions...).....

I may be wrong but I think these are the driving factors of most of our lives...some sre just more meglomaniacal( is that even a word?...who cares.,...I CONTROL this blog;).....than others....

As for me...lately I have been struggling to control my identity....my problem has always been that I don't take snap decisions and have strong preferences for many things...thus I get influenced by people who do....my mom for one.....so I guess this war for control of identity isnt very new......my best friend Pritam is another...for years (ive known her for 15/16 years now)...

I never wanted to much do what she thought was great fun...like go out and party at night...But she will be the first to modestly accept her incomparable skills of persuasion;)....and I didnt have a better idea...so for years I would chaperon her and her boyfriend to places to party at....and for years I would feel like an outsider....nothin makes you feel more lonely than to be in a crowd that makes you feel like an outsider...I would pretend that I am "observing" people...and I would and I enjoy that..But I was always very consicious of an aching lonliness in that crowd.....that no amount of alcohol or dancing could cure...I would be sitting quietly at a table nursing one drink(couldnt afford more...and didnt have no one to buy them for me)....so Im sober....and the one thing thats glaringly obvious to me is that no one ever asked me to dance...no one ever hit on me...a blow to my feminist ideals Im sure....But all I wanted was for some guy (didnt even have to be Brad Pitt....I was never attracted to amazingly super-gorgeous men...I may be naive....Im not stupid...when would they EVER look at me)...to come up to me....(not be a jerk/drunk/horny/loser)....say I look beautiful tonite and could he please dance with me?..or talk to me...find out what an intelligent/funny conversationalist I am?.......

*sigh*...needless to say...never once happened....week after week...I would see pritam and my other "hot" looking friends...be hit on constantly...get a little tipsy...and declare each night a roaring success....when all I thought about was....another validation for how unimportant and unpretty I am....

hmmm...this blog has an unfortunate tendency to bring out the morbid in me...doesnt it?:)..well...atleast is catharatic......