Stop this Train

John Mayer. Nice, very nice. Rather apt, and stuck in my head.
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More of a diary type post, this one.
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There are so many things going on, I havent even had the time to speak to Bestest properly. And that feels so wrong. Like she said, "It feels like my life isn't being recorded properly if I haven't told you what's been happening." And I feel the same way. There is such a backlog goose. I don't even know where to begin. But I will. :)
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I dont know if Ive said this before, but Im so afraid of forgetting.
So I thought I'd do a little recording here first and get everything up to date so those grandkids of mine know what's been happening. (Which grandkids?)
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Ok so first. I am really happy.
Like yay. Isn't that wonderful. Because like end of April I was all Wow. So what is happening with my life and all. No more college. No more routine. No idea what to do next. And it was all a bit confusing for a while.
But now, now I love my life. Things could not be better.

And Ive noticed that I write a lot when Im not so thrilled with things, you know. It's therapeutic for me to write when Im unhappy about things. I was just telling goose about how in our Chain of Letters, most are about the troubled times. :D We write when we're upset. It makes us feel better definitely. But that means the happy times arent recorded enough.

When we're happy, we dont say it. Are we afraid of jinxing it? Are we too busy enjoying it? I dont know. Whatever it is, it isnt worth it. From now on, I am going to say it when I feel it.

I am happy. :)

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I'm falling in love with The Office again. Steve Carrel is HILARIOUS. Jim and Pam. Jim and Pam. Sigh. I am downloading, at snail's pace, four seasons of The Office, US version. Please, if anyone has them, be a dear, give them to me and spare me the trauma.
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I'm also falling in love with my office.
I love Orchard. I really do. It's just like college but better. There's always music playing, movie-watching and loud laughter during the day. Cool art directors. Awesome Mentor. Lovely Lady from client servicing. And of course, the Cretarded Gang. Oh it's just so much fun! There will be another post on this lovefest. Soon. :)
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TheBaldMan has introduced me to some good music apart from being great company. Fellow YouTuber (tuber, haha!) has introduced me to some darn funny shit on youtube. Hahaha good stuff. :) StupidityShetty (far from stupid she is, but it has such a nice ring to it!) has taught me much about life. And Vindictive Slapper Woman has not taught me anything, but her slaps are awesome! *nurses red knuckles*
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Graduation Day on May 30. The lovely wine coloured saree that Tata insisted I buy as a gift from him. Meeting Oshmunch's family. :) I sat through a horribly boring ceremony that impressed our parents a great deal (We are too used to the splendour of Christ College Auditorium functions). 30 people on stage wearing the grad robes and hats and a lot of solemn speeches and prayer and the like. Good stuff. Good stuff. I managed not to puke on some of the puke inducing elements of our class. (Difficult. They were right in front of me.) I managed not to trip while collecting my graduation certificate. All in all eventful, spent with the people I care about, and a nice way to close the three years. :)
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Back from Manipal with Oshmunch. The bus journey was a mini wonderla. Met Sameeksha our senior there and hung out. It was a leetle dead there because the students are all home. There was one diluted Transit sort of place that we went where I was conned by the Subway man into taking double helpings, and got myself a nice little stomach ache before the interview. And it rained the ENTIRE time. Met some really nice people who came along for the interview though. That was heartening.

We went in for the GD, and it's sad to admit, but after coming out we realised not ONE of us knew what the topic was about. Argh. Except none of us knew that none of the others knew what the topic was about either. This is the mark of a good media person. :|

I used to be extremely bad at this, you know. If I dont know about something, I CANNOT fake it and convince people that I do. And yabber on sounding intelligent. If Im sure about something, I can speak about it. If I dont I usually keep mum. But I asked Annu, and she said she didnt know that I didnt know, so I must be getting better at it. :| Yay.

The interview process took a whole day and I was last in on the stress interview and by then I was so tired that nothing that they said fazed me. Even scary joint director who kept bulleting out questions. Where is Thimpu? Should India sign the NPT? What is it about humans that you hate? After the Tata Nano, what is the next project they're coming out with? Are you religious? Name one quality in your father that you dont like. Name two cities in Nagaland. What are your views on smoking and drinking? pat pat pat pat.
And the lady who was all:
You are last today. Every one must be talking about the questions.
Yes they have been.
So you already know all the questions do you?
Yeah. Kind of.
*shocked look*
Anyway, I was unfazed throughout, due to the zombification brought about by the incessant waiting. Which was good I think, because I've been accepted. And they've said Rank: 2 whatever that means. So awesome.
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Many trips to the BU with Oshmunch. Well, two. But they were fun. BU cows. We noticed a severe change in attitude from the time we were in salwars (visit 1) to the time we were in jeans (visit 2). Anyway, our migration certificates are with us at last! Hurray! And Breakthrough also, happened today. *pats self on back*
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We just realised that all of us are going to be leaving soon. Things wont be the same. No more heading to Sweet Chariot whenever we're starving and grumbling at the fat mustached waiter for taking so long. No more Forum for a movie, "no way are we going to eat that unhealthy McD stuff, oh well what the hell, lets." No more waiting outside the pg in the dark at night, getting eaten by mosquitos because we're two minutes past curfew. I didnt live there, but sometimes it felt like I did. And I will miss Babu Bhaiya's food.

A chapter is closing.
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Ah well, it hasnt all ended yet. Tomorrow lunch with the girls, back to work in the afternoon and then a sleepover at the Other MM's.
Did I mention that I love my life? :) :)
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The Exams are Ovah! :D

(Well, there's one more left, but it doesnt count. Last exams never count. )

So the exams have ended and now I can look back at them fondly and reminisce over the many inconsequential incidents that occurred during.

Like the time when I got Bestest to be my subject for the Abnormal psychology practical exam.

MM: Laa, be my subject noooooo?
La: *groans* But what'll I have to do and all?
MM: Nothing, I'll just be checking whether you have psychotic tendencies. Whether you might just strangle an unsuspecting passer by on the road. You know. That stuff. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease??
La: I know I want to strangle you right now.

So she came and all. But I was ten minutes late for the exam and I hadnt studied. (What ok? I was with V and Meril and all of them and watching Cow's movie and I didnt want to leeeave. Would you? Tell me honestly)
So I was there a bit late and I was standing outside the parking lot mugging things out loud.

MM: La, listen to me, I'll just tell them out to you: Democratic values, Economic, Social, Aesthetic, Knowledge, Power, Hedonistic... gosh darn why are there so many of them... Family Prestige, Religious, Health values... there thats all of them, ok? Ok? Done. Good thats over. Next...
La: *rolls eyes, puts on pained smile, tries to stop self from puling hair out of head*

So I got to the main block and upstairs and I glimpse a few of my classmates in the first class, and Im like, Cool. Found my room that quickly. Score.
Go in take out stuff from bag.

But then psych teacher with name of flower accosts me.

Teacherwithnameofflower: Finised? *glares*
MM: Huh?
Teacherwithnameofflower: *glares some more* Finised teaching your subject everything?
MM: Say wha?
Teacherwithnameofflower: I SAW you. Outside the parking lot. I was passing there. I SAW you teaching her. Dont try to lie. I know how you people are. I SAW you.
MM: *losing it and getting snappy, I mean how much can a girl take?* Look, I wasnt teaching her, why would I be teaching her? I was studying for chrissake.
Teacherwithnameofflower: *Is taken aback at rudeness, but collects herself quickly* Then why are you late? You cant be late I say what is this. *continues to lecture for fifteen minutes*

I ignore her, wait till she's done. Then I collect my stuff from my bag, grumbling. And then I walk the entire length of the class room looking for my seat.

Which isnt there.

Because this isnt my exam hall.

Joel passes by and sees me, discreetly gestures to me through window and escorts me to my actual exam hall. I wave embarrassedly at everyone and leave. (Err... Toodles then!)

Other than that though, the exam was fantastic.
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Also, like the time I started studying for Industrial Psych at 3am, and then while looking at the xeroxed notes Jay got for me which is all I have for the entire second half of the syllabus, I realise he's xeroxed every alternate page, so nothing makes any sense. So I call him frantically, but of course he's all cosy in bed.
MM: Dude, these notes dont make any sense dude. Half the frickin pages are missing.
Jay: Oh. Yes. Mine too.
MM: Say wha? Didnt you check when you were getting it done?
Jay: Yes, but the copy I xeroxed it from was also like this.
MM: Genius. So now what?
Jay: Im studying from this only. If you try and imagine the rest of the words.. it actually works!
MM: *rolls eyes, hangs up*

So morning I decide to go to the library and fish out the book it was xeroxed from and try and read it. But I see Monkey in the foodcourt, and he has all the notes so he tells me entire second half of the syllabus in forty five minutes. And I wrote the exam based on that. Didnt do half badly either.
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Then there was when the munches and I decided to go have lunch after one grueling exam. There's this place called Fire Wok in Oasis food court. Mmm. We splurged and it was yum, and we planned and screamed and let off steam and it was nice. Mwa to the munches. Now I have to go meet them. Shar is going to do something nutty and I have to be there apparently.
What's that you say? Yes I do have an exam tomorrow... but its the last one dude. Doesnt count. Doesnt count.
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Revival Post/ Blog Tag Game 2

This blog has for quite sometime been as dead as Snum in a third year OE class, and that's really saying something. So I've decided that today I must shake it out of its drugged slumber, by means of this revival post.

Overwhelmed by the number of things I have failed to document this past month and faced with a paralysing inability to pick which of these things to blog about, I have decided to complete a blog game that Snum (very ineptly) tagged me in last century.

I'm not particularly interested in this, but just thinking about the multitude of other things I have to blog about exhausts me so much I want to slide off the chair and go to sleep on the floor. So this is it. The revival post: Blog tag game 2. As I've been saying to myself a lot these days "Small steps MM, small steps."

Yo bebeh.

Blog Tag Game 2

3 JOYS
1. The sunshine on my back on a cold winter's morning. CHEESY. But it feels really good, really.
2. A biting cold wind against my cheek when Im in an auto on a cold day. Reminds me of my childhood playground days in England.
3. Finishing something, completing a task, doing it well.


3 FEARS
I used to think I was fearless. I feel fearless. Most of the time. It's a good feeling.
1. But I no like make
2. my few real fears
3. public, thankyouverymuch


3 GOALS
(Man this is boring)
1. To obtain for myself a PhD (thats, Dr. MM, to you)
2. To swim with dolphins, bungee jump, skydive
3. To see as much of the world as possible


3 CURRENT OBSESSIONS/ COLLECTIONS
Im currently not obsessed with anything really. Hmm.
Used to be with:
1. SteandKel on Youtube. I've discovered Fred (through Snum, I must give her credit or she'll come at me with a pitchfork)... he's funny once you get used to him. Very cute.
2. The Harry Potter books. Obsessed is an understatement. I think we all were at one point.
3. The Sound of Music. That movie means a lot to me. Also some TV shows: Ed, 8 Simple Rules. TV doesnt interest me as much these days.


3 RANDOM SURPRISING FACTS
(Random AND surprising. Thats asking a bit much innit?)
1. I absolutely adore anything sweet with cinnamon in it. (How surprising! I hear you say)
2. I love big butts and I cannot lie. (I jest)
3. I dont usually tell anyone this, but I detest alcohol. Presently at least. Yup. Its true. I cannot consume it without gagging. Tastes like garbage, corrodes the digestive tract and what's more, has absolutely NO EFFECT on me whatsoever, however much of it I force down. Sigh. How I have been deprived of the pleasures of life. (That'll be one Margarita mocktail please.)

And thats it. I tag Nishant, Pavan, Taru, Lalitha and La, NONE of whom will complete the task, I am pretty sure. But fly forth my children, do fly forth. :)

Goa Odyssey About

I havent immortalised the Goa trip, I realise, here on my blog. And so even though its all ancient history and all, Im writing about it now, and classifying it under reminisces.

I want to be sure to remember:

How jubilant we were when Snum's uncle gave us the thumbs up.

How we planned the whole thing, in Osh's hostel on the comp downstairs... laughing ourselves silly and getting confused over the scale in the faulty map we got off the net.

How we almost missed the bus getting there.

How very motion sick Osho got.

How cute Shahid Kapoor was on the bus, even though I didnt understand what the hell he was saying.

How limited my choice was at The National Restaurant where we stopped for dinner at 11.30pm, just as we were getting off to sleep.

Goan Mum and Son in Black Leather Jacket, and the Throwup Kids.

How the AC bus felt like an aircraft when they gave us the blankets and water bottles. And how the curves felt like turbulance.

"Yella ok, Cool drink yake?" Rajnikanth ad for beer. Gag me.

Heavy rains in Karwar that put us four hours behind schedule.

Empty quarters and the egrets Snum's dad put there to spy on us. Silly birds, they dont move at ALL. We thought they were statues until we saw them moving on the third day. "Oh look, how nice! They've made a little park with little life-like statuettes of birds in them!" said Snum foolishly when we arrived. Well, no actually, she didnt. I just like teasing Snum.

How our little cottage thing was called Colva.

How we caught the rickety bus from Verrem and got to Panjim in 5 rupees and 15 excrutiating minutes.

The TORTURE of finding that the bloody camera was not working, and having to buy that disposable one at Panjim.
The JOY of having it repaired on the third day, even though it made us almost miss the cruise.

Taking 114 pictures of ourselves in 2 and a half days.

Dominoes pizza.

How good it felt to be roomies, ordering in. The closeness. Having long talks in front of the TV at night.

How all of us were dead to the world until 9am on the second morning, even though the previous night we had vowed and sweared we would be up and about early.

Aguada fort and the death of Snum's broze chappals. Yes, it was here that they finally snapped. For the last time. Muttering as she held the remains in her hands, tottering about on the hot sand, Snum agreed it was all for the best.

The burial in the cupboard.

How concerned we were that Abhishek Bachchan was brushing off Aishwarya in a very obvious manner as she looked on with puppy dog eyes.

Anwar, the sweetheart (Snum's to be precise). Our blessed means of transport.

The Ferry Boat, Osh's unfortunate seating arrangement, the cool couple with the grandparents and kids.

How amazing those dolphins looked, if only for that split second.

Lime soda- heaven in a cup. Between the three of us, I think we consumed 70 of those cups during our entire trip.

How Snum kept dropping straws.

How frickin hot it was, and how grateful I was that I lived in Bangalore.

The Daily Cycle Thing. Hilarious. I'm glad we found it hilarious, so soon.

The sun umbrella not being big enough at lunchtime on Calangute beach.

Snum and Osh on the water scooter and me parasailing. Woo hoo! (See right: me.)

How we wanted to go again.

The IT couple who took pictures.

Bargaining at Anjuna beach and getting things for less than half the original price. Which Im sure the items were still not worth.

Getting caught in that throng of people carrying candles and singing prayers. Eerie.

Lovely looking restaurant. Ghastly tasting wine which burnt hole in pockets.

Dona Paula beach, cowboy hats.

Miramar beach- the absolute most best one of them all!! :) :) :) (see left)

Old Goa, the hot and horribly boring museum that Snum enjoyed.

Numerous ATM visits that I would actually wait for, because we got to stand in the AC for a bit.

Candolim beach in the afternoon on the recliners, with the cute dog. Now I dont go around stroking strange dogs, having had no experience with canines before, but Snum does. The second she placed her hand behind his ears, he shut his eyes, lay right down and fell straight asleep. Like clockwork. :D

Night cruise, weird drunk Hindi MC.

Suffocating the next morning.

The Bodgeshwara temple. Somehow temples dont mean much to me. Anything to me.

Deciding we'd been spending too much on food, and hence stopping at Mapusa town, buying 3 vada pavs for 6 rupees each and ketchup packets (1 rupee each) for that day's lunch.

Patting ourselves on the back, and talking about how clever and sensible we were, the entire journey to Vagathur beach.

THEN having it get ATTACKED and HACKED open by those VICIOUS crows that were there, when we left it unattended for a bleeding SPLIT second.
(See above: One of the culprit crows. Do not let its mild demenour fool you. Vicious, utterly vicious.)

Huge amounts of shopping at Vagathur and Anjuna. Being stunned speechless by the shop people's accents. We just looked at each other's expressions and snorted from restrained laughter I think, the first time. They werent too nice to us after that.

Coming back home and video-ing our many splendiferous purchases.

The Midnight Beach Sting Ray Incident. *grin* Titos.

The last day, hitching a ride, shopping at Panjim for the necessary and the unnecessary, ATM crawling, Osh career advising. Eating at a special place Snum recommended which we'd been saving for the last day. Laughing ourselves silly there.

Being very frustrated that that particular day was a dry day.

Settling bills, frenzied packing, frenzied video taking and being horrifically late for the bus again, which gave me several more mini heart attacks.

Reaching there, finding it still hadnt arrived and hence trying to amuse ourselves at random shops nearby.

All of us being at the bus stop in the hysterical mad moods I do so love, laughing ourselves silly, and scandalising several of the people there who were waiting for their buses.
I shocked the wits out of a couple of three year olds and Snum somehow managed to cause an old couple to get up and move two benches away from us, much to Osh's approval.

Me being livid with the stupid jerky bus and the fat man snoring loudly next to me the whole goshdarned night.

Wanting to cry about it all being over the next morning, as we bid each other a tearful, dramatic and very filmi goodbye at Majestic.

A Random Bit of December

It was a squeeze, but I JUST managed to finish everything on time. Did I stay up till 5.30 in the morning trying to finish the assignments? Was I so dead sleepy in college that I fell asleep while walking to the main gate and had to be picked up and slapped by grumbling friends? Did I have to refuse to go party that night for fear of dying from exhaustion? Why, of course not. *disapproving look*

This 13th hour thing. It's a disease.

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You know how when you're lying down and talking to someone who's sitting up, their chin looks like a nose? And their lower lip looks like an upperlip, and their upper lip looks like a lower lip? And its like there's a face on the bottom half of their real face upside down? And you cant concentrate on what they're saying to you because you're too busy laughing hysterically at the whole charade? No?
Snum does. Thank god I found Snum.
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Message Snum sent me today evening: I am not talking to you ever again. I dislike you immensely. You should go jump off the nearest pole. Climb it... then jump off it.

The reason: I know not. Minor, I'm sure.

Despite these small glitches, Snum and I are best friends.
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I was felicitated. Or as they said "facilitated". For topping the class last sem. (Woo hoo! :)) Nice function it was. Parents were mighty impressed with the state of the art audi and lights and effects and campus and all. Full vaaaav! they were.
But very disappointing was the voucher. From Titan eye+.
Five hundred rupees off on Titan Eye+ goods.
Blah. I know.
Wait there's more.
You only get the discount on purchasing items for Rs 2000 or more.
Talk about crazy. And wait...
No discount on accessories and all. No cool sunglasses, watches and all that.
Only eye glasses :|
So if you dont have power, first develop power (by March 2008, when coupon will expire), then spend Rs 2000 and avail your 500 rupees off discount.

What did you get for topping, MM? Oooo, a chance to spend 1500 bucks from my own pocket, for a pair of glasses I just don't need!
Vaav!

Me, Monkeychild and Other MM had nice time complaining, and taking crazy photos.
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No Birds only in Birds park today. I consider it improvement.
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I notice I am talking very colloquially. Or as gormless lady pronounces it, collokwially.
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Gormless Lady didnt give attendance for this felicitation thing. What the hell.

Also, she says
MoreEVER for MoreOVER

and she says it a lot.

And during attendance she calls out numbers 11 71, 11 72, 11 75 as
"Len senty vun...
Len senty to...
Len senty-fy..."

More reasons why she should be burned at the stake.
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I am for some reason reminded of my seventh standard maths teacher... one of the many we had that year. She had big teeth and she sat on the table not at it. We hated her.
One of her particularly famous dialogues: "Either you will simplify, or I will make you to simplyFLY out of the class."
:|
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Have you seen that video of the baby laughing everytime it tears a sheet of paper? :D
I've been laughing like that a lot lately, its so much fun, and its doing me a world of good.
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Catch Vs. the forest

Infancy and Childhood were two units we had this semester in our Developmental Psychology portions.
Sadly, our teachers didnt have the time, poor things to teach these chapters in class.
So, of course, we ended up having to leaf desperately through our fat text books the night before the exam- in the hope of mugging up the first eleven years of life.
It was quite entertaining.

Did you know that only 20% of 4 year olds can throw well, and only 30% of them can catch?
I laughed out loud when I read that because I remembered the time when I was around that age, maybe a little younger.

Sidetracking:
I can sort out when memories are from, by the length of my hair at the time they happened.
If I remember having almost waist length hair at the time, then it was before I was four, before we moved out of Bellsize Park to the house on Foxlees.
Short, shoulder length hair, and it was just after we'd moved. (I still cant believe how my mum and the Chinese hairdresser tricked me into that.)
Shorter hair still, and an irritating fringe that got into my eyes, was my fifth birthday and beyond.
And two inches below the shoulder again was when I was late seven-ish.
End of sidetrack.

So anyway my dad over the weekend would suddenly say, "Come on MM, lets play some Catch!"

I didnt want to hurt his feelings or anything, but quite frankly, I preferred my stuffed toys. And my dolls, Laura and Minnie (on account of the embroidered mouse on her dress).

According to my books, children begin pretend play in Middle Childhood (6 to 11 yrs), but I seemed to have gotten a headstart.
Since my mum had been regaling me with stories from the Ramayana (it was a big fat yellow book she read from), I was quite transfixed with the idea of living in a forest.
So I'd decided Minnie and I were going to be exiled, and we'd picked up our imaginary bows and stridden off into the forest.
Laura was Sita, I thought her too incapable to be saddled with a weapon. And the stuffed monkey I had (well actually it was a Monchichi, darling things, anyone heard of them?) was Hanuman, but he didnt come ino the picture until the end when we all said "Jai Bolo Hanuman ki!", my favourite part of the whole charade. Chicka was his name actually. Chickaboo, to be precise (no stress on any of the syllables). Adventures that monkey's had, ask Snum to tell you about them sometime.

So anyway, the golden deer had just arrived and it was all very exciting and adventurous, and it was about to be the time where we'd all bow down and shout in praise of Chicka.
And suddenly, here was my dad, wanting to play Catch.

These adults must be humoured, god bless them, I'd thought and tottered off in his direction.

Thing is, I was never able to catch the ball. It makes me laugh now when I remember it. Everytime he threw it at me, I'd wildly clamp my arms together like a crocodile, head turned away, eyes screwed shut.
And whenever I threw it, it landed 2 feet away from me, no matter how hard I tried or how angry I was.

My dad kept encouraging me, hoping for the best. But I couldnt do it.
Naturally, being three and all.
I was telling him about it yesterday and we'd a good laugh about those futile attempts we'd made to fine tune my motor skills.

Sooner or later though, he'd let me get back to my imaginary weapons and the gazelle, and I'd gladly scamper off to greener forests.

The Sheep

...is the new cow. They're funny. Funnier than cows OR chickens. (That is the plural isnt it? Having friends who eat poultry has shaken my vocabulary.)

"Baaaaaaaa!" Its hilarious I tell you.

Look at it, the daft little thing, staring. You'd expect it to blink dazedly at you any moment, and then look around at its surroundings confusedly. "What are all these words doing here?" it must be thinking.

Even Facebook has realised that throwing sheep appeals to the senses more than cows or donkeys do. (That flying sheep cartoon is so cute no?)

Reminds me, when I was in Year 1 (thats UKG here) I remember there was this one class where we were supposed to write what we wanted to become when we grew up, and draw a picture of it.

I had already decided what my future was to be. I liked drawing, and writing and history class. It would only be natural then, I thought to myself, for me to become a historian who wrote books, and illustrate them myself.
Ghastly idea, but it seemed logical at the time.
All set for the future then, I'd thought to myself. I'd drawn my boring little picture, coloured the book I had supposedly written a bright red for effect, and gone and stood in line to have my work corrected.

In front of me was Shehana, one of my closest friends, but a little younger than the rest of us. We compared pictures. She had drawn a picture not unlike the one of the daft staring sheep above.
"I want to be a lamb." she'd said.

Wow, I'd thought to myself. This kid sure has imagination. I wonder how Ms Cravitz will react to this. Thank God its not Ms Read today.

Shehana's turn came. She proudly handed in her book.
"Shehana, my dear" said Ms Cravitz. "This isnt what I'd asked you to do."

(Ms Read would have said rather harshly "You silly little girl. Go back and do it over again")

"I didnt ask you to draw what you'd like to be, I asked you to draw what you want to be when you grow up." Ms Cravitz explained.

"But I want to be a lamb!" she said.

"You cant be a lamb, my dear. Humans dont become animals, do they? Now tell me. What would you like to be when you're older?"

"Yeah!" I interjected. "What do you want to be when you grow up. When you're older."

Comprehension dawned on Shehana's face.

"Ohhhhhhhhhh." she said. "When Im older." With a triumphant grin, she said

"A Sheep."

Sheep, I tell you. Funny little creatures. Wish there was a cartoon strip about them.

They arent the best animals to count while trying to sleep though, as

Snum and Bestest

have said. Far too distracting. You'll probably end up laughing as the dippy things fall all over each other trying to get over the effing fence.

Shehana was later convinced to become a sweet shopkeeper, when told that she would get free candy on a daily basis.

Crazy Things We've Done

*Laughs loudly and reminisces*

It was 7th standard kannada class. We had this huge and immensely complex Kannada lesson on the Mahabharatha. Its contents have always been very vague to me, to this date I do not have a clear picture about what it was on.
But the main character was Abhimanyu, and it involved a chakra of some sorts: a war tactic, some kind of formation the army was made to get into.

Well, anyway, there was a war on in our class as well. It was Girls Vs Boys (snots, they thought they were better than us).

Our Kannada teacher was smart. She got a sense of the whole class war and decided to tap into this energy by dividing the class into a girls team and a boys team, each of which were required to perform the play described in the lesson (with exact dialogues and everything) for our project marks. Thought she'd spur us on to greater heights.
Sadly this was not to be.

I was Karna. That was because I'd begged them to let me have a role that involved no speaking.
Once I was granted this role, I relaxed. There was nothing of great importance that I had to do, I could just wing it. I let the others worry about logistics, and figured they would tell me what I had to do on stage closer to the time.

Unfortunately, we were rather unorganised lot, and so it wasnt surprising that on the day of the play, during short break, we ended up screaming at each other, trying to remember who was supposed to be playing whom. Once I had established the fact that I was Karna, and I had collected the bows and arrows (our only props I think), I sat back and watched as everyone slowly gave up the hope that we could plan the whole thing out in the next five minutes. We decided that we'd just have to go on stage and pray that it would end soon.

Class started. With smug looks, Arun's group ascended the stage. They had gotten themselves gold crowns and cool costumes. At our group no one even knew their dialogues. We watched in horror. I mean, we knew they were going to be better than us, just not this much better.

They finished. Receieved applause and praises from ma'am and glares and rude faces (which they returned) from us.

Then it was time for us to go on stage. I really and truly hadnt the foggiest idea what was going on.
Some kind of fight ensued on stage, and I realised (thanks to a lot of non verbal communication from members of our group who were on the stage), that we were all supposed to be participating in it.

I grabbed a bow and climbed valiantly on. Kalvathy ma'am was NOT amused.
There were at least 5 people on stage I think. I sidled my way over to the extreme left of the stage and attempted to look as if I knew what was going on. I could tell I wasnt very convincing Decided that I'd just finish my part in the play by shooting a couple of arrows, and then make my way off the stage.

Thing is, I didnt know how to use my bow. I experimented a bit on stage, but no way I held it felt right. The string away from me? No. Towards me? How do I shoot the arrow then?
I realised there was no use trying to figure it out right then, so i just limply held the bow, and sort of CHUCKED the arrow at the first person I saw (who was unfortunately fighting for the same side as me).

Kalavathy ma'am was NOT impressed. I could FEEL her glares reaching accross to me. And I chose that unfortunate moment to be plagued by sudden and inexplicable bouts of uncontrollable laughter, so I decide that now would be a good time to die, and get the hell off the stage. So I pretend I've gotten hit, by one of the more efficient arrows that the other side has, and drag myself off the stage, laughing, amidst all the confusion.

You should have seen Kalavathy ma'am's face. Karna wasnt supposed to DIE! Or drag himself off the battle field! Or laugh as death slowly approached him!

The play ended in chaos, with the actors in a confused muddle on the side of the stage. There was no applause, only the shocked faces of the scandalised boys and the angry face of Kalavathy ma'am looming upon us.

Sigh, such an easy win it was for Arun and the boys!
And Kalavathy ma'am, yowch, was she angry! What fiery looks of wrath she gave us!
Argh.
But it was all worth it, I think, for the amount of laughs its given me through the years. :D