Busy

I have always taken pride in myself as a person who tries very hard to keep her rants to herself. Sometimes, I get a little stressed out when the people around me complain all the time, so I have tried to minimize the similar effect that I could impose on others by choosing to be silent with my pains. Lately however, the buziness of my life has just become a central part of me and whenever someone asks me how I am, my standard reply would be: "I'm so busy". 

Don't get me wrong. This doesn't mean that I have succumbed to the complaining nature of most university students. It's just that I have adopted a very honest approach to the standard "How's it going?" question. Truth be told, I almost abhor this question because I never really know how to respond to it. A sweet friend once told me the funny story of how she google-ed for replies to this question and now reflecting back on that, I could see myself attempting the very same thing. This question is a stunner bur for now, I don't have the time for pleasantries, because plain old honesty works just alright. In fact, it can't be such a bad thing afterall, because then I get to bore people with the wonderful stories of my baby- my wonderful research work! 

Work is mounting on me and me being the single-tasker sort of person, cannot juggle being a social butterfly and a student at the same time. Okay, so nowadays I have a sour reticent persona surrounding me, but so what? I cannot and will not entertain everyone around me just as I had in the past because I simply have no means and resources to do so. So some people might see me as an anti-social hibernating greedy bear, or a hermit, or a shy girl but I honestly do not give two pence to what they think. Think away, comment away, annoy me all you want. I am too tired to please anyone else. Being selfish nowadays have given me more time freedom and I am enjoying it. Please don't judge me my friends, sometimes, a person just needs more time to herself for her own good. Increasingly, I have noticed the value of making selective conversations. Speaking with friends who are more honest towards me, whether or not that honesty comes from how detached they are from my life, gives me more comfort. I cherish the opportunities to be with them, even for a few minutes, away from the usual company who sometimes suffocate me with all sorts of preconceived notions. 

So very much like me, minus the shoes.  Picture Credit

For a short while now, I'm building a moat around myself. It's not a very positive thing, but I'm at a point in life now where I just need more time to myself for the things that matter more.

Places

I woke up this morning with a sequence of different places playing through my mind: Oxford Street, Blue Kitchen , Hyde Park, Lab 319 and I felt strangely uplifted. The world is not confined to only Lab 319!

Time freedom (specifically the privilege of waking up whenever you want, without the urge to rush off to the workplace or to appear on time for an appointment) and the lack of early morning peer pressure tangoed with a film roll of pretty London memories can do wonders to a person.

There is something great out there, just waiting to be found. 

Picture Credit

Quirky

Circuit, Thighs when you sit (3) = "Lap"

I found this to be brilliantly hillarious!

The Mountain

Last Wednesday, a wise guy told me that once I am done with university, I'd find myself at the top of a mountain. However, when I start working, I'd be at the feet of another mountain and I'd have to start climbing all over again. I'm not even at the top of any mountain now, but I've already split myself up into a few persons and these are already running in search of new mountains to climb now.

I'm tired of all this mountaineering business.

Had a little champagne last night at my departmental cocktail party and slept like a babe. Can't be bothered for anything today, simply can't be asked. :(

Swamped.......

Keju

Picture Credit

I've finally read the all famous 'Who Moved My Cheese?'. K lent me his book and I finished it in just under an hour. The content of the book surprised me as I have always imagined it to be a book on economics, before I realized that I had it confused with Freakanomics. 

The book can be categorized as a self-help one, with the aim of motivating its readers towards accepting change as something positive in their lives and reacting appropriately to it. It starts out with a group of school friends at their reunion, with one member sharing his cheese story with the rest. 2 mice and 2 human beings live in a maze and they've found a huge cheese station in which they thrive and live in. As time passed by, the supply of cheese in this station depletes and is gone before the 2 humans know it. The 2 mice on the other hand, foresaw what was inevitable and had already ventured out into the maze in search of a new cheese haven and found it long before the humans reacted to it. 

More like a modern day parable, this short story is amazingly versatile. The cheese itself can be a symbol of money, a job, relationships or anything else of importance to a living soul. Who doesn't love the comfort of living in a predictable space? When unpleasant change takes us off our feet by surprise, more often than not, we fret, blame others and are resistant to it. This story invites us to take change as an adventure! 

Here are some of the things I'd like to remember from this story (credits to the author Dr. Spencer Johnson): 

1. Change happens (they keep moving the cheese)

2. Anticipate change (get ready for the cheese to move)

3. Monitor change (smell the cheese often so you know when it is getting old)

4. Adapt to change quickly (the quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you can enjoy new cheese)

5. Change (move with the cheese)

6. Enjoy change! (savor the adventure and enjoy the taste of new cheese)

7. Be ready to change quickly and enjoy cheese again and again (they keep moving the cheese)

Also, there was a sharp line in the book which says that there is a distinction between activity and productivity. This sentence practically shouted to me from the book, probably because I'm in the middle of an extremely tedious and time-consuming research project. 

The next best thing in the book was the idea of picturing ourselves in an exciting new state in the future, however uncertain that may be. Being out there in the maze is indeed better than staying in the old cheese station and rotting away.  The power of attitude and optimism comes into play here in that we should always look for a better future and be uplifted about our prospects. 

In remembrance of 11.11.1918

Here is a beautiful poem to commemorate a bloody past:

In Flanders' Fields
John McCrae, 1915

In Flanders' fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders' Fields.


To the brave souls who've fought for peace, may God bless you and your families.

On another note, I was so exhausted yesterday from the disbelief I had in myself. I should learn how to trust myself more and be more spontaneously articulate.

Stumped

I'm stumped. Please please pleaseeeee pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..........  :( :(
I know now..I finally know

Escape

Being with the same group of people for an extended (prolonged) amount of time could sometimes lead to an uneasy feeling of discomfort and instigate a need for some form of escapade. Reasons for this could be anything ranging from a sense of not belonging- thus feeling unwanted by one's peers, unhappiness around certain people which translates into suppression of thoughts and actions to suit others, the want for better company, the need to be in a comfortable place with familiar people and what not. A plethora of factors, but all leading to an enormous expanding bubble of air in one's trachea, pushing upwards and disallowing the passage of air into one's lungs. Lest the sphere breaks loose, one dies.  

Today a long time friend called me to ask if I was free on one of the weekend's this month. He told me he wanted to run away from where he is right now. I could totally relate to him but I felt that his call was imposing on me. There is no way that I could accommodate him, not just because I'm living a busy life, but even more so because I just rejected the request of another close girlfriend to spend one of her weekends with me. Don't get the impression that I'm a selfish loner, I'm just taking the time to sort out my priorities in life. I love my girlfriend so very much and would wish her to be by my side right this moment, but sometimes, the demands of life take precedence over us and we just have to cave in to them. I am missing her so much now. I'm not going to run, I'm just going to stay put and find the center point of my life, refocus, purify and streamline.