A dark shadow

There are many who make me smile, but only he can make me cry.

It was such a glorious morning. I got up totally fresh and revved-up to face the world. A mail from a (rather special) friend completely took away my wind (or rather the air from my tyres) and left me totally flat.

I can't really share what was in the mail but can tell you that I am in the pits right now. I don't know why I am feeling so emotional and have been crying my eyes (and heart) out. To be fair to the poor man.. he didn't really say anything rude - Just plain old truth about me and how I have been letting my life rule me.

Do you know that paper can cut like a razor?

Just white paper,
An unwritten letter
Makes me bleed today.
~Angel Gonzalez

It was like looking in the mirror and that got me all sad. Now, there is an emptiness within me and I can't put a finger to it. I wonder why though the blues hit me so often? I use to be such a "happy-go-lucky" person. Whatever happened to me? I remember I use to laugh all the time! I really miss that the most, and how easily and naturally it used to come. I never really thought about laughter until it became scarce. That is because like air, it is taken for granted until it is in short supply.

:o(

I'll do it . . . . . . tomorrow

I'm a procrastinator. BIG TIME!

I always have good intentions. Really I do!! (you out there... you can wipe that smirk off your face!) I have several reports that I need to get done by Monday. Infact, I actually volunteered to do these ;o) All I need to do is walk to my comp and start hammering at the keyboards. The self-set deadline for finishing the reports has come and gone twice. And have I started yet? Hmmmmm, no.

If you looked up procrastinator in the dictionary, it would say this:
Pronunciation: pr&-'kras-t&-"nAt, prO-
Function: verb
: GG is a lazy bum who puts things off intentionally and habitually
: GG postpones the doing of something till "push comes to shove".

Why am I this way?
* Is it because I know that when the time comes that my stuff ABSOLUTELY needs to be done, I know that it will be and it will be done well?
* Is it because I'm suffer from sloth and laziness?
* Is it because I like to love to work under pressure which happens invariably when I put things off till the nth minute?
* Is it because its my nature to do so? God created me this way. Who am I to disagree with God?

Procrastination is merely a matter of perspective. One may say to oneself, "Will the world come to an end if this work isn't completed right away?" The answer is, invariably, NO. With this in mind, one can easily put tasks off indefinitely until they are due.

I also have to have to start going to the gym again. Skipped gym all this week and now I feel like a fat cow. I really will start in earnest .... from tomorrow :)

Procrastination, thy name is GG. To top it all, am getting into the holiday mood, which is not helping at all!! And it is quite cold here. Just want to eat, sleep, and hibernate. ;-)

Butter Fingers

Yahoo! Messenger has become a way of life, especially after Yahoo added in all the cool features like messaging to mobiles, the cool avatars and of course Launchcast. And though I detest online chatting, certain fast and furious typists have kept me enthralled with some matchless typos. Here are three gems:

Niru to Avinash: "Send it fat Avi !"
(The noble intention: "Send it fast, Avi !")

TK to GG: "OK, forge tit !"

Rohit: "Please Sona, bare with me!"
:-O !!!

Well, I hope they were typos!

Where have all the cards gone?

This was the night before Christmas. When all through the house, not a creature was stirring……Except my cell phone!

It beeped, it rang and very nearly leapt off the table in excitement. It jiggled its way through Christmas day and by the end of it, had rung in some 43 text messages and over a dozen calls from friends scattered across the world. A parallel stream of emails and e-cards also poured in including some from the bottom of people's heart!! One was happily inundated with wishes of every kind… Except the ones that are delivered by the friendly neighbourhood postman!

I was struck by the complete absence of Christmas cards this year. There were virtual greetings aplenty, but how in the name of Dancer, Prancer and Rudolph are you going to string them over the fireplace? (No fireplace here, but isn’t wishful thinking permitted at Christmas time?)

It set me thinking: Have people given up on the simple thrill of a greeting card? The rush of excitement at seeing one’s name on the envelope? The faint suspense until the cover is torn open? And then the unbridled delight? Compare this with an email which says, ‘xyz has sent you an e-card. To view it, copy and paste this hotchpotch of letters, numbers and signs, that in some way, which you won’t care to understand, will lead you to a grotty card, which will try your patience as it downloads…..’

For me, greeting cards have always been the harbinger of things special. They made the agonising wait for the birthday a little sweeter. They brought in the festive cheer. They even gave you a heady sense of your own popularity. I remember being over the moon in College one year, when I received 23 birthday cards! With messages ranging from corny (‘Roses are red, cookies are chewy… another year of your life, just went ka-blooey’!) to schmaltzy (‘It’s a good thing you can’t put a price tag on friendship… coz I could never afford a friend like you!’) to downright wicked (Heard you like sex on you birthday?... That’s strange, most people like it more often!!!)

I still have a sizeable collection of most of the cards I’ve received, the earliest dating back to my 5th birthday. A few years ago, I discovered a hitherto latent calligraphy skill, and combined with a whit of wit, set about making my own cards for family and friends. I still indulge in it whenever I can.

Still it was very heartening to receive a hand-made birthday card this year from my little niece - B. What looked like different coloured pens being tried out was actually her message, ‘Dear S mausi, I love U loooots. Com sooon. B". It’s going to take B and me a while to revive the heading-for-extinction greeting card industry, but hey, we’ll get there.

Mera wala dream

I dream a lot... normally while sleeping (and at times while awake too). My dreams are vivid, detailed and in color. My dreams are normally very happy ones and mostly related to the plot of a book I have been reading or a movie I just finished watching. In them, I meet family, friends (some I have not seen since childhood), and people whom I've never seen before.

Dreaming is a natural thing. I wonder then, why some people do not dream and if and when they do, their dreams are silent. No one talks, no noise, nothing! To understand dreams better, I pulled out my old psycho books and here are some excerpts (now stay focused.. Don't doze off)

Dreaming is the subjective experience of imaginary images, sounds/voices, thoughts or sensations during sleep, usually involuntarily. Dreaming is associated with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which occur at roughly 60-90 minute intervals throughout the night and which contain the dreams which are the most vivid and most often remembered.

Sleep has been classified into: sleep onset (hypnagogia or stage 1), non-REM sleep (deep sleep or stages 2,3, and 4), and REM (or paradoxical) sleep.

Most scientists believe that dreams occur in all humans with about equal frequency per amount of sleep. Therefore, if a person subjectively feels that he did not dream or that he only had one dream in any given night, it is because his memory of the dream has faded. This "memory erasure" aspect of the dream state is mostly found when a person naturally awakes via a smooth transition from REM sleep through delta sleep to the awake state. If a person is awoken directly from REM sleep (e.g. by an alarm clock), they will much more likely remember their dream from that REM cycle (although it's most likely that not all their dreams will be remembered because they occur in REM cycles, which are interrupted by periods of delta sleep which in turn have a tendency to cause the memory of previous dreams to fade.)

The world needs more dreamers perhaps. If we were all dreaming there would probably be less warmongering and more peace to be achieved. But alas, we live in a world where being a dreamer is laughable, where you're encouraged to bring your head out of the clouds and have your feet placed firmly on the ground so that you are in touch with reality.

Truly if we did dare to dream, would we end up like Don Quixote ... going off on adventures, fighting in the name of honor and virtue, helping the helpless and possibly saving the world??? Who knows, most dreamers I think don't live to tell the tale or their dreaming is cut short by a stab of reality.....

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but Im not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

--- Thanks John Lennon

Overdrive!

I had an extremely tiring day (usually I am not the one to complain when I have a busy day but last night I was beat) I thought I would rest for a few minutes but the moment my head touched the pillow, I was in cuckoo's land. I slept for 14 hours straight. 8 pm - 10 am. I do feel slightly better. But this is just horrible. My life's getting more disorganized than ever. I have to do something about this.

AB shouted at poor little me recently, You don't sleep, you don't eat! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?" TK also gave me a dose this morning for skipping dinner and breakfast. I know darlings... but kya karu. I am trying to put some semblance into my life too. Well, TK if it makes you feel any better, I regretted not eating too... Tummy was growling the whole day. Are we friends again?

Why can't I ever maintain a balance in my life? Always living a life of excesses- either excess work or excess partying, either excess food or no food, either excess sleep or no sleep. Nothing is ever in moderation with me.

Am really, really busy these days with work. I can never manage to be on top of things. The evil pointed-haired boss has added on more work on my "nazukse" shoulders as a token of his appreciation for the hard work put in by me!!! Can you believe that?! He actually gave me a letter that said,

Dear Ms. Singh,

XXX is appreciative of the hardwork put in by you. We feel, you are extremely capable and we are pleased to hand-over the additional responsibility of managing the Operations of the company.

Congrats and keep up the good work! We hope that you will continue to excel in your performance as always.

Blah blah

Yours truly,
XXX

AB was so right when he said "those who work, get more work and those who don't, get paid!"

Its a bee-you-tee-full day!!

Good Morning World!!! It's a brand new day outside. The sun finally decided to shine down on us after 4 days of cloud. There was a gentle breeze...the signs of winter!

It is such a glorious morning. The birds are trilling, the sky is the most impossibly perfect blue and I feel like the whole wide world is mine! I am in a rare effervescent mood. I'm almost bubbling over with joy.

And why? I have no clue whatsoever. Oh wait, could it because of XX?! I am so looking forward to getting to the office, just to check my mails... there better be one waiting in my inbox.

The entire world has taken on the colours of an MGM technicolor musical classic. I have this strange feeling that any moment now I'm going to burst into song (very unfortunate for those around me). I'm probably going to be smiling at people I cannot stand and laughing at jests that aren't even funny. And all because of this bee-you-tee-full morning.

And this is the manic stage of the bipolar disorder I think I am affected with. Hope everyone has a wonderful day too!

An experiment!

'I'm not a perfect person.
And I just want you to know
I've found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is you'
- The reason (Hoobastank)

A few days ago, I had engaged myself in an experiment. The subject of the experiment was me. I had given myself 10 days to complete all pending tasks, finish all piled up work and clear all deadlines.

Here are the results of the experiment:

1. As the 10 days deadline came closer, I had to work harder and harder to meet my original goal.
2. I felt I was almost there. It was a good feeling. And I probably was.. for a while!
3. I was tired after it was over and decided to chuck things for a while
4. Now there work pile up is even higher than it ever was.

Moral: This kind of thing must be done in a normal manner. Be wary of burnout.

Mail from a friend came at an appropriate time advising me to "balance out work and fun or get burnt out like its happening to young(er) people". I have decided to take the advise and when the evil boss (like the pointy-haired boss in Dilbert) spews fire next time, I'm gonna push AB into the firing range. What say, AB?

Quiiick update!

Boy! Have I been busy or what?

## Spent the weekend doing absolutely nothing at all. Felt so useless, but oh boy, so good!

## Am majorly happy for a friend who's recently got something she's been..well ..wanting for some time! You know who you are, so congrats and I'll call you, I swear!!

## Got a mini crisis at work, so if I had hardly any time to breathe earlier, I have now started going blue.

## Had (yet another!) fight with TK and realised that I was turning into someone that I despised a lot. Quite an eye-opener! Thankfully all's well, we've mended our ways blah blah. Till the next time!

## Good news is that my ma and dad are coming to Bangalore!! And although I strongly disagree with them spending only 10 days with me, its better than nothing at all, so I'm not cribbing! Besides I'm jealous that they get a month's holiday where as I get nothing at all. Oh what I wouldn't do to have a leisurely vacation!

## Finally, I love Blogger's newest look. It's great design-wise and defi more user-friendly. Good work, guys!

The blues are here!

Ever had a moment when you felt like crying your heart out for no apparent reason? An evening which finally seems to be the culmination of all things wrong, all memories bad, all thoughts sour? Where even the silliest of thoughts which you previously have passed-by with nonchalance come hounding you like ghosts on a moonless night?

One which brings back your earliest memories of death - finding a stiff little sparrow lying on the edge of the road, or holding your adorable mutt as it moves on to other realms, with tears in its eyes? Tears that are shed not because it's leaving you, but because it knows that it's taking with it a part of you, and somehow, things will never be the same again?

Memories of pain and fear.. coming home with a scratched, bleeding elbow to an angry mum who warned you *not* to play in the dark, or coming home with a terrible burden on your chest when you haven't done as well as you expected in the exams - and the only thing that makes it worse is the loud silence in the house. Where you suddenly feel betrayed - as if all the guilt and pain you're going through wasn't enough, you feel you're also being ostracized for seemingly no good reason.

One where you keep thinking about that biggest mistake in your life, for which there is no redemption. The face... bruised and disfigured beyond recognition. It haunts you and the guilt kills you inside, slowly and silently!

Crying is good for the soul they say - cleanses your heart of all evil, pain and bitterness, my mum used to tell me. Then what does one do, mum, if all one is left with, is a handful of nothing?