Anaamika - The Nameless One

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Got this from Kev's blog...thot it was fun to copy!! FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE:
1. Programmes person for an advocacy that deals with women's rights (I won't mention names)
2. The smiliest waitress ever (I really was...I got told that a lot!! honest!)
3. Storyteller (we acted out nursery rhymes at schools!)
4. Lotto girl (by far the most boring, the highlight was my sister saying it sounded like the latest superhero(ine)!

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER:
1. Life is Beautiful
2. Raincoat
3. The Notebook (its sooo sweet!)
4. Bridges of Madison County (I think...couldn't thinkof anything else off the top of my head!)

FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN:
1. Singapore
2. Madras (I refuse to call it Chennai-Madras is much prettier!)
3. Palmerston North (although its actually a town...)
4.thats it..just three!

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH:
1. House
2. Sex and the City(I get a headache after watching like 3 episodes back-to-back but..and its not something i'm proud of, but I do like watching it..hehe)
3. Seventh Heaven (at the moment..past 2 days...altho i find the parents a little too perfect to be true)
4. Desperate Housewives

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION:
1. India (quite a few places in India, too many to name here but I Loved Kerala and the Himalayas the best)
2. China (Guangzhou, Shenzhen and HK)
3. New Zealand (it may not count since I live here now, but i've been to other parts of the country on vacation)
4. Malaysia (Pulau Tioman and Sarawak were the best bits!)

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY:
1. hotmail.com
2. at least one friens' blog - different ones each day
3. www.ndtv.com (not exactly daily, but often enough)
4. i don't have a 4th : (

FOUR OF YOUR ALL-TIME FAVORITE RESTAURANTS:
1. Kabul (Bombay - it was amazing!)
2. Ben Jarong (Madras - gorgeousThai food!)
3. The Southeast Asian Restaurant here which has a mouth-watering coconut fish dish. forgot the name but i remember how to get there and thats wat counts!!
4. The Thai place in Holland Village, Singapore - inbetween Caffe Club Express and Indochine - simple food but oh-so-tasty!

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS:
1. The aforementioned coconut fish dish
2. Aglio olio (made well) with crisp bacon
3. Wantan Mee
4. Nasi Lemak with proper sambal (the sambal is extremely important. If it's not right, it ruins the dish! It's gotta bethe right combination of spicy,sweet and belachany. yum!)

FOUR SCHOOLS YOU'VE ATTENDED:
1. CHIJ Primary & Secondary
2. Catholic Junior College
3. Ngee Ann Polytechnic
4. Massey University

FOUR PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
1. NZ South Island
2. The Himalayas, i'm not too fussy about the exact location
3. New York
4. Turkey (just coz i've always wanted to go)

FOUR THINGS YOU FIND YOURSELF SAYING
1. I'm sleepy!
2. I've been here for a year and a half (been meeting quite a few new people!)
3. Your mother's so fat..ummm...that when she jumped for joy...errrr..she got stuck. Ok. Thank you.
4. Sombody is going to get a hurt real bad. Somebody.
(you won't get the last two unless you've watched Russel Peters. And if you havent' watched his show, you're seriously missing out!) ¶ 12:58 am

Drivel... So..my last couple of posts have been quite crappy so I'm not going to even attempt in-depth, analytical or philosophical thoughts or anything...just a simple account of my day.

Got up late, like at about 11.30am which is quite a record for me! Hung around the house doing absolutely nothing for a while, chatted with Gillian, Avi and Rekha for a while till Rhiannon came by with Coby, her darling dog! He's such a sweet dog! I played with him till the girls left - they were going to the Esplanade to play in the playground - I was still tired so I decided to stay home and wake up properly! Watched the wedding video with Rekha and that was fun, reliving the wedding and discussing different aspects of it!

All too soon it was time to shower and get ready for the movie and we were off to Downtown to watch Rumour Has It. Gillian and Avi met us at the theatre and we sneaked burgers in (no hot food allowed) coz we were starving! The movie was funny, totally entertaining! It was a video-movie and truth be told, I was forewarned, but it was fun anyway! Afterward we met up with some other friends, a reunion of sorts and hung out at the Celtic Inn which was quite cool - Celtic music and reasonably priced alcohol! Oh and in between the movie and the Celtic, I met the hottest guy in palmerston north. Lord he looked like he'd just stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine! So he asked if he could join us at the Celtic and after agonizing over it for a while with Gillian, I thought oh wat the hell..ok. So he came along too and it was fun..but well, lets just say the packaging was way better than the content! Typical party-boy. Oh dear..I hope he doesn't stumble upon this website, poor chap! But well...I should be allowed to write stuff in moderation..and I think this is moderate enough...!

After the Celtic, we took a nice long walk back home and now i'm all ready to go off to dreamland! It's been a busy day! ¶ 12:25 am

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Happy New Year! - Part 2

So I read the stuff that I wrote last nite...and oh lord does it sound contrived! I thought about re-writing it in its entirety but oh well! that was the mood i was in when I wrote it. So it stays! no point varnishing everything all the time..that's definitely not the way the world works! So, that was the real stuff at that point in time when i wrote it, so it gets to stay!

So i'm gonna get on with the long overdue analysis of last year. It may be slightly vague, but well..it's difficult to get specific on the net - and its not very wise too either. Also, I think the enigma factor adds to the whole experience, don't you think? (If you don't, ure more than welcome to find another blog. so there!)

Ok. So on to my analysis of 2005.

Actually I'm not too sure I want to analyse it....it was a weird year - full of highs and lows and not enough in-betweens.

The year started off on an uncomfortable note in a way...and then things happened and life went rapidly downhill. Ok I think i'll gloss over the distressing bits, because honestly, I wouldn't write about them here, they involve too many people and also, I blog mainly because 1) its fun and I like to keep in touch with writing and 2) coz I want a record of my thoughts and also the stuff that i've been through so that years down the road i can read them and either laugh or re-live them or learn from them and also, just remember them. The shitty stuff that made up a large part of 2005 for me does not need to be blogged in order to be forgotten. I somehow don't think i'll forget last year. Apart from 1996, when both my favourite grandparents passed away within 7 months of each other and my first boyfriend (at least thats what i considered him) cheated on me with my best friend (yeah..till then I thought stuff like that only happened in girly magazines and teeny boppers serials) and I hated what i was studying with a passion, 2005 was the worst year ever. I went to depths I have never before ventured to, I got to a point where getting out of bed and facing the day was difficult, when essay-writing which I had previously enjoyed were a chore and were downright scary coz I couldn't understand what I was meant to write baout - I just couldn't concentrate anymore. There were points at which I felt my life was crumbling about me and i was helpless - all I could do was watch. So things were very bad on two distinct fronts. But, it wasn't a completely depressing year - there were the ups as well. I realised who my true friends are, here in nz, I realised just how much some of my other friends care about what goes on in my life (taran, if you're reading this, I'll never ever forget what u did for me. It meant the world right then, it was just what I needed from a friend). The experiences were miserable, but today, i'm a stronger person for them and as my mom would say, its kinda like the bitter medicine the doctor gives u when ure sick - he could quite easily give you sugar, but that's not gonna make u better, is it? Instead, isn't it better that he gives u the bitter, bad-tasting medicine that actually makes u well and stronger? Unhappy or bad or sad experiences in life are like - u need them coz they make you stronger as a person. If you just had the good, sweet, nice, pleasant experiences, you don't grow as a human being. And I know i have, over the past year -I know I can go thru shit and still keep my head well above the water. I know that getting on with life is paramount and I know that I must never give any person the power to hurt me. I once read some where that people can hurt you only if you empower them to do so - if you decide that he/she can't hurt u, there's nothing they can do that will get through that and hurt - ure hurt only when u let them hurt u. Ok I think I'll blog again when i've gotten some sleep. it's irritating me that i'm being so long-winded and not saying things as succinctly as i'd like to and as I know i can!

But before I go, I need to mention, in brief, all the highlights of last yr. The whole experience of flatting with friends was a first and we had so many fun times together - sunday mornings at the flea market and then coming home and making ourselves nice big breakfasts, coffee and cookies and The Rugrats in the morning with Rekha, Sat nite parties and dancing through the house and out into the garden, our very own Survivor series (tiki torches in the garden while we drank copious amounts of alcohol and chatted about life and so on), impromptu clothes-buying session and fashion shows.....aarrggghhhh i'm writing this and suddenly it hits me that all this sounds very familiar - total deja vu - so i'm like...aah thats coz i've written all this down before, in my journal (I have a physical pretty cloth-bound journal that i write in when either the comp isn't accessible or i'm already in bed and get the urge to put pen to paper. Also there's something reassuringly old-school about a proper pen-and-paper journal. Plus, there isn't the worry that the whole world can read it if they were so inclined!) SO yeah, as i was saying, i found all this that i'm talking about very familiar and put it down to the actual journal. Then I decided that I shoudl just check it out, in case i'd actually blogged about it all before. And to my horror, I realised that I had!!!! So I've actually done a sorta analysis of the highs of 2005 in my dec 09 posting! So well..then there you. 2005 had highs which were just as intense as the lows. I guess the in-between was that i managed to keep my grades up thru it all (oh wait! I think that counts as a high!) So yeah, like most things, there was the good and the bad - its just that the last year, altho the bad didn't exactly outnumber the good, the bad bits were just way more intense so the lows were lower and the highs weren't proportionately higher. It was a year of loss - and yet noone died.

Ok with that, I think I can safely put 2005 to rest and welcome 2006 with open arms. New year's eve was spent in quiet contemplation and reflection and boy! was there a lot to reflect upon! I like it that way nowadays - gone are the days of getting so drunk on new yr's eve that new yr's day is spent in a hungover stupor! Looking back, I think - what a completely dumb way to spend new yrs day! I don't think i ever want to do that again! it was fun while it lasted, but totally pointless. If this is what it means to be growing old, then I say bring it on! I think it's a much more meaningful way to live. kinda like one of the tenets of Zen Buddhism - mindfulness with regards to everything we do/say/think. So true -that way, each mooment counts.

On that extremely profound note, I will go to bed. My back's beginning to ache. I'm ravenous, but don't wanna go rummage in the kitchen for fear of waking eveyrone else up. It is 2.45am after all. Ah - another late nite! when will i learn!?

Gdnite, sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite!

¶ 2:01 am

Monday, January 30, 2006

Happy New Year! Lord! How weird! My first blog entry for the new year and its on January 30th!! One month into 2006. Well..better late than never!

I haven't blogged much in the past couple of months mainly coz i've been back home (HQ is and always will be home even if I haven't stayed there for more than 3 months at a stretch at any point in time!) and it's not that easy to blog when I'm back home. Firstly, the computer (or pomcuter, as a certain somebody calls it) is in my parents' room, so I'm just not comfortable - it's simply not MY space and for the past 6 and a half years, i've been used to having my own personal space! Secondly, there's always something happening and I'm on edge, knowing that it's quite likely that i'll be called away for something. Thirdly, and this is kinda linked to the first reason, I blog best at nite, when I know i can take my time, think things thru, maybe play some music too and blog at my leisure..I can't do that at home coz the parents will be asleep! So there we go...all my reasons.

So. A LOT has happened since I blogged last. As velle said in one of her posts, the problem with blogging is that u kinda feel obligated to fill readers (assuming that there are any of course, hehe) with everything that's happened between posts. But honestly, if I were to do that right now, we'd all be here well into the next millenium! And..it's not like we don't all (again assuming that there are people other than me who read this blog!) have other stuff to do! So i'll be brief.

The wedding was amazing. I'll never tire of watching close friends take that leap of faith and pledge their lives...well not to each other but to go thru this game called Life together. The romantic in me loves it and the sceptic in me applauds its. So either way, its all good! So that was lovely and so so sweet. On the practical side, Bombay was a fun experience. Hanging out with the palmy crowd was amazing. All year we'd been talking about "oh we'll do this in Bombay-oh we'll do that in Bombay-oh i have to take you there in Bombay!" So to finally be in Bombay with them was exciting. The mehndhi was fun, I loved the design I got done on my hands! The dressing up was fun too - I love and absoluely thrive on wearing Indian clothes, so I took the opportunity to wear my salwar kameezes, the one lehnga i have and my sarees, to death. It was fun!!!! Met up with a friend from the not-all-that-distant past which opened up avenues I thought long-closed. Interesting. The Elephanta Caves were amazing. The Taj Mahal Palace was mind-blowing, I almost wished, as I gazed upon the ancient minar-shaped windows, that i had a lovely ghagra with traditional embroidery on it, my dupatta waving gently in the breeze, as I leant out from one of the many windows, smiling down at the love of my life (who of course would not be allowed into the palace coz he was umm... well...not from a palace himself..or was not handsome..no no he definitely had to be good looking to fit in with the palace setting....oh watever...he was not approved of for some reason), white doves nesting in one of the many ornate alcoves above, and of course...no true bollywood movie setting would be quite complete without some appropriate haunting melody (this is an A grade Bollywood movie remember? Not a Cgrade one where Babuji or Choli ke peeche kya hain number would suffice!!!)
Yah so as I was saying, in an EXTREMELY long-winded manner, the Taj Mahal Palace was out of this world!

The holiday back home was restful and relaxing, just wat I needed. I'm SO thankful for it. I spent much of my time reading, book after book, chatting with mummy, going out and doin-our-thing! (shopping or window shopping and then stopping for a well earned coffee and chat at our fav little coffee hangouts! Miss you mummy!) or meeting up with some of mummy's friends(I don't have any left in Madras, mainly since I never grew up in india) who are SO much fun to hangout with. I also spent a considerable amount of time emailing, catching up with old friends on msn and making new ones. Ok..one actually. And I'm not complaining! : )
It's weird...happened in a funny and totally unexpected way, but I feel we get along famously. New friends are always welcome. It's hard to find people you just automatically click with. And when we finally met, all the awkwardness I usually feel, just wasn't there. Surprising! I'm usually fidgety or have to rack my brains for things to talk about but this time, conversation was spontaneous and constantly interesting and shock!shock!horror!horror! the silences were comfortable - and we barely knew each other! How odd! I think you know you're on the same wavelength when you can share the silences. It's so easy to find things to do together provided u have similar interests as friends, or are willing to learn. But how easy is it to find a friend you're equally comfortable just sitting around with, looking at pretty scenery and thinking independant thoughts..? Shiva was one such and I miss him so much for that! Someday...the friendship isn't lost, we've been thru too much together for that to happen..its just put on hold, till we meet again.

So yeah - my recount of the holiday back home has somehow merged with this morning. Hehe....well it is late and I haven't slept in 36 hours..oh more now...I'm still running on nervous energy or watever and while I'm on the topic of now, I saw a completely new side of Auckland! To think I was going on about how i'd never wanna live in auckland coz then i might as well not be in nz at all and in just any other city in the world, when I had never seen the beautiful bits! I went on and on about it to rekha the min i got back here! we resolutely decided that the next time we go up there, we're SO going to Devonport (I always thot it was pronounced davenport and therefore spelt that way too, but I coud've sworn the sign spelled it the other way! Or maybe that's what my sleep-addled brain interpreted!). The beach was lovely...there's something soothing about water (maybe coz i'm a water sign..?). I could sit and water-watch (like people-watch, only better, altho the latter is something i'm keenly interested it too!) for ages. A spectcular sunset at the beach, is the only thing that could beat a day at the beach! So that, thought disappointingly brief, was lovely. The drive was beautiful - i never knew which way to look - and the house peaceful and so much like the kind I would eventually want for myself and my own little family (with dogs of course). The plane ride back to palmy was filled with thought and laughter as I watched the adorable little boy in the next seat charm the flight attendant. He decided to try out the job for a while and kept collecting empty cups from neighbouring passengers and returning them to her! All the while gurgling and smiling chirpily! He was such a darling! Played with him for a bit and then went back to the thoughts which drove me mad. Thankfully we were landing in palmy before I could think myself into a migraine and within minutes Rekha and i were hugging like we hadn't met in years! It's good to be back.

It's good to be back in my room, at my table, thinking my thoughts at my own pace. Knowing that I can be up all nite if I want to (of course...I mite die as a result of such a dumb decision but that's beside the point!) oh and that I have my own freshly-made bed waiting for me when I'm done thinking and writing and assering my independance at 2am! Oh it's 2am! suddenly the bed look oh-so-inviting! But first, I must write an email. One that i've meant to for a long time now and which I suddenly feel enthused to reply to.

Nite nite! Drats! I just realised that I'd started off this post meaning for it to be a reflection of 2005! Oh Well, there's always tomorrow.Oooh I just realised! Gillian gets here tomorrow! that's gonna be fun!!!!! I have also had another sudden realisation - I haven't re-read the post. I usually (if i have the time and can be bothered to) like to re-read for grammatical errors of to word things more succinctly, but i'm way too tired right now and i know that a lot of this post was very loosely worded since i wrote as thoughts popped into my head. So i'll let it be, at the risk of putting off my two and a half readers! ¶ 12:48 am