Stuff!

The laundry list of "stuff" that's keeping me busy, not that anybody cares even though I'd like to envision my reader as awaiting updates with bated breadthand sitting on pins! Hey I can dream right?

1. First, got my hair straightened over the weekend.My stylist, correction, my soulmate stylist (every woman should have one, THE ONE and the ONLY ONE that GETS you and more importantly YOUR HAIR! more important to have than a spouse or boyfriend. Trust me!), err well, moving on, she suggested that I do a brazilian keratin treatment, and so without a second thought, I said sure, why not? Gosh, I can be so trusting sometimes. So she literally dabbed every strand of my hair with some concoction containing formaldehyde (!!!) and lo, behold, it is straight now! well almost..But oddly enough, this whole process made me reminisce about my childhood and growing up with curly hair. My mother or grandma would spend the sunday oiling my hair and in the process get to know what I'm upto. We bonded over hair and now here I am, more than 10 years later, not oiling my hair but putting some chemical through it. Made me a tad sad.

2. The search for the perfect bookcase is ruling my life right now. I ordered my bed, my dresser,my couch and my dining table in less than 20 mins but I took 3 days to search for the perfect bookshelf. Tells you a lot about me and my priorities no? I just couldn't find any that was worthy of my books. As a kid, I dreamed about living in an apt whose walls were adorned with books and beautiful book cases so this thing is very very important to me. Complicating matters a whole lot is that a lot of these needed to be assembled and I'm about as handy with a hammer as my finance professor was with stand up comedy. He wasn't. There are things that one should just NOT dabble in. So I finally lost patience and ordered one online. Fingers crossed, it will arrive soon and toes crossed, I'll be able to assemble it properly. Actually, I'll need more body parts crossed to accomplish the last one methinks.

3. So as things turned out, I used my signing bonus to sign up for a gym and trainer. Most women buy a prada or hermes bag but me? No, ma'am, I opt for pain and suffering. Again, more hint there on my wonderful clusterf**k of a personality. Actually, I'm really liking my training sessions. Although, I'm getting killed in every session because of all the workouts and yes I do go into the ladies room afterwards and sit on the toilet seat and cry for being a wuzzy BUT BUT, I feel much much stronger. Atleast I think I am and my trainer is awesome! as in, he gives me free relationship advice when I'm doing 3 sets of push ups. That's exactly the kind of thing you need to distract yourself from physical pain - relationships & dating woes. I lovee my gym too! its beeeautiful, very zen like and they have massive studios for dance and yoga classes and even a pool!! Best of all, no annoying kids running around or having to deal with cloying, closet-bullimic undergrads (aka The wilson gym @ Duke) only hot looking, broad shouldered men doing pushups. Sign me up baby! she said. And oh, they also had eucalyptus scented towels..after all, when it comes to gyms isn't that the top criteria? Hot men and Comforting Towels? losing weight is a lost cause anyway!

4. Another big to-do these days is meeting my friends and hoping they've not forgotten me after being away from Chicago for a month. For a whole month!! I helped a friend move into her apartment at evanston and also managed to have a wonderfully contentious argument with another friend over some really delicious ethiopian dinner. Aah I love my erudite friends, I feel smart just being around them. The biggest reason I miss school is not waking up everyday and going into class and being challenged to think differently. But thanks to hanging with my smart friends and co-workers, that intellectual vaccuum is rapidly ebbing. Oh I must say, that working in a tech company and talking geek feels awesome!! I even wear my tweety bird T-shirt, which says "Full of Geek," proudly to work! that's how much of a nerd I am!

So things have been rather eventful. Summer in Chicago is salubrious.Hope the weather and the Karmic Universe holds up. It would be awful if rain (or snow, chicago remember?) did stop play.

*insert smiley here*

I'm usually never in a overtly happy mood. My happy moods are always tinged with circumspect-ness that has me channeling some past foreboding just to balance things out, but these days, it's plain old joy of a blithe existence. Joie de vivre and so forth.

First, there is new music in my life. Really nice, indie type music that my youngest cousin suggested to me via a sweetly composed text, listing all her favourite obscure bands in alphabetical order! I hadn't heard of any of the bands, and am now spending my time getting to know to them. So that's how I find myself addicted to Born Ruffians these days. Love em! Music also helped me bond with my lil cousin sis, although calling her "lil" would be a misnomer because she turned legit (21) a couple of weeks back, which officially makes me her older, yoda-channeling cousin. Apart from obscure music, she also likes myth busters and integration and I was like "ME TOO!"

Second, my new found love is Chicago. Each passing day has me falling more in love with this city. It's brilliant in the summer with soo much to do and explore. I feel like a newborn, taking in new sights and neighbourhoods. This city has great food, artsy stores and superb architecture that has me (embarrassingly) gawking at buildings. and then there is the lake!! (which I can partially see from my apartment.) I've also discovered the running track along the lake and when the weather is great, my run is nothing short of exquisite. It's also a "walker" friendly city. I can walk, for hours on end and not get bored! Chicago in summer also has a plethora of street fairs and music concerts. An amazing city and I feel awesome to live in it. My only hope is that it doesn't go apeshit cold on me in the winter. *Fingers crossed*

Third, fixing my apartment is keeping me occupied. I'm doing endless research on the kind of "look" I want for each room and the whole process is TONS of fun. I was soo meant to play "house-house." I'm going furniture shopping in the coming week and hopefully can get my hands on the furniture I've been eyeing. So far, I'm veering towards a kitchy art-decor theme but design projects have their own weird evolution, especially MY design projects, so I can't wait to see how my apartment turns out. But I hope it has a warm, hang-outey feel to it..you know, where I can lounge and have friends come over and play scrabble over chai...That's definitely the dream, so far none of my friends like scrabble although they do like chai.

Fourth, speaking of friends, I'm also meeting many new people and getting to know them. Having wonderful conversations that leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy. Right now, for me there is nothing more exciting than adding new chicago contacts to my phone. Each new contact makes me feel like I'm moving ahead, learning new things and opening the door to new experiences..

so yeah, overall, Happy.

Ok, Now What?

So here I am, in an empty apartment in a chicago highrise. I just got here today with 3 bags. The rest of my stuff is on its way here. I realize I have moved every year for the past 6 years and so I've become adept at packing even though I'm still not immune to the whole process yet. I wish I was though. Its pretty hard, uprooting your life every 12 months and starting anew. So, it is with packing fatigue that I write this. If not for it, I would be very excited about the future. About the thought of working in my DREAM job, something I'm sooo excited about, that I can't wait to start already! I would also be very excited about the city I'm living in and bought my new neighbourhood. I say I would, more so because of my sadness at the ending of school.

The month of may was awesome to say the least. Celebrating the culmination of a hard-earned, transformational journey. I met amazing people from all over the world and saying goodbye was tough but I know I have a place to stay in in virtually 70 countries in the world. That in itself was one of the best gifts of this process. My parents and brother were also here to see me graduate. I'm glad they got to see my school and meet my friends and be part of the graduation ceremony. We also went all over the country after that. NY, Vegas, Grand Canyon and SF. They got to see this great country and the things that make it incredible. It felt weird to say goodbye to them at SF and come back to Durham to pack though. Wish we had more time together.

On the bright side though, I'm incredibly grateful for such an amazing experience and for the opportunity to, atleast in this moment, look in to the future with excitement and wonder about the things to come :)

Still Rolling

I know what you're thinking...hoping..rather, that this time "Rolling" refers to marijuana and rolling joints and not about that house hunting shit that I was talking about..but..sorry..no, we will go back and dissect that topic even more because guess what? there have been fresh developments. Yes, I have shifted houses AGAIN and now I'm a World Champion House Shifter and boy, can I pack, I can soo pack that I think I should make it a full time occupation.

Turns out that the only thing worse than a single woman house hunting in pune is TWO women house hunting together in pune. This time it’s not the society that is to blame, although it continues to be predictable and be horrendously evil, this time its US - us women. I teamed up with a good friend to go house hunting inspite of already having moved recently because she - the good friend, wanted to move out from her PG and I was feeling all chuffed that I was finally goin to have a cool roomate. I always wanted to have that fantasy roomate. You know where the roomate is this boho-chic, extroverted type, where she'd take the nerd me to all the cool parties- yes THAT roomate. Although this chick wasn't thaat boho and stuff, I was still excited about getting a roomate.

So anyway, we house hunted together and we found a really good deal where the house was all furnished, and for the rent that was being asked, it was as good as MTV CRIBS. So we both were really excited and right when we were about to sign the lease at the broker's, she backed out because, hear this, her "Parents did not want her to move out". This was really it and long story short, I exploded, she exploded, and obviously the friendship exploded and in this combustible mess, I had an epiphany. Actually two. First, most women, if competing for the same prize, HATE each other and second, most women, are actually very weak decision makers.

I’ll explain epiphany two before I lose my last remaining girl friend. I’m not sure if it’s the result of upbringing or self-confidence, but most women I know run all their decisions by their parents. I’ve never seen guys do such a thing but this aspect troubles me. If women can’t decide for themselves how they should live, how they should spend their money, where they should study, what company to work for, no wonder their parents are also decide who their husbands should be. I believe parents are the root cause for this. They bring their girls up on such a tight leash that the girls themselves are unable to take a firm decision without the approval of their parents, in turn feeding the insecurity of the parents with regards to their kids. I think a strong able parent would be one who lets his girl go, one who gives her enough independence to confidently make her own decisions.

Epiphany one is no brainer really. All women HATE each other period. If they are the best of friends today, come tomorrow and they both are competing for the same thing, all bets are off. But then all women tend to take things personally and really can’t look at a situation objectively. Not like men, who can cuss the hell out of each other and can still have a friendly banter on Tendulkar’s batting a moment later. Women hold deadly grudges. I know that because I had a major blow up with almost every woman I know here and it’s true! we all can be quite the bitches.

And suddenly I’m having epiphany three. No wonder I studied Mechanical engineering, where I was pretty much the only girl in the class, No wonder I like working with men more than I do with women, no wonder my closest friends are men, its not other women, its Men! I expect these women to act like men, be independent and fierce like men and it is unfair, given how women are brought up in this country, but I just wish my tribe would be more confident and sure of itself and that sometimes, it's OK to act like men

Where we are that proverbial rolling stone that gathers no moss

...except for the fact that I don't want to be that proverbial rolling stone. I like my roots just fine, but this dratted world just won't let me have any and instead I find myself writing this in a new house and not in that not-so-perfect apartment that I lived in. Which obviously means that this post will be all about spewing venom on house hunting and what a bitch that can be. Lets begin shall we?

The danger to the world isn't terror groups or virulent diseases, it seems, the danger to society is infact the single woman. The reason I was getting evicted in the first place was that I was living alone. My insidious landlord had the nerve to tell me that even though I could pay the increased rent, I had to evict as she wanted a "Family". That word has been my bane throughout the process. Landlords, are perfectly normally people, till I tell them that "its just me". Then their eyes bulge out, they swallow a dozen times and ask me how I'm going to the pay the rent "all by myself". At this point I've heard this refrain so many times that I want to blurt out "By pimping myself mother fucker" but no we can't, we are desperate. Thats when it seems cruel. Cruel how single independant woman are treated.

We work as hard as anybody else but its so unfair sometimes. If you're a woman and your single, the society we live in feels so bloody threatened by it. they want to marry you off, they want to pair you with somebody and if they can't, they want you to just disappear. Nobody asks a guy when he plans to get married even if hes on the wrong side of 35 but for a woman and if shes 25, she over the hill. Its business of the society, it seems to police the single woman - to monitor what shes doing, who she goes out with, who are friends her and oh on the business of friends all the landlords made it perfectly clear that boys were not allowed. Nada. no way. I want to know if bachelors face the same ordeal? Do people tell them that they can't have girl friends over? or is it assumed that boys have raging hormones anyway and they can't control them, its the women who are susceptible and ergo by this insane logic they should be policed.

WTF!!