Why 30 is the new 60

So when people read my post last week, a number of people seemed to have read it but not bothered to comment on it. Now LISTEN UP people, I don't care if you have 4 paragraphs to write, 2 lines, or just want to GOIYYAN ! to my post, you better move your fingers a little and type out a comment. Yes I know my blogs aren't that important to your lives, but it makes me feel a little more self important, and so in order to amuse me, lets start building up a pretend fan base ?

    The reason why I've taken up such an adverse reaction to people commenting is that one such person apparently " I won't comment on the main content...but i love ur blog just for one line..."but then we were young back then". Now since I don't like embarrassing people on a public forum like this, and also because I don't admit to knowing this person at most times, I won't mention his name but suffice to say you old old man, if I'm 25 your 45 and if I feel 45 you must be feeling 70. And next time, post a comment here instead of bloody old facebook. In the words of Red Foreman " DUMBASS".

        I will admit though that his comment did intrigue me into wondering why I did write that line out in the blog. Do I really feel " OLD " ?. Is age somehow catching up on me ? Am I not at the stage where the head of my college once said " Entry is not important , Exit ees vonly important, because these guyses are in their youths ". Am I not still in my youth ? Should I not be feeling young and vibrant and etc etc and whatever nonsense comes on in those ridiculously early morning shows about self help and positive thinking ? Why is it then that all I want to do is sleep / eat / play XBox / Watch T.V. and feel like telling people who want me to come skiiing, " Oh I'm too old for that now ". 

    I've come to realize, that yes, for some reason or another, I do feel a little older than I did a while back. Now I'm sure some smart ass is thinking, well of course you dolt, if your older by 2 years, then you obviously will fell older. Ignoring such drivel and frivolous arguments aside,  what I mean is I really do feel OLD. Not that I'm going through a midlife crisis or anything, but somehow the things that I used to be able to do, and also want do when I was younger ,I really don't seem to have the enthusiasm for too much nowadays. I mean, stuff like staying up the whole night gaming, or staying up the whole night watching movies / sitcoms or just being able to be on what I call high - energy mode the whole day.

It's when I was feeling all down in the dumps because of this that I realized the root cause of this problem. I mean I'm, only 24, still mange to have quite a bit of fun, and still seem to be able to sleep long long hours. Playing video games etc is never a problem either, so why do I feel old ? And here's the answer to this, and its not something that one really expects. Its the kids. Yes, I don't mean my kids, but I mean kids in general. I think kinds nowadays seem to grow up too fast, seem to grow too quickly, and make us feel bad in the process. It's not that I have anything against them, I think kids nowadays are smarter, quicker and sharper than any of us could even hope to be when we were that young.

    Let me explain as to why I really think that's the case. I've been fortunate (some cases unfortunate) to have been around plenty of kids in the little while I've spent here. And it's never ceased to amaze me how intelligent they are, how much bigger a mouth they have (I mean that in a good way) and how much sharper they are. When I say that I mean street smart, they're quick to latch on things, they know when your giving them crap and they're smart enough to come back with a retort. They learn things a lot faster than you, they also seem to able to learn a lot more than you, and make you feel pretty stupid at times. It almost seems to me as if kids grow up faster these days and this progression is so rapid, that often on, when the pace slows down , they feel stagnated. What I mean to say by this is that compared to the previous generation. we were probably a lot quicker and learn;t stuff faster, but that's an age gap of 25 years or so, and you would obviously expect  things to progress more rapidly then. But its been extremely surprising to see how much more rapdily kids are learning things, and these are kids maybe 10-11 years younger than. Trust me there's no way when I was 10 years old that I would be able buy a music album on an ipod touch even if someone paid me to do it, leave alone use my dad's credit card. No chance of me sitting up for 4 hours to do howmwork, actually making a brochure, printing it out and showing it to my parents and getting them to sign off. On a sunday night, I saw football games, and whatever games were on, HW just had to wait till I had time to do it.

  What intrigues me and also makes me extremely proud is that although we would expect kids nowadays to be bratty, irresponsible and disrespectful, I find that they are, for the most part quite the opposite of that. Although there might not be the same approach that we or our parents had to the more serious aspects of life, I find their attitude refreshing and what more important , they get the job done. While we worry about their distractions, the temptations that modern world present and  so on so forth, I find a reassuring calmness about them. I think we always continue to think of elders as being wise and knowledgeable, but sometimes, its not always how you get to a place, so long as you get to it.

  I'm not sure what the message I was trying to send out is, but I guess most of my blogs are random musings!

All I want is everything !

So I log in to my blog after a while, and I notice that I last posted something in March 2009, and I was totally shocked ! I actually enjoyed blogging, believe it or not, and I thought this was something that I would do regularly. Its not like I have a lack of things to write about, I constantly find myself thinking about things and say to myself " This would be something nice to blog about", the only thing being I never actually get around  to sitting and typing one out. Blame it on Netflix, the reversion to my favorite source of entertainment, the T.V. , or be it my pastime of choice, my lovely new XBox 360, but I just seem to have better things to do. 


         Now having the New Year dawn upon us brings us back to the same old routine of New Year resolutions, we all decide on a few, carry them out religiously, wait till February / March and then just give up saying what the heck. Not that I'm blaming the world for me failing to do so, but when you have St Patrick's day to celebrate and you took a resolution to stop drinking, well its just hard isn't it. Why the hell couldn't we have St Patrick's day in October ? That way I could have layed off till then ! Not that I'm done making excuses for pretend resolutions, what I did decide was to make sure I do certain things this year, and amongst Jogging everyday and eating right etc, is this. Blogging. Its going to be my sincere effort to write one up every week, and it would be an injustice if I didn't thank my employers. Without their support and not giving me work to do, I don't think I would have been able to this.


         Having done away with the idiosyncratic nonsense that I usually use in the first two paragraphs to shoo away people who don't " Truly Believe", I shall now start writing about what I actually wanted to right about. Congratulations to those who are continuing to read this after the drivel I've served up in the first 2 paragraphs, i'm honored to have you continue read on in hope of a better ending.


My topic is this, and what I mean by this title is, why do we continuously strive to step on to the next ladder of " life ", why do we want to always be seen as moving forward, and not content where we are ? That next promotion, that next big raise, ooh can I buy my own car now ?, how about that shiny new smart phone by HTC,  man I wish I could cancel my contract now and get that phone etc etc etc, the bloody list just never ends. So how do i stop falling into this whirlpool of never ending social ambitions ?



        About a year ago, when  the never ending job search was already to get on my nerves ( ha ha ha if only I knew the crap that was left !! ), my good friend ( I won't name her for fear of embarrassing her ) and I came up with a list. Not a bucket list, just a list of things that we wanted to have when we got jobs. Mind you I don't know why we assumed we would have the money to buy all this I never knew, but then we were young back then :P. It had the usual stuff, mac book, a new iPod, some speakers, blah blah blah. I never really looked back at it till a week or so ago. Believe it or not, i actually printed mine out, and while clearing some papers, I stumbled upon this sheet. It took me not long to read through, and as I chuckled at some of the items mentioned on it, I realized that we always seem to want want and only want. I don't mean to imply its bad to want stuff and to be comfortable and in no way to do i want to live like a saint in the Himalayas, but I paused to wonder about somethings.


       You see, I'm currently already thinking about my job and if its right for me and so on, and if I actually will have anything to do 4-5 months from now. Not that its wrong to always think about stuff like this, but I immediately began to think of salaries, of visa issues and so on and so forth. I've become so blinded by the " target "  of needing to earn X amount / month from April that it seems to cloud my very functioning in the office, and seems to occupy a constant presence in my head and I end up thinking about it more often than I would like to. 3 months ago, I would have given an arm, 2 legs, and a bit of my stomach to have a job, it seems ironic, and a lot more moronic that I seem to want something " better " now. Why is it that I can't seem to content just doing the same things everyday. settle into a nice old routine and do things that might mean more to me ? Like concentrate on my volunteer activities, read more books etc ? That's when it hit me, life is a vicious circle of being vicious.


          For example, if I did want to concentrate on volunteer activities, I'd have to go to place every weekend etc, and help out, something I would love doing.!!! But how am I supposed to do that without a car ? Its not like the Bus 600 is the most reliable is it ? How else do I get to wherever I need to get to ? It just seems sometimes as though to do something, you need something, and to get that something you need something, which 999/1000 times is green and has some past presidents faces on it. How do we even get about to doing something positive and meaningful if you need a "generator" get you started ? I don't see a way out of this either, if someone does, then enlighten me too will you.


We all struggle to take steps forward, irrespective of what we're doing, and the grass seems greener on the other side as well.  But all strive forward, and even if we can't , we try and show the world that we're at least trying to mover forward, like that's some consolation prize. People who are happy doing what they're doing, however small and insignificant it might be, we immediately think something is wrong with them. We all fall prey to the pressure and " demands " of the world today, continuously asking to move forward and "progress". 


Well I've had enough, i'm tired of striving for better and better and better, tired of having to constantly think about " 6 months from now" and tired of trying to convince the world that people can be different and still be happy. I want to be happy, and happy on my terms. I know people say a contented  person isn't successful, but i'm happy being success"half". ( Pun Intended ). 


Be happy, and don't worry if you are, coz there's nothing better to do.

When in Rome, do as Romans do?

I'm watching the India -New Zealand One Day series pretty regularly these days, and while the action has been thoroughly entertaining, there's something that was not quite right, and it took me a while to figure it out. Stadium hosts and organizers these days ahve obviously realied that crwods need to be entertained and kept interesteed between the numerous stops and starts that form the part of any game. And playing loud loud music between boundaries and at Wickets and so on has become quite common place.  What surpised me is that for a team that is only visiting New Zealand, and although there are quite a few Indians there, the only music playing was HIndi stuff, Rang De Basanti, Delhi-6. Jab We Met to name a few..This seemed really weird to me, and I wondered why they would bother doing so.. Now as part of the channel that shows the games, there are pauses when there is just no commentary and you can hear people in the crowd speaking as they pick up sounds from various cameras. As the speaker system loudly croone Mauja Hi Mauja, a  presumably New Zealander guy said, " What fucking shite is this mate, put on some U2 for gods sake.." this just totally cracked me up for a while, and thats when I realized, the poor old guy does have a point. Who are we to go to another country, play them at their ground, take over their audio systems and play music that people there are not going to understand ?

Now this really got me thinking as to how people go to another country and try and either impose themselves and their country and culture , or adopt the culture of the people of the country on goes to.  For one, with students like me encountering rules like, " you can only work in a job relaed to you field of study that requires a degree that you have completed only for getting a job and a visa ", and to companies putting up on their sites " We only employ U.S. Citizens, Permanent residents, Asylum seekers, and refugees, but we do not sponsor HI-B visas " !!! , one begins to wonder wether we really are welcome in the country anymore ?  I think the problem is that , we all have become so so so in tune to the usual path that everyone follows of doing a Master's/Phd, getting a job, get an HI-B visa, a Green card, and the becoming a Citizen, and vote for Obama yeah..!!! 

Why are we then sooooo hell bent on staying in this country, and doing whatever it takes to stay here ? Do we not owe it to ourselves to say, enough of this, I could have a much easier time back home with Family and work in a good job, and be Happy in life ? Is staying in the U.S. still all that important when we could go back home and maybe lead as good a life ? What I don't like is how we all seem to be " Angry " , " Hurt " and disappointed that we seem to be driven out of this country. General opinion seems to be, " Why do those idiots not want to hire International Student ? Morons, they come to a career fair and tell us this ? ". I was thinking aboiut this the other day  and i figured, why do they really have to be coming and hiring us ? Has it become a part of their duty to hire international students and say, come students, we will welcome you with open arms ?What I realy mean to say is, we have become so wrapped in the image that we have in our minds, and that have also been created for us, that we can't  even beign fathom to think of anything else  as a viable option ?

With that I would like to end, and since most of the people who actually read his blog, i.e. the 5 of you, and have been in a similar situation, I would love to heat what you guys think.

There is an exception to every rule..to which there is an exception..for which there is an exception......

While it's been a while since my last post..and I must say the idea of putting something up just for the sake of it, is totally not worth it.. I've flirted with  several topics..Each one seemed a great idea...But i think this one is the best of the lot..The others are a little more insane...And I will  release them in a while..!  The topic is about how we tend make exceptions about rules and how they apply to certain people....So this lead me to a lot of thinking..and I've actually spent a lot of time thinking about this..and also self- observing how I carry out the above...So I beging by asking when we allow ourselves to create an  exception to a rule..When we do so..Do we not assume that the particular instance that we do make an exception is the last one ?  Is it not a pretty poor reflection on ourselves when we tend to go on making exception to rules again and again ? And I am not tallking about silly rules such as " No Choclates today " or " No skipping the gym today " and so on..maybe more serious ones..such as Alcohol abstinence..? Or quitting smoking for example ? And so I began to wonder at what point of time shold we draw the line and say..Enough is enough...Lets stop everything here!!  

The other point in this train of thought that I had is that when we have a certain opinion on something and the a rule we follow on some aspect of life..do we often assume that it is ok for someone else that is a really good friend of ours...or someone that we care about.. to actually violate that rule and go against it..!@??? Why do we then try and spend some effort justifying the fact that it is ok to do so ? Are we then not hypocritical and  slightly disappointing ? Do we not then think to ourselves..Oh no..MAYBE  our opinion on the matter is wrong and that what the other person thinks is actually right ?  Do we always allow ourselves to change our opinion on things ?? Is that ok beacuse after all our opinions can be changed ?? Or do we stay rigid and true to ourselves. ? 

So this is what I have been thinking of  for a while,,and I would love to hear the opinions that you guys have...Mind you if the opionions are that I am a ravaging lunatic...I dont want to heat it..!!! 

Do empty vessels really make more noise ?

This is something I have been thinking about for a couple of weeks now..and although this blog is meant to help make me not think of such topics in future, I have found that this is something I wonder pretty often on..So here goes, and this in intended for most of my Indian friends..Do we as Indians tend to spend most of our time thinking about stuff that is of absolutely no importance ? For e.g. Remember the day when you did that thing with all the other people, wasn't that fun ? That persons dress is so weird looking ? I wonder if he/she doesn't take a bath in the morning ? Does that person not like me or looking at me thinking " yuck those Indians ".. Is that girl seeing the guy she is sitting next to ?? and we all know how that questions leads on to another one..But for fear of having this blog flagged of as spam as well.I wont spell that out in words..But I hope you guys get what I mean ? Well if you don't have such random thoughts and think that I am just plain crazy ( Sure there are lots of you guys around ), then don't read on..You'll probably get more bored.

Well what I meant to say is this..Is it just us Indians that tend to " Think " a lot more than than usual Americans ?? Do we spend a lot of our energies actually thinking of such stuff ? And is that why American students are much more organized and ultimately more successful than us ? Is there really a solution to this random thinking ? And if we were to stop doing this random thinking...Would wonderful blogs like this ever come up ?

Why my Biological Clock needs a new Battery

Something I realized through the course of Last semester is that fact that I do indeed have a Biological clock...I've always wondered how people realize that they actually do have one.. But when you cant seem to get up before 2 in the afternoon and when you cant sleep before 3 in the Morning...it sort of dawns on you that there's something wrong with your sleep cycle..Thats what led me to realize that yeah I might need to change the battery on my Bio-Clock ? !!! Its really putting off...You struggle to get up for class...Then since lab has started there's this need to sometimes get up at like 9 in the morning...And there is no was that can happen if i sleep at like 3 in the morning right ?? So whats the solution then..? ? Sleep early..Which is he he almost close to impossible..!!! So you might say, come you lazy ass, and wake up everyday by setting up an alarm ..!! But there comes the other problem.., i cna never ever ever get up to an alarm..Man those things are fucking irritating..!! But I have gotten up everytime i set up an alarm to see a Football match..which I've always thought of as pretty weird I wonder if getting up to an alarm has anything to do with actually want to get up in the morning..I mean yea obviously I have a slight bias towards seeing matches.But I really have wondered if there is a connection between the two..And added on top of that is my poor Roommate's continous wonderment at why I never seem to have to get up..So here goes..Is there an actual solution to changing the battery on my Biological Clock ?? Or i do go get a new one at WAL MART or something ?? Or even better, is it on Amazon ? ...