Friends and goodbyes...

Some people prefer to be left alone and others need to be surrounded by people. I qualify for the later. I hate to be alone. It’s like in the scary movies where the good guys arrive at an intersection and some smart ass decides everyone needs to go in different directions. “You guys go in that that and that direction, I’ll go in this direction” and all of us watching the movie go “WHY??? STAY TOGETHER YOU IDIOTS!!!”…and then one by one everyone gets their head blown up…except for the girl…who eventually makes it alive.

That’s exactly how I feel when the last of my friends bid goodbye. I keep screaming in my head “WHY??? WHY??? Stay on for some more time…like maybe …ahem…lets say…eternity?” It makes me very sad when I have to part ways with near and dear ones. That also explains why I prefer not to come along to bid someone farewell. I try to put up a brave front but somehow goodbyes always make me…well…pansy. Plus I get these watery eyes and it’s not exactly ego boosting.

I need to have my huge circle of friends and family around…not exactly in the mama’s boy league but something to the order of being able to share stuff with everyone and spend time with everyone.

I don’t understand how people are so comfortable being ‘loners’. It sounds pretty cool…like some rock star or something…all alone…with their ‘the world’s a bitch’ attitude …but practically thinking I don’t exactly feel it’s that awe-inspiring…me thinks it sucks to be a loner. But then that’s just my point of view.

Even now…with all of my friends and cousins scattered all over the globe…I make it a point to stay in touch with most of them…its like an addiction…can’t get enough of it. Hmmm…which also explains my daytime minutes being compromised.

I know a few people who tell me they’re loners and prefer to be that way for the rest of their lives. I just don’t get it. Or for that matter couples who claim they have each other and that’s all that matters. Excuse me??? That’s the crappiest load of horseshit I’ve come across. How could you not want to be in the company of your dear friends and family? I somehow can’t relate to it…but like I said…it’s just me.

Don’t get me wrong…I’m not trying to advocate the need to find your particular soul mate and blah blah lovy dovy blah blah….all that would be nice…maybe….but that’s not my point. My point being, why would you prefer to be alone when you have the choice to spend time with everyone? And if you have the choice to spend time with dear ones why would you not want to work in that direction…to strengthen relationships. Forget dear ones…for that matter why would you not want to make an effort to befriend everyone you come across…why be so picky?

I understand that u might want to be choosy about your level of interaction i.e. you might choose to discuss issues related to the workplace with your office buddies and share emotional stuff with your elder sis or have a blast getting involved with useless conversation with your childhood friends ….the point being you can choose to share the stuff you want to share. What I don’t understand is why would you choose to avoid the possibility of making new friends? But then that’s just me…I love to meet new people and extend my circle of friends.

As the old saying goes...every good friend was once a stranger

Moving out...

I have an internship for summer. Pretty excited about it. The drawback being I’m forced to relocate. I hate to relocate. Coz it involves me having to leave the life I’m accustomed to. You’ve adapted to a certain way of living and then to just get up and leave makes me real mad. Plus the packing…

The maximum amount of packing that I’ve ever done…well, ok so my mom and a few friends did it for me…anyway what matters is that it was ‘MY’ packing…was for my moving to America for my MS which btw was the most tedious one I’ve ever undertaken…or more appropriately ‘observed’. This was followed by my move to Gainesville from Salt Lake City…that again required me to cram all my stuff into the regular extra-large suitcases. And now this. I hate it.

I have friends who travel extremely light. I wish I could pull off something like that. Travel with the bare minimum stuff…ahem…travel ‘with the bare minimum’ not to be confused with ‘in the bare minimum’. For example, for the recent Miami weekend trip, Deepti managed to fit everything into a regular college type backpack…and yours truly traveled as if he were making a round trip to the North Pole in a U-Haul or something. I got to give it to all you people who have the knack to travel light. I wish I could do it too.

My friends travel light… My Cousins travel light…My dad n mom travel light too…HELL even Astro (my Coker spaniel friend) travels light…Which brings me to the obvious conclusion…these people wear teeny weeny clothes.

So yeah…the POA for tomorrow involves doing absurdly huge amounts of laundry. I look forward to it…as Nerli would put it…I look forward to it just like I look forward to watching my cell phone getting charged. Doing laundry is the crappiest activity one could ever embark upon.

We have a common Laundromat in the society. My brawl with the system begins with trying to recall the Laundromat entry code. This usually is solved by a quick call to my room mate’s cell. Then trying to find an available washer takes up the rest of my insignificant cause in life. Everyone in this world is here for a reason….my calling is to find vacant washers in working condition. So as usual I can’t find a free washer which incidentally isn’t free coz everyone in the world figured ‘now’ would be the best time to do their laundry.

Assuming I complete this stage and I find a vacant washer…ahem…Houston we still have a problem…someone forgot to collect all their belongings and left their underwear behind as a token of their appreciation. How many times do I have to tell everyone that the Laundromat isn’t the classiest venue to host the World Cinderella Championships? PEOPLE PLEASE TAKE ALL YOUR STUFF WITH YOU!!!!!

Next stage …introducing the detergent…which as usual got left behind in the house…Sweet. A quick trip to my apartment solves that problem….only to realize that this time I forgot the quarters on the kitchen counter. WHY??? WHY??? Another quick trip to the apartment takes care of it.

I’m done with the washer…next stage the dryer…which basically is a deja vu experience with a wild flaming tiger theme ...only this time Cindrella is a guy. GROSS!!!!

Luckily everything hereon proceeds smoothly if you don’t consider the small disruption caused by the fact that I inserted the quarters in the wrong slot. (The washers are placed one above the other in rows of two. The slots to insert the quarter are adjacent to each other and with my flair for getting it right in the first shot; I’m forced to shift the entire payload to the lower dryer which as luck would have it, has been paid for.) I guess what they say about men and instructions holds deadly true for me… “When nothing else works, read instructions.”

Oh btw…it’s been more than a year since I’ve been blogging…how cool is that? … ahem… not too cool actually, coz I average one post a month….which can’t exactly be classified as active blogging. But I guess that’ll do for me for now :)

Places to visit...

Exams are over…grades aren’t out yet….but what the hell…I’m free and that’s what counts…plus that’s exactly what I’d like to tell myself every time I think about those horrid finals and the horrid grades that might ensue.

I have so much free time this weekend. Don’t know what to do. I tried the time tested formula of watching a dozen movies over the weekend but now I’m solid bored and can’t think of anything else to do. If nothing else works I’m going to try my hand at knitting.

Spoke to Amol a few minutes ago. He’s in Paris tonight. We got talking about the classy places we would want to frequent…the top of his list right now was visiting Poland. Why Poland? Coz he wants to visit one of those Nazi concentration camps which became a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust. But why would that be a priority tourist destination for Amol you ask? ….hehehe…the way he sees it is, once he gets married he can very easily visit the Eiffel Tower or the Sistine Chapel or some other pretty tourist place…but how in the world would you convince your spouse to take a vacation with your kids to go see some gas chambers or some crematoria which incidentally happen to be the site for the greatest mass murder in the history of humanity. Hmmm…Point…I would have to agree.

I’m not much into traveling abroad and seeing new places. I’m one of those boring guys who just loves the place where he resides and doesn’t care much about tourist destinations. Agreed I’m in Florida today but that’s only coz I study here…its not like I chose to be here coz its such a wonderful warm sunny state…HELL NO!!!

When people ask me what all places I’d like to visit, I feel bad to disappoint them…I don’t want to visit any place…but if u want me to accompany you somewhere, fine…I’ll tag along. Not a problem. So if I have to tag along with Amol to the city of Oswiecim, Poland it doesn’t matter…nor would it make any difference to me were I to meet up with some friend in Montreux, Switzerland. What I would really love though would be to meet everyone in the city of Poona….hehehe… there’s my favorite tourist destination for you.