Sunday, December 13, 2009

Stolen underwear

People always want to be right. Even me, who is always so humble and quiet.
In this case, we want to prove to people that we know our friends better than anyone else, even when you have a rather large doubt about something, you keep on pretending. And when you're done arguing your point, you worry that the other person will go ahead and tell your friend whom you are arguing about all that you said and that all that you said was wrong. It's the worst fear. Well, the worst one I have in this current moment.

That friend that I was arguing had just stolen my underwear from my window. No, it wasn't out in the open for everyone to take. It was safe behind a glass window (that couldn't close all the way because of a wasps nest. I keep telling those darn indian workers to take it off, but nooo, they take their time, I mean, they have lifetimes to do it), prison-like bars, and a screen window (that was locked only from the bottom, so you could still push on the top of the window and reach enough fingers through to steal underwear). So, my just washed wet white underwear was stolen by a darned mexican boy who is my amor platonica (I think that's how it's spelled); the one love I'll never have. He has a girlfriend, I think, back in Mexico, and is probably totally over me.

If he's over me, wouldn't that mean that he liked you once, which means that you were together, which would totally contridict your amor platonica thingy, you say? Ha! Not quite. We were never 'officially' together. My first year here we liked each other, but I blew him off. But that's only becuase I was young! I was unexerienced! I freaked out! I've never had a boyfriend! We weren't even together and he already got super jelous of me mildly flirting with other guys! OK, maybe he did have a slight reason to be jelous. But come on, you don't just stop talking to the girl you like just because of that! Well, there was a bit more to that. He freaked out about me flirting, and I freeaked out about him giving me freedom. So we stopped talking for a loooooong time.

And then I experienced my first bout of depression. It was BAD. I actually had constant thoughts of killing myself. At the ripe age of 13!! I told myself, nobody would truly be affected, except for my mother. I barely knew the rest of my family, I never talk to my dad, my friends here I only knew for one year, and I didn't have any friends back at home. So really, who would care? The only thing really keeping me here on this earth was knowing how much my mom would be devestated if I killed myself. So instead I just got myself really sick by eating a whole thing of sweetened condensed milk, and an hour later eating really spolied pickles (I swear, I didn't know they were out of date). Threw up for the first time in 5 years, and got super sick for about a week afterwards, satisfying my itch to commit suicide. Of course, I kepy on being depressed, until I met my first boyfriend (whom at that time, I didn't know I was going to go out with.) But that's a different story.

Anyways, with this mexican dude (I'm sorry, his name is not going to be disclosed in this blog), I really liked him.... obviously. And we didn't talk until the end of my first year at MPA. He didn't come back for 2 years, during which I horribly missed him. And we kinda sorta kept in touch over MSN over the summer. Just last summer, he was telling me how much he missed India, and how much life for him sucked in Mexico. So I told him to come. He had financial problems, so I hooked him up with a few people that could hepl him come, and Viola! He's here! It took him about 2 months after coming here to say thank you to me for getting him here, but still. At least he realized it.

If only he realized how much I like him and yearn to be with him. But no, that would be bad for me. I have other things to focus on. For example, writing. And drawing. Oh, I have to post some of my drawings!

Anyways, stolen underwear leads to serious yearning, jelousy, and anger at yourself and him.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Sick as a dog {{tik tok- kesha}}

Haha, funny how karma works. I pretend to be sick one day just to get a day off from all the chaos, and the next day I end up in bed with a off and on fever and super-stiff muscles. On top of that, I have cramps, and a really bad cough from my asthma reacting to the cold weather.
Days have been hard. I got into a fight with my roommate and now are on non-speaking terms (which I have to say I do not regret). Exams are coming up, and although I know most of it, we have about 4 papers on each subject. 4 in English, 4 in science, 2 in math, and thank the Guru, only one in Punjabi. 2 papers each day, each two hours long, starting next Wednesday. Lasting until the 23rd. Two days later, a fun-filled Christmas with half the school already gone either home or to their own private winter break, eg: 12th graders going to Thailand and Malaysia.
Lucky.
But it's OK, I get to go next year! Our class is hoping to go to Australia, it seems a lot cooler than Thailand. I mean, Malaysia and Thailand are still in ASIA!! And guess what, India is in ASIA too! And guess what, we live in ASIA for 9 months of the year!! Yay!
So yeah, you get my flow.

I have to get better by tomorrow, so I've been taken all the medicine I have, plus a few more from the nurse. Reason? I am organizing a performance, a mini 'parents day' we call it, for one of the new staff members who is a very big part of the school. You see, she's leaving very very soon, and not going to be here for the day of the real deal, so she politely forced it upon us to make a performance just for her.
Bribing us with the fact that whoever organizes this will have it written in their resume that they organized a big event, I went for it, along with an old friend of mine. Although we hadn't talked in many years, it was nice to reconnect. And I do believe we can be called more than acquaintances who are ex-friends, but more like People Who Can Talk To Each Other About Everything.
Anyways, this performance is tomorrow and I am in charge of it and have to make sure everything goes smoothly. Plus, I'm announcing the acts, so my voice can't sound like a dying frog.
Wish me luck, whoever may be reading my blog out there! I certainly hope I get better.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

A coldhearted species of intillect

Today I finally felt the thoughtless rush of emotion that just carries you away with it, not caring where you'll end up, as long as you ride the emotion. I'd been reading the Anne Rice vampire series, and on every page, she describes life like I want to experience it; with every paragraph, there's a strong emotion, a thoughtless current of just feeling, a wave of experience so pure that the mind does not interfere. I yearned for it with every cell in my body while I read, but whenever I stepped into the real world, I fell back into the normal and dull pattern of thinking, dissecting every little movement, feeling, spoken or even unspoken word. Making everything into logic. That's what we all do, isn't it? Make sense out of everything, categorize every experience, make our personalities out of our classified happenings.

But I finally broke free of that and saw the world for what it really was. We are cruel people, truly. We are all selfish, egotistical, prideful and insecure, no matter how 'good' you think you are. We hear about people dying from AIDS in Africa, beggars starving in the streets of India, homeless people that have no mercy from nature or even their fellow human beings, but yet we do nothing about it. We think, 'I wish I could help them', and then go about doing our business again. Never once have we really stopped to think what it feels like to be in their shoes, in their bodies!

If you were them, you'd be embarrassed, so humiliated to feel so dirty, to feel that nobody wants to touch you because you carry the source of death. Embarrassed to be seen so starved and dirty, begging for money just to survive the wrath of your keeper, the one who gives a roof over your head, the only one who would take and care of you, only because his compassion comes out of greed. Embarrassed to not have a roof over your head, not being able to sustain yourself and your family because no one want to hire a hobo.

Have you really felt that embarrassment? Have you really felt that dirtiness in you that no one wants to touch you or even look at you? That you're so dirty that you don't want anyone to look at you? Have you, truly, felt that embarrassed, even for a split second?

If you have, it changes your entire way of thinking. Today, I had been rearranging my room and cleaning every single corner of it until it was sparkly. We had formation a few hours after we started, and by that time, my roommate had finished cleaning her things and taken a nice shower and eaten. I on the other hand was still cleaning. And it was time for formation, something I couldn't miss unless I was accounted for.

But it was something I desperately wanted to miss in my state of being. Standing in front of 100 people inside a Gudwara, a sacred place, and covered in filth and hungered to the point where you could hear my stomach growl was not exactly the nicest situation. As I tried getting excused, something happened in me. I felt embarrassed. It wasn't that I was embarrassed of how I look, I could care less how I looked. But I felt so dirty that being in such a spiritual place so filthy was embarrassing. I felt like dust was swirling behind me with every step I took, that I reeked with the stench of sweat and old dust that had been collecting in corners. And my hunger was unbearable.

I finally was allowed to go to my room and on the way, tears started flowing. I couldn't stop them, it was just a rush of emotion. I truly felt embarrassed. If I'd have tried making logic out of the situation, I'd have thought it was stupid to feel this way. But as I didn't, I let the emotion take me to wherever it had in store for me. While I was taking a shower, still crying uncontrollably, it came to me that I had just felt a fraction of what the child beggars on the streets of India felt. And this realization just make me shed tears faster.

If this is how much I was affected by a little dust, I couldn't even imagine how the people who live in this filth everyday feel like, people that don't have the money or resources to bathe, to have a clean and healthy body. They have to live every day having to beg for food or money just to get by, and with that comes an immense embarrassment. To have to stoop so low as to beg, that is unbearable for a human with dignity, which any person should have. To beg mean to show that you cannot sustain your family, that you are either lazy or crippled to work. And that must be incredibly embarrassing.

With this rush of feeling came the realization that people who live so richly as to afford a fancy house and car and expensive food and clothes have no mind to share with the homeless. And this is only because they fear to part with their money, they fear to help someone so dirty and filthy who seems to have no dignity that they haven't found a job. Yes, we humans are a cruel race. To help a stranger takes so much effort. We cannot find the space in our hearts to give food, shelter, a bath, and medicine to those who truely need it. It takes so much effort, it seems, to travel to India, or Africa, and just choose one poor child out of the hundreds or dirty faces and give them a bath and clean clothes. To adopt them, take them into your home, feed them and give them shelter until they can legitimatly work. As for education, there's this thing called a public school system.

But no, we humans do not have any space in our hearts for any of our species unless they are blood related, and even then there are many scandals within families. So sad, don't you think?

Yes, a truly heartless species we are.