Happy Onam!

It's been a while!

Since the MCAT (Malevolent Cruel Annoying Test), I've gone into total seclusion and become a hermit. It's gotten to the point where my parents are trying (to no avail) to get me out of the house.

Mum: It's such a nice day out, why don't you take a walk?
Me: *Chewbacca yell*
Mum: *stare*
Me: *more Chewbacca yelling*
Mum: You were DEFINITELY switched at the hospital.
Me: *grunt* *snort*
Mum: This is all your father's fault for letting you watch those movies.
Me: Star Wars is a CLASSIC!
Mum: pfft.

... and so on and so forth. :D

The epic battle between Haloscan and Blogger-Commenting was won, with very little actual blood shed, by Blogger. My Haloscan account has been consigned to the larger wastes of cyberspace, so people will have to make do with the Blogger comments.

And now for the meat and potatoes of today's post - Happy Onam!!! Onam is the main cultural festival of Kerala, the state in India where I'm from. The story goes that once upon a time, there was a noble King who was banished (I forget the story of how exactly, but banished he was) and was granted the boon that every year he could come back and visit his subjects and see how they were doing. So every year, Malayalees (that means people from Kerala, or people who speak Malayalam) dress up and cook their best food so that the King sees that they are doing well.

The main Onam meal is called the Onam Sadya, and it is a feast! There are around 10 curries, and you're supposed to finish as much food as you can, because to waste food on Onam is inauspicious. It's an entirely vegetarian affair, and though I'm not all that fond of Malayalee vegetarian food, my Mum's an awesome enough cook for it not to matter. So yeah, right now I'm absolutely full, moving from where I currently sit is not a viable option, so I thought I may as well share the occasion with everyone else. We didn't get dressed up this year though; there is a special outfit for women for Onam - it's a two piece Sari called a Set Munde, but I haven't worn one in years.

On a side note, Kerala is being marketed to tourists as "God's Own Country"! Don't get me wrong, it's a BEAUTIFUL place, lush and green and wunderbar and all that, but it's just a bit odd to think that I come from God's Own Country by way of Bombay. :D

I saw Hero, this chinese movie directed by Zhang Yimou, starring Jet Li and Zhang Ziyi; totally cool, but I think I prefer the physicality of films like Kill Bill (ie - you stab people, they actually bleed) to the ethereal-ness of this one. This is more of an intellectual film than an action one, IMO, and I'm about as intellectual as Homer Simpson, so all the Rashomon-esque flashbacks are wasted on me.

And now, I'm off!

Ciao!

Of Cute Guys and Commenting.

To Haloscan or Not To Haloscan, that is indeed the question. What is Haloscan, you ask? Well, if you visit Hem's Blog (the link for Ennui on the right) and comment on any of her posts, you'll notice that the comments show up in a nifty pop-up window that allows the use of smileys. So why don't you get a Haloscan account, you ask? Well, if I do shift to a Haloscan account, I lose all my existing comments, and while there aren't that many of them (hint, hint!), I'd still be sorry to lose 'em.

So the MCAT was this Saturday; after it was done, I stumbled towards Queen's Park station, mulling over the absurdity of some of the questions they seemed to think could gauge a person's aptitude to practice Medicine. With MCAT-induced toxicity swirling through my veins, I got on the subway and was confronted with that most annoying of modern-day specimens - the insouciant teenager. This particular female had decided that in light of the rush hour madness (it was just past five at the time) the best course of action would be for her to put her feet up and occupy THREE seats. Too tired to let myself get annoyed, I walked away to the other side of the compartment, and before I knew it, I was at St George.

At St George, I had to change trains, but with my wunderbar luck, I missed the train, and so had to wait another ten minutes on the platform, where I was faced with a wide cross-section of the diversity that makes the TTC suuuch a pleasure to ride. There was Herr NosePicker, who was engrossed in conducting an excavation into the depths of his nasal cavity; Monsieur CrazyMan, who put his hands over his ears everytime a train passed by on the other line (it's loud, but nowhere near that loud!); and finally Mrs WailingBaby, who obviously thought the addition of her darling infant's caterwauling to the cacophony that is a TTC platform at around half past five made the whole thing bearable. Why didn't I move? Cause that's where I usually wait for easy access to escalators at my destination. Am I normally this cranky? No, this was stress-induced (I hope!).

I was so close, Mesdames et Messieurs, to becoming That-Crazy-Lady-On-The-Subway-Who-Screams-At-Random-People, but THEN - salvation arrived, and he wore a suit. An expensively tailored suit of the sort you usually see only in advertisements for Italian Suit Commercials, and a haircut that cost more that some people make in a week, and a face that started En Vogue's "Whatta Man" playing in my head. You know, the song that goes, "whatta man, whatta man, what a mighty good man... yes he is!" As music doth soothe the savage beast, the sight of the Cute Guy did soothe the Cranky Sharon. And so Sharon did alight on the Subway that would take her towards her home, without verbally abusing her fellow TTC'ers, as much as they did deserve it. And she saw the Cute Guy nevermore.

Tragic, innit? :grin:

Think that's about it for today; I shall leave y'all with a Videogame quiz this time. Whoa - Anime, Harry Potter, and Video Games? Do I run the gamut of geekiness or what? :D

theOtaku.com: What Metal Gear Solid Character Are You?

The Sorting Hat says...

be sorted @ nimbo.net

With my abysmal luck though, in the real thing, I'd probably be a Hufflepuff. *shudder*

Not really in the mood to sit down and write... maybe later?

Azumanga and I

theOtaku.com: What Azumanga Daioh Character Are You

... well, they're right about the sleeping part - and the hyper part - but hopefully not the grades part.

Go See!

Post MCAT Depression

The MCAT is over. enough said.

Thought I'd update the blog atleast, though my mind's too blank to really construct and process prose at the moment.

Anyway, shoutout to Arvind , my friend from Oz - cricket maniac, arsenal supporter, "suave fella" (in his own words) and all around good guy. Dude's Too Cool for a blog, so for now I shall have to relay his words of wisdom to an unenlightened world, starting with:

" You drink Iced Tea, I'll drink Bourbon!"

Words to live by, wot?

:P

-bye!

Tired now.

We've been painting the kitchen (a very light shade of blue) and that took up my entire weekend; well, that and the mock MCAT on Saturday. AAMC Practice Test 6R had a ridiculously difficult orgo section - cue me making insane guesses that happily paid off. Now my luck just has to hold for another week, and then I'll be done!

With painting, it's not the actual painting that's time-consuming or exhausting, it's the prep work - removing the furniture, taping down the edges, and all that rot. I don't think we plan on doing any more interior decorating work till next summer now - that should give us enough time to recuperate! :D

Ralph Fiennes is Voldemort! You know, the casting of the Harry Potter movies is this giant Hostage Situation - all these respected British Actors (note the capitalization) taking trivial parts because their children/grandchildren/miscellaneous minor relatives want them to do it. "Sweetheart, Mommy/Daddy is a respected Thespian, to play the role of So-and-so would be beneath my dignity! No, sweetheart, stop yelling! Fine, I'll do it already!" I mean, Dame Maggie Smith had approximately 10 lines in Prisoner of Azkaban, Rickman was criminally underused, and Gambon was hardly there. IMO, Alfonso Cuaron sacrificed too much plot for the sake of brevity. Granted, the first two movies were a bit draggy, but that doesn't mean you should do away with necessary exposition!!!

To clarify, though, I am a Potter fan - i read Book 5 in this mad rush the day of a summer school final exam. Me: "Must go study... cannot put book down... dilemma! dilemma! may as well read Potter in the meantime!" Mind you, Book 5 could have done with some serious trimming; JK Rowling should definitely find an editor capable of saying, "This has to go, that can stay, this has to be redone." But then, not many people can stand up to multimillionaire authoresses, i suppose.

And now to make some introductions: Hemlyn, aka Ennui, (see the link on the right?) has a blog that is much more interesting, as well as better established than mine, so go read it! That's an order! :D Hem and I have know each other for.. *counts on fingers*... over seven years now! That long??? I feel so old now. The last member of our fuliguline trinity has not put up a blog yet (*nudge* *hint*, Sangee!) so for now, you'll have to stick to the two of us.

And now, I will blatantly copy Hem's idea of putting song lyrics in her blog, and get away with it by calling it an homage! Don't worry, it's a one-time thing.

Here is "Spinning" by Zero 7 (yes, them again!) - enjoy!

Was it loneliness that brought you here
Broken and weak
Was it tiredness that made you sleep
Have you lost your will to speak
Was the earth spinning round
Were you falling through the ground
As the world came tumbling down
You prayed to God what have we done

Free me from these chains
I need to change my way
Heal these broken wings
I need to fly far away, far away, far away

Was it emptiness that made you weep
No more secrets to keep
Was it bitterness that gave you time
To forgive your sins
Was the earth spinning round
Were you falling through the ground
As the world came tumbling down
You prayed to God what have we done

Free me from these chains
I need to change my way
Heal these broken wings
I need to fly far away

Free me from these thoughts
long forgotten down below
Take these angel's words
give them life to carry on, carry on, carry on
Free me from these chains...

I have no idea what it means; symbolism/metaphor/allegory is totally wasted on me, but the song is absolutely lovely. Downbeat is so my new favourite genre! Zero 7, Tosca, Air - watch me name-drop with ease! :eyeroll:

My musical tastes are rather bipolar though -I alternate Franz Ferdinand (garage-ey rock) with Zero 7 (downbeat lounge) with Do As Infinity (J-pop, don't ask!). Atleast it's a broad spectrum, right?

Later.

Not Shigure? No way!

You're Ayame!


Which Fruits Basket Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Fruits Basket is one of my favourite anime, so I had to take this quiz. I'm surprised I'm not Shigure though, cause people have actually commented on the resemblance - i procrastinate, chatter inanely, laugh randomly, and generally loaf around the house doing nothing. Me and my brother do have an Ayame-Yuki dynamic though; I'm insane, he's grounded, and all that.

Hm... i foresee a Quizilla mania in my near future. Go take the quiz in the meantime!

It was bound to happen - the TTC rant!

Lookee! The blog has links now! That only took me an hour to get formatted correctly! As you can imagine, I know nothing about http, so this was entirely trial-and-error. I think the whole page looks a bit neater and more accessible now.

And now for the meat of today's blog - THE TTC RANT! For those of you unfamiliar with the paragon of Urban Sprawl that is Toronto, TTC stands for Toronto Transit Corporation. This is the body responsible for running/maintaining the vast network of streetcars, subway cars and buses that moves commuters across the city. As any of those benighted commuters will tell you, however, the system hardly runs smoothly; late buses, surly drivers, not to mention your fellow passengers all make sure your ride is not pleasant.

• It's bad enough the buses on my street run every twenty minutes - and even worse that the buses are often late. The situation is bearable in the summer, but in wintertime? Waiting for upwards of 20 minutes in subzero weather at Station X for my bus to come along is practically a regular feature of my winter commute! And people wonder why my attendance record is so spotty.



• So you've got to take two buses to get to your destination, and the second one only runs every twenty minutes. As you get off the first bus, you notice that the second bus you need to take is waiting at the bus-stop on the other side of the street. You wave madly to the driver, hoping against hope that he'll see you and hold the bus, cause God knows you've been late for school too many times this month. The driver sees you. You're quite a sight - after all, the only people who generally wave the way you're waving right now are shipwreck survivors who've been wrecked on an uninhabited island for months and who've sighted a ship on the far horizon. The driver sees you, gesticulating mess that you are. The two of you make eye contact. You assume this means he understands the situation, and empathizes. You assume wrong. As you dash madly across the street, dodging errant cyclists and left-turning traffic, the driver calmly, dispassionately drives away, leaving you red-faced with both embarrassment and anger.



• My Fellow Commuters: You may be under the impression that it is companiable of you to keep people company on the subway. It may be your opinion that sitting immediately next to someone, when there are plenty of other spaces on the bus, makes that someone feel special. Well, you thought wrong! I can go without the immeasurable joy of elbows digging into my side, and I prefer my personal space uninvaded, thanks a lot. Next time you get into a TTC vehicle, and you see a tall, frazzled looking girl with an empty seat next to her - look around, and see if you can't find someplace emptier to sit. Your life, and karma, will be the better for it, i swear.

Wow, i really needed to get that out of my system, huh?

On to other, less stressful topics. Watched Gayab over the weekend, and have reached the conclusion that Tushar Kapoor lacks any of the following - good looks, acting ability, charisma. All the muscles in the world (and the guy appears to be pretty built!) can't help him now.

Masala! Mehndi! Masti! is going on at the Harbourfront Centre from August 4th to the 8th. Last year, I only went on the last day and missed some of the good stuff, so this year, I'm planning on going twice! If anyone wants to go this Friday, let me know, and we'll meet up. C'mon, you'll get delicious Indian food!

and now I'm off. ranting really takes it out of you! Good thing we have Chapman's Peach Frozen Yoghurt sitting in the fridge, na?

What Color is Your Brain?
brought to you by Quizilla

In Praise of Solitude

Now Playing: "Let Go" by Frou Frou.

I've just discovered the music of Zero 7, and I love it. It's slow, jazzy, and wonderfully mellow; a lower-key version of some of Yoko Kanno's music from Cowboy Bebop. Music to chill too, y'know? Sublime, melt-into-the-mood music.

I'd planned to go see the Caribana parade yesterday, but the weather in the morning was forboding enough that I didn't feel like standing there in the rain, and so I didn't go, in the end. Went shopping at Scarborough Town Centre instead! Much endorphins (and clothes) for me!

Started reading the Kenshin manga the other day, and i really think Kenshin as Battousai looks a lot more menacing in the manga. They leave his eyes unshaded, which gives him this flat, intimidating, you're-already-dead-and-i'm-not-going-to-blink-while-i-kill-you look. I never really got into the anime - too much rurouni, too little hitokiri. (On an unrelated topic - why, oh why, is Kenshin voiced by a girl?) The manga looks to be the same way, but I'm gonna stick with it for a bit, see if I like it better. When I left off yesterday, Sano had just joined the group, which is where I stopped watching the anime. To hear some of you talk, Kenshin is the greatest thing since grilled cheese sandwiches, but I'm not convinced yet. :D

In praise of solitude - I don't realize why everyone my age is so insistent on finding someone. IMO, it's soothing just to be alone, but then, maybe I'm an aberration. I mean, the very concept of marriage is scary to me. Can you imagine spending the rest of your life with one single person? Waking up to the same face, day after day after neverending day? *brrr* There's no point in my complaining about not finding a guy, cause even if I did, I probably couldn't commit. Which is not to say I'd mind having a guy pamper me, mind you. Mocha lattes are always welcome! :D

and now i'm off. noticed the frequent updates? also notice the lack of comments. no comments get me depressed; blogging sans comments is like talking to a wall. I talk, you talk, that's what's termed a conversation in most circles, yeah?

ciao!