Ten things that make me happy

1. Long lazy days at home with no work whatsoever.

2. Cruising along the coastal line or through the central hills.

3. Finding bargains.

4. Chilled Champagne

5. Biting into a piece of really really good cake that melts in your mouth.

6. Reading an un-put-downable book and having the time to not put it down and keep on reading.

7. Waking up to a rainy morning and knowing that you can curl back under the sheets because it's a holiday.

8. Hot water showers on cold chilly days

9. Cuddling

10. A haircut that turns out fabulous (had only one of these so far in life!)

I just felt the need to remember some of them. :)

snippets

i've been busy. too busy for my own good, juggling too many things. working with bureaucrats is equivalent to someone slipping poison in to your tea cup every morning and it begins to slowly take its toll on you. but i am going to refrain from going on about it any more than that.

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the presidential elections are coming up but quite frankly i don't know why it had to come this early when MR has two more years to go anyway. the general entering the arena took me by surprise but i think if nothing else, it makes for a more interesting few months leading to the elections. that being said, it's also resulted in 'the war' becoming the centrality of discussion once again, when i was hoping that atleast post-war our electoral candidates could try to seduce us with something besides the war and terrorism- the economy, foreign relations, oversized cabinets, etc. as for where i stand when it comes to the 'vote' i haven't yet made up my mind. i even deliberated on something that i've adviced a lot of people against, which is to spoil the vote. but let's see... there's still almost a month left.

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ideally i would love to take a nice long week off, but it seems like i might only get a few days off at the most. this is when i miss my student days, when you get long vacations and when you have the freedom to wake up in the morning and just decide to cut class. in the big bad ass job world you can't do that anymore. you have to apply for leave. or call up your boss and inform him/her you can't come to work. some freedoms seem to diminish as we get older.

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even though work's stressing me out, the christmas cheer is catching up with me. on sunday sis and i unearthed some christmas songs we had, and end ended up dancing around silly to them. got one put into my phone but i don't know if that was such a good idea because lately i've begun to dread my phone ringing, worried its z boss calling about some awful thing or the other. so there's almost a pinteresque paranoia when my mobile rings - and as a result "jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock" is begining to sound rather ominous!

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watched julie/julia today. made me realize how much i myself love cooking. since i started working i haven't really sighted the kitchen except to serve my food, or raid the fridge, or make some tea. i used to make dinner quite regularly those days but now i'm too tired to bother. even on weekends. maybe i will this weekend.

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i've been buying a lot of books lately. a few weeks back i went to a small book fair at the shalika hall and found some fantastic second hand deals. there's something extremely satisfying about adding new books to my book shelf.

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can't wait for the Christmas break! but first to get through another one and half agonizing weeks...

that letter to 16 yr old me

Hey you!

Guess what? You pass your O’Levels. But tell Ms.D not to expect a D for social studies. You will always suck at geography, especially map marking and stuff. I doubt you'll ever be good at maps or directions or places. Even now, you get lost. In Colombo! Once you learn to drive (yes, you actually do!), you will always take that one route no matter where you need to go, because it is the one you know best. Everyone will curse you for it. Especially your sister.

Next year you’ll get into the school committee and it will be one of the best things that will happen to you because you’ll get close to two people who will become your best friends for life. The gang you’re with right now, you’ll drift away from. Sorry. But things like that just happen.

You might want to try putting yourself out there a bit more. I know it’s hard when you’re always under a shadow – C’s shadow. And you’re constantly doubting if you’re any good at anything you do. But keep at it. Oh and that script your writing for the inter-house drama comp right now –-the one about sex before marriage-it’s a load of crap. I came across it just the other day, and I’m sorry girlie but it was just so awful. But you know what, finish it anyway. I will tell you this though; those views will change drastically a few years down the line. All the same don’t stop writing. It becomes your living. But read more please. And when you’re reading, don’t tell yourself you’ll check the meaning of the words you don’t know later, because you won’t. Do it then and there. My vocabulary could have turned out better you know.

I know the parentals have been in a love-hate situation with each other since as long as you can remember. They won’t get a divorce like you keep worrying they would but I won’t lie to you- things don’t get too peachy either. None of our old problems magically disappear and nothing gets solved and believe me, there will be days when you’ll see them at each other’s necks. But so far we’re all still together. Under the same roof. And for the most part, in peace.

Speaking of peace, did you know the war actually ends?! But apart from that, I think nothing much has changed contrywise.

There will be three significant boys that you will develop massive crushes on. None of them are going to give you the light of day because they’ll be smitten over some other friends of yours but don’t beat yourself over them too much. They all turn out to be serious weirdos. No really, I'm not saying this out of spite.

I know you’re pining away that you don’t have a boyfriend. Guess what, in three years time, you will. And no he won’t be a Royalist or a Buddhist. Quite the opposite actually – a Thomian and a Christian. But when you get to that place, these things will hardly matter. And they shouldn’t. He’ll be seven years older, and someone who drinks, smokes, had way too many girlfriends and is as smooth as Greygoose Vodka (yes that’s alcohol and yes you do start drinking, and also try a lot of other things that you think are quite scandalous right now). You’ll love him for five years uninterrupted. And then you will suddenly stop. But when he does ask you out, I still want you to go ahead and say ‘yes’. It will be a tough five years with him, so brace yourself. Oh and a little tip: older, experienced men are always good as firsts. By the end of your affair you can be sure of being pretty darn good with certain…uhm…activities.

No you're never going to be wildly popular nor the sort that will be the center of attention. But you'll always be loved and respected, which you will realize is much more important than the latter. Your social skills improve but you won't have hoards of friends, just a few best friends and some good close friends. Some of them (especially the best ones) will leave to distant places all over the world and that’s going to be one of the hardest things you will have to deal with constantly.

The good news is, your dress sense improves. Although your hair will continue to be a major disappointment. Stop complaining about your protruding butt. Apparently it’s an asset. Oh and that 24 inch waistline – embrace it and enjoy it sweetheart, because when you enter the twenties you will one day look down and wonder where it went. And no, I’m afraid your hips will always stay big.

Have dreams. Make plans. But at the same time remember, life has its own pace, and you need to go with the flow. Go slow on the maturing if you can. And live every day in school to the fullest. They will always be the best days of your life.

You’ll have lots of good times. But you’ll also find yourself in some very dark places. I know life seems hard and you’re worried about what the future will be like. To be honest life only gets harder, and 25 years down the road, most of the time I still don’t know what I'm doing and where I’m going to be. But you’ve done great so far kiddo and between you and me, I think you've turned out pretty damn good.

Take Care,

-Me-

Thanks to N and Dee for tagging me. I tag someone important and yaka.

squirrel porn

doing it like they do on the discovery channel. :D

rain+bed+books+old hollywood

=this weekend. the rainy days that continued into rainy nights left me with no will what-so-ever to do anything other than lie in bed or snuggle up on the couch, reading or watching tv. of course it's sunday evening now and i am acutely aware of the little chores and to-dos that i have neglected all throughout the weekend. saturday i spent 5 (!) hours watching Gone With The Wind. and wished i hadn't soon after. but then again, at least that's one thing i can tick off my bucket list. i don't know why it is hailed as so great but i guess for its time, it is cinematically quite something. politcally of course i found it to be rather questionable. i thought the representation of the whole civil war and the south itself, quite glossed up. it romanticized and glorified the feudal system and seems to make no apologies in doing so. scarlett o'hara was such an irritating and exhausting character and Melonie is just so damn effing good to be true. Ashley is a coward and well the only character, that made the film worth it for me was Rhett Butler. his final "frankly-my-dear-i-don't-give-a-damn" scene was just brilliant! plus i watched my frist Alfred Hitchcock movie (Notorious), and was rather disappointed. maybe i missed something. or maybe i'm a heathen that just doesn't know good film when i see it!

i've finished reading The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole which is so hilarious and endearing - a book i should've got on to a long long time ago. i can't wait to get my hands on more from the series. my new read is 1984 by George Orwell. again, i can't believe i took this long to actually get to the book but i was told that it was a long and heavy read which i find is not the case at all. on the contrary it's been quite an easy read and i'm enjoying every bit of it so far. the whole of today i have found myself lost in its pages, paralyzed with intrigue so much so it was an effort just to get up and eat. i'm about a three quarter through it and if it weren't for the fact that it is one of my good friend's b'day i would have staid in bed and read it to the end.

so the weekend has been good. if i ignore the fact that i will have to pay the price for my indulgences in the coming week. oh well... as scarlett o'hara says "after all, tomorrow is another day!"

longer the harder

maybe i need to get out more often, but where and how does a single twenty something woman in Colombo find a mr.possibility, let alone a mr. right? i've come to the realization, as a result of some recent observations, that one of the primary reasons women who've been in long relationships tend to stick to these relationships even after they've lost any kind of spark (or hope of rekindling it); even to the ones that tend to not show any signs of going anywhere in the near future- is this question. where and how? it turns out that it's easier to be in a deadend relationship than risk going to singleville and ending up an old cat lady that little kids will one day write horror stories about. adding to this is the herculean task of finding someone, or being found by someone, that you would be interested in and vice versa. since we don't really have much of a dating culture getting to know someone means more or less getting into a relationship. and that means having to start from scratch.

in a sense, breaking up from a long relationship is like when you're playing snakes and ladders and you've landed on a snake. you come gliding down back to where you came from. after that you have to keep throwing that dice out into the unknown once again. i guess for some it's easier putting up with the snake than having to play all over again. i can't say i blame them.

stuck in a rut

it is claustrophobic to be in a position of employment where you want to leave but can't because the entirety of your future hopes and dreams are balancing on the thin red line that is your employer. i hate this dependency. i hate having my future rest on someone else's perception of me. i hate not having the power to say 'thank you for the opportunity. now eff off. i need to move on!'