Just us folks.

One of the reasons for this change is fairly lame but let me attempt to explain.

Saturday's the boi calls everyone back home and on Sunday I do. So I get to hear all the news one more time, which I kind of like. No, that was just some random information.

So I am talking to amma and she asks me about my cousin here with whom I disagree on pretty much everything. She loves being the sati-savitri wife types and will proceed to tell you during any conversation how important it is that as married wives, we do the RIGHT fucking thing. Which I am not even sure means what. Now this might give you an idea of her physical looks, like some oiled mungy but no, she is very stylish, will walk the walk and everything but the talk. yeah, there is where I have to disagree.

 For her, we must always bite down our thoughts and screams- if any and just bear it. :/ We must respect the people who insult us-because we are better than them. Not me, no thank you.

I will go with respect has to be earned and then returned. Now you would think, just maybe that her heart is of gold and she thinks all this from the goodness of that said heart, nope, nope, wrong again. she abuses like a fisherwoman and knows some of the best therris that exists in the malayalam dictionary but ONLY me and her mum-secretly of course gets to see that.

You see where I am going with this? Double faced swords, so hard for me to handle. Even just pretending to be nice to someone I inherently dislike swaps the life out of me. I have no idea how she does it. Anyway, so my amma tells me the reason she might have been acting funny since a while is probably because she reads your blog! what a thought, amma, I say, its an anon blog, HG could be any random girl under the sun. But no, amma gives some compelling reasons and I panic.

The thing is though I think she is so lame, I dont want to hurt her feelings or anything. Plus she loves EVIL gmom. and I have to got to vent about that sometimes. So all in all, amma says, why dont you blog all that nansense in private. I had to agree especially since I have to diss so many people now in the program also. 

Speaking of which, I had a fun weekend. A girl from the class and I went to the Museum of Fine arts here, free for students and Bank of America card holders. :/ I immediately discovered the ancient egyptian section and you couldnt have dragged me from there. I saw just three rooms of that section in two hours. There was a sarcophagus of a queen whose name is too long for me to write here.! A real sarcophagus!! Ha.

The korean girl, she on the other hand, saw everything. Haha. She is pretty adorable though. 

Here is something I dislike about some of the people from the program, not this girl though. They will go : Have you read this blah blah book by blah blah someone? and you will go: NO. and they will say: WHAT! ( like that in caps) 

I mean seriously, there are just way too many books out there. All right? You yourself will say NO a thousand times, if I make a list and bring it and read it and ask you like that. You haven't read THIS? But because I have a faulty memory and I am fairly nice dont go all, you ignorant peasant looks on me. :/

Another thing is, its a room filled with people who love the sound of their own voices. Except me and another guy. :( I would rather not talk but I know that isn't possible. In LE s class I have to contribute, which is fine but with Sigrid, she herself has so many things to say and analyse and information and so much this and that, that I think, why, why I must say anything. I mean nothing I say will count much and why intervene with something inconsequential when she is making such a good point. Most people agree with me, but this one guy who LOOOUWS analyzing every single line, doesn't. 

I have just finished writing something, which I am pretty proud of, that itself is so rare. Which is not a good thing because that will hurt more. In other cases you are submitting, feeling a little detached. But in this case you are doing so with a heart that says, this will redeem me in his eyes. This shouldn't be about HIM. Omg, when am I going to get that.

I have to go.

All right.

So the first bout of tears have come and so have the words. It went really so so bad. Like dig a hole, bury my head, never come up bad. The thing is when it was all happening, I didnt feel the slightest anger/ sadness/ irritation at the critiquing. I only thought it useful, as in, how did I miss this and that and that. Oh that's a good point. so on. Though among 11 opinions, I can only probably use LE's and another guys sort of brilliant suggestion.
Lack of clarity in sentences, grammar, punctuation are as always screwing me up.

Next,
This is sort of cheap of me, but what no one needs to know there. I hate it that there is another Indian girl. I hate it. Her ideas per se are at best mediocre but her writing is brilliant and this doesn't need to bother me but it does. I want her not to be there, with her middle class Indian mother father brother stories and then LE going how marvelous middle class stories are. PAH.

I am feeling little stuck, out of breath sorts. Obviously I knew the pressures. How much work. I have had barely enough time to register and understand the last comments and now in a week and five days I have another submission and then the next week, one more. There is a small gap after that.

Another thing. I feel very under read. When someone asks me favorite authors I blink. Because I genuinely forget. and then stupidly only Munroe and Carver come to mind. I must write this shit down.

and lastly. In the larger scheme of things and some weird personal one's I have to make this blog place a private place. Yes I do. So if you all who bother coming here could just send me your email id's I would be happy to invite y'all. I will leave it like this for a week or so.

Ps: I have lost weight, the tee shirt that once clung and clung is hanging loose. That is the only good news. oh and that I have taken myself off Facebook. THAT is the extent to which I am being driven. FB used to be such entertainment, time consuming of course. Still. All those mom's with their babies pictures with titles. Haha. I know I would do the same, though it probably annoys a lot of people and the creepy girl with her " me and hubby patting a lion in mauritius" Haha.
Damn I will miss Fb.

S

The odd job

I have great respect for odd jobs, the service jobs, the ones that pay you by the hour-really badly and yet you do it, because even just 40bucks helps when you are in school.
And it also teaches you a few lessons in humiltiy and tipping- yes, and in noticing the lives of others. I can never be that person- the one with the headphones who barely looks at anyone, trudging along. I have to always be the watcher, the one who will notice the woman with the struggling baby attatched to her or the the man with the trembling limbs and while I feel a certain kind of pride in being this person, its not all.
The previous odd job at an eye brow parlor where I learned to thread eyebrows paid me not too well but I couldnt handle the sitting at home day after day waiting for programs to get back to me. Some people I met there I still remember, some they talk a lot, they will tell you of dogs that attacked them suddenly trying to explain the bruise on their face while I hope that that was really what happened, some will ask you if all Indian men have to have arranged marriages and some will just tell you that you did such a good job, tipping you heavily, making you feel warm, in even just this menial job.

The Uni money and scholarship is just about enough to pay rent, tuition, insurance leaving me with little to pursue my favourite hobby of cooking and eating and so I need yet another odd job. The one's advertised are stalked by us all and if you call a day late, its gone.
All kinds of jobs, cashiers, servers, yard work < my god!> and the jobs at dining services much coveted for its free food in btw shifts, all gone so fast! Poof!

I have taken to calling them first before sending resumes and the other day I saw this: Needed someone for light housekeeping- watering plants, cleaning dishes, so on n on. My stds are low, I can do pretty much anything and she was paying well, about 16per hour, when I called her she sounded so doped out, vague and confused. I was going to hang up but then she said she had broken her knee and had just had surgery and..there was no one to help. I thought, what the hell. Its not so far away from my place but I have to take two buses. I finally reach and meet her. she is an old lady in a housecoat. Hair that has been cut so short and teeth, some have fallen out.Chipped nails, bad breath- the works. And the house- god have mercy. It was such a mess. Here is something you need to know about me.
My instant reaction, the immediate one to any problem is- of course I can sort this out. There is no negativity in the beggining, no can I ? will I? Its always of course! and so I thought, of course I can clean up this place. I should remember that this is STUPID. I must remember, must remember to factor in the OTHER person. The dishes were fine, since apparently she hadnt had solid food in three days. Just some bowls and cups, well not some, many. She had been surviving on butter nut sqaush soup. The apt is in some kind of old age residency, lots of old folks walking around with walkers. Thoroughly depressing, the kind of scene in which everything I dread has been incorporated- old age, disease, being alone and messed up.

When I started to clean her living room- a pile of zillion papers, she wouldnt let me throw anything out. She was a hoarder, from medical bills from six years to prescriptions to ATM stubs to grocery lists, old copies of resumes, a singles memebership subscription of years, every goddamn thing had to be saved because just in case, just, just what if something went wrong and she had to explain. It made me so sad, these piles of papers and copies.. I just put them away in files. I asked her if I should get her something to eat. She said she had ordered something a few days ago and it was in the fridge. But that she hadnt been able to open the plastic container and when I did, she ate very messily. After a while, I threw all the garbage away and came back and she said she was tired and needed to rest. I could do nothing without her- I dont want to get blamed throwing something out! and so she paid me said she would call and that was that.

Yet another odd job and people. You know someday I will be able to write better on the human condition.

Later

On my own

The boi has left and I am on my own and its absolutely not a good feeling and I am miserably unhappy and unreasonably angry but not sure who to be angry at. I dont like living alone anymore. I did, I had big plans earlier  and all when I did but now all I want is to come home at night and whine to the boi about a hard day-if hard day or tell him about my good moments and have him rub my feet.
As I said earlier, the room is fine, the people are fine, everything is just fine. But all I can think of is going back to Bloomington. I will stop now, maybe I might jinx myself.

Life is on standstill till Wednesday. Till everyone gets back with comments on the story I submitted last week. Especially L.E's comments. LE pronounces a story as a success or just ok and I am torn, torn re reading it. I dont know what to think and my head hurts from analyzing what he is thinking. So Wednesday and it depresses me that if its bad I will have to cry alone and if its good I have to be on phone telling boi. Its really not thaaat big a deal- I guess after all I am here to get better but I cant shake off that feeling that this counts towards something.

We went to a Prof.s house for Labor day- I think I mentioned earlier on. Most people brought their spouses/ partners and I can tell you that A was the best looking boi there. No, I am not just saying that cos he is on a flight back home. Really! I dont understand how people can dress so badly and step out! I wont get into details because well you know- who knows who might see this along the road. Anyhow. It wasnt so bad- the socializing. I managed to stay about two hours without quite looking foolish, except when I ran into Ha Jin and literally stayed open mouthed and thankfully Boi saved me from that. From further - I am so so so so thrilled to meet you dialogues from leaving my mouth repeatedly. The food was bad.

I am supposed to be reading Silence by Shusaku Endo and instead I am obssesively reading The Bad Girl by Vargas llosa. and watching sad movies which have this amazing ability to cheer me up. Does that make sense- like this one-ugh- Its not a love story! Oh my god, it was so painful, the girl and the story and the damn camera forever focusing on her thighs! Ram Gopal Varma-oh my god. but it gives me some perverse happiness- that hey, look people are doing bad bad things all around. It wont make sense and in that spirit I also saw Michael Douglas say No, no, no sex please to Demi Moore in some movie whose name I have forgotten in less than two hours. I keep wanting to say Contagion though! We also saw The Debt. Mirren didnt have much of a role but the younger Mirren played by Jessica Chastain did an awesomely superb job. Rest can be ignored.

I need me some food. I hate cooking for just me. I have some chicken and some Kheema and some fish. The house is silent like Sunday's back home. Chicken curry-fish fry lunches and then a nap and then the 5:00 malayalam movie- no matter what crap they play. Back in Btown we used to do it, boi loves his afternoon nap.  I am sad. I am a sad kitten. Like sad Keanu. :o Haha, ok that cheered me up.

Later

Hi All

Hey guys, been a while since I posted here but I have been so stressed out and running around! Ok, Lets see, I have been here four days now. Wednesday we got here and they promptly made my life miserable by losing my luggage and then promising to deliver it the same day and then not even picking up calls for a whole day, while I walked around in Boi's home clothes. Thu was orientation and teaching fellow orientation and first class with Leslie. The TF thing made me a little panicky since so much SO MUCH information was thrown my way.
But I have some time and I think I will figure it out- which is fairly optimistic coming from me. Obviously they told us the usual things, the no's and what to do's etc etc.
The program co -ordinator is an amazing lady with great amount of patience for all my endless questions. She figured out all my scholarship and teaching money and I am so happy with how its worked out. In fall I will have to live a little tight but in spring I will live like a queen. :o or well, eat like a queen!
She also managed to have some spare money for me so that I can pay health insurance from the scholarship and I only have to put in a leetle bit of cash. Anyway enough of that.

Leslie is pretty amazing, his energy is very becoming and I so far agree with all his policies. He is of the school that when we learn to appreciate art, then we become better human beings and better writers and as part of that school of thought, we will be spending some time picking out a piece from the museum of fine arts and writing about why we were moved by it.

The Cohort are all amazing people so far from such diverse backgrounds and stories. Our first workshop story was handed to us- two people each time and so we all get to workshop three stories in Fall. I am going third and I am more or less ready. The two stories I read so far- amazing diction, so so well written but uhm.. how do I put it, it just didnt do anything for me. I didnt think oh my god, this is what I would have loved to write or wish I had written this, but I was very impressed with the use of words and the choice of phrases.

I am still scared of him, of making him think I am a mistake and so on but I think I will be Ok. He also made a valid point- this year will be easier if we all just learn to love each other a bit and as part of that we are all going out for drinks on Wednesday.  I think my problem with socializing will have to be curbed somehow, I dont know how but I will have to make that effort.

I am also so excited with the library, its huge and well stocked and so far I love the structure of the program. Sigrid's class doesnt start till12th but its a revision and editing class and I think I will really need it. I am also trying to read more writers away from my comfort zone. I think I will need to spend some quality time reading slow because Proust and Baldwin are really not easy reads but if he thinks its going to help- I am going to buy it

Another thing I notice is that its probably easier for the people in my age group to accept what he says easier and adapt as opposed to the older writers who seem to be taking it with a pinch of salt. I am not saying I will blindly follow him, but if he thinks some other way of approaching a story  is better, I am willing to make that effort to re write it up.

But at the same time, the older writers seem to disagree, a little stuck in their ways- for eg, he has a big problem with echoes, he expects you to go through the draft hawk like, taking out words that sound similar or repeated in the same para, obviously he says dont do it for the sake of it, as in dont use some terribly wrong word just so to get rid of the echo but make that extra effort to get rid of it, try all kinds of words in that space.

I am with him, but someone else was very quick to say how she couldn't care less about the damn echoes. He said - Oh I think you will.
I also dont think I will muster the courage to go against him like that, at least for a while and at least till its something that really matters to me.

Boston has been great so far, great food, amazing weather- partly cloudy and rainy in the nights. The campus is beautiful and I love our workshop room, where once Plath and Sexton had been. Its  all too much if I think about it too much.

My place is in Brookline which is a very nice neighborhood, lots of nice little cafes in the village- not seen yet, but hear its really good and my room in a house is huge, like I dont need this much space and we got me a bed and other knick knacks. '

Abigail and her daughter seem such warm nice people, I think I will especially like the girl- she is a teenager but seems more mature than her age. The room itself is painted  a light shade of violet and  it has a small nice bathroom, with a shower stall, not a tub-thankfully, less cleaning. They are Vegetarians but they dont mind me making whatever I want.

Not staying there yet, at my Aunt's place. I love her place, its so warm and comfy in here and they are an amazing couple. And they take care of both of us so well and yesterday night we stayed up late arguing about what makes some people the way they are. How bad conditioning can be and whether science or religion is more close to one's heart.

Obviously we are all very loud and opinionated people and we all had different views and it went on for a while but it was good fun. I do love dinner table talk so much.
There are some movies we want to see- Contagion, The Debt. I think we might go with these guys. I think Leslie and my Uncle would get along so well, they both like the same music- Brahms and Bach and they might I think agree on some political issues too. Tomorrow is the Labor day picnic at Robert Pinksy's house- though I am asking them to tag along, they refuse, so it might be just me and my hot date. ;p

More on everything later.

S