#6u: Because I wanted a sample of my handwriting on my blahg.

It will get better, eventually.

#42738: No hope for humanity.

I am so angry right now, I could flush an entire box of orange tic tacs down the toilet.

Apparently, a while before I returned home from tuition, a couple of guys tried to fuck around with the bees that live in our tree. They left when my mum threatened to call the police on them, but returned later and destroyed the hive to get to the honey.

:Rant:
HOW DARE YOU MESS WITH THE BEES, YOU THICKHEADED NINCOMPOOPS!
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF I SET YOUR HOUSE ON FIRE BECAUSE I WANTED YOUR JAR OF CUT MANGO PICKLE?! GKL:KJHGFDSDGJKLKJHGFDS >:[
I HOPE YOU DIE SLOW PAINFUL DEATHS. MAY THE FLEAS OF A THOUSAND CAMELS INFEST YOUR ARMPITS!
:/Rant:

Okay, so Mum tells me they got stung and ran away. Small victory for the bees, considering their house was destroyed. Where will the bees go now? As of now, I can still see them on our tree, and I really hope they don't leave.
They're amazing little insects.
:[

Einstein [may or may not have; faulty sources] said, "If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live."
Assuming he was right, humanity is sure as hell fucked.

#413: Just something that's been on my mind a lot lately.

It's alarming, how much flak a person will get for being different (excuse the cliche).

To the point where even listening to a different, unheard-of genre of music will have other people deem you a filthy hipster or a cave dweller.

[Caves are cool. Your argument is invalid.]

When did becoming carbon copies of everyone around you get cool?

Romance novels are not my cup of tea.

Whenever we go to Blossoms [you know, that brilliant little bookstore on Church st.], my mother spends a solid two hours or more in the Romance novels section there. And she almost always buys a dozen of them every single time. You'd think by now she'd have finished reading all of the 'Mills & Boons' they have stacked there, but no. She probably reads and rereads them all.

One day, I went over to the Romance section [which is brilliantly placed in the same aisle as the Erotica section, might I add] to browse. These are a few of the novels I found there:

I'm seeing a pattern here.

Notice how many of those are about Italian millionaires, Spanish aristocrats, Greek tycoons et al. You just need an exotic, handsome, rich male character, an annoying, damsel-in-distress type Mary Sue female character, a present-day setting [say, an office or, a hospital], and you're all set to write your very own Mills & Boon novel and rake in the moolah.
Surprisingly, my mum agrees. She tells me that the novels in the pictures are the new M&Bs. "Cheap, trashy,  mass produced dime novels," she calls 'em.
Apparently she reads only the older ones. Haha.

Truth be told, I haven't read a single M&B yet. Partly because I think they're mushy and wouldn't be caught dead with one, but mostly because I probably would laughing too hard at the title to even read the book.

So, the fact remains that romance novels are not my cup of tea; but their titles sure are funny as hell.

Happy Valentine's Day/ Lupercalia/ Single Awareness Day, you guys! :D

Tuesday, 7th February, 7:15 am.

As usual, you are crammed in the back of an Omni van with a couple of other kids who go to the same school as you.
As usual, they are having an animated discussion about certain demigods and the like, and hardly notice your presence in the Omni.
As usual, your headphones are jammed into your ears, and your music player sends yet another wave of sleepy Britpop music your way. "Great," you think to yourself, sardonically. Falling asleep is, quite frankly, the last thing you want to do right now.
You tilt your head and stare at the sky for the rest of the journey.

On your way to school, you always pass through a stretch of road with towering apartment complexes from the nineties on either side, and an old movie theatre, walls plastered with racy posters, that is forever playing some, cheap, seedy b-rated movie.

Today, however, something's different.

When you look up at the bit of sky above the theatre, you notice pigeons. HUNDREDS of pigeons; and they are constantly flying around in circles.
The birds look like they're all part of a wild, massive roller disco party, spiraling up and up towards the sun. Not wanting to miss out on the merrymaking, more and more pigeons join the gathering from the nearby billboards and apartment balconies.
It is a magnificent sight, and for a moment, you notice absolutely nothing else. The cackling of the kids in the van, the whirring of the wheels and the din of the traffic shrinks to a dull hum; time just seems to slow down for those few seconds. You seem to have a moment of clarity, sans the drunken excesses and the disgusting toilet cubicles.

And as fast as it all happens, it just ends. Nobody else seems to have noticed what you just witnessed. The Omni flits down the road, and all the sounds seem to return to normal, leaving you to wonder about the je ne sais quoi of life, the universe, and flying pigeons.

Strange.

#96: In which I address the abomination that is Class Photographs

How I dread this time of year.
Tomorrow, at about 8:30 in the morning, our entire class will be photographed, standing on the marble staircase that leads into our institution; looking dapper in their uniforms and blazers.
Everyone in class except me, that is. (And a certain character whose name starts with 'T' and ends with 'anveer', simply because he most probably won't show up tomorrow.)

For some strange, unfathomable reason, every single class photograph that I've been a part of for all these years has all my classmates looking like this:

Or this:



While I ALWAYS end up looking like this:

 

How? Why?
Such questions needn't be asked. The fact still remains that this happens all the time, and will happen again tomorrow.

Unless by some magical twist of fate I transform into Christina Hendricks. Or the marble staircase gets blasted into oblivion.
:sigh: One can only hope.

#347: The .gifs cometh!

Yes!
I have finally figured out how to upload animated gifs. This blog just got a dozen times more interesting. :3


For your viewing pleasure [and mine too], here's a loop of one of my favorite moments from Game of Thrones:

#273.15: De boîtes à musique et d'autres choses.

You know how when you come across something you played with when you were younger and haven't seen in a long time, it opens up a chest of repressed childhood memories you had locked away in the darkest recesses of your mind, somewhere?

Today, while clearing the toxic wasteland that is my room, I chanced upon this contraption:

Yes, Instagrammed. I know.

For the clueless, that doohickey in the picture is the musical part of a music box.

I got the music box for my eighth birthday from my uncle. I remember thinking "Sweet Jesus that is the most magical thing I have seen" when my uncle first showed me how to play it. Picture a curly-haired 8 year old kid with a party hat on her head, mouth agape and eyes sparkling with wonder.

The box itself was black, and had red and gold flowers on the lid. There was a key under the box which you had to wind up (music boxes are powered by clockwork), and then if you opened the box you would able to hear the music. Under the lid of the box was a mirror, with a lake and swans painted around the bottom.  There was also a sort of podium in the box, on which a pair of pearly white ballerina figurines stood. When the music played and the box was open, the ballerinas would twirl gracefully round and round the little stage.

Ah, the music.

The box played a chiming rendition of 'Swan Lake', by Tchaikovsky. You might know it from 'Black Swan', or from 'Barbie of Swan Lake'. Or from the original ballet itself. Who knows.

I used to keep paper stars, friendship bands, feathers, badges and other oddities that I treasured, in the music box. And the box itself at the back of the cupboard under all the sweaters. I was very protective of it. [Read: If anybody touched it without my permission, rest assured heads would be rolling.]

And then I broke it, a couple of years down the line. I had already lost the ballerinas, and the mirror had fallen off and shattered. I remember wondering what made the music, so I smashed the box to bits. I received my answer, along with a nasty gash on my palm and a hole in my good shirt.

Serves me right.

I managed to salvage the musical part from the wreckage, thankfully.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find it resting quietly among all the junk in my drawer. I picked it up and wound the key, and as the tune played, nine years' worth of memories came flooding back. In other words, I nostalgia'd. Hard.

;A;