Transparency

                  I came across this topic about transparency with parents from a discussion in my English class this week. Whats with this transparency issue ? Both parents and children play an equal role in this.
                  We wonder why should we be transparent with parents. You think it might spoil your freedom or privacy. But, it really doesn't, if you once believe your parents with your secrets and once they trust you, your privacy wont be hindered. You might find some confidence in doing things you like to do, instead of hiding , and working on it secretly. Your guilt might haunt you for a long time once you grow up and stay in their place.
                   We also expect the parents to be flexible, while laying out some guidelines to follow in life. They must be easy going, taking these secrets into consideration, they shouldn't lay out strict rules or restrict sending them to places or giving things they like. For instance, parents find that some person is pranking with them on mobile or Facebook, and they try to take away the mobile or tell them to deactivate the profile. I don't think that's best justice done to the problem. Running away from the problem does never solve it. We need to learn to fight the problem face to face, so having the distraction in hand and still not getting into trouble is the brave and right thing to do. Parents could advice them about the problems faced, instead of just protecting them from the problems itself because at one point of time, every person has to know it,
                   And lastly, we shouldn't take the privacy given by the parents for granted and abuse it. Trust is not a easy thing , and once broken cant be fixed easily. 

EXAMS !!!

AND Its exam time…. Tring …….

Well, really studying is the only thing you do during your study holidays? Nah, in most cases, just as mine that is the only thing we don’t do. When there is college and stuff to worry about, you don’t care to think about passions or hobbies. But, when exams are near, and you spend a lot of time in your room, figuring out what to study instead of actually studying and, at that point, your mind wanders to places. Suddenly, we feel like we have a lot of time to do a lot of stuff and get involved in more of movies, chatting while having the book right in front of you just to remind yourself that there is an exam coming soon.

“And that’s why last minute preparation doesn’t help or at least in your finals. It’s better to know your subjects in a vague manner before exams would start. Listening in class would help.”

The above two lines have nothing to do with me. How many people really are following this?
How many people really sit in a college classroom, actually listening to the lectures or whatever they are doing in front of the class, instead of gossiping, chatting from underneath the desk with a boy in the next row, or eating favourite snacks when the teacher turns backward? This all seems weird, because we have dreamt college to be fun and no more of studies, but it didn’t turn up exactly the way we want it to be. So, I guess sometimes, we may give that advice a shot to think about.

I’ve been spending every moment of my exam time with headphones on my head, because movies, music and studies go hand in hand in my case. But, people who aren’t used to that try to imitate me, be casual till the last moment and beat their brains off the night before their exam. I just want to say, try to be who you are, because no one is expecting you do be in a specific way, and if they do, they ain’t a good person for you.

Actually, shoot yourself down.

            Exams aren’t the real thing you have to worry about, it’s what we learn out of these years of

education. Some might just need a degree, or a namesake best suited to search for a bride groom, or for finding a love in college, they are ruled out. The others, who really want a job indirectly at least try knowing the subject and only a few out of them love what they read. If you develop a passion for what you study, there are chances you might easily pass your exams without actually hitting your head hard before the exam day.

ARTIFICIAL truth

                     BEING Artificial- i guess many know what it means, because its generally happening in everyone's life. You know you don't want to talk to someone, but that someone has been with you since a long time,or is just a mutual friend, and you are compelled to talk to that person, so in this case, you are being artificial to that person.
                      When this happens to you, it devastates you. You think that someone is just a good friend, sweet, and trust worthy, but later you find out they were just being artificial , its bad. You find out that they were keeping secrets from you, talking at your back, going out on secret trips , you just forget the hugs,kisses, fun you had with them, because betrayal is painful. I've had many moments of life when people really don't think i am the best to keep secrets, and avoid me while sharing their personal problems. In one way, i was safe from distractions, but, otherwise i felt a bit low when people couldn't trust me with their stuff. If not having a juicy story in my life is a disadvantage, then keep your secrets away from me. Thinking about what's wrong with yourself is only going to bring down your confidence levels.
                     Sometimes, you just feel you are not a part of this world,not trust-worthy, not fun enough, not a secretive or adventurous person, and that it why people have been avoiding you. You may always want to be with some peer group, but they might be acting artificially with you, but you still do have friends of your own kind, you just need to go with the ones who understand and value you. This doesn't mean you don't have to talk to the artificial ones, you just have to show your backs at time, and be the same artificial to them. Its always important to value only those who value you. Feeling a complexity about fitting in to this world and getting included with your favorite peer group is just normal, its up to us to take it to our heart or else move on with life. You need to remember you have a long life, and you have plenty more opportunities to meet new people. 

To Fit In

                  For an average teenage girl under the age of 18,having or not having a boy-friend is a big concern. 50% of girls are into some sort of boyfriend commitment before they could even enter college. And the rest are the confused ones, the one-sided, the good girls, and the 'not ready for commitment' types. The girls with a boyfriend have fun, eat, hangout or that is what people think , without knowing about consequences. They never know what kind of a person they are dating. Most of the relationships start with the word called 'friend', turning into 'boyfriend' then a few turning into 'lover' and very very few keep up their words.
                  So, why is it so compulsory for people to have a pair. The first question in truth or dare is 'who is your boy-friend ?'. Is it so necessary that i should have a crush or boy-friend by the time i turn 18, just for the cause of breaking up anyway. Love - that is existing in this world isn't easy to conquer . People just use that one word so easily to describe their feelings. Most teenage stories are about lust and not love. And many stories just for satisfying their peer group, How many high-school lovers marry or stay together for the rest of their lives ? How many lovers have stayed at home to convince their parents instead of running away and struggling for their lives.
                  Basically, the relationships that you get into during high - school and college are nothing but excitement, peer-pressure and attraction. It's really not the right time to decide whom you want in life.This change, this feeling comes into every single person, but the one who realizes its true meaning in a real person. Differentiating your feelings is an important part of student life. Success and experience are gained in this phase. We make millions of mistakes in this period and only here we have parents to rub those marks of our faces and give us a fresh start, while they carry that pain.

                  Half of my friends half a pair, i have a watsapp group with pairs and me single, but that doesn't really have to compel you to have a pair.Some peer-pressure could be there telling you to fall into a relationship, don't listen to them, listen to your heart and follow your brain, things will sort out right. But, people really think maybe having a pair could boost their status.Nope- single is the new committed, because of its rarity. Be who you are , do what you want to do, make your priority list and stay happy. ENJOY LIFE ! 

Four Months Mission..

                   Well, we've all known college life is supposed to be special and it must start with a blast. It may have not started or is the way i imagined it like "in the movies", but these few months were kind of special to me.
                     I started to be independent. I don't know how many people of my age in SOUTH INDIA gets the chance to be independent. I am not talking about freedom, which is often confused with. I talk about independence where you get to stand on your own legs without depending on others. I used to be this lazy kid when i was at home when my mom brings food to me when i am hungry, dad buys me my necessities whenever i need, and i didn't have to come out of my house for anything. But, one we grow up and come to this stage , we have to do everything from buying a toothbrush to paying your bills. And for the first time in my life, I get to travel completely alone in a train for a night, which was a thrilling experience.
                    When i had come here, i got to know myself. I realized where i stand in this society. Getting to know yourself and not regretting your past is the mission accomplished by me, but many don't have the chance to do so. I realized true friendship and there are people who really value me to some level in their lives. People started trusting me all of a sudden and i like it, because for a while i didn't know if i belonged in this world. Secrecy was always maintained with me for another huge reason i never understood and when it all opened up suddenly upon me, I could only be happy that they believe in me atleast now instead of questioning them and myself why they couldn't trust me earlier.
                   Being here for about four months , also threw away those scrapes of complexity. Of course, everyone wants to be what they are not. Once, they realize that they are better than what they think, there is no necessity for copying others. You just could be who you are and walk with pride.
                  Also, battling with truth and the fantasy was a tough job. Many were in the journey calling me in and out. And i am still in the confused state of what to do in life. Everyone's life is a never-ending serial, and mine has a story without a meaning. 

Out of my shell

                  Being at home and being at a hostel are two different things-  completely. Our habits change, environment change, behavior change and you build up your character in this phase of life. In these four months, I have meet a lot of people, seen a lot of people - so varied and dense. Each had a different view for life, different goals, behaviors, style, talents, interests.
                  Most dominant are the fun types. They have fun , or maybe just don't have a touch with books all through the year except for those nights before the exam. They don't plan stuff before hand. Have a lot of pending work. They try not to work on their own, just want to wait till someone completes the work and then easily copy the work ( which is a little bit irritating ). They don't care about looks , keeping clean, but being work less is all what they do. They just keep sitting or talking on mobiles.
                 Another dominant ones are the nerdy. They do not know the meaning of fun. Their before exam schedule is the same as after exam schedule. They kind of sleep with their books all the time. This has two types- the hard workers and the clever ones. The hard workers stay on their own, keep studying and accept their love for marks. The clever ones, act as if they never had a book in their hand for weeks, get help from people , and after exam , they say they haven't done well , but they would have 97% (that lie makes me angry).
                 Other portion is the jealous types. They keep looking at people-what they do, try to copy them, outrun them. We may think its just so silly for matured people to do such stuff. But, people like that do exist.
                  A small class of people only can balance fun, relationships, education,movies ,etc in the right way and stay happy.
               
                  When looking at few people, we just feel somethings are not right. On the first day here, i found a person very unusual and kind of irritating and figured out she must be the clever ones. And she was. She had survival skills.:(.
                   But, sometimes we just judge the book by its cover.I met people who are dressed so cool, and talkative and active at class, and expected them to be having some attitude with talking to the non-cool, but they turned out to be kind-hearted people, who belonged the last class.

                    Its not how we are dressed, how we look, its just how we take up life that impresses people. So, decide guys what to do in life, what to be and what opinion you would give to others, which is totally in your hands,






Please leave a comment below on the types you have met anytime before .
And who you want to be. What you want to prioritize.

Survival Skills

                A big lesson i learn today was that i lacked in survival skills. You may ask what it means - its just living according to people's needs, and not ours. When the internal mark was announced today and mine was the least(7/10), that broke me down. Why was i not eligible or deserving for more ??
Then something struck my head while comparing the people with 9 or 10 with me. They had involvement in class than me; they had more interaction with teacher than me; they had more butter skills than me; and they had more marks than me.
                 Whatever marks we get in exams don't matter in this place. Survival skill- buttering is too much complicated subject for me because communication itself is difficult . Asking doubts often in class, going in person and discussing stuff with teacher, answering questions in class, not being sleepy or lousy during class hours could always gain you a mark and i learn that today. It could be unfair at times when you had done the same hard work but your friend gets a mark higher than you just because of her good relationship with teacher, but if that is what the society in college or job sector wants, then lets start to learn the skill. 

First Impressions.. :D

Inspiration comes from nowhere but people around you. Starting a blog and expressing views has been my idea for a long time. But, the spark was given by one of my seniors in my first year of college life at SASTRA. She inspired me to document everything that goes along in life. Every person has a different story and different view of looking at them.

               

Life of a girl at SASTRA:

Living as a hosteller at SASTRA has its own beauty along with irritation. The first thing you think about when you wake up is ‘omg! The bathrooms must be full. I need to be in a queueL’. Standing in queue for bath is the most stressing thing in the daily routine. You could have been waiting before the same door for 20 minutes and keep knocking at it, and the person inside keeps saying 5 more minutes and once they come out , you realise the person had been washing 3 buckets of clothes all this time.

Then, the wonder food at mess. We keep wondering what the menu would be that day, wishing it wouldn’t be pongal, samba upma and the bread sandwich. The food here made us realise how awesome our mom’s cooking is. The saying ‘one understands the value of it, only when you lose it ‘, comes to existence at this stage of life. The worst recipe of your mom becomes the best liked food in here. So, imagine how adjustments in life started right at the start of the day.

The college bell rings at 8:40 and how much ever you try to reach faster, you would reach only at 8:45 because we know which teacher comes fast to class, and who is too strict with punctuality and attendance and, our lazy walk depends on it.

Oh! Here comes the slow class hours, where you just sit idly, sometime listening, sometime texting, sometime just scratching whatever is there on the black board, and most of the time trying to keep your eyes open. The 20 minute break is hell of a time. To buy a snack at college café at this break is like an adventure to girls like me. If you don’t have a boy friend (just a friend in boys I say), you will never be able to get the precious golden puffs. By the time you reach the shopkeeper, it all expires down to a cup of tea or coffee. Again.. classes.. blah blah..

The 50 minute lunch break!! The most tiresome walk for a girl hosteller is the journey from the VKJ block to the girls’ hostel to eat at the mess. 10 minutes to walk, 20 minutes to eat and another 10 minutes to get back to class. The food given in this interval seems such a pleasure. Anything given at this hunger hour is so delicious to eat. The phulka, rasam and fresh curd eaten in any quantity is anyways exhausted by the time you reach back class.

The classes after the lunch break is difficult to survive. Keeping your eyes open in this period is all  your talent. Every person keeps staring at their watches for the moment it turns 4:50.

You might wonder why the timings are so broad. It’s because ‘THIS IS SASTRAAA!! ‘And you might even find yourself wondering if you had fallen into a school again after so many years of painful education.

But the fun part of college life starts soon around 5. The bad luck is for the girl hostellers because of the dumb curfew rules that needs them back into their hostels by 6pm. So, the thing that’s going on in our minds is, ‘Where to go  ?? KC, Canopy , Bank ,or temple ‘. For such a short interval and a lot of duties to cover makes us go mad. Well duties range from creating a bank account to buying yourself a lime soda which otherwise at home, your parents would do for you while you sit comfortably on your sofa watching TV. OOH! And talking about TV. Every day scholar I call makes me jealous of one thing of their possession, a TV. You may feel at times, that you miss TV more than you miss home. SO, I can say there isn’t really a place or time for girl hostellers to spend evening except for the hostel premises.

Coming back to the hostel at 6 and rushing towards the biometric scanner and the warden to shout out our name for attendance is the most compulsory thing to do, or else we’d be in real danger. !!Back to the rooms , the roommates have a brief description of the classes and the funniest moments of their day- whether complaints, harassments, embarrassments, grades – it all ends up to be funny while speaking it out. The cup of tea and a daily snack also becomes a compulsory part of the evening start-up, except for the nasty pani-pori where people just dip their hands into the pani and the same into their mouths. Some habits really irritate us and there is no one to complain it to.

Then comes the interesting part, ‘what to do in the evening? ‘. First thing that comes in mind is the enormous homework giving subject ED (engineering drawing). The next thing in mind would be anything never relating to subjects because all we have in mind is, ‘I am in college and I don’t have to do any daily lessons’. But, the pile-up finally ends up with a huge mess and we realise it only during the last week of commencement of the scary CIAs.

Washing piled up clothes is a stressful and a fun job to do when you take along your friends and play some music and groove with it. At last when the work is done and you find someone using up your hanging rope and all your hard work seems to go waste, and with all your anger, you push those clothes to a corner having an anger of just hitting the girl who hung them there on her face. Well, this ceremony doesn’t happen every day, it takes place so often and consequently it’s referred to as a ceremony.

Other evening activities include going to the Gym, which is also an occasional field trip just to look at the equipment and its working :P . The lawn is the best place without boundaries for our lives. We are allowed to be how we want to be, make noise, sing, have fun, eat, tease and much more. The SANDHYA juice shop is another attraction in the hostel premises, wherein the darkness and the dim lighting from the ‘NEW hostel’ makes a beautiful effect seducing you to sit for hours together which apparently is not allowed. After all the sight seeing and the time wasting in the evening , comes the dinner again in the same old boring mess.

We get back to our hostels by 9 and we find ourselves occupied with the most important thing of the day. Well, you might expect sleeping – that’s a no because for hostellers evening starts at 10. We start doing odd things only at 10 – like watching movies , watsapping , facebooking , quarrelling , watching videos on youtube. This freedom of waking up all night with no one’s restriction can be enjoyed only at hostels. Only when I came here I realised, India is awake only at 11 at night. You will find watsapp so busy at this stretch. You see the corridors filled with people at night 12 listening to music, talking to friends, and some nerds reading .. :/ .

It will almost be 2 in the morning, you wish GOOD MORNING and fall asleep having your device in your hand until someone guards it.

We have all imagined too much about College Life. Well, movies have made an impression in all of us and this college is nothing like it. Freedom in here is better than many colleges which don’t allow interaction between classmates of opposite sex. According to what I have observed, girls have come prepared and have a decision in their head on what to do – and thus, their behaviour doesn’t vary much from first year till the final year. But, we can see a drastic change with guys. They could be the shyest people I have ever met in this world. They are so reluctant to socialise in the first years that maybe due to language barriers existing initially. But, by the final year, a guy without a girl friend is like a needle in a haystack. WHAT A CHANGEOVER MAMU!! 

College changes our behaviour, don’t let it change your character and identity.  Changes must come, but we need to be how we are. Attractions and distractions are part of our life and as my father says, ‘Know everything, try something and practice only few things ‘, which means know all good and bad, try the least harmful and be away from the dangerous. College life is supposed to be enjoyed and we should not let anything or anyone stop us from it. So, HAVE FUN, BE COOL AND BE SAFE!!