Complete Guide To Summer Breaks In College.

What college students should do this summer vacations?

How to make sure you spend your summers in college effectively. A few things a college student could do during his/her summer break and how not to waste it away?

Okay. So your summer break is about to start or it has started already. You are really excited to do things. All those pre-exam bucketlists and amazing ideas you had night before the exam or even during the exams. It is time for them.

If you are in your first year, chances are that you are going to waste this summer. Most people do, and yes most people were as excited about it as you are right now. But they wasted it. Its too easy to do so. With the summer heat, the comfort of your home and newly acquired bundle of series and movies which are instant answers to your 'I am getting bored'. Don't let it be a summer in which you finish oh so many seasons and movies and did nothing else. At least don't let it be just that.

On College and Drawing Your Masterpiece Right

Small things trigger back nostalgia . It can be a good feeling or a bad feeling. The one I am talking about triggered guilt. Not that I did something bad back then, its about how i am now with respect to that time. I am talking about my first few days in college. The excitement, fear, drama, the feeling, being alone and independent. Every moment was so exciting. And it wouldn’t be exaggeration branding them magical.

The person I was then and the person I am now are miles apart. In my case, I am sure the former looks down upon the later. Are you really what you planned yourself to be?

Dejected

Tired from the world, he sought refuge.

Kept running from the invisible, gaining altitude while climbing a spiral staircase.
 
He knew once up there, everything would be fine.

One look at the stars, and he would turn invincible.

All his problems would disappear.

He paced. Faster and faster. Giving it his all, burning away all his energy, he jumped.

Jumped into the opening.

Only to find the sky clouded.

http://rebeccabarray.com/tag/stars/

Ps : Wrote this for a flash fiction thread on Reddit. Partly inspired from real life.

On Why I Started Hating My Blog

So, I haven't really been honest with my blog lately. The last post hit it off on Reddit and got me a lot of views and I think that killed it for me. The blog wasn't personal anymore. To be honest, yes the last piece was humorous, but it wasn't me.I don't mind something going mildly famous, but then it has to be something which I really feel for, not a post I ranted out in an hour over some ants.

The blog probably felt like writing for CoolAge all over again. I started writing for CoolAge in my first year of college, but could never reach the minimum amount of articles to redeem payment. And you could count that threshold with your fingers. I was one or two articles short when I finally decided to ditch it. It was more like a report writing job. Write a 400-500 long (long?) article, and get easy money. Had it been freelancing or something I would have still done it. But that writing represented me. I remember what tripped the switch. I sent an introspective article about a change in sleeping patterns I experimented with during one particular set of exams. Sleeping through the day, reading all night in peace, having crisp Mendu Vada's in the morning, and then going to sleep again, evading the noise and confusion of everyday life. It was peaceful. I didn't do it for a day or two, but almost a fortnight. There was a lot of introspection, I will try to find the article again. Anyway, CoolAge rejected it saying, it was too personal. What?! I edited it a little and sent it back, getting the same reply. And I decided to stop writing. I wasn't going to do something I don't like just for the sake of money. Especially, not before I graduate atleast when money isn't a constraint. For me writing is essentially spilling out of my heart. I don't know fancy words, I usually don't go out of line to think of smart puns or anything, I try to write exactly what comes to mind. Its an outlet to the thoughts I have usually, and not thoughts that were cultivated just for the sake of the writing exercise. I am not sure if I am making sense.

Fuck, that was some detour. I was planning on a really short post.




The personal feeling and vibe this blog had for me walked away with the publishing of the ant post, dejected, walking away sadly, teary eyed, contemplating whether it should look back or not. 

Not that I haven't been writing, I am still working on the the Ladakh memoir, and I am proud of what it is turning into. By the end of this summer it will be done. Hopefully. Or it will be too late, and then it would turn into fiction.

Other than that, I was recently reminded of the pleasure of spilling out everything, like no censors, everything, not giving a flying f' about the world writing, by a pair of letters I exchanged with a friend. And here I am on my blog again.

Weeeeeeeeeeeee are getting back together. (Sing it like the Taylor Swift song, but like an outro, okay?)

I am scared.

I am scared. 

Recently I decided to do something. It is a grand plan. Everything about the plan is appealing. So yes, planning part is done. Finally the confirmation came from the other side and the plan started materializing.

I'll tell you what the plan is soon, even though many people already know it. I think I can tell you soon because I can finally see it as happening.
Keep your goals to yourself. This is one the best things I have learned. Check this TED talk without fail.

It started becoming real. And I got scared. I am really scared. But no one really gets it. I shared my feelings with few, but all they have is how wonderful it would be when I do it. How amazing it would be, and how everything will be okay in the end.I really appreciate it. But it really doesn't work that way. I know they are trying to help, and I do look for comforting words at times, but the ones I get are not the ones I want. Maybe words won't help. Maybe someone should just sit besides me and accept the fact that the plan is scary. No overly optimistic words. Someone who just accepts it that i am scared and sits in silent solidarity with me for some while. At least we would be on the same page. Then 'we' will know it'll be alright.

 There is this constant pain in the back of my head. I am tensed. There are even moments when I think of giving up. Letting go of the plan. Telling myself that thinking of the plan was good enough, I don't really need to do it. 

This is not the first time that this has happened. It happens many times. Whenever I plan to do something which will be really great. Something which is not ordinary I get scared and the prospect of going by everyday routine is appealing and somehow warm. 
I get this feeling before playing important football matches. I clearly remember this before the semi-final against PDPU during Concours'12. I was scared. But it wasn't the fear of losing. It was something different. 

It was then that this quote by Marianne Williamson (paraphrased in Coach Carter) finally made sense to me. Every word of it. 

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others"

Please check the Zen Pencil version of it.

I guess i have a similar fear right now. Actually, exactly this. 

That football match was the best game I had ever played till now. That feeling was amazing. We went ahead and won the finals too.


Our comfort zones, are damn too comforting. The fear of unknown is really getting at me. But I think this trip is all about getting over it. And once I am done with it, the feeling would be something similar.

Opening old wounds.

This is the last senti note I am posting for a long time now.

Again it is something I had written long back. And I am not editing it before posting. Long back. Please don't try to connect the dots because they won't.



Opening up old wounds .

When something bad happens between you and someone you love, what follows is untameable anger and hatred. But as time passes by you fall into a stage where you just stop remembering the person. As if something never happened between you both. You are completely oblivious to the past event. Then comes the part, where small things trigger nostalgia. Your jacket, some particular song, some smell, or your accidental reading of old diaries. This phase is strange. You finally start thinking about your past more clearly. You still hate the person for what he or she did to you, but at the same time you cherish the sweet memories you shared with that person. You are suddenly calmer, but there is this urge building up in you that wants you to be at peace with your past. What is one to do then? Does one let go of old prejudices and ego and reach out to him or her. Or one should learn to let go and accept the fact that things always happen for a reason? Are some chapters permanently closed in our lives? What stops us from opening them? Is it the fear of facing the similar old fate? Is it fear of confrontation? Or is it just plain ego? Don't people who were once so special to you deserve another chance? It’s like, opening up old wounds and letting the blood flow but at the same time enjoying the pain and the rush it gave the first time. Well, it’s time to mend the wounds.

Present note:

Funny thing, because I can now tell you how it went. Though most of the questions are still unsolved. 

However many times I have tried opening old wounds, it has been a temporary affair. It lasts a very little time. There is something so fascinating about the past. That is why I always end up opening old wounds. It gives me a high, everything seems to fall in place. There is something so fascinating about discussing what ifs. And everything feels alright. But it doesn't last. Sooner or later you realize why it didn't work. And poof! you are back to your old life. Your trip ends. Its good that you are at peace with it at least, but   expecting everything to be the same is too much to ask for and I have stopped hoping for it. Some people are meant to be in your life for a certain time and in retrospect you'll realize their role. Asking them to overstay, demeans the role they played. 

Your absence is what I love

This is something I wrote long back. I am letting it out. It is kind of liberating, even though it doesn't mean anything.

You Absence is what I love. 

This is really strange. The time after we fight, the time when we don’t talk, that’s the time I love you the most.  Its when we don't talk, its when I miss you the most. It’s the time I only remember the good memories from before.  It’s the time when I am calm, I am forgiving, I am waiting for you. I know everything will be good.

But then we are back together, we become rude, we became miserable and pathetic.

It's like we think we are through the hard part, and we can behave however we want.

Its funny. We are so strange. We fight with each other because we don’t get to spend time with each other, and end up spending even less time with each other. How is hate inspired by the need of love different? We respect each other, we long for each other when we are not talking, we acknowledge each other’s absence and the loss, we hope for a better time ahead, but when we have each other again, we screw it all up.

Trust me, I am happier when we don’t talk.  I am calmer then. There is this feeling that whatever would come now would be better as we just passed through the worst. Lately, I long for that feeling rather than actually being with you and seeing whether what we hoped for is true or not.  

On letters and memories.

Hello :)

The only thing I've done today is watched two episodes of Seinfeld and sleep. Seriously, nothing else.

But I like how I have this urgency to write something before midnight, and I have only 2 hours. The motive behind starting the blog is working very well.


On letters and memories,

Or cheating your way to being remembered. Haha.

Letters.
I have always been fascinated by hand written letters. Always. Though i never got many. I've told this to people who are close to me before. I am in general very passionate about the written word. How everything written is permanent and stays. How anyone could write, and how everyone is a writer. You just have to write what you think, how difficult can it be? It's probably those pseudo-intellectual writers who keep using fancy words and metaphors which are really not needed, that scare away people from writing. 

You just have to write what you think. Its like listening to your mind, and just jotting it down. I will save this for another post, on why i love writing so much and why everyone should write. 

Today it is about letters.
 Recently, i have received and written a lot of notes and letters. But most of them are farewell notes and goodbye letters. They are neatly stacked in my drawer of little things i have saved up from the starting of college. Little things, from clips to an Orange from first semester which has now solidified to an extent that it can be used as a ball. It leaves a tangy smell on you after you've played with it for a while. I love collecting such pieces which will trigger back memories many years down the line. Yes, in a way i love staying in the past. In a romantic sort of way. I am always looking for souvenirs of moments and nights. I even remember saving my first parchi when i was caught by the traffic policeman for driving late night. To think of it now, it makes me remember everything about the day and the pillion.   

I remember reading, "Don't have time to think?" . It is a collection of letters exchanged between Richard Feynman and the people around him. I was really fascinated. You actually get an insight into how these people think. With so much clarity and rationality. The conversations are so pure with real emotions, with words that do justice to the emotions. Unlike conversations nowadays, conversations are short, of not much importance. They don't leave a mark on you. Years down the line, i don't think I am going to remember many conversations i had with people which are close to me. Conversations online are sick and invaded by cute looking parasites like :P's . Their population in each conversation is alarming. Yellow everywhere. I even use them instead of full-stops. Our vocab is binary, with 'faad', 'rad' or 'epic' used for anything good and 'sad' used for anything bad. Seriously. We've oversimplified the beauty of emotions so cheaply.

I really wish i end up gathering a lot more letters by the end of my college life. But i just cannot wish for them and wait. I've decided to write letters, at least one, to people whom i think i was unjust with, people who i think deserved better and people who mean so much to me but don't know about it. Hand written and to be posted by mail. Its a forceful way of making sure you are remembered down the line. 

Well, i came across this interesting Ted back which inspired me to write today's blog post.
They explain it in a better way. Please watch both of them.

She has an interesting point. When she says that she holds the letter which once his father touched. It was sort of a connection. As i said, letters are ways of explicitly making sure that you will be remembered by the person who means a lot to you. You'll always know, whatever ups and downs you had with them, this letter and everything said in it , will always stay.

This one particularly being my favorite. 

I just love what she is doing. Imagine waking up one day with a bunch of letters about you from people you had no idea existed. She operates a site. So if you sign up , they tell you the next time they are writing letters for someone, and you can join in and write something as well. Imagine, making somebody's day special somewhere across the world.

Here is the link to it.

http://www.moreloveletters.com/

Do check the website out. She has written some amazing letters.

For example this, i guess everyone in college should read.

http://www.moreloveletters.com/2011/12/07/put-down-the-textbook-and-read-this-a-love-letter-for-the-college-students/

So I have added two things to my bucketlist today,

• Write a love letter to  a stranger
• Write a letter to someone I know

Sorry for the hurried up post, I just made it on time. I haven't even proofread. Only 5 minutes to go. 

Dear reader,

Please subscribe and comment or better, 
write me a letter and i'll write back :)

B - 213,

hall of residence men DA-IICT, near indroda circle Gandhinagar, 

Gujarat 382007

(I am not sure if this is creepy, But what the hell?)

Yours,
Nisar.

Ps. I could have written a lot more. But can't break the rules. Maybe a follow up post.

On Solitude. Do I really need anyone?

On Solitude, and can I really be alone?

I have always been up for solitude. I have dinners in college at odd timings. I try to avoid rush. I always think that If I need anyone it is myself. Don’t get me wrong. I have some really close friends which I won’t trade for anything. But there is no exclusivity with anyone. I think, I can be the best bestfriend I can ever have.  And it works out too. You have books too, you can always escape there. Escaping seems to be something I have become really good at. If I have a problem, I don’t think about it. I try to ignore it as much as I can. I hate confrontations. I am not good at conversing with people in groups. I am only comfortable with one on one conversation.

So anyway, before this becomes more random. Can you really ever be alone and be happy? You can do away with it most of the time. But its only when you a hit a low you realize. I panic when I hit a low. I bash out at people. I start expecting a lot from people suddenly. I am unfair to them. At these moments, I realize who is really close to me, even though usually I’ll say nobody. But there are people who come to my mind. People who I want to talk with right now, I want them to be there for me. Now, its really unfair to them. I can’t expect them to be there on a single day, and not be there for major part. It is like I am using them, just to get away with my ephemeral misery. Some are unavailable at that time, some get irritated by sudden expectations from them, because usually I am not there to return the favor.  So I get more frustrated. I end up sending messages to people that I shouldn’t.  I open closets and find skeletons, and end up spending a lot of time with them. I like spending time with them. But the more I stay, the more messed up I get.  So , nobody comforts me enough to pull me out of my misery. It dies down. I end up listening to some music, reading and writing. This writing is a result of that.

But then again, it is me who is helping me while I am writing this.  I can always rely on myself. There are people I look for help, and occasionally there are a few who always want to help. And sometimes I just want to know if they want to help. I like to see them try, and know that they are there for me.  But there is none on whom I can rely on more than I can rely on myself. Or probably, I haven’t met that one yet. But there’ll always be me. And writing, ofcourse. 

Ps. Please comment here. You could always tell me personally, but here it will stay forever.