To be Spectacled !!!

Tttrrrrrrrrinnng!!!!!

There goes my mobile alarm!! And I try to open my eyes wide enough to spot the snooze button.

3 messages received….

I open them all. Typical messages like…”Flowers have blossomed to wake you up….The Sun is waiting to see you smile…” I look around my room in some blind hope to see the flowers blossom, only to find out the half open laptop,little bits  of Potato chips, random books and  old newspapers  all over the floor and a  half empty milk glass which I accidentally tipped  in the process of getting up.I freshen up myself and I hastily climb up on my bed again. I place the newspapers on the floor and try to read the text in the small font. (I had convinced my parents to subscribe for the news papers which uses the smallest font…)This continues for a while and then I stick few papers to the ceiling fan and then I sincerely attempt to read that too.

Only lunatics and geniuses behave like this. I dont know if I am a genius or not, but I am certainly not a lunatic .This phenomenon, my friends is what I proudly named and henceforth I ll call as “Specs-o-philia”. A serious desire to wear spectacles.It all started when I was in grade 2 .From my keen observation of all the class geeks from KG1 to Third grade, I inferred that they all had  a common trait of wearing glasses. You  may wonder , why would the term “geek”  could get related to kids from Kindergarten .They were the ones who could recite ABCD in both ascending and descending order :P. Or…atleast I thought so.So..I started this spree of  searching ways and means to get spectacled. And I sincerely believed that a pair of glasses was the only thing between me and the topper badge, and happily stayed back from studying because anyways I would nt top. (He he…Proud to be a procrastinator :P)

Years passed by and there came the age of rimless specs.Who thought that a pair of rounded glass made convex/cave lens   would suddenly become the fashion mantra ??? From Shabana azmi..to Shahid kapoor ..Every famous face was adorned with a pair of cool designer kind of specs. I even remember, a version of Barbie getting released with a specs. And , to top it all, one of my two best friends and a cousin were spectacled .So, I tried to find out the “not so good ” opthalmologists, who had somehow missed the “how to test the eyes for power ” class during their med schools .  Convincing my family to go to him was a tougher task. So, the consulting session was something  like this .

Doc: Hello!! How are you ??

Me: I am not fine. I cant see the blackboards properly.I think my eyes are myopic (Something my biology teacher had taught the previous day :P) . And that is affecting my marks. Moreover my face looks round and chubby and it could really use a pair of spectacles.And everyone in my friends gang are wearing specs and my naked eyes are the only two things that is keeping my gang from being called the “Specs gals”. So please do the needful.

Doc: Um… Does anyone in your family wear specs?

Me: Oh yea!! My father was spectacled when he was very young , my mom uses reading glasses , all my four grandparents use them and I think two of my distant uncles also wear  glasses and they are very thick. I really think I should wear glasses.(I could nt be more desperate.)

Doc: Ummm Ok.. do you have any siblings?

Me: Ya..I have an elder  sister.

Doc: Does she??

Me: No she does nt wear glasses , but I think she is myopic too.

After a few tests….

Doc: Your consulting session is over and I think your eyes are perfectly alright. (I thought.. Oh doc..why did’nt you miss that class.There were other exciting stuffs to do …)

I came out with a long face . My parents were  suddenly concerned about my sister’s eyesight and decided to have her eyes tested too..She went in and came back with a prescription for glasses. Uff!! I need not spend two more paragraphs on describing how furious I was at that time.

……………After 5 years……..

I get out of the college bus and walk straight towards my class room. Even before keeping my bag down, I hastily search my (spectacled)friend’s bag for the glasses before she could notice me. I spend three blissful minutes seeing the world through the beautiful lens before people spot  me , give me a few spanks and knocks on my head and a lot more advice on why I should nt wear others’  glasses because I’d get astigmatic .(Duh…I should ve written this post earlier and made them read it…).

I continued to attend every free eye camp that was conducted in my apartment premises and visited the eye doctors regularly to check my luck with the glasses. There was one instance when I faked a headache and the doc gave me medication  for migraine (He should ve missed the “how to diagnose  migraine” class too).

…………….Two minutes ago…………………………..

I keep staring at my lap top screen at 2:00 am with a dim zero watts bulb(You know why.. :P) earning a weird stare from my new room mate. I just found out that she had an awesome pair of glasses and tortured her until she took at least five pictures of me wearing those.The first thing I checked in the insurance coverage scheme I got here in the USA was the eye check ups.

Fourteen years of school, four years of college life….First few weeks of grad life!!! Cant get enough of Specs-o-philia!!! 🙂

Confessions of a day scholar….

to

Everyone of you must have encountered  or overheard one these conversations at least once at SASTRA.(Univers(C??)ity)..

Heyyyy…Three hours free..:)

hmmm..Ya..

So whereto???

Canteen…

then?

Platform…

then?

Library…

Er…Are you a…..?

YES…I am a day scholar!!!

We are the ones who come early to the classes at least by 10 minutes, not driven by any sense of punctuality, but by the college bus driver who is unnecessarily punctual 😦 . If you hear a bunch of shrill voices  sounding like..”Aww…You are lucky!!! You eat home made food!!!”, you are sure that there is a day scholar in the vicinity with a big proud smile(after the praise he/she had heard about the taste…Thanks to amma..) and a bigger lunch box.Welcome to the day scholar life!!!

There were certain moments when I badly wanted to be a hosteler.The first one was, When I was officially admitted into SASTRA .I gleefully went into the hostel registration room, and was waiting for my turn to give my details.I could feel the moisture in the air as it was rapidly being charged with homesickness. Well lit eyes,Curious eyes,Angry eyes, ‘About to cry’ eyes,Confused eyes,Lachrymal eyes…Guess how my eyes were???…As usual…Drowsy eyes…(Can’t help it..Was bored of waiting in the queue…).At last, the long wait came to an end.I alacritously said..

Hello Sir, I am so happy to be admitted here…May I know the procedure for getting a single room?

Stop the blah…blah..Tell your name..

Nithya…

Where are you from ?

Er..Trichy…

What ???Trichy uh?? No hostel facilities for students from nearby cities…Next..

Sir, but I need to travel an hour and a half to reach here..

NEXT!!!

I walked hopelessly out of the room.I thought ..three hours of journey every day is surely going to be tough .But still ..This college is worth it..(It was not :P..). I started back to home looking at the girls carrying their pillows and buckets with them..Watching as if one of them will drag me to their room . From then on , everyday(except exam season) was like a picnic to me. I had to backpack my breakfast, lunch,occasionally..books, water bottle  etc etc.

The first week of college life was delectable.I even sneaked into one of my friend’s room and had fun there.It feels good to be a day scholar , especially when you hear stories about doing the piled up laundry, Cluttered rooms, the atrocious warden, all of these amidst a tasteless diet. I felt totally melancholic when  one of my friends burst into tears in the middle of  a lecture due to excessive homesickness. I pictured myself in her shoes and thought..”Ooo ..Life at hostel is worse than mine!!!”

Not for too long. The second week of college educated us about the plethora of extra curricular activities that is happening at the college.Numerous tech student clubs …Music and dance auditions, Literature clubs..Student chapters of NGOs,Study groups etc etc..My eyes were  almost popped out looking at the posters of all such things until it read the last line of every poster..

“Time:6:00 to 7:30 pm”

That means that I ll reach home by almost 10 pm. The only reason I was happy about being a day scholar  is that I get to spend more time at home while others cant and that seemed almost impossible with these timings. Obvious choice was to skip it all. That’s the story of how I became a branded day scholar.

The foremost reason for which I feel  jealous about the hostelers is…They get to sleep a lot…(Seriously!!).I miss my afternoon nap.Whenever there is a free hour,I have to roam searching for a decent place to settle which is almost impossible to find,  with  the cupids flying all around the college,…while the hostelers happily slept in their cozy beds. Single day scholars have a pathetic, nomadic life here which they do not deserve.Whenever I try to sleep in the bus, the conductor(who happens to be a crazy fan of actor Vijay) switches on the music system which hollers out latest hits of the actor. There comes one of the torturous moments of your life.

Months passed by.I found out a new hideout for the free hours…The Library( I am not a NERD).A place where you can happily doze off while reading your favorite novel. A place where you get super comfy cushion sofas to lie.A place where you get hifi headsets to watch movies.A place where you can browse happily. A place where nobody asks you to get out..Who said Library is only for bookworms???..It exists totally for people like me.. 🙂

Cultural fests …Events that are totally unrelated to day scholars. With a head, who denies you   temporary accommodation in hostel and asks you to come with your dad to the pro night even so that you can reach home safely, it sure is doomed to be unrelated to day scholars. No more words about it.

Now, I am almost in the last chapter of my day schee life. I say to myself..”It was nt much tough”.I have my own cherish-able moments this life.No hostel girl can have the fun of bunking the class and going for the matinee show and returning back for the last hour.And the proud look on your face(which boasts about your freedom of mobility in and outside the campus) when the hostelers wait in an endless queue to get permission to go out for five minutes and you need to say only two heavenly words  to get out and fly away to your home.

SIR,…Dayscholar…

You may go..No need to ask permission.

No doubt,I love being a day scholar…Cheers to us!!!!!!!!

Windy..Wordy…we…

Of late…Since the GRE season has started, It is difficult to decipher even the usual conversations we have during the classes. I was the last to catch up with  this whole verbosity thing since I had bunked the first two weeks of college. First class of this semester, when I entered the class ..I had to face a series of interrogations like…”Dude, You look so lugubrious!!Wat happened? How was the peregrination???”. That was followed by a series of complicated words , of which I totally did not have any clue about. I thought..”Oh my God,Talking to friends has never been this much difficult.”I nodded my head blankly trying to pose like I understood .

This was not getting any better.From then on all my replies and responses in any talk would be monosyllabic or in the worst case.. “Oh yea!!.. “. I had my own ready to use, exclusively tailored set of neutral phrases like 1)”Yea …Totally” 2)”Oh..I never knew….” etc etc.All was well until one day , during a casual conversation..I was told..” Why were you so impudent and pachydermatous yesterday ???”. None of my neutral response would fit!!  I wished my brain had a “Wordweb” software. I gave a brief nod. “Does that  mean that you are Pachydermatous??” Er…No!!! ..”Then why did u nod??” ..(Mind voice:”Awww.. For God’s sake tell me what is pachydermatous !!!”.)That word stuck into my head ,I hastily googled it only to find out that it’s a verbose version of unemotional. (Enna koduma sir idhu!!)

Classrooms started looking like  classrooms actually. Novels were replaced by wordlists. No more news papers. All I could see was Aptitude books. I was totally bored. Cue cards became my new friends. (Nerdy friends btw). Learning words actually appeared to be fun.But guess what’s funnier??? Using weird adjectives on friends !!. We felt like we are talking an encrypted version of English.

Apart from being wordy,we are actually being more expressive. And I am fascinated by the fact that how English has an exclusive word for every little thing we want to express.We are not beating about the bush anymore while our mind is searching for the appropriate word., And the best part is that our talks have become more adultish.. :P. Waiting to relish more exotic journeys with my new word friends.

Out of the cocoon….

Here I am.. No longer childish..No longer innocent!!!Still preserving that  tint of caprice and naughtiness in my eyes.I wonder how quickly my informal and happy-go-lucky lifestyle is changing gradually to a serious and in fact gloomy one!!! Whoaa..A serious start indeed.

I still remember that day when i got drenched in the muddy puddle and smiled sheepishly to my mom saying..”Amma…I fell down..”and how warmly she hugged and cuddled me saying…”Its ok sweetoo…” Nobody blamed us those days. Everything was taken for granted. Now I am in the verge of completing my undergraduation (I know I must have sounded like a 40 yr old :P).suddenly people started of speaking about career, life etc.I am trying my level best to adapt to the seriousness..but still that childish voice inside me feels this to be hostile.

Anyways ..I am open to responsibilities and commitments now. I ll have my own way of being lively and cherished  amidst the adulthood.

ps: I am tempted to categorise this post as “One boring post”…But still Its my first work.I am proud of myself. 🙂

>An Outlet to my thoughts……..

>Yipeeee….. I started a blog….

I had always thought that the best outlet for my thoughts and emotions is my mouth…..But it involves many risks…Especially when I forget about whom am talking about and to whom…Yup…am obsessed to gossips and chit chats…..Moreover mouths have a more important job to do…(what else…..EATING)…..

Basically the reason why i started a blog dates back to 3 incidents:

Aug 28 2009:

My sweet sis , who has been my companion since I was born left abroad for her higher studies. She was the only person with whom i would share even my darkest secrets…Of course we promised each other at the airport(after a cosy hug…..Hmmm I miss it) that we ll be the same sweet sissies in spite of the several thousand miles between us ..But ..Like everyone says “Long distance never works out!!!”So i thought I ll do the blah blahs… here

Nov 15 2009:

Semester exam started…Ppl were too busy being nerdy and geeky.Since my childhood I have always been immune to such hurdles …Come what may….Olympiads,Quizzes,Exams,Slip tests….etc etc..Being a chatterbox is the best thing….But everyone cant be me…..:(

Mar 1 2010(Today):

I should mention something here….Three things i cant live without.

1)chocolates

2)Milk chocolates

3) Dark chocolates

All of the above led my beloved mouth into a chronic tooth infection.As a result one of my molars was extracted from mouth.Of course it was painful.But the most painful part was that I should nt talk for atleast 2 days…Duh…These stupid medical terms cant stop me from radiating my thoughts.

So….As a result…I started this Bloggy( ;-))….

Hope my journey with my bloggy continues until Sri lanka becomes Srimathi Lanka….(LOL….)