Quickie

In Colombo. Weather's fantastic. Been running around with ever so many things to do. WHY did i come so late? Everyone's leaving within the week. Wedding tonight. Aargh don't have shoes to match the sari! Should i wear heels? Better not, will probably fall on my ass in front of lots of sexy muslim men. Must buy booze for tmrw night. Have no idea what we're doing. Ok must run. Happy new year everyone!

In Transit

Merry Christmas to all, from Dubai.

Its a good thing I don't celebrate this holiday or else I would be severely depressed at having to spend it in an airport, while everyone is out drinking and making merry. But I don't, so I'm quite contentedly sitting in an isolated corner of the airport, catching up on correspondence and such.

I may have lied about the 'quite contentedly' bit. I just got back from a stroll around the duty free, and there's a Michael Kors bag calling my name. Now obviously the rational me is like 'umm T you don't have $600 to spend on a bag. You don't have $600, period'. But the irrational me is like 'well that's what credit cards are for, to buy things you don't have the money for'. So I ran away. And then gave my wallet to my brother and forbade him to give it back to me til we're on the plane. Of course knowing him, he'll probably lose it and then we'll be in a real pickle but you know, one worry at a time. I did buy all the requested alcohol though. PP, there's a bottle of rum with your name on it, so you can relax now.

I am absofuckinglutely looking forward to coming home. The next few days will be busy as fuck but the good busy, not the omgihavetostudyforthreefinalsin12hoursfucktheresnotenoughtiiiime busy. There's a mehendi ceremony and wedding to attend, which means a frantic search for a sari as soon as I get off the plane. My nails are a disaster and my eyebrows have now officially reached unibrow status so that needs to be dealt with. Then there needs to be some bonding time with K crammed into 3 days before she leaves for India, which means the appropriate herbs and spirits need to be acquired. WHERE is the time??! I'll find it.

Anyhoo, I hope everyone's having fun. I'm off for another round of window shopping.

A Snow Tale

Once upon a time
Last Friday to be precise
It snowed. And snowed. And snowed.
It was really kinda nice.

And then it stopped being nice and just became fucking cold.

.

From this

to this

In two hours!

If any of you say 'oh how pretty' I'll put a curse on you. And then I'll come to Sri Lanka and kick you in the shin. And yes, the view from my window sucks ass. Vut to do.

Heh.

It's cold. I can't type, my fingers are frozen. Hence everything is done via mouse. Except this typing. I used my frozen fingers for that. I'm pretending to work. This right here made me chuckle. Heh heh. I'm cold.

Word

The number of books I have begun and been unable to finish this year is horrendous. Shame.

Just began Kite Runner. It sucked me in from the very first chapter. I should probably be studying for my last final.

T- 2 days to leave this snow-ridden hell. I might be exaggerating a little. Sleeping in on weekends aint so bad. Not bad at all actually. But eating ritz crackers for breakfast, lunch and dinner aint cool.


*Visions of rice and curry with an arrack and coke on the side. Bliss*

Looked-at-ness Part I

I had to read Ways of Seeing by John Berger for my women's studies class, and this is one reading that I really can say changed the way I look at and think about this particular subject.

The social presence of a woman is different in kind from that of a man. A man's presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies. If the promise is large and credible, his presence is striking. If it is small or incredible, he is found to have little presence. The promised power may be moral, physical, temperamental, economic, social, sexual- but its objective is always exterior to the man. A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. His presence may be fabricated, in the sense that he pretends to be capable of what he is not. But the pretence is always toward a power which he exercises on others.

By contrast, a woman's presence expresses her own attitude to herself and defines what can and cannot be done to her. Her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste- indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence. Presence for a woman is so intrinsic to her person that men tend to think of it as an almost physical emanation, a kind of heat or smell or aura.

To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman's self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. While she is walking across a room or while she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.

And so she come to consider the surveyor and surveyed within her as the two constituents yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.

She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another.

Men survey women before treating them. Consequently, how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated. To acquire some control over this process, women must contain it and interiorize it. That part of a woman's self which is the surveyor treats the part which is the surveyed so as to demonstrate to others how her whole self would like to be treated. And this exemplary treatment of herself by herself constitutes her presence. Every woman's presence regulates what is and is not "permissible" within her presence. Every one of her actions – whatever its direct purpose or motivation- is also read as an indication of how she would like to be treated. If a woman throws a glass on the floor, this is an example of how she treats her own emotion of anger and so of how she would wish it to be treated by others. If a man does the same, his action is read only as an expression of his anger. If a woman makes a good joke, this is an example of how she treats the joker in herself and accordingly of she as a joker-woman would like to be treated by others. Only a man can make a good joke for its own sake.

One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male, the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.

I know it's kinda long but there's no way to get his point across without including all of the above. Thoughts?

To-Do List

And in order of priority:

1. Catch up on lost hours of sleep.
1. Clean desk- it's gotten to the point where I avert my eyes as I walk past.
1. Do laundry- NO clean underwear!
1. Drink

2. Replace food with exercise- the only physical activity I've done in the past 3 weeks is walk to the food place.
2. Drink

3. Clean Praveen's tank- how would you like to live in your own filth? oh wait..
3. Drink

4. Pay credit card bill.
4. Work extra hours to pay credit card bill.
4. Drink

5. Complete work application.
5. Look for more jobs as backup.
5. Drink

6. Continuously play the sympathy card to assure holiday on the island.
6. Start packing in hope of holiday on the island.
6. Well, pack in any case since have to vacate room for holiday.
6. Drink

7. Go to city for last minute shopping drink watch new movies drink watch all seasons of how i met your mother drink buy wedding present for S drink sell books online drink nap more drink acquire new music drink
7. Drink

8. Study for last final on the 23rd.
8. Drink.

K, I'm off to start my list. Let's see.. number 1.. oh, its sleep. Excellent. Just what I was in the mood for.

Oh For Fuck's Sake

Awake at 4.15 am, eating instant noodles out of a styrofoam cup, trying to write about the modern color line, something which I know fuck all about, so instead writing pointless blog posts and updating my gmail status every two seconds because I feel the need to put in writing every minuscule thought that races through my caffeine and sugar permeated brain in cryptic one liners, incessantly youtubing reggae and doing one of those one thing leads to another reading sprees on Wikipedia. I now know all there is to know about Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, all the Marleys, the Rastfari Movement and Jah, yet am still 8 pages minus one paragraph short of finishing my final paper. I also have Damien Marley's All Night on repeat and doing that ridiculous I want to dance but I shouldn't so I'll just shake my butt while seated in an attempt to convey my appreciation of this song thing. Also, I broke my glasses, so now they are perched precariously on the edge of my nose, falling off every two minutes and giving me a blinding headache. Is very sesky. I'm a cat away from turning into a bag lady. And now Gutter's gone and done it and got me dreaming of where my second life would be. I can't elaborate but it involves a beach and lots of Adonis-type men. Clothing optional.

Just livin the dream peeps, just livin the dream.


I need a drink.

No Comment

Take that Bush?

I honestly don't quite know what I think about this. Except that it's funny. A little strange, a little disturbing, but funny.

To Come

I have been woefully ignoring my blog in terms of quality writing, if it can be called that, because some of the papers I've churned out in the last few days really have me questioning my ability to put two coherent sentences together. I would blame it on the lack of time but everyone who reads this blog no doubt already knows that if I did have spare time I'd spend it in bed, so I really have no good excuse.

I do however have lots of things I want to write about, and will, hopefully over the break and maybe on that long flight home. Some of the things I can elaborate on and some I cannot. First and fore mostly, the Duckling has drawn me the most beautiful tattoo; it's exactly how I pictured it in my head, it's like she read my mind. Now all that's left are the minor details, like how big it should be (I'm thinking six inches) and what the word is on taking painkillers before getting it done. It's most probably going to be along my spine and I'm resigned to the fact that the pain will probably kill me.

There have been a few epiphanies about life and living, an adopting of a somewhat new outlook, cutting ties with those who bring me down, the forming of an inkling of what I want to do and where I want to end up eventually, along with some interesting options for the next few years. Just last week the tingles came back, and I swear, sweatervests have never looked so attractive *positively evil grin*

Vodka + Cranium = good times


k im gonna pass out now

A Math Problem

If T has four pages to write in two hours,



a) how many minutes should she spend on research?



b) how many words per minute must she write?



c) how many minutes can she procrastinate?



d) how many minutes should she allocate for food and sex drink?



e) how many minutes can she spend dreaming about lying on a beach with a cocktail?



f) how many minutes did she waste writing this blog post?



g) will she have time for a quick nap?

Do Work. Please.

Here, you know that list I wrote? I didn't do any of that no.

No see down there, one before the last.

Yeah that.

Well I watched Private Practice, but that's it.

Umm 3 papers on Wednesday.

Well.. none. But I'm about to start right now.

Yes yes men, now. Right after my nap.

No no, just a podi one, I promise.

Minuscule. Miniature. FIFTEEN MINUTES.

Leave me alone.

It's not love, RD

I'm so fickle I can't even like one guy for a decent length of time. Damn it.



So there I was, yesterday, sitting across from him, thinking he looks rather delicious in his black sweater with all that height and broad shoulders and the nice hair thing going on, when it dawned on me that the feeling was gone. You know, the tingly one. And I knew that, sadly, it was a wrap. Another one of my 'it ended before it began' sagas.





And now I've turned into one of those girls who incessantly blog about their love lust interest. How irritating.



*slap*

I See Fat People

If you're gonna get me out of bed at 7am for a completely unnecessary meeting, at least have the decency to not bring in chocolate covered donuts as breakfast food and then proceed to stuff your chunky faces with a manic gleam in your eye as if you've never seen food before and then lick your fingers as if you just had a nice kiribath and lunumiris and then look at me like I'm crazy because I refuse to start my day off with deep fried dough.

Gross.

No wonder you people are obese.

Hello December

31 days for a new year.

26 days til I'm home.

23 days for the end of my last Fall semester.

15 days to write 4 research papers and study for 3 finals.

10 days to read 7 books and write reports on them.

4 days to see the very sexy man.

2 days for the next episode of Private Practice.

12 hours til a 9-5 work day.

3 hours for The Daily Show.

5 minutes til my next glass of eggnog.


Let the games begin!

Nostalgia

is finding your ex boyfriend's old shirt in your closet and imagining it still smells like him, even though you know it doesn't.