Million Miles

My ventilator. Read, comment and judge me not.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

I'm starting school in exactly one day. How tragic...Oh yes, I have some bad news for...well just myself. According to a very authentic source, our school timetable will not change during our second year of A levels. Horrified? I would have loved to tell you that the news ends here but no the tragedy continues...

We will continue to have our extra sociology class on Thursdays and Saturdays. Dead? I am, in any case.

Saturday is the only day, out of the whole week that I look forward to, because we have a holiday the next day and thus another chance to put off work. But no, people like me who find happiness in little things like putting off work, have no right to be happy. Seriously, all whining aside, it really is torture to get up so early only to study a subject that most people cannot even pronounce correctly. Just for information, sociology is pronounced as:

'So co ology' or 'So so ology' and not as 'So sho ology' or 'So shio ology'. The pronunciation is same for both, American and british accents.

It leaves a sick after-effect and ruins my entire day. But the fact that I can whine here openly, greatly relieves me.

By the way I think I really need to cut down on my habit of reading everything and anything. Reading distracts me to such an extent that I'll conveniently leave my homework or bunk classes for it. And the sweet truth is that it has hardly ever helped me. My mind is quick to learn new facts but it loses them just as quickly so I dont feel like a very well read person. Its like my brain has minute holes all over it which leak information and try to keep it as empty as possible. So the bottom line is, I'm only allowed to read the daily newspaper and a few odd books. That is a self-imposed restriction.

On a completely unrelated note, a few hours ago, we had some rishta wallas for my sister. Just for the record my sister is officially engaged but because my mum suspects her to-be mother-in-law to be a witch and a half, she is trying to have some back-up plan in case some unfortunate incident occurs, for instance, the engagement breaks off. So coming back to the story, we had two ladies, a mother and a daughter at our place. Its relevent to mention that I get extremely nervous, self-conscious and generally ugly whenever we have such sort of guests. Although I've never been the object of their inspection, but its still hard. Anyway, I was trying to make small talk with the daughter which was failing desperately. After every fine minutes we were staring at each other with this overwhelming desire to talk but with no words forming in the mouth. There are no fixed rules for carrying out conversations with the rishta wallas, you can never be sure about what to say and what to keep to yourself. Most people say 'just be yourself' but if people start being themselves I don't think they'll ever get married. You have to potray yourself as an eligible, elegant, cool, down-to-earth person even if you're not. Even if you are no where near to being the the princess you're trying to be. Its hypocrisy, true but who doesn't want to get married! There's always an air of artificiallity and fakeness. You try to hide the dark side of your personality and boost the few, odd talents. Sometimes you can't even believe your own words, twisted and turned in ways that appeal even to yourself! And for a second, you start to envy yourself for being such a great person. But this illusion is short lived because...you're not!

Anyway coming back, the daughter was this fashionable girl with a stylish hair cut, silver wrist-watch and fluttering hands. My sister made her attempt at striking up a conversation and asked her about her subjects for A levels, which is the standard question asked in moments of extreme awkwardness. The buzzword English literature caught my attention and I immedietly became aware, silently thinking, that this is one subject I can boast about without having to deal with the ugly details, such as grades etc. I asked her about her course books and she gave out a few names like Chaucer and Macbeth. It wasn't turning out the way I had wanted it to, I wasn't getting any opportunity to put myself in the limelight so I rattled off a few names which I had heard from my cousin. She blinked with a note of familiarity and nodded. I then quickly added:

'English literauture is so boring and tough. How does one decipher the crap Shakespeare and Naguge's author (I so hated my memory then, I couldn't remember the name) write?'

As soon as I said that, her all-smiles face melted into an all frown one. Her eyes betrayed the rage she was hiding. She said, no its not difficult and tough, infact its a wonderful subject and I love it. The under-lying sentence was:

'And you better keep your gob shut when you don't know anything about the subject!!'

I didn't see this coming. I had only said that in hopes of trying to get her started on natural whining. Actually, I wanted her to bellow and complain like all normals kids. But she wasn't getting my drift. And this last sentence, almost fell like a bomb shell on me:
'Actually I had a distinction in English Literature in my A levels'.

God and I was thinking of boasting about a subject that wasn't even mine!

The conversation then flowed in an entirely opposite direction, she said that she was supposed to study at Stanford University and had even scored a scholarship but when the time came her parents didn't let her, as with all the parents. Presently, she's at Beaconhouse National University (BNU), doing a degree in Liberal Arts. How sad...but she sure got her message across that she's way better than me, in every way.

Eventually she left and I heaved a sigh of relif and self pity. She didn't even let me boast properly...

posted by Niqabi at 6:57 AM

2 Comments:

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7:20 AM

Niqabi said...

Ash: That girl AND her brother, both are forgotten, alhamdolilah :)

Chij-bachee: Jazakallah for your kind words. English literature seems to me a subject only for the elite. I don't know if it makes sense but its seems very uptight, sophisticated, royal and snobbish, lol. I seriously hate it but the thing is that people are impressed when they hear 'english lit', regardless of the fact how you're linked to it. So well, i just try using my connections and very often fail :D

10:50 AM