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It's a strange thing. When you want to post on your blog, you never get around doing it. But when you want to write your assignment due in 4 hours, you get the strongest urge to blog. Why is it always this way? While this may be a sign of unproductivity, laziness and lack of discipline, it at least makes for one more good post!

Home. Where the suitcases are. Where my family is. Where I belong. Right now, Home is H-68, Trivandrum. It changes every 3 to 5 years. It has been that way since I was a kid. While everybody wants to go back to their own hometown for vacation because they miss the familiar surroundings, and the climate and the smells and the familiar friends, where everybody knows them. But for me, the place is not as familiar as the hostel I'm staying in right now. I don't have friends my age there. It is not the best place for a holiday. 

But right now, sitting alone in a class-room, trying to focus my mind on the assignment, my mind wanders around. I am alone. Everyone have somehow finished their assignments, and are having fun together, while I am still alone in the class. But I never ever ever feel lonely. I still feel I am safe, and secure; not just because of the assurance of Divine company, but also because of a family back home, waiting for me. While I may not have the greatest urge to get there right now, just the thought of my family brings me a sense of remote community; in spite of the fact that I do not call them often enough, or even email them. 

Thank You, all at home! For just being there!

Lots of Love

The Blog Evangelist

In a couple of days, I might actually get a new blog convert; a fine respite to my own ever-increasing disinterest, marked by the increasingly boring posts that you see popping up. If you're at my blogsite for the first time, and if you are a friend of mine, you would go to the years 2008 and 09 where I've actually written something worth reading! 

But back to blog-converts...

Ever since I started my blog in the year 2006, I've managed to tell a few select people about it, and those I did, I persuaded to start ones of their own. Some are defunct, while others are going strong! The peppy linguists' blog was started, and so did Parul's and Mahim's; the angry old man's blog revived, and now, there'll be a new one! 

I'll post and tweet the link as much as I can! I'm sure this new writer will be awesome too!!! 

Words

It's been a while since I've posted, and I thought I'd resume my post with a few updates, for those of you who read my blog to know what's up with me.
I'm still in Theological college, doing hopefully my final year here. I can study for one more year if I want to. I'm not sure what I want to do with my life actually. If any one of you out there who think I might be of help in your enterprise/organization, let me know. I am pretty good when it comes to computers and writing. Though I can keep good inter-personal relationships, I'm horrible at public speaking. As long as you work for justice and equity, I'm all ears!
Ok. that's it for the CV.
Right now, I'm reading a book on Trauma and Recovery; and I'm finding it very difficult to read it. It talks about how fragile the human mind is, and how it can be irreversibly broken by traumatic events or human atrocity. The psychological damage a rape victim, or a car-crash survivor, or a soldier that has seen battle goes through is immense, and though the the symptoms are more or less unseen, the cause is like a huge iceberg under the person's conscious being.
And an insensitive word, or a loose remark can actually create havoc in that person's mind; that the person could even drown in depression for days... And in today's world, there are more people than not that have experienced trauma; more likely because of domestic violence or child-abuse or rape or war, as opposed to being victim to a tsunami, or an earthquake.
While my close friend and inspiration, the Angry Old Man would shake his fist at the system, and fight to make sure abusers and war-mongerers are never born, I, being a little more passive; would watch out for those that need help, and try and help make right emotionally, mentally and spiritually the wrong that has been done to them. 

Trip to NE Post 1 Train Ride

The journey, though hot and tiring, was peppered with lots of fun and jokes.

This is the post you've all been waiting for! about the awesome adventure trip to NE!, well, technically, just Nagaland, with a longish stop-over at Guwahati. Nonetheless, the trip was awesome, not just as an adventure trip, but a learning experience in culture, language and err... travel-planning.

The train journey was 'AWESOME' Barney Stinson style. We had earlier booked Sleeper-Class tickets via apparently the 'only' train from Bangalore to Dimapur. It stopped at 70 odd stations! 3 days n 2 nights! But thankfully we had amazing co-passengers.
I remember, in the movie Spy Game, Robert-Redford tells Brad Pitt that cigarettes are the best ice-breaker. I was thrilled to know that the best ice-breaker in any sleeper-class compartment is a full deck of cards. I realized that almost 99% males in our lovely country knows how to handle a deck of cards. We spend 4 to 6 hot hours playing Bluff, Rummy and Donkey. We got to know the co-passengers, a bunch of Assamese laborers in Bangalore. Fun, honest and soft-spoken to the point of being coy. My friend and I, two average South Indians, with a loud sense of humor seemed like aggressive North Indians next to them.
 Another bunch of co-passengers, some Thangkul Bible College students also provided us directions to get around NE, and good suggestions about where to go and what to eat.

Parenting

While I was getting a hair-cut today, I was transported back in time when visiting the barber-shop was like visiting the dentist, (or like going to your piano-lesson when you know you haven't practised!) Basically, I could feel that sense of anxiety and worry for an unpleasant 15 minutes; where a stranger with no sense of personal hygiene runs a pair of blunt scissors through your hair, pulling it out, and pushing your head left and right, pretending you were some sort of rag-doll with a head that can turn 360 degrees!

However, my parents were sympathetic to my plight, and used to listen helplessly as I complained. Unlike the young mother I saw today. She came with her young son whom I presume studied in the Second Grade. While the barber was trying to cut his hair, she was the one shouting at him asking him to hold his head still, and pushing his head down herself when he didn't know how to. And I thought to myself. This is the ultimate betrayal! When you thought you could rely at least on your parents through this difficult ordeal, they break your trust, yielding to the pressures of conformity in the barber-shop, instead, of at least having the fun of watching the barber struggle as you refuse to conform!

I have seen kids become constant class-toppers because of this sort of up-bringing, and I have also seen kids cave in to peer-pressure later on. What struggle would it be, for a parent to tight-rope-walk the thin balance between disciplining your child and giving him his dose of TLC. It reminds me of the Calvinist-Arminian Debate! 

Allergic to books

Recently I put up a status-update on my Facebook account that said I was allergic to books, and then made a half-clever remark about the ebook revolution. Though not many on facebook know, it is very true. I AM allergic to books. Especially the ones in the library! I think it's the dust or the book mold, but whatever it is, whenever I open a book, my throat gets blocked, and I cannot breathe, and I end up coughing, and reeking with bad-breath.

The frustration is that most of what is so valuable to me is on paper and no where else. Unless somebody shows me how to find whatever I need from whichever book online - for free or for a very low price. (It is interesting how I now associate anything soft-copy with being free. What has piracy done!) Anyway, this is just a shoutout whoever happens to pop into my blog today. I need your prayers desperately! I have a fourteen page assignment to finish tonight. (16 hours, max) and I have a fever. I have 3 books I must read (I guess I'll use a bed-sheet or something to cover the nose) and 16 articles. And I need the brain-power to last (and focus) for the next 16 hours... 

SAIACS update

This is just an update of happenings at SAIACS.

things are going fine here. slightly too fast for my comfort though.

I had to make a power-point show (along with Jeremiah) for SAIACS as they're applying for accreditation to Mysore University.

It took us the full of three nights. The show was 10:30min long, with 97 slides. We had to record a voice-over, which included a lot of amateur sound editing (a first for me!) While it was a learning experience, it involved me staying up till 3:30am two nights in a row. (and getting up at 7:30am the next day) and no afternoon siesta. resulting in a bit of harsh flu.

But everything went off smoothly, and the presentation has been, well... presented, successfully.

Now I have to get back to my studies, along with flu.

Of course, something else has been stealing my attention these few days.

The SAIACS volleyball tournament. We won yesterday's league match convincingly, and lost today's the same way.

There are three more league matches to go, and all our heads are filled with strategy.

If only we had more than 24 hours a day!

It feels like I'm alive again, and though I may not be explicitly contributing to society in anyway, I am glad to be alive and enjoy God and society!

Until the next post!