Contemplations and Ruminations

There's this song by Collin Raye, which goes like this... She said: we're much too different We're from two seperate worlds And he admitted, she was partly right. But in his heart's defense he told her What they had in common Was strong enough to bond them for life. I laugh, I love, I hope, I try, I hurt, I need, I fear, I cry. And I know you do the same things too. So we're really not that different..me and you . Man! That's so sad... if you don't fit in, you don't fit in... THAT'S IT!!!! Why write such a dumb song??? I hope the person he wrote it for had a nice laugh over it. Why can't people just understand that there are different levels of communication... people are exposed to different elements and different lifestyles... different ways of being brought up and educated. You cannot go around telling people, we are same because we have two eyes, two ears, one nose... please!!! No wonder, I like spending time with my kids... th...

After two long weeks of quarterly holidays, the school reopened a few days back. I was so caught up in the chaos, I forgot all the work piled up at my desk. Things were just happenin everywhere... Arun turned up after a long time, nearly 6 months and he has grown... same old delightful smile. Carlton walks in, all agitated & scans the hall for anythin long and twirly... not finding anything, he starts sobbing (autistic children tend to have an unusual attachment to an unnecessary object) so Jesy teacher and I start giving him Sensory Integration Therapy . Then Sahaya Mary teacher hums a tune and Brinda smiles for a fraction of a second... and this surprises everybody cause Brinda hardly ever smiles. So we call Ramesh (who is always huming a tune) & tell him to sing... and Brinda smiles again and again. Aswin keeps running into other children and falling down... he's happy to be back. Hansel utters what is most probably his first word and everybody stops whatever it is they...

Okay here's somethin my friends can't put up on their blogs... but it's too funny to leave out. I heard this from a cousin... a very very crazy cousin. He was at home lazing around... watching tv, when his friends drop in, this guy and girl. So they too make themselves comfortable and everybody is watchin tv, when all of a sudden the girl starts crying... after a few minutes the guy starts crying. My cousin is staring at them dumbstruck... he asks them okay what's up? Then out comes the stick and my cousin is staring at it, wondering what the hell it is... apparently it was a pregnancy test stick and it was positive, and these two (who were boyfriend and girlfriend by the way) were really tearing up over the 'positive' sign. The guy was crying more than the girl it seems... anyway, my cousin then drove them to the Gynaecologist office. So there he is sitting in the office with his friends, when his dad rings up... my cousin was kinda quiet on the phone, so his...

Thats what Anju said when I told her I have no idea what's gonna happen tomorrow at the engagement. Anyway, t'was a fun day... after mass the girls started singing happy birhtday in church... and I was staring at them aghast. I mean its a church!!! It was packed with people and the priest was still there talkin to the parishners... anyway after they finished their song, the Father walked up to me and blessed me. The engagement was nice too, lot of folks showed up... Nameeta took a lot of pix's (mostly of herself though)... my brother kept tellin me " I will not put turmeric paste on anybody's head ". Vinod rang up so many times during the ceremony. Antonio, Arun and their parents gave me lots of flowers and a nice necklace as birthday gifts. The pictures came out well.... Another ritual in the whole scheme of mankind... has just started.

The same people who talked a lot about my life and made a big deal that I was not agreein to any proposal... and who drove my parents crazy with worry, by blatantly lookin upon me as though I was a curse to my family... the very same people, who almost made me break the 5th commandment, by perputually harping 'bout my attitude and giving me long winded lectures on how to not expect a dazzling knight on a unicorn... have suddenly turned wise and all proverby. They were spewing forth all divine proverbs about things occuring at the right time and God having a specific plan for everybody ... funny, they did not realise this when they were ruining my peace with the parents. Guess there is more chance of me seeing a unicorn than of these folks .... ever changing. Anyway, told folks 'bout Tonio/Tony and this is what they had to say... Mother ( Sr. Magdalene ): Ohhhh! He's got a Shakespearean name, I already like him! (yeah, gotta admit the name is nice...) Shil: When is t...

One of my favourite people on this planet died yesterday... of a stingray attack. He saw beauty in the most ugly, disgusting, slimy and horrendous creatures. He was a beacon of enthusiasm and inspiration. He loved nature in all it's form. He was reckless and passionate and bursting with energy and fervour. To him nature and all of creation was sacred and beautiful. He loved to waddle in marshy waters and play with giant reptiles, oh man, he really loved those fearsome reptiles. But he would never have used that adjective to describe them. To him they were lovely, wonderful, gorgeous, fantastic, fascinating, magnificent and beautiful. They were his pride and joy, he even named his daughter after his favourite reptile, Bindi. He lived an adventurous life caring for our earth and all the animals in it. His knowledge on wildlife was inexhaustible and his trademark phrases were infectious. It is a terrible loss and I can't begin to imagine what his family must be going through. But...

There was an eye checkup camp in school and it was fun... the kids would not allow the doctor to peer into their eyes. As soon as the doctor comes near shining that light into their eyes, they either try to grab that light or they go close enough to bang him on his head. The doc kept muttering they are not focussing. We celebrated Onam in school. The kids were asked to bring whatever flowers they could find near home and we all made a flower rangoli. We made payasam too and everybody drank a lot. There was this bottle filling competition, where a group of four teachers stand in a line and there is a bucket at one end and a bottle at the other end. The one near the bucket, scoops up water and passes it to the person near him and so on... the last person has to pour the water into the bottle. The group that fills the bottle first wins. That competition had everybody in splits... There were shouts all around like 'Hold your water!' 'What is wrong with your hands, where did t...

Went to meet Medow and her newborn baby at the hospital. He's so cute, so cute, so cute..... I wanted to hold him but I was so scared. He is so small and pink and tiny and smooth and so delicately soft... I was afraid of not holding him in the right way, and I did not want to disturb him, he looked peaceful in his sleep, his eyes shut so tight, oblivious to all the excitement he was causing. Medow looks radiant and happy to be done with the ordeal. I think they are all brave... all the ladies who have given birth. It's still a wonder to me... How long will it be a wonder... I wonder.

I saw this really old movie today, Designing Woman and it took me back to those good old days when I had TCM. It was nice seeing this simple neat and decent, fun movie. Gregory Peck looks good as usual. Actually wa tching a movie after a long long time... the last movie I saw was Superman Returns and I hated it... there was nothing, no story, no plot... just a Brandon Routh flying around and saving that really irritating Louis. What really pissed me off even more was her irritaing son with his freaking inhaler, who is actually superman's kid... how truly amazing!!! And Lex Luthor is not worth mentioning. The Lex Luthor on Smallville is so much better... and cuter too. Saw Brokeback Mountain before that... was thoroughly disgusted... stupid stupid movie!!! Two cowboys are left all alone on the mountains and suddenly they become gay... and people actually liked that movie, it won the oscar's for somethin...

Yesterday was rather fun too... it was the feast of the assumption of Mother Mary. The church was decorated beautifully and we sang 'Ave Maria'.... I liked the latin chorus. The choir group came over for lunch. A few girls dropped in early and they helped out in the kitchen. Food was good... Ended the day watching One Tree Hill... Hailey's song was nice & Brooke sure is interesting.

Had the Saturday off, FINALLY!!!!! It's been long since I was able to sleep well into the day. Wanted to wake up late on Saturday, but Sr. Ancy rang up at 7:30 am and after that I couldn't go back to sleep. The things I go through for having sisters and fathers as friends... ;-) Anyway, it was nothing important so I got to spend the day with some of the best things in life, books and ice cream. There was a lot of cocoa powder at home so I made a chocolate sauce, wanted to eat hot chocolate fudge, and it came out pretty good. That book 'Tis by Frank McCourt is amazing. I loved the first part to that book "Angela's Ashes". Have to go to school now, there's a medical checkup for the children.

Let's see... what can I jot down here. Made candles and they came out quite good. Felt good to do something like this after a long long time. Cheryl and Vidhya were here too and they liked the whole candle making process. Anyway, I cooked on Sunday, made butter chicken and bread crumb chicken. It was nice to finally have the time to cook after the exams and stuff. Marinating, using the pressure cooker, getting that first whiff, listenin to the crackling sound of things frying... it's therapeutic. Caught Alladin on TV after a long long time, the Walt Disney one... it was one of my favourite cartoons growing up. I remember wanting to be beautiful like Jasmine, and falling for somebody who could take me on a magic carpet ride... it was good watching it now, knowing that I had a ride like that and it was beautiful. What else, yeah had to receive a TT shot, cause Milton bit me & the shot was more painful than the bite... miss that kid, wonder how he is doing. Wonder if his mom...

Went to school on Saturday. Had a staff meeting, to discuss the progress of students & the causes and prevention of mental retardation. It was an interesting discussion, we were talking about pregnancy, cervical dilation, birth canal ... needless to say it scared us: me, Jency and Vidhya. The guys ... I don't know what was goin through their heads. It was fun to watch them though .... they were tryin to look disinterested. Anyway, later on we had choir practice and we sang 'In His Time'. After the practice we girls went out for dinner to Lynns. Nine of us, Chandini, Ashwini, Vidhya, Cheryl, Shiny, Anita, Stephina, Nameeta and me. It was nice, just sitting around and talkin ... had burgers and strawberry milk shakes. Sunday mass was good, in fact it was funny. Fr. Antony, is young and his sermons are unconventional. He talks as though we are his friends, very casual and interesting. He was smiling and so were we. Then we sang our song. Folks said it was beautiful. In ...

Was updating records in school. Many new kids have joined and all their case histories have to be documented and filed away for future reference: the medicines they take, the delivery process, the seizures, the progress or arrest of disability ... everything has to be recorded. And the stuff I read was .... sad. There's this cute kid, am really fond of him, he's autistic. He lives in his own world... he speaks but he cannot speak to us, he cannot socialise. One moment he is laughing a happy glowing lively look in his face, the next moment he is screaming and crying, like he is being tormented by unseen spirits. All this because he is autistic. And while going through his files, saw that his parents had tried to abort him. The mom had taken some abortion pills, but she did not complete the prescribed dosage. There's another boy small kid, round 4, who was probably normal, but he got into trouble during the birth process, the doctor employed forceps and that damaged his hea...

I caught J.K.Rowling on TV talking about her seventh Harry Potter book and she was saying that two important characters are going to die. I do hope it's Harry... maybe she will kill him by making him accidently trip over his wand or by falling off his chair. That's how she killed all the other important characters anyway... Sirius Black, falls through some freaking curtains, and that's it, he's dead. That is how she killed him and I liked Sirius!!! And Dumbledore, she makes him gobble up some poison to remove the 'locket' at the end of the bowl. The locket wasn't even a horcrux!!! It was some fake dumb ornament!!! Dumbledore dies for nothing!!! She kills off all these great people, like how you would swat a fly. So hoping the next person to die is Harry, he is irritating. But knowing her, she just might kill off Ron and Hermione... that is gonna suck. Hope it doesn't happen, ginny can go, so can ron's father ... I really don't want it to be Fr...

This happened long back, probably 8 months back, at the bank. Was waiting there (not many ATM's out here) and this really old couple walked in. They had their pass book and they were talking to the bank guy, asking him stuff, it was obvious they weren't understanding much. The old man was getting flustered, he told his wife to seat her self and that he would take care of everything. She ignored him and he went back to trying to figure out whatever they were desperate to know. Things weren't going too well, when he turns to her again and tells her to sit down, that he would take care of everything. She ignores him again and stays there by his side. You could actually see the relief on the old man's face when she refused to sit down. It was so obvious he wanted her there, even if she wasn't saying much. As much as he wanted her to be away from this humiliating mess of being old and not understanding much, she knew he needed her there, with him. Made me wonder ... Th...

Relief! Unshackled! Feels good when you are done with some things ... like the exams. A sense of being free. Exams were okay, the studying was fun till I got fedup. But most of the stuff I read was rather interesting: the biography of many authors, the various mix of stories that brought reactions like "Wow! that is some story!" to "What did I just read!!! Did he really become famous for this!!!!!!!" . A few people that stood out were H.G.Wells (I liked the whole Eloi Morlocks theme), Charlotte Bronte, Eugene Francois Vidocq (Sherlcok Holmes was based on this real life character) and of course Shakespeare. Now he is some character... even the girls had something to say about him. Anju thinks Shakespeare is overrated, Shil said "To be or not to be - that's all I remember about him". Tina told me he is bisexual. Whatever he may be or not, his plays are anything but dull. Like somebody said, "Shakespeare tried all styles except simplicity." R...

The day was going really bad, just when I was about to lose my grip on reality .... God sent Binu. That boy has got me, he's a new kid in school .... He, my Redeemer, is amazing, always watching out for me like no other .....

They are the best kind of angels. They can be rude and brutally forthright. But there comes a time when they surprise you .... with the little things they do. They hardly realise what they have done, and that way it means even more because it was unintentional, done at the spur of the moment, comes from somewhere deep inside them. There are many folks out there, with bright shining halo's and they are good at sympathising with you and giving you all kinds of advice .... and people in turn keep polishing their halo's even more. But they are so unreal compared to the other kind. The Haloless angels, really care about you and they know that you are gonna make it through ...

Me, Cheryl and Priyanka were discussing stuff last night... how things keep changing and how life was back then when we were small. Eventually we got to talkin about boys ... Boys are fun... no doubt 'bout that. They say and do the most atrocious things ....There was this boy in school (my sisters class, 3rd or 4th standard) who knew exactly how to handle girls. With the sharp end of his compass he drew a line straight down the centre of the desk and bench dividing it into two sections. And then he passed a law with all seriousness declaring, you shall not touch my side, your pencil box, book etc. shall not cross this line ... I don't even want your SHADOW falling on my side of the desk!!! That's how they were long back, they wanted nothing to do with girls .... dirt was more interesting to them! They were kinda mean and disgusting too .... There was this arab guy in my building around my age ( I must have been 7 or 8 then). One day I was standing outside the door waiting ...