It’s four days post release and it was half-off-Tuesdays at my screen and the entire occupants of my theatre besides me were 2 older gentlemen and another elderly couple, taking full advantage of the senior discount. Babylon left me feeling very dumb, film-illiterate, utterly confused and like I really needed to write on my blog after a substantial absence.
Continue reading “Captain’s Log 27122022 – Babylon.”
I am yet to finish an entire month of working out without deviating from the schedule, but I’m seeing newbie level gains from the protein-conscious diet. The shoulder pain still rears its ugly head out of its ball shaped socket but it’s a lot more manageable than before. Who needs physiotherapy when you have Youtube, right? I’ve begun meal prepping my dinner as well ’cause it’s practically impossible to get back from the gym and then cook if I am to stick to the sleep schedule. But it’s worked out great so far and keeps the groceries from getting forgotten in the depths of my fridge. Everything gets cooked on the weekend right after we get back from the store. Which brings to my boring weekends – I cannot bring myself to do anything relaxing on the weekends. It’s all laundry and meal prepping and vacuuming. I do sleep in a hell lot. That helps. The Sleep scores still oscillate near the low to mid-eighties. I hit a 92 one time, no clue how. The actual duration of sleep doesn’t seem to have a linear correlation with the score – there’s other metrics at work to determine sleep quality that I can’t ‘hack’ into (yet). Rochester is turning mighty cold, mighty early this year, and as always, my room is the coldest in the house. The cold brings deeper sleep but also horrific nightmares for some reason. Real doozies. Waking up in the middle of the night sweating and shaking with tears streaming down my cheek kind of nightmares. Okay, it happened only two times but still it’s two too many compared to the last several years. Don’t know what’s up with that. Also, I’m part of a therapy group now. That happened. Every Friday for an hour and a half. Yikes.
Continue reading “Captain’s Log 29102022 – Just a bunch of jackasses standing in a circle.”
Today was National Cinema Day. Every cinema in the country was selling its tickets at $3, regardless of movie format with many offering discounts on concessions as well. I love going to the cinema, I love good deals, I’ve always wanted to go to the movies all by myself and to watch movies back-to-back. I tried to time them as smoothly as possible but still ended up with an hour between movie #2 and #3. But I managed to walk home and get a quick workout in during that break. And now I’m writing. I spent a whole day at the movies, I went to the gym two days in a row for the first time in months and I’m writing my third post in two weeks after a close to three-year break. I think this was the most personally-productive day I’ve had in a very long time.
Continue reading “Captain’s log 03092022 – Techtually alright.”A werewolf among men, a lone bear cub on the forest floor,
I’m at peace in the sun, all the blue’s in the sky far above.
Nighttime tugs on the reins, my tired knuckles must let go.
My head droops, eyes close, spine pressed to the crack in the door.
Face forward falling into my bed, clinging bedspread wet from my sweat.
Brain half full, full of your face,
your smile and your nose and how you left no trace.
No more room in my skull as I spill open into the bed,
covering the floor,
and the walls,
till the whole world reeks of you.
My weightless body submerged in red, black and blue.
I don’t sink, I can’t float,
I lay suspended in motion with neither end nor course.
Daylight cracks open my curtain,
the fluid in my lungs make room for air.
Familiar voices filter through my mind,
the hinge of my jaw unclenches,
wrinkles recede from my forehead,
gravity forgives my eyelids.
I wake up into a brand-new day.
An entire world of possibilities, disgustingly bright.
But the only thing I want to do,
is to fall back and drown in you.
-f.s
In a month I’ll be 25 years old and the woman who cut my hair yesterday asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up. It was the most reassuring question I’ve been asked in the last three years. It implies I’m not done growing up yet. And thank God for that.
Continue reading “Captain’s log 2019-22 : Master of none.”
“Look out! NO!” screamed Deeraj’s mother from the corner of their street. 15 year old Deeraj turned to his right to the sight of a fast oncoming bus.
Wait. Back it up, who is this Deeraj and why would I care if he lived or died, is what might be going through your mind, mostly, probably… So, LET’S back it up a while and then meet back here. Continue reading “Human Story | The Parent-Teachers Meeting”
Cold air, wrinkles on linen.
The murmur of a lazy fan.
Warm breath, behind my ears.
Heavyset beats of a sleeping heart.
Strewn hair over tied up limbs.
The Queen laid siege to my king-sized crib.
Yesternight’s rain by my windowsill,
a bed half empty never felt so full.
~ F.s
We’re always shown the past – the 70s, 80s, whatever it may – to be full of colorful clothes, freethinking hippies, hypnotic synth music and strip malls. Wonder Woman 1984 felt like none of those things. It has more in common with 2020 than 1984 – started full of hope and ended utterly underwhelming. At its best, it was a middle chapter in a thick novel where nothing happens and the author sidetracks into the details of numerous things that will never make an appearance again that you get through nonetheless because it began so well and you hope the end will be the same. At its worst, it was a DCEU movie. Continue reading “Nerdgasm 0004 – Wonder Woman 2020 : I’m confused.”
Thanks to most of my important, formative years carelessly spent at the movies and watching sitcoms, the island of Manhattan was an extremely familiar sight even though I’ve stayed eight thousand miles away from it until a few months ago. It’s what all the fairy tales tell you meeting your soulmate is supposed to feel like – a brand new person you know you’ve never met yet certain sights and avenues feel so familiar as if they’ve been home all along. I’ve watched Spider-man swing through the skyscrapers, Ted Mosby obsess about its skyline, King Kong obliterate Broadway and scale the Empire State in a few leaps and a disorientated Steve Rogers stumble through Times Square as Fury and his minions swarm around him. This was my state of mind as we planned for a trip to New York City for new year’s eve of 2020. What more could it offer, right?
Three freezing days, aching feet and eight hundred pictures later, I can now tell you all the ways in which I was wonderfully wrong.
Continue reading “Captain’s Log 010120 – Eight hundred pictures later.”
Would it not be great if we could clip our flaws like hair or nail,
and they’d grow back clean for us to be better again?
And if that were the case do you ever wonder,
when all’s cut and done, what would even remain?
So I made a list of all that to remove, bone from sinew.
To care about a cause that holds no personal reward,
refrain from hearsay and back-fence talk.
To seed integrity and grow a garden of faith,
won’t undo history but there’s at least hope for green ahead.
A caveman in routine – rise, work and fall with the sun,
A sage in impulse – think with the head. No, not that one.
After all, pleasure is reserved for the deserving,
what have you ever done?
To devour words and craft a hundred delicacies,
unearth new tunes and maybe even newer people.
To rein in thoughts yet leave dreams uncaged.
Revel in solitude but please keep the drawbridge down –
for the goal is to be happy alone, not unknown.
To free these hands of phones,
and make space for another to hold.
If all else fails, to just be a little better.
Hopefully this time next year, this list is much shorter.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a night off with no impending deadlines. Technically I could be grading, freeing up the upcoming weekend or preparing for the presentation that I’m to give in about 20 days but then it’s 20 days away or I could be reading any of the 13 books I brought with me all the way from India spending precious baggage weight rather than a couple extra T-shirts or sweatpants, which I constantly find myself short of. But still, no “panic-inducing-watching Netflix while insanely guilty” type deadlines looming over my head. Just a cold, quiet, empty November night and honestly, it feels weird. Have you ever been to a public swimming pool at noon during summer and there’s children shrieking everywhere and water splashing and you hold your breath and go underwater and everything quiets away in an instant? But then you’re underwater. I mean, there isn’t much to do underwater rather than perhaps appreciate the weightlessness and try not to think about the fact that it’ll end very soon as you’re mandated to return to the chaos to stay alive. It’s that kind of weird. Continue reading “Captain’s Log 0618-0619 – A year of sitting on my ass and the lessons that came with.”
So here’s what we should have so far – an admit, the I-20 form and hopefully a passport that doesn’t expire until after your course duration.
Click here for Part 3 - Essays.
Assuming you’re done applying by say, December 31st, you have about 2 to 3 months to wait before the admission decisions start rolling in. While some do get a response as early as end of January or mid-February, the general consensus is around the beginning of March all the way till May or sometimes even June. It also doesn’t necessarily mean that colleges with earlier deadlines will respond faster. What goes behind the screens inside the admission committees is a mystery we’ll never unearth. I did find universities in UK responding much faster though. Most of them had deadlines open till late March or even rolling deadlines that never closed. Glasgow replied to my application literally the next morning. Bath, Leeds and Queen Mary took less than 3 weeks, as stated in their website. Imperial stated a wait of maximum 4 weeks but responded in the 6th week only. Still, all of them were mighty faster compared to US.
My point is, you got time to kill now. And this is usually when the mind starts to ruminate about what you’ve been doing the last few months and the reality of what’s to come. A big bummer in that reality is money, how much you’ve spent and how much you’re yet to spend and will it all be worth it and will you ever make it back. Here’s how much I spent.
Click here for Part 2 - Exams.
One of the really cool things about applying abroad is that you get to make your case. As far as I know it’s all about numbers in India. You have a defined entrance exam and a set cut-off you clear. Reservation quotas might come into play then. Sometimes there’s an interview and even then it’s too technical. Nobody asks you about your story or what purpose you think you will serve by getting this degree. Foreign universities make space for this in the form of personal and academic statements, usually put together as one – the statement of purpose.
What fourth wall ?! 