So, What Do You Want To Be?

One of the first questions I remember being asked is what I want to do when I grow up. I was asked this when I was a little kid, and my answer was always different. I went through the author phase, the doctor phase, the social worker phase (interestingly, I don't ever remember saying I want to be a teacher or an engineer). I was asked the same question as I grew older, after class 10, in class 11 and 12.

But while I always had an answer when I was a kid, I don't have one now. When I graduated from school, the questions became more persistent and serious. People asked me what career I'm planning to pursue, and "I don't know" was never accepted as a real answer. "Kuch to idea hoga na, beta." You always have to have some idea. When I chose to come to Singapore and study Economics, I was told that it's a smart choice... "Economics mein to bahut potential hai".

I didn't really have a reason for choosing Economics. After class 10, one thing I knew was that I didn't want to continue Science. So I chose Humanities. After class 12, I chose Economics because the little that I had seen of it, I liked. But still, I have no "plans" for my future. I don't even know which courses I want to take next semester, which co-curricular activities I want to join. The rest of my life is too far away for me to plan. I don't know whether this is good or bad... all my friends here and in India seem to have answers to what they want to do when they grow up. Some want to be engineers, one wants to be a designer, some want to start their own businesses. I'm hoping that after four years here in Singapore, I'll have some answer for "what I want to be when I grow up".

This is Not A Good Week

It started with me crying my eyes out, and that too in front of a friend, which just makes me feel very stupid and pathetic. The crying led to me missing my two best friends, since they always let me be all pathetic around them and didn't judge me for it, and knew exactly what to say to make me feel better. And I don't know when (or if) I'll see one of them again.

Then there was a boring class followed by a very boring meeting. Then another very long, quite boring Statistics meeting, where again I felt stupid since I'm not any good at stats.

There is an important decision I have to make soon, and I'm sure I'll pick the wrong choice and everything will be screwed up. So now I have a this sinking feeling. A very bad feeling. This is definitely not a good week.

I Would Have Hated the 1950s

Was it really this bad back then?

What Can I Say?!

I've lived in IIT all my life, first in Kanpur, then in Delhi. My father is an alumnus and a professor. So, I tend to take comments and discussions about IIT a little defensively, even though I'm not actually part of the instituion. But this is un-defendable. I came across it yesterday, and it I'm very glad to see that it's had a quite an impact.... there are many blogs talking [ranting] about it.

I don't have anything new or highly creative to say about this, so read this and this and this. They say everything I want to. I'm just glad I was in class when I first came saw the link, because I would have definitely shouted at someone if I didn't have time to cool down first.

PANIIT did change the programme a little bit. But, as Abi says, small mercies indeed.

There And Back Again

I went home to Delhi last week, and I returned to Singapore today afternoon. Neither going home, nor coming back have been as I had thought they would.

Home was a little exhausting. My mother and I are close: I was at home for most of this year, since my school gave us study leave in January, and I spent all of that time with my mum. My mother is a very emotional person. So, talks of me leaving home and how much she misses me happen frequently. And they make me uncomfortable. Although I do think I'm a fairly emotional person, I don't display it very much. I prefer to cry alone than on the shoulder of a friend, I prefer to write about things that bother me than to talk about them. So, home was a little exhausting.

Besides, last week, I had a lot of idle time to think. And I finally accepted to myself that what I'm doing in college is not what I want to be doing. I'm not studying (at all), I'm being very, very lazy, and I'm breaking all the promises I made to myself before I started college. I'm a very lazy person, and I hate that about myself. I stopped singing simply because I didn't like my teacher and was too lazy to find a new one, and now, I've lost most of the skills and talent that I had. In school, I didn't participate in many activities, promising myself that I would be more outgoing and active in college, but here again, I'm making excuses for myself to not go for the clubs I joined. I promised myself that I would do very well academically, another thing I didn't do in school, but again, I'm trying to get out of project meetings, not listening in class, behaving very irresponsibly. Not only am I not working, I'm even constantly badgering my friends who are working. And all this introspection, healthy though it may be, makes me panic, which is very exhausting.

Coming back to Singapore was just a little bit of an anti-climax, I guess. I was looking forward to coming back, and I know I tend to build things up in my head, imagine situations, what I would say, what my friends would say, so I should have expected this. I know I was only gone for a week; nothing amazing is supposed to happen when I come back. I just wanted it to.