Tips for Unemployment

A few days days ago, while moving to my second temporary housing in three months, the reality of my situation hit me suddenly, like horrible realisations tend to do. I’m a college graduate who’s finished nearly seven months without a permanent job. My roommate and I were carrying our stuff three blocks down the road, moving by ourselves since we’re too broke to hire a van or movers. I was dragging a suitcase by one hand and carrying a pillow, a purple stuffed elephant I call Dumbo, and, ironically enough, my graduation gown in the other.

I graduated in January as an international student in Singapore, and was naive enough to expect to get a job immediately. Now, seven months later, with a rejected work permit application for the job I did get and few signs of another job, I’m still living off my parents in a city with very high living expenses. I’m an unemployed college graduate, nearly broke, and living in an apartment with ten other people (and a dog whose existence my landlord refuses to admit to).

I could so easily panic.

Instead, walking down the road with my arms full of stuffed toys, pillows and graduation gowns, I found myself giggling at the ridiculousness of my situation. Singing sad songs to force myself into an appropriate melancholy didn’t work, so I gave up and planned this piece in my head instead.

Unemployment is hard. I wasn’t a bad student in college – I have decent grades, as many skills as a fresh graduate could be expected to have, and several (unpaid) internships on my résumé. My résumé doesn’t have any typos or grammar mistakes, my cover letters are all customised and enthusiastic, and I genuinely am enthusiastic about a lot of the jobs I apply for. Given the fact that a large part of the Class of 2012 of my university is also similarly unemployed, I can conclude that my lack of income is not entirely my fault for partying too much or skipping too many classes over the past four years. Yet, I spent most of my graduation ceremony feeling jealous of the students who talked about their upcoming promising careers and scoffing at the Dean when he mentioned a “close to 100% employment rate” in his oh-so-inspiring-but-actually-a-marketing-pitch speech.

So, since this period is hard for me and for everyone else going through a similar situation, I thought it was a good idea to compile a list of things I have found to be helpful. They help me to not panic and lose my mind, or feel so scared that I’m literally frozen and unable to do anything productive. I hope these “tips”, from one unemployed person to another, will help others in my situation. (Warning: these are not tips on how to get a job. I clearly don’t have the answer to that question yet.

1) Appreciate and celebrate the small wins. My roommate and I found housing on the last possible day – we were going to be homeless in another few hours. The room is cramped and has no windows, and we’re sharing a tiny bathroom with at least 5 other people, including two guys who don’t know how to aim. But still, it was a huge relief to have found a place to stay, and once we unpacked as much stuff as possible, put up our posters and bought a new bulb for my good-mood-lamp, the room is quite nice. So, though we’re both unemployed and interview-less, this small win helped us feel better. Appreciate the small wins, even when it feels like they have no real impact on your life in light of the big problems – the smallest wins help you be more positive.

2) Be positive. I know you must have heard this from a hundred different people in 27 different ways, but seriously, staying optimistic is the only way to keep at the bleak task of looking for and applying for jobs. I did a fairly good job of staying positive, even after the first company that made me a job offer called two days later to cancel said offer. But my sunshine-y outlook took a big hit the day my work visa application for my second (and nearly perfect) job got rejected. I sobbed on the phone to my mom for half an hour, bought a horrendously overpriced ticket home, and was on a flight that very evening. I spent three weeks at home as an absolute vegetable, doing nothing to help myself. I finally did snap out of it, but I lost a valuable month of job hunting and spent much more money than I could afford. Believing that something will work out if you keep trying will help you keep trying and hence make something work out eventually. Stay positive, even if the elusive “something” is taking longer to come along than you would like.

3) Do non-job-hunting things. I know it feels horribly guilty to enjoy a drink with some friends, especially when every beer at a bar can mean one less meal the next day. I know it feels worse to talk about non-job-hunting stuff, or to laugh and have fun (gasp!) when you don’t have a job. But you really, really need to take a break and enjoy other activities. My dad advocates going for a run – something about endorphins and adrenalin apparently make you feel better. As a criminally lazy person, I haven’t yet tested his theory, but it’s probably true. If running is your thing, go for it. Or go for a movie, or a drink, or a party (even better if it’s a house party with free alcohol!). Look for cheap/free options, such as a free movie night or a simple walk with a friend. Give yourself a break and do something that doesn’t require you to worry about your job.

4) Do something productive every day. It is so easy to spend hour after mindless hour watching an endless stream of Grey’s Anatomy episodes. They’re distracting, relaxing, and let you focus on some fictional character’s crappy life rather than yours. You start by promising yourself just a one hour respite, and before you know it, you’ve finished that season of Grey’s Anatomy and both seasons of Blue Bloods over three days.

Don’t get caught in this trap. Make sure you do something productive everyday – it’ll make you feel so much better at the end of the day. You have to, of course, spend several hours on the job hunt every day. If you reach the point where you simply cannot look at another job description, find something else to do. I spend several hours reading the news from different sources – makes me feel awesomely smart later! You could write something (rant about unemployment!). Or learn something – in the age of the internet, there really is no excuse for putting off that one thing you always meant to learn to do. In my experience, doing at least one good thing in a day significantly helps me not feel like a complete loser.

5) Find others. You are not alone in this. I know that talking to friends who have seemingly perfect lives is often a painful experience of jealousy, anger, and subsequent guilt, and can leave you feeling worse than before. Talk to them anyway. Blaming friends for having a better time in life is not acceptable. But at the same time, find people going through the same stuff. In my case, it helps that most of my friends are in the same workless situation. If yours are not, turn to the internet. There are countless blogs and websites where people have written about their unemployment, and it helps to know that you’re not the only one – someone else has felt everything you feel, and might be able to help through advice, tips or support.

I’m sure there are many other things you could do too – a tub of Ben & Jerry’s always makes me cheer up. The effect of alcohol on my mood fluctuates drastically – vodka combined with the right music might put me into a wild party mood, but the same in another context has left me a sobbing mess, strategising ways to finally find Hogwarts and “leave this cruel world behind” and accusing every favourite Harry Potter character of having “magicked” their way into a career.

But anyway, these are my top five tips, and I hope they help. If there is something crucially important that I am missing out on, please do let me know. Happy hunting!

But I Don't WANT To!

The first time marriage became a topic possibly relevant to me was when I went to college. No one had ever talked about it in terms of me before: not my parents, not my friends in school, not my cousins or sister. We'd discussed the "ideal boyfriend", what we want to be "when we grow up", colleges, dreams, travel plans, how to change the world etc, but never the “ideal husband” or marriage.

Within the first couple of months of college, however, during one of those late-night talks when everyone's just trying to get to know each other and make new friends, someone asked "So, what age do you want to get married at?"

That was the first time I'd even thought about the idea of me being married. I was only 18, I'd just begun college in a new country, I was as confused as ever about what I wanted to do with my life. Marriage, frankly, had never even occurred to me as a possible part of my Plans for the Future. I was genuinely surprised at the question. "You mean to say you guys have an age that you want to be married by? You've actually thought about this before?"

That's the first time I really understood that there are families which have expectations from their children regarding marriage. My best friend at the time, a boy, had a long-term girlfriend that his parents knew about. He knew he was going to be married around the age of 25, because his girlfriend would be 24 at that time and already past the "ideal marriage age" for girls in her family. Another close friend, a girl, said that there was no way she'd be allowed to be unmarried past the age of 24, and that's if she managed to push it to 24.

This was all new to me. My parents had never even mentioned their "plans" for my marriage to me. They still haven't, and I'm fairly sure they don't have any such plans anyway. I couldn't imagine a situation in which my various uncles and aunts and grandparents could pressure me into getting married at any age. Why would it be any of their business? And why would disapproval from them lead to me making the life-altering, very serious decision about getting married?

Since then, I've talked more to my friends, and while I still can’t understand the pressure and the expectations that they face because I’ve never faced that, I’ve accepted that there are such pressures. My advice to just “screw it and do what you want” may not work in all situations and for all people. I may not be able to empathise, but I can at least sympathise.

I’ve also had more time to think about marriage. And it still doesn’t feature on my Plans for the Future. For many reasons, I don’t understand marriage as a concept, and until I am convinced that there’s a real reason why I should get married, I don’t plan on getting married. What really bugs me, however, is the dismissal that I encounter if I voice this opinion. “Oh, you’re still young. You’ll change your mind in five years.” I have heard that countless times. Especially so if I add that I don’t like kids, and don’t want to have any of my own. The indulgent smiles from many adults really annoy me. Yes, I’m 20, but that mean that my opinions will necessarily change magically when I hit 25? Why are all women expected to want to get married? Why am I expected to want kids just because I’m a woman?

Do guys face the same indulgent smiles and general disbelief? I don’t know, but I’m inclined to believe not. A guy saying that he doesn’t want to get married or have kids will probably be more believed than a woman saying that (I may be wrong here). The expectations that a large part of society has from its members are extremely gendered. I may want to change my mind later on in life, but the desire to not get married just to spite those who were so convinced that I would change my mind is very strong.

I feel a little stupid even writing about this, because I do feel too young to be even thinking about marriage. Not because I’m too young to understand it and have an opinion about it, but because I feel too young to be thinking about it affecting my life because it’s never been discussed as part of my life in my family, and won’t be a part of my life for a long, long time, if ever. But I have friend who might be married two years from now, solely because the society she lives in has set this schedule that her life must follow, and marriage is part of it. Her not wanting to be married at 24 is abnormal, stupid and against everything they believe in, and hence, the childish desire must be ignored and squashed. And my opinion that marriage as an institution doesn’t make sense should die a similar death.

Three Years, Countless Calories

Instant noodles, strong coffee,

Bread-and-cheese, flat Coke,

Midnight ice-cream tubs, soupy Maggi,

Readymade pasta sauce, packets of chips.

MTR Indian food, microwaved sweet corn,

Icy water, expired milk, old cereal,

Thai food, frozen cheesecake on sale,

Bars of chocolate, M&M packets.

Spicy potatoes with too much haldi,

Chola from cans, frozen parathas,

Baked-beans-on-bread, scrambled eggs,

A lot more Maggi.

Coke with JD, orange juice with vodka,

Salt and lime, tequila shots,

Frozen margharitas with stolen tequila,
Coke with Old Monk, surreptitious cigarettes.

What college tastes like.

The Good And The Bad

I had a Political Science class yesterday. We started discussing how the same concepts impact different countries differently. The talk came round to India. Since I was one of the two Indians in the class, the prof chose me to talk about (among other things) the reasons behind Indira Gandhi's assassination.

I didn't know too much about the topic, so I stuck to what I'd studied in Political Science in class 11 and 12. The book had stated that she was killed by her two Sikh bodyguards because of Operation Bluestar and the damage done to the Golden Temple, so that's what I said in class yesterday. When the prof asked me to elaborate on Operation Bluestar, I started talking about the separatist movement and amassing of weapons in the temple. But the prof interrupted me, saying "Yes, please do go on. Let's see how you're going to tell us about the torture and killing of the Sikhs. Let's see how you're going to put that".*

I didn't know what to say. I had no intention of trying to twist the facts to make them sound favourable to Indira Gandhi's actions. I didn't even know the facts well enough to even attempt to twist them, even if I had wanted to. My stammered explanation that I had no intention of trying to manipulate the issue in any direction was laughed away, and the prof moved on to talk about Rajiv Gandhi.

I was still lost. I didn't know much about Operation Bluestar or Indira Gandhi's assassination, but with two sentences, the professor had made me doubt my Political Science book. I don't think that this while incident was written in a blatantly pro-government, or pro-Indira Gandhi way in my textbook, but was it tilted towards supporting Indira Gandhi's Operation? Did my textbook gloss over the "torture and killings of the Sikhs"? Have I learned about the political history of my country from a very biased point of view?

I remember reading about how history is always written from the point of view of the victors once in an article somewhere. I've always been aware that the history of the same place, same incident, written by two different people or two different governments, will probably be very different. I've always known that the Pakistani textbooks talk about the Partition in a different way than the Indian textbooks. But this impersonal knowledge had never struck home. I'd never made the connection that the things I studied in school, what I was taught, might be biased and inaccurate. What in the history of my country has been deliberately left out of the school textbooks and what deliberately written wrong? How much of the true happenings do I really know?

*In that class, the prof also talked about Gandhiji. She talked about nonviolence and the freedome struggle, then mentioned his difficult relations with his family. She talked about Nehru and his years as Prime Minister, then mentioned his affair with Lord Mountbatten's daughter (wasn't it his wife, not his daughter, that Nehru was involved with?). Again, I was slightly surprised. We're all so used to hearing only about the good in Gandhiji and Nehru; when have we ever heard about the bad?

Untitled

I need you sometimes

More than you think

I can’t always take

Mistakes that you make

We have different beliefs

We have different ideals

We want different things for the world

Why can’t you respect me?

You don’t read what I write

You don’t hear what I say

You don’t see when I’m sad

You don’t care when I’m mad

Your issues above mine

Your theories over mine

Your wants over mine

Your opinions and thoughts above mine

You over me

Always

Don’t call me a bimbo

Don’t call me a slut

Don’t laugh it all away

It’s not always okay

I was sad in the morning

It wasn’t your doing

But I’m sad now

And it’s your doing

You mean so much to me

But I don't know if that's enough

I may not regret

But you'll be hard to forget

Change

A few days ago, I wrote about how I think I’m not changing in the ways that I should be. I’m not seeing or doing or reading new things, I’m not growing. But another thing that I’ve been thinking about is whether I’m changing in the wrong ways. I’m not the same person that I was a year ago, but am I becoming someone that I don’t want to be?

A few years ago, in the inevitable ‘what do you want in your future boyfriend/girlfriend’ discussions, I had categorically stated that even the tiniest bit of sexism, communalism, racism would turn me off. I said that I can’t be with someone who discriminates, or expects me to do something just because I’m a woman, or goes against everything that I believed in. And the same “rule” should apply to my friends too, not just a boyfriend.

But today, my two best friends are not who I would have “chosen” keeping that “condition” in mind. They often make fun of others’ fatness or less-than-perfect looks. They crack sexist jokes, say things like ‘he’s from the South, how cool can he be?’, disparage hair styles and laugh at people for what they choose to wear. V thinks that the strong south Indian accent that another friend has is hilarious, M refuses to eat at a Muslim restaurant because “they are unhygienic about their food”, and a few weeks ago, V told me that he’s extremely glad that I’ve learnt “how to dress” in the year that I’ve been here.

But I am extremely fond of both V and M. They are great in so many ways, brilliant fun to be with, always ready to help when I need it. They laugh at my funny behavior and bad jokes, and crack enough of their own, don’t make me uncomfortable to show the weird and often bitchy side of me. The three of us are very close, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. And I’m not questioning that friendship here: I’m just wondering whether that friendship is indicating something bigger about me.

Am I changing? Have I become more accepting of the fact that there are chauvinists and racists and communalists in the world, and that I just have to live with it? My friends say that their sexist/racist jokes are just that: jokes. And I know that. But jokes are also rooted in something deeper, right? I’m not calling my friends sexist or racist; they’re definitely not that bad. But they do have some... tendencies might be the right word.

More than the sexist/racist aspect, it’s all the talk about appearances that really bothers me. I’m not the girl who laughs at the fat guy; I’m fat myself and I don’t care. I’m not the girl who discusses the gross factor of stretch marks and dark underarms; I have them myself. I’m not the girl who makes fun of a dress that emphasises a big tummy, or a t-shirt that has too much “bling”. I’m not the girl who walks home talking about how shabby another guy looks, and how he really needs to change that. I’m not that girl, so why am I getting sucked into it? Because my worry is not just that my friends feel the need to laugh at an ugly dress, it’s also that sometimes, I laugh along.

Why am I suddenly trying to go to the gym regularly? It’s not the health factor, or the discipline, or the all the endorphins that actually make me feel good. It’s because my weight and jeans size is starting to bother me. Why am I saying things like “You made out with her? Really?” when I really have nothing against the girl in question. I can’t even justify it in my head when I think about it later. And if I am participating in a discussion about someone’s dressing style, there’s always that faintly uncomfortable and guilty feeling at the back of my head, and ignoring it bothers me.

I know that these jokes are mean and wrong. I know that it still doesn’t matter that someone is fat, or dark, or has a strong accent, or likes bright yellow band-aids, or that a guy has a fairness face-pack and fruity moisturizers in his toiletries basket. My beliefs (so far) are the same. But I’m starting to question them a little too. Are looks really of zero importance? Is it really wrong to laugh at fluorescent green shoes worn by a friend? Is it good that I can look past the fat-jokes and become friends with someone who might, on the surface, believe in everything that I don’t?

Thoughts on College (2)

I haven’t written anything for a long time. Nothing voluntarily and happily, that is. I’ve written an article for an application, a paper for a course. I haven’t written anything that I wasn’t specifically asked or required to write.

College is supposed to be a time of expanding opportunities, right? It’s supposed to be a time for experimentation, for growth and development of the mind. It’s supposed to be the time when I start trying to become the person that I want to be. At least, that’s what I wanted college to be. I wanted to find things to love and be passionate about; I wanted to try new quirky activities that may or may not lead up to something; I wanted to learn more, about my subject and others, about people, about the world. I wanted to wake up and go for classes that I genuinely found interesting and enjoyed. I wanted to spend my days with interesting people who make me the better off for knowing them. I wanted to spend wild nights with friends, at the beach, or at my apartment, having the most fun I could have.

But college didn’t exactly turn out to be that. Some of my classes are interesting; some of the professors seem to genuinely care about teaching and their subjects. But the thought of the “future” generally makes me panic. I don’t know whether or not I’ll like a “career” in economics. I don’t even know what such a “career” would entail. And because thoughts of what is still a far-away time for me make me panic, I try not to think them at all. I avoid and I distract and I tell myself that I have enough time to worry about the future in the future, that I don’t need to be thinking and deciding and worrying now.

I did meet interesting people, but I found that I have a lot to learn about talking to people. I can’t talk to different people- I always run out of things to say. I’ve met many “social” people, the kind who can walk into a classroom knowing no one and walk out with five peoples’ numbers and plans to meet up with three of those people later. I can’t do that, and it bothers me. My friend circle is entirely Indian, and living in Singapore, that really cannot be a good things.

My wild nights did work out. I’ve been out dancing all night, I’ve been on long walks with good friends, I’ve had deep, meaning-of-life-and-existence-of-God conversations (with or without copious amounts of alcohol); I’ve been to a couple of the really wild “college parties” you see in movies. I’m mostly happy with my social life.

What scares me the most is that I’m really not growing the way I had thought I would. I’m not doing twenty different activities outside of school, I’m not working student jobs to meet people and make some money, I’m not reading about different things, I’m not watching anything very different. In many ways, after a year of college, I’m the same person that I was before college. And that is not how I wanted things to be.

That’s why I love coming home. It’s not just meeting my family and old friends. Every time I come home, I spend time thinking: evaluating what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. A friend asked me once whether this was a habit with me: thinking about my life to change it for the better. I told him that it wasn’t really. All this thinking started after I came to college and realised that everything that I wanted is not exactly right there and easy for me to get. So, every couple of months, when I come home to Delhi, get some space from the school and the people and everyday life in general, the doubts about that get pushed down by the demands of that everyday life resurface. I spend time thinking and evaluating and talking to my friends, and I go back to college “rejuvenated”. I go back with fixed “short-term goals” and plans to achieve those goals.

And every time I do get back to Singapore after a week or a month or more of being home, I find that it’s not that easy to remember those goals. It’s not that easy to have them at the back of your mind. College saps energy, even when I don’t have that much work. I find it hard to summon enough energy and initiative to write out something I’ve been thinking about because it’s just so much easier to spend that free hour watching Bones or Grey’s Anatomy for the millionth time. It’s hard to generate any interest in the book on Pearl Harbour that looked so interesting when I found it in the library, because it’s so much easier to just reread The Beekeeper’s Apprentice for the millionth time. It’s hard to make that long overdue call to an old friend because it’s just so much easier to call that college friend with whom I don’t have to fear those awkward conversation pauses that come after three months of no contact.

I’m sure I wouldn’t have gotten around to writing this either. I did spend the entire past week at home without much work, and not too many people to meet, and didn’t write a single word. If I hadn’t been stuck at the airport with a delayed flight, a boring book and a headache that prevents me from listening to music, this piece might have been pushed to the back of my mind, added to the ever-growing list of Things to Do that somehow, I never have the time to get around to actually doing.

I'm Actually an Adult!

It's a little weird how living so far away from home is forcing me to do all sorts of things I never would have had to do if I was living at home. For example, I wouldn't have to pay (or bother) to do my own laundry, nor would I have to hunt for vegetarian-food-serving restaurants (or cook for myself). I wouldn't have to walk to college while it's raining bloody cats and dogs, and get completely soaked on the way, or pester my hostel-in-charge to come and fix the blocked sinks in my unit.

I also wouldn't be in a situation where I would find myself homeless in a month unless I arrange for some accommodation myself. I wouldn't have to call a dozen real estate agents, searching for a decent, affordable apartment that meets the varied specifications and expectations that my 4 flat-mates and I have. I wouldn't have to negotiate the rent down, pay commission to the agent, or sign leases.

But, after a couple of weeks and $60 worth of phone calls and messages, I finally have an apartment. And a really killer one at that. We sign something called the 'Letter of Intent' today, and the official lease/contract sometime next week. I have to say, I'm a little proud of myself for doing all this work. Even though I didn't actually manage to negotiate the rent of this place down by much, I did talk down the rent for two other apartments that we didn't end up taking, and I did it all almost by myself.

I don't know whether this experience and all the other experiences that I personally don't believe I'm old enough (or sensible enough) to be having right now are teaching me anything, or making me more mature and sensible. But I do hope they are. Starting April, I will be living completely unsupervised in an apartment with four other girls, and I really hope I'm ready for all the expected responsibilities (such as paying the bills and the rent on time) and the unexpected responsibilities that we will all have to bear. I'm actually an adult now; I'm growing up!


On a slightly related note: sometimes, the amount of independence I have here overwhelms me. It hits me at random moments: how I'm completely free to do almost anything I want. I have complete control over my expenditure. I can buy things that my parents certainly wouldn't let me buy if I was at home, I can go out and not have a curfew, I can skip a lecture and go shopping instead. I think this freedom actually teaches me more responsibility than I could ever have learned living at home. Maybe I actually can deal with having my own place better than I think I can.

See? Graphs Can Be Fun

My Maths prof sent us this link today. In his words: "In case you get bored/tired with exam prep, here's a fun way to waste your time relax". He also sent us the link to the webpage he uses to get "fun-facts" about brilliant [and dead] mathematicians, which he then shares with us in every class as "The Dead Person of The Week". See why I love this class?

Thoughts on College (1)

I used to live in Kanpur. I had a big group of friends, many of whom I've now known for nearly 18 years. Then I moved to Delhi and made new friends. I remained in touch with most of my Kanpur friends; I visited them in Kanpur, they visited me in Delhi. Then, I came to Singapore for college. Again, new friends, new life. This time, it was harder to stay in touch with everyone. I talk to three my best friends regularly, but I lost touch with the fourth. And with many of my friends whom I wasn't so close with but still liked a lot.

Facebook shows me bits and pieces of the lives that my friends are now leading. Of the people they live with, of their new friends and their colleges. And I just realised how weird it is that I'm not in any of those pictures. It's almost freaky how different our lives are now. We live in different countries, we hang out with different people.

I have good friends here in Singapore, but honestly, I've known them for too short a time for me to be really important in their lives. And maybe they're not as important in my life as I think they are either.

In three weeks, my holidays start. All of us go back to our separate lives in different cities. And while I'm very excited about meeting my old friends, and going back home, I'm afraid of losing touch with my new friends. It's been my experience that half your life can seem very unreal at times. For example, when I used to visit Kanpur, my life in Delhi would seem very unreal. So, when we all go home, meet our family and old friends, Singapore may seem unreal. And that may mean that we lose touch with each other for a month. And I don't want that to happen.

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.

Things I Want to be Able to do..

...even if I choose not to exercise that ability.

1. Study for 18 hours at a stretch to finish an assignment
2. Be a fantastic writer!
3. Play the guitar really well
4. Sing along with the guitar
5. Come up with interesting things to blog/write about
6. Draw
7. Not get jealous so easily
8. Be close with all the people I like without offending any of them
9. Get along with complete strangers (and by "get along", I mean being able to carry on a simple conversation without any long ankward pauses)
10. Be one of those rare few students who manage to maintain a 3.8 GPA without cutting off their social life

Stupid Balancing Act

Before I started college here in Singapore, many people told me about the importance of balancing my studies and my social life. It's a problem everyone faces, right? Well, I did expect it, I just didn't expect the balancing to be so hard. I always managed just fine in school; I assumed it would be the same in college. But it's a lot harder to say no to hanging out when I'm living in the same hostel as my friends.

I don't know how to choose studying over hanging out with my friends. So far, I've been lucky; I don't have much work anyway. But the assignments and the tests will soon start, and I will have to start staying up late to study instead of staying up late to talk. And I don't want to limit my social life.

College is full of decisions, isn't it?!

Making Friends

I had no idea making friends would be this hard. Somehow, even though I know I'm not friendliest of people, nor the easiest to get along with, I've never faced the problem of not having friends that I like, or of not being friends with someone I like. And I had thought it would be the same in Singapore. In fact, I was more worried about moving to Delhi two years ago than I was about studying in Singapore. I figured that since there would only be so many Indians here, we'd hang out a lot, and I would make friends easily enough (as bitchy as this sounds, I do have a harder time getting along with "foreigners" than with Indians).

Well, there are many Indians at my hostel, and we do hang out a lot. And I do have friends that I like a lot. It's just that a couple of people I really would like to be friends with (surprisingly, all guys- Vishal, Varun and others) don't seem to be very interested. And I'm too shy and awkward to be forward and friendly and make them like me. sigh.....

I know I've only been here ten days, while Nikhita (the girl everyone loves and therefore, the girl I am occasionally very jealous of) has been here for at least a month. But I suspect that I'm going to have a much harder time making friends than she did. Talking freely with virtual strangers does not come naturally to me. :(

Theoretically

Next month, I will be starting college in Singapore Management University. I considered many different things before finally deciding to go, listed several reasons to stay. Recently, I realised that one thing I will miss out on in Singapore is the discomfort of Indian hostel life. My hostel in Singapore is air-conditioned, as are the classrooms and all the other college buildings. I have to share a bathroom with only two other girls; the 'hostel' is actually an apartment building, so I will have a fridge and a microwave in my apartment (that I will be sharing with five other girls). I won't learn to live on crappy food, live in the heat without an AC, to share a bathroom with an entire floorful of girls.

This is, of course, a theoretical statement. Practically, I love the air-conditioning, the bathrooms and electricity, the wi-fi enabled campus, the comfort. :) Also, I do realise that I've made a very broad generalisation about Indian hostels... not having lived in any, or having talked about hostel life with anyone who has, I have relied completely on the general cliches people mention when discussing college and hostels.