A Small Victory

It's 2:20 A.M.
After a very, very long time, I feel happy with myself.

The music soothing my ears does a fine job of soothing my mind. "It's been a long day" plays as soon as I make this small victory.
Hell, it's been a really long day, Charlie Puth.

Today has been just another day of spiraling  in the sinking realization that I have no idea what I'm doing with my life and my skill-set is non-existent.
I was dragging myself around, trying to stay positive. But today, as I was looking for potential internship chances on Google, I felt dejected. I possess not one skill that they're asking for. The only thing I have is communication skills but that isn't going to get me far. I NEED to be smart.
Then, I tried to look for apprenticeships and that was another pothole.
I felt like a lost cause.
I mechanically came home, moved around and took to music to ease my mind. Tears running down my face, my mind running a thousand directions. I had no idea what to do.

My brother sent me some tutorials to learn Android Studio last month. I couldn't understand much of it. Then I tried another 20 videos on YouTube. Nothing made sense to me.
Side Note: My Dad is one of the most hard-working people I know. He's always teaching himself something. He has this drive to be the best he can be.
All of the people around me have this drive or this ability to push themselves.
I've always been a coward. I don't push myself. I limit myself and wallow in my self-created chaos.

Today, I put my foot down. (Weakly, but put down nonetheless)
I searched "Android Studio Tutorials" in Google for the nth time and dispiritedly looked for a miracle.
After around 8 videos, I finally found something that I could understand.

Well, I've just created my first android application. It's a simple one, so don't get too excited. It has only function. But it DOES SOMETHING!

Before I started today, I told myself. 'You need to finish what you started! ' It's 2:36 and I think I've done pretty well.


Good Night!


P.S.- If you're thinking something along the lines of 'Omg, at least you created that. I don't even know how to do that', then please don't.
There's this saying that I'm always throwing around in my head.
"Nobody wants to hear about the story of rags to riches, until its over".
Similarly, let me finish this thing I've just started before you bombard me.

Apart from that, if you guys ever need any help, just ask me. I'll always be willing to help to the best of my ability.


Charlie Pluth

A Letter

I opened my blog, set on writing something today. I feel gloomy and quite literally searched the 'melancholy' tag on 8tracks. At the moment I'm listening to a mix called 'The Devil's Waltz'. At a loss for words, I opened my Gmail and started deleting spam when I nearly deleted one surprising e-mail.

In 2014, I found this website called futureme.org which lets you send your future self a letter. I wrote myself a letter on November 28th, 2014.
Here are some snippets.

Dear FutureMe,

I've put the delivery date so far into the future that you'll forget about this by then.
Tomorrow I have my C.O. and MFCS exam for the second mid, of sophomore year, 1st semester. I know you know what I'm going to say next. That I haven't studied anything and it all sucks. So yeah, all of that. So how are you?
You'll be a junior by now, right? Wow, that seems awesome. I wish I could time travel to that point right now. Then I would have one less year to worry about. Anyways, just two more years for you now! AWESOME!

So I wanted to tell you something very important.
It's all going to be okay. You have the most wonderful family and are surrounded by safe(ish) people. You should have faith in yourself, okay? I got selected as the Head of Content Writing for TCC last month, which was awesome. :)
I hope you've done something good with that opportunity.

Stop treating yourself so badly. Love yourself first before looking to others.

So be happy, stay safe, study well and don't give up on yourself!

BYE!
-18 year old me

Damn. I'll be 20 in a couple of months and I'll be graduating college in a year. I'm equal parts terrified and excited to see what life has in store for me. 

I'll probably send myself another letter but I'll shoot it a little farther into the future. If you're still reading this then, it'll be fun.  :)


P.S. Do check out the website futureme.org and read some of the public letters. They're all anonymous but I just read some wonderful letters that are very heartening. 

Macintosh

HEY!
YOU!
YES, YOU!

Who are you?


Dear anonymous person,

I know that you are reading this from somewhere in the U.S. and I know that you're using chrome on a Mac.
Okay, I literally know nothing else about you.  o_o
Dude, who are youuu?


Please tell me.

P.S.- Ooh, while we're at it. Who's up at 3 in the morning on my blog?

-V



*This will be super awkward if it's just some stat engine*

Mockingbirds and Mockingjays

On Saturday, I finally picked up 'To Kill a Mockingbird' off of my shelf. Seeing as I have my finals, this seemed the perfect way to procrastinate.

My timing with this book has never been right. I'd checked this book out from my library once and kept getting it renewed for about a month but never even opened the book or read the blurb. I was too busy to even look in its direction. I ended up returning it untouched.
Then a couple months ago, I was at the book market and ending up getting an amazing book haul. 'To Kill a Mockingbird' caught my eye and into my basket it went.

Truth time:
I haven't been reading the types of  books that I should be reading. I stopped reading books that actually challenged me, moved me or made me think. For the last couple of years, I've limited myself to light, fluffy reads and middle-grade novels. There's no excitement in reading a book where you know all the words.
I've actually read more riveting books when I was in middle school. (Given that I actually had an amazing library at school in America and don't really have the means to get good books now.)

But this novel is amazing. It has awakened my slumbering mind and is giving it the perfect exercise. Harper Lee is truly 'an author with the liveliest sense of life and the warmest, most authentic humor'. This book demands my attention and for once I want to give it completely.
With the year coming to an end, I've made a resolution. To read books that inspire me and challenge me. To read books with words that make me open a dictionary and learn learn learn.

I am sucked into this story and it's unfortunate that I can't give it as much time as I'd like to.
Even now, I'm writing this when I should be studying.
Bye for now.
:)

Deserving

Some moments are imprinted in my mind. 

The other day, I was sitting at the pooja mandir and praying to God about my toils and troubles.
I was teary-eyed and dejected. Nothing seemed to be going right and I felt like I was worthless. I tightly shut my eyes and tried to meditate upon the lord.
When I opened my eyes, I saw how blind I was.

In front of me, I saw three things most people search all their life for. I saw God's idol, a wad of my allowance money and a report card saying I passed in first class.
Three wonderful things. I have faith, money and education. What more could I want? What more SHOULD I want?

I smiled with tears in my eyes because in that moment, I remembered that God always gives me more than I deserve. My immaterial wants and wasteful wishes are about my foolish first word 'problems'.

So I closed my eyes and prayed even more.
I prayed that I become ever more faithful and kindhearted as the days go by. I prayed that I should be able to place others needs before mine. I prayed to always be at God's feet. I prayed that I should never forget this moment.
       I prayed that I should become more deserving of the wonderful gifts being given to me.


We're all so caught up in the bad times that we forget to be thankful for the good.



P.S. You don't need to believe in God to be thankful. Take a moment to think about what wonderful things you feel lucky to have.

A Mess

I want to be meant for great things. Even if that's not what life has planned for me.

 No. Actually, I'd like to go about my life without knowing what's in store for me. See, I have this habit of making a mess of things when I know the end game.
That right there is the wonderful thing about life. No matter how much you think you know what will happen, you'll always be missing something.

I absolutely hate regrets and go out of my way to remind myself of this. Why? Because I do have regrets. Terrifyingly, ginormous regrets that I wish I could take back. But you know what stops me from saying, 'I wish I hadn't....' or 'I wish I could change that....'?

All of those decisions were little tests for me and I can't take back the way I 'answered them'. There are no remedial tests in life. There are bonus tests to take but no redoes. [Definitely not in the conventional way]

Every single decision I've made in my life has led up to this moment and all future decisions will lead up to the end.
Sometimes it seems like I'm justifying my mistakes but in a rather confusing way, I'm not.

If I had done things differently, who would I have become? That parallel universe me would not be ME. Hey, I'm not the sum of my mistakes, but I sure as hell am not the sum of my triumphs.

Life is like an invisible house maid. As I go about making a mess of things, it's always there, cleaning up after me.

There's this one line from A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (A book that I still haven't gotten around to finishing. But that is a story for another day.)
I can't remember it exactly but it was about everything that had to go right in order for you to be breathing right now.
//I'm having a tough time not being able to find that line from the book so I'll just share two other quotes.*

“Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.”

“It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.” 

~ 

Do you know how lucky I am to be lazy? I am somewhat of a perfectionist (stress on somewhat). Sometimes I find it hard to do anything until everything is in order or neat and clean. I have these little quirks like I 'can't do this before I do that' and it really doesn't make much sense.
If I wasn't so lazy, I would constantly be stressing over every minute detail of my life. 

~ 

So thanks, life. If it wasn't for you, I'd be a complete mess.

*Did I just use // to write a comment like in coding? What's happening to me?
Also, if you'd like to read the book: GoodReads

Ramble Ramble

Emotions are beautiful.
Sometimes you can barely contain them and other times you have to search the depths of your soul to actually feel something.
A million butterflies battle in my stomach. Dang frog in my throat.
Cat's got your tongue.
When did we begin to devour animals as an excuse to draw away from our inability to speak and feel.
By the time my brain and heart begin to agree, there's a new topic of discussion.
Digesting butterflies is unusually difficult.

It's been a while since I've just randomly wrote something without restriction. Music always pumps me up. Brought to you by On My Mind by Ellie Goulding.

Here's more rambling:

It's criminal the way I feel sparks at my fingertips. That feeling when the words build up in my mind and ache to be let go of.
My heart pumps out letters and carries it like electricity through my bloodstream. 

I could have burned you to the ground but I put it down on paper- to save a life or two.