Size does NOT matter, dammit!

I'm sitting with friends, watching a show called The World's Sexiest Voluptuous Vixens. Well, not watching, really. Silently barfing over is more like it.

For the past 35 minutes, I have heard the most ridiculous statements, examples of which follow.

Exhibit A: Salma Hayek shows us that big things can come in small packages. (Ummm, okay?!?)
Exhibit B: She is so full of meat, she is such a woman. (WHAT?! My skinny self doesn't qualify as a -  *gasp* - a woman?!?)
Exhibit C: Kim Kardashian says her curves make her what she is. 

I don't even know what to say to that last one but you get the drift.

All I can think of right now is how this must be affecting the millions of teenage girls who might watch this one hour of absolute BS and think they need to be a certain size to be accepted. And of course, the millions of young boys who might be watching this, and how this is a starting point for the many inadvertent atrocious judgments they will pass on women for the rest of their lives.

The angrier I get, the more my friends tell me to calm down.

 "It's okay, man. This shit happens all the time," they say.

I know it happens all the time. But that doesn't make it okay.

Happy Birthday, Mamma

It's my Mommy's birthday today. It's the first I've spent away from her -- I was able to make it home just in time for her birthday last year. So yes, the homesickness and the Mommysickness (?) is at an all-time high today, and I have a feeling it's only going to get worse over the next week. A week which ends with Daddy's birthday. Yes, of course, there will be a Happy Birthday, Daddy post too. But after the partying. (His birthday is on December 31st!)

In order to stave off the misery, I decided to celebrate. Celebrate my Mommy growing old (I teased her all day about how she was one step closer to a mid-life crisis), celebrate Mommy-ness, and Mommies in general. And as all celebrations, this too, was done with music.

Warning: Much sappiness and crying follows. Oddly, I couldn't find many happy-mommy songs.

1. My first Mommy song - I wonder how many of you remember this.



2. Any Mommy-song list is incomplete without this one :)



3. And for those of you who understand Punjabi.

We added one more to the pack!

My friend Varuni just started her blog here. When you find time, please go visit -- I doubt you'll come back disappointed.

She's new to the blogosphere. And a little apprehensive about this whole blogging thing too. Let's show her how much fun it can be :)

#Twitterisdown

If you haven't already heard, though I wonder how you could have missed this -- Twitter is down!

I'd normally tweet about an event of such gravity, but since Twitter is down, I'm rendered helpless. I'd put up a distressed Facebook status, but then all my friends will make fun of me for being addicted to Twitter (isn't that strange?) and I can't really deal with that right now.

I don't know what to do. I need a place where I can post my every little thought, which is actually, my every little tweet. Whether it's about my new wall paint, or how my hair has grown longer, I need to put it out there. I might as well be dead if I can't give my 5698 followers regular updates about my life.

It's impossible to survive by writing my thoughts on pen and paper anymore, even if I know it's only till Twitter comes back up. I don't even like my handwriting now -- lack of practice maybe -- but my hand muscles feel so funny while writing.

I must flex those fingers. I must type. I must tweet again.

Oh #God, help me get through this. Please RT. We must support each other through this ordeal.

Yeah, I just graduated. No big deal.

Alright ladies and gentlemen, this is to announce that I am back from my not-so-brief hiatus there, most of which was spent preventing nervous breakdowns and trying to not look like something the cat dragged in. Attempts at the first were successful; the second -- not so much. (Thank God for kaajal though - camouflages those humongous dark cirles.)

Here's a snapshot of my life, as it is now:

1. I am no longer a Boston University graduate student. I am, in fact, a Boston University - wait for it - alumna. A-l-u-m-n-a. Alumna, you hear me? Sounds all fancy schmancy, eh? I don't know how to feel about that. No clue. I don't think it has hit me yet.
   
2. Technically speaking, I am still ten days away from graduation. That's when all the grades come in. But, I think somewhere along my academic career, I learned how not to flunk courses.
   
3. If you think I cannot be officially called a graduate till the actual ceremony, then I still have 5 months to go because BU ceremonies are held in May. That's when I'll get to wear the scarlet robe, get to see the family (yay!) and walk on stage when they call out the College of Communication Graduate Public Relations Class of 2010. That is also when I will pester my brother to click photos of me while I do stereotypical-graduate-y things like throw my hat in the air. I will then secretly hope that my mother will frame that photograph proudly on the dining room wall back home, but of course, I will pretend I don't care.
4. In six minutes from now, I will no longer be a Writing Fellow. That makes me sad. I worked at COM's Writing Center throughout my course, and to say that I loved it, would be an understatement. This was my first real "job" (part-time, but what the heck -- everything else has been an internship), and I could not have asked for a better first job.
5. Which means, I now need another job. And I've begun looking. I'd really like to stick around for a year or two before I make my way back to The Desh. So please step up all those prayers for speedy economic recovery on this side of the world. Bad economy --> no jobs --> no work visas --> one-way ticket to India.
6. I think about what my life was when I first came here, and I think about it now. And I can see how it's changed, and how I've changed. And I'm so thankful that my life was -- is -- good. I'm glad I came here, I'm glad I made all these friends, I'm glad BU is the way it is, and I'm glad Daddy Dearest was willing to file for bankruptcy, if need be, to pay for this degree. Now all I have to do is pay him back.

Only about $75,000 dollars.

No big deal.