26 things I learnt before I became 26

[1] People very close to you can turn out to be the biggest assholes. You can spend your whole life thinking you know someone, and in a second, something can break all illusions. They are just to improve your learning curve. But not every human being is the same.

[2] Sometimes, we just like someone based on the idea we have of them, the image they have painted in front of us. And sometimes, when that smokescreen blows away, you realize it was just an empty board without any picture, only what you wanted to see/ were made to see.

[3] When you want someone, they might not be ready and someone might be ready for you when you aren't. Timing's a bitch! But it is always better to be with someone who loves you rather than being with someone you love or just learn to walk away with your head held high hoping that something/someone better is definitely in store for you.

[4] Try not to dwell on regrets for long. There is no point in crying about could/should have beens. Remember it enough so you don't make the same mistake again.

[5] Accept and say sorry if you realize you made a mistake. You won't choke to death if you apologize. Peace of mind is more important than your stupid ego satisfaction.

[6] Don't judge someone at face value. First impression should really not be the last impression. Ultimately actions count, not words or looks.

[7] Stand upto your friends when required. Yes, it takes a lot of courage but do it even if there is a chance of losing that friendship.

[8] Don't waste someone else's time by lying or if you aren't ready to tell them the truth or face it yourself. You never know how much it could hurt them.

[9] Learn to cook atleast one dish that you can be proud of. Even if you can't cook anything else.

[10] Create playlists for your mood in your music player. It does a lot for changing your mood.

[11] Have atleast one hobby that you pursue with passion. Take out time for it atleast once a week.

[12] Travelling must be a hobby. You just don't get any experiences living at home your whole life. It changes you and your outlook on life and people a lot.

[13] Pamper yourself all you can. Very few people would do that for you. But do appreciate those who do.

[14] You miss your siblings, even the stupid fights when you stay away from them for long. You actually long for those fights with them.

[15] You can eat out all you want, but after everything you realize there is nothing better than mumma's home cooked food.

[16] Have atleast one best friend in life. There is nothing better than sharing bits about your tiring day with someone. Or getting advice on all life matters big or small. Not saying whether you really have to follow their advice or not.

[17] There is no age limit for learning anything new

[18] A lot of things are unfair in the world, you have to learn to live with them. Don't expect the lion not to eat you even if you are the most innocent human of all

[19] Don't ever settle for anything less than what you think you deserve. Maybe love changes it, not sure about this one! It is difficult to quantify how much compromise you would be willing to do for someone.

[20] Loneliness isn't that scary. You should learn to like your own company, otherwise who would like being with you if you don't like being with yourself.

[21] You fall in and out of love too easily. It is not love, just infatuation that goes away as soon as you busy yourself with something/someone else.

[22] You might fight with your parents for not letting you do certain things, but at the end of the day, you still love and miss them and long to hear their voice if you are staying away from them. Any freedom falls short in front of the love you have for them.

[23] All your friends don't care about you or make time for you in their busy schedule. After sometime, this really doesn't bother you. This is when you know, you have grown up. Which is why, [16] is necessary.

[24] Everyone should have an  experience of living independently once in their lifetime. You learn things that your school or parents never taught you. It makes you self sufficient and independent.

[25] Don't ever force anyone to follow something you believe in. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, respect that rather than judging.

[26] Don't try to act like a know-it-all and make other people feel small in front of you. It doesn't show your vast knowledge, rather how small your thinking is.

Perks of faculty life at a private (to be deemed) institute

a) To start off, everyone including the students, admin department, finance department, higher authorities, fellow faculty members and even the security guards treat you like scum. There is no respect for a faculty member whatsoever.
b) Being an Asst Prof (Grade 1/2), you are provided with a world class CRT monitor which is not used even in the minimally funded govt/public/private schools or colleges. Imagine the scope of doing research on a computer where you don't have any admin rights to install any software or even change your wallpaper!
c) Accessing the internet through Cyberoam which not only does not let you access any news websites (except TOI; seems like TOI is the only subscription they could afford), it also doesn't provide you access to shopping websites, entertainment websites or in case any Ebook needs to be downloaded for any course. It's funny Facebook is open for all. Seems like even the IT/ admin people can't resist Facebooking! (although you would still not be able to read certain articles if you are redirected from Facebook to another website like Scoopwhoop/Storypick which is so bloody irritating!)
d) Every year, a sum of 2000 is deducted from the salary which goes God knows where (it seems to go in the pockets of some 'sansthan' managers), when you would have felt better donating the same to a charity that you would have liked to support and you would be sure that the money is put to a good cause. The worst part is that some of it is deducted even from the salary of guards and sweepers!
e) To avail a duty leave (which everyone is entitled to 10 leaves per year), you need to go around and submit an application which goes through 3 levels of approval and at the final level, it might be possible that somewhere the application got lost and you need to re submit it and wait for the 3-level approval again (seems like the Office-Office scenario!) Is the approval easy to get? No way! You submit around 10-15 pages with your application and if the dates of your workshop/conference happen to be around student exams, then your application will be rejected because then who would be doing the invigilation!?
f) So, coming to the invigilation duties. You would get lot of them and more than everybody else if your name start from a 'AA' ! Students have exams thrice a semester, so you would be getting at least 20 invigilation duties per semester (Note: You are mad if you expect any refreshment or extra salary for the same!) along with several instances of senior faculty members bullying and embarrassing you during those invigilations.
g) A junior faculty member (one who is unmarried) is considered to have lots and lots of free time. So anytime a sacrifice (in terms of the HOD) is required, only these people are approached when most of the senior faculty members are laughing behind their backs and applauding themselves for not being the 'Bakra'.
h) You get access to an awesome in house canteen that serves crappy chowmein and doesn't know the difference between the 'chole' of 'chole' kulche and 'chole' bhature. They also sport a 'Dish of the day' board which is ALWAYS blank! Your only resort is to go for a full thali meal at the Institute mess (which might be the reason the canteen isn't allowed to be good) or just go outside for a meal.
i) If you are getting a four wheeler for the first time in the institute, then you are doomed. No entry in the institute (although that depends on your luck with the guards, according to some Mr. Colonel) is allowed even if you have been coming daily to the institute and have your faculty card. So next time you get a new car, you better not take it to the institute on the next day. Get the damn sticker first, then only you get an entry or risk your new car by parking it outside where the thefts happen often. This is not just for a new car, this is also applicable if there is an emergency at your home and you had to take another car which doesn't have their damned parking sticker. Rules are good but they should be the same for everyone, seems liked senior faculty members get a leeway in this case.
j) You get a preference list which can be filled to teach the course of your choice in any semester. But if you think your preferences are taken into account, then yes they are, but in the opposite order! So the senior faculty members get to teach M.Tech courses (where the student count and workload is much low) and the junior ones get to teach B.Tech courses having almost double the number of students with lots of workload involved). And sometimes, being the junior and hardworking member that you are, you could be allotted more than one course too and then just get drowned with the workload and a shitty timetable!
k) You are allotted a shared cabin (with 1 or 3 more faculty members) unless you are a PhD with several years of experience. And if you are the junior most faculty, then God help you! The cabin is crowded with 3 more people, 1 of which might turn out to be eccentric and 'forget' to lock the cabin risking the stuff of 3 more people in the cabin. You get one almirah with a lock to keep ALL the answer sheets of 3 exams in a semester for all 90/120/150 students you might be teaching. Oh, did I mention the said almirah might even fall on your head if it is overloaded!? The other unlocked almirah that you get which consumes the space remaining space in your shared cabin is supposed to carry project files, assignments and what not. You just can't think about adding a personal touch to the workplace.
To be continued...

Miss Loser or Mis-fortunate?

I have been thinking how I tend to lose things..not just things, sometimes people or rather friendships too..I am contemplating the reasons behind losing things..Am I too careless or things/people just tend to run away from me or it's just my shitty luck!
I am going to make a list of the things I can recall losing right now:
1. Earphones...ummmm. I started with the worst. Ok. So I have lost 3 pairs of earphones till now and they were not cheap. And 2 of them gifts from my brothers :(
2. Accessories including hair clips, hair bands,bangles..lost so many of them that I can't even count!
Although some seem to have been taken away by some cousins too!
3. I have even lost gold earrings while sleeping! I put on new earrings at night and the next day, GONE! One of them just ran away and was never found again. Same story with another pair in school..And recently lost a really nice machine designed gold dangler that my mum's friend got from Malaysia. I lost it while bathing! My mum found one of them and the other has not shown any signs of appearance yet :(
4. There was once this pretty pair of pink earrings I bought from Lajpat Nagar especially to match a suit. And I didn't get to wear them even once. No idea where they went although I have always blamed it on the maid who must have taken them away :(
5. Socks..Ha! They can never be found in pairs. Well, I am a firm believer that wherever they go, some elves like Dobby might be getting freed with their help :D
6. Friendships..Again, too many to count. And some really special ones too. Apparently, I didn't lose them because I was careless, I was much too careful which is probably the reason I lost them..or maybe I was too much involved and had high hopes and expectations..Anyways, I'd rather believe it was their loss not mine!
Now this is confusing..to be careful or not..
One thing I haven't lost yet is my WATCHes over all these years for which I am very grateful!  Probably my time is always on my side and it is the only thing that doesn't want to leave me on my own :)
Will keep adding to the list as and when I keep losing things!

Analysis Paralysis..?

12/6/2014
I am in a super weird mood right now where I can't myself decide whether I am really sad or just overthinking things as usual which in any case makes me sad.
But I really want to write about some of what I feel hoping I will probably read this sometime in future and laugh about it.
I have a very special person in my life whom I love with all my heart. She is my best friend and I can't imagine my life without her. Writing about her and our friendship will take a lot of time which I will probably do some other time.
Sometimes I am just so disappointed that I can't help feeling sad about our friendship.
I feel fed up at times and just don't understand whether we are really best friends or that we have become so used to having each other in our lives that we don't care about it anymore.
I don't know why but I feel like I am always competing for her attention with the new friends in her life.
I keep wondering why I should come secondary to all those people who don't know her the way I do or don't give her the kind of priority and importance I do.
I don't understand whether giving her the most importance in my life is my fault or is it her making new friends or looking for a new relationship.
I recently read this quote " If it is difficult to keep someone, then it will be even more difficult to find them again."
It seems it is difficult for me to keep her happy as a friend which is why she probably always wants to be in a relationship and can't function without one. But I don't want to lose her the way I have lost best friends earlier. I don't want to make a new best friend because I know I don't have the energy to do it anymore. I have been there several times and thanks to a very good lesson recently, I totally hate making new friends now.
It seems to me I have become so over possessive with time that I almost always hate the other new friends my best friend has, since I feel the time and attention I deserve gets divided.
Now that I think about it, I can't believe I am such a big attention seeker that I keep chewing over the fact that my best friend didn't write to me for a day and she has probably gone out with other friends and forgot that I exist..

Its funny after all the times I have told her I can't be best friends with her anymore , I am the one always making up and running after her to be with her again because I know I can't function without her in my life. I have become so used to her being in my life that I hate the thought of making a new friend if she ever leaves me. Let's leave that for another day. The list of things I would do if my best friend leaves me. I have made loads of lists but this is one topic I have never thought about and hope the day doesn't come where I really feel the need to make such a list.
I read somewhere that somethings feel right only on paper. I wonder if that is the way our friendship has become. Other people think we are the best of friends and it feels that way to everyone except me. Although it seems we are the best of friends and we keep texting each other all the time, but that's what we do. We TEXT. We text about everything in our lives all the time but when it comes to talking face to face about our friendship, it feels like neither of us has the strength to do it. I don't really think we have ever talked about the most important issues in our lives face to face.
Its funny that I am the happiest person whenever she plans for a trip to the city I live in and then I am also the saddest person when she doesn't text me at all about her plans or doesn't make an effort or have time to finish the list of places we want to go together that we always make before she comes.
I always think I won't be able to understand her thoughts until I am in a relationship or she might understand my thoughts when she is single with a best friend who is in a relationship..I cannot even say with conviction whether we have the same priority for each other in our lives because I certainly don't feel that way from her side. Either she doesn't express her feelings or I am unable to understand them if she does..Although I don't ever want her to change for my sake because that is something I am totally against but I wish we really valued each other equally and had the easygoing friendship we developed in school time..
Still waiting for that day when we can really open up to each other and face the problems of our friendship because I personally am too afraid and don't have the guts to do it alone..
I have always been afraid of losing the people I love. Sometimes I wonder if anyone is afraid to lose me too..?
13/6/2014
Well..since the weather has been too awesome today, I went to the park after a very long time, thought a lot and finally came to a decision! And I feel lighter and happier now.. I have decided I have been extremely dependent on one person in my life and I will stop doing so. I have been literally on the verge of having OCD. I have been bothering my best friend a lot especially with my insecurities and making big issues out of small things. I have decided I am not going to do this anymore, not going to question anything from her and will listen to her whenever she volunteers to talk to me.
Of course, she will be my best friend forever but I am just not going to put in so much time and energy into this friendship anymore. After all, I should definitely save it up for any future relationship I have (if!)
I must say the quote "expectation is the root cause of all heartache!" is very true for me. I am going to kill all expectations from her and I am sure she doesn't expect much from me too. No expectations, no heartache and a super happy me! I wish I am able to implement this for real...
17/8/2016
Aaaah..2016 it is! I can't stop smiling reading this post..Have I always been like this? Such an over-thinker. Well, I am glad to write that I still have the same best friend without whom I still can't function! I love her more with every passing day and it seems our friendship has also grown up in these years or maybe my point of view has changed. I still feel insecure sometimes but I know for sure, our friendship is very strong and can sustain anything! We have gone through so much together and we still can't spend a day without texting each other. I think I never realized the gravity of her feelings of friendship for me until this year. I seem to have been reassured for life. Cheers to our friendship! :D