Friday, February 19, 2010

Aisi hi hoon main!!

I've never been a very social person. I don't have huge groups of friends.. I have a few, very close friends, who know the kind of person I am. I take time to make friends.. I'm silent by nature and most of my friends are the kind who talk more... (with a few being exceptions). :) They are a mixture, with a few who talk more, a few who are calm and don't take everything very seriously, a few who are practical... All in all each one of them is quite unlike me. :) I like being in the company of my small group of friends coz they are different from me and I can very comfortably be myself amongst them. I rarely talk much or pour my heart out to someone.. Very few privileged ones get the chance... ;)

I hadn't even signed up for social networking sites like orkut and facebook until last year. All my friends used to pester me to join and I was endlessly postponing it. Finally one day I joined the crowd. Even now I don't see the point of it as I still end up talking to my regular friends most of the times and rarely with the others on the list. One advantage has been that I can wish everyone on their birthday. Not that I'm bad with dates, but that I can wish friends whom I used to never wish before.

I get really excited and interested when some group activities are being planned. But then I hardly take the risk of taking part in it coz I end up with a feeling of being left out or feel out of place. If I am in a group of friends, who are friends but not best buddies I feel I don't belong there... Weird I know... So if my close friends drop out of the plan so do I... Most of the times I miss out on all the fun coz of my nature.

This time I've agreed to attend a reunion, where my group of friends aren't coming. I hope I don't end up feeling like the odd one out... Lets see what happens.. :)

Monday, February 15, 2010

The neck and tale of it!!

I can be a pain in the neck for people at times.. hehehaha :D but never thought it will literally rebound on me... I've been suffering from some problem in my neck for a couple of months now...

Let me start at the beginning... It happened nearly two months back. There was a sudden catch in my neck on a Sunday evening.. I know there can be a muscle pull or catch in the neck when you turn suddenly or you've slept in the wrong posture all night etc. But this was out of the blue.. I wasn't even doing anything.. There was a horrible pain in the neck and lower portion of my head. I could not move my head even by an inch. My parents weren't at home too. :( The pain was so horrible that I felt if I move my head, I'm gonna die... I was so sure that it was gonna be my last day.. I was even thinking what are the things I should do right that moment, if I'm gonna die. The first thing that came to my mind is that my parents are out and I need to unbolt the door so that they can open it from outside when they are back.. lol... :D I called my parents and they panicked... I said I'll try and go lie down and will call them again if it subsides... The pain started subsiding after about fifteen mins... My parents returned and it was around 8 in the night. Since it was late and it was a Sunday all clinics were closed.

My neck was fine by morning, except for a tingling pain. So I did this brave thing of going to office. Guess what... a similar catch in the neck repeats sometime in the noon. My friends took me to the clinic in the campus and the doctor asked me to move my head and asked a few questions. She then prescribes me a pain killer and tells me to go to an orthopedist if the pain doesn't subside, coz it could be Spondylosis...

A series of visit to the orthopedist followed, with the formal procedures of x-rays and tablets. The diagnosis of Orthopedist1 was that the pain is because I have a habit of lying down and reading. Since the pain kept recurring when I was done with the tablets, my sis advised me (read as threatened me :)) to see another orthopedist. This person is pretty famous... The diagnosis of Orthopedist2 was that the pain mainly because of wrong posture. I was advised to take physiotherapy for a week, which I did.. The physiotherapy sessions can be a post by itself :D...

On the last day of the physiotherapy session guess what happens.. there's a catch in the neck just like day 1 (hmmph!! all my money down the drain)... Now on my mom's advice I'm taking a homeopathic treatment from a doctor to whom she's a loyalist... :) I guess my parents are also happy coz his diagnosis matched my parents opinion... that its because of weakness and that I have to eat properly.. ;) All said and done.. Now I have to take these tablets for 4 weeks... Let me wait and watch...

I liked the way this doctor advised me.. He said a lot of things, but one amongst that was... “Love yourself, the way you are”. I don't know why he told me that. Probably he could read it on my face that I don't really love myself.... :) He then went on to add that he works for 9 to 10 hours everyday but he loves himself and he shows his love to himself by eating good food and enjoying it... Coming from a stranger this really touched me.. I felt nice after talking to him. :) As for the pain in the neck, I think all the doctors were right in some way and I can only hope that it gets cured...

So... people... Love yourself, the way you are!!! :)

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Long Walks...

There are times when we feel really low.. When we feel, life sucks!!! When talking to even your best friend doesn't cheer you up. What do we do at such times? We cry, we take a small nap.. Most of the times what I do is, to go for a long walk all by myself...

I love walking. Its a little depressing to walk alone. But, when you are already depressed it works the other way round. It may not cheer you up, but it definitely calms you.. I walk through all the small lanes, where there's less traffic and there are less people. I walk through roads which have a lot of trees. The greenery is very soothing. I know is hard to find such roads now. But I'm blessed to be living close to one such area.. Touch wood!!

I just start off from the house without bothering where I'll go. Take the turns that I feel like taking at the moment. I don't look at the watch. Its actually surprising, coz I keep looking at the time even I am out with my friends, coz I don't wanna get back late and get into a row. But when I'm off on such walks sometimes I don't even wear my watch. I walk back home when I feel lighter or when I feel tired. I generally walk very fast. Ask my friends and they'll vouch for it. But at such times I walk really really slow.. Sometimes I'm crazy and I walk really long distances and my legs ache throughout the next day. But its fine...

The best thing about such walks is that you'll notice things which you wouldn't have noticed before. Some new house/shop which has come up in the area, a tree filled with flowers of the rarest kind and color, an old house which hasn't changed at all from what you had seen years ago, some new faces in the house where someone you knew stayed, a new pet in the house down the lane. Sometimes you even happen to meet an old friend you've never met after school. The kids playing on the street and yelling, makes you wanna do it. :) All in all somewhere you forget why was it that you started off in the first place. :) Your mood's lifted...

So.. what do you do, when you are feeling low??

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

School Chalein Hum...

I don't know if it was coincidence but in the past few days I've heard and overheard a lot of people discussing about the state of schools and the quality of teaching today. Schools, which previously only meant means of attaining education has ceased to be so. Now... its that and much more...

The trend is to get your kid into one of the top schools, even better if its an International school. Better the school, higher the amount they charge in the name of donation and fees. I didn't study in one of the top schools. Me and my sis were admitted to our school coz it was reasonably good and one of the closest to my house. That was all the criteria that was required to select a school then. Now it is the name (read as brand) of the school and how many rank holders in the previous year which matter more. :(

I used to love my school as a kid and many years after I left it. I loved it because of the teachers who taught us, the friends I had, the fun we had. The teachers put in lot of efforts to teach us. They knew what they were teaching.. They were friendly and caring. They remember us when we meet them even now. :) This was the picture of my school that I had in my mind for long. But off-late all that I've heard is that a lot of the teachers who taught us left. :( There is lot of politics going on in the management. The new teachers are not good enough. Most importantly.. the fees has shot up unbelieveably. The year I left school we were paying Rs.450, which was a lot according to us. That was in my tenth. Now they charge Rs. 1500 to 2000 for the kindergarten students... :O This is just the monthly fee.. Imagine the donation, the amount spent on books and stationery, uniforms etc etc..

This not just the state of my school but many more such schools, which was then affordable to the average middle-class man and is probably not affordable now. Let us consider that people wouldn't mind paying more if the quality of education is good.. But then why are the number of students attending private tutions increasing? I have seen 3rd and 4th standard students attending extra classes. This is, when the parents are interviewed in many schools before admitting the students. When the schools have such pre-requisites shouldn't they atleast promise good teaching? If they promise that, the child will be spared from the extra classes, extra homework and extra tests..

With the cut-offs being high and the teaching being average the kids are overburdened under the name of competition. On the other hand parents slog in order to be able to afford the costs. All this when we aim to have no illiterates and eliminate unemployment from our country. :( Is this the scenario everywhere? Or is there some hope?