Some Awesomeness!

Y'know you're a goner, a pure victim of injustice if you're in a college where they take your Sunday and exchange it with a fully packed day and you still go to every single class because one, attendance issues and two, you're saving the holidays for later. You have any idea how such 14 days can be? 14 straight days of classes from 8.30 to 5.30, with every single class requiring you to take some tests or assignments or presentations or cases? Total stupidity. So when a teacher takes mercy and postpones his assignment's due date and you get one day when you don't have any submission the next day, you're so confused that you don't know what to do! You feel sleepy but you feel that'd be wasting time :P You sit down to send sane replies to pending emails, you feel emotionally awesome because an email would be from someplace you don't know, sent by a person you don't know, saying how they can connect to what you write and what they feel about it. That is when you feel like you're actually achieving your goals in small increments, because that is what you really wanted. :D

Anyway, that is also the time when you know you desperately want to blog but you're in no state to think and write. You would then consult your writer-friend and he'd give you a really awesomely weird prompt. This is what I got as a prompt:

"Write ten things about yourself that make you so proud that you want to hug yourself!"

Source: Google

Weird, right? :P I actually had to consult this friend who gave no more than one point, saying 'You're supposed to do this yourself.' Consulting with mom led to simple but cool answers (and I feel awesome my mom thinks so ;) ) And as much as I believe and think we're supposed to stay humble and not mumble (it's okay dudes. We are allowed to write words just to make them annoyingly rhyming :P ), I also feel like doing some self-motivation thingy and list some things about myself I feel are awesome! ;) I mean, it's cool, you guys. Please don't run off to the International Commission for Searching and Awarding Insanely Awesome People to nominate my name. I'm above all such materialistic stuff. ;)

# 10: I love to read. Many people love to read, I know, but I love it. I love more the fact that I have been reading ever since I could. In a place where there is hardly any culture of bedtime reading, I'm lucky that even as a kid I had the brains to read books my age :P (Yeah, it's obviously because of my parents who encouraged me, but still). I read children's stories and classics when I should have, Enid Blyton and Nancy Drews, and yep, I was 12 when I started reading the Harry Potter books, so that is awesome! And people who read are nevertheless awesome just by virtue of being readers, so that's an added plus!

# 9: I have amazing blogs. And I find them amazing because I completely adore them. This blog contains my evolution as a person, witnessed through the stories I've typed here. This is where I have always come when I needed to bring something off my heart, where I felt awesome while writing. This here, my second baby, is where I can freely (and super-enthusiastically) talk about my favorite topic: books. And it led me to many more book lovers, including an amazing girl from another country who is now a pen-friend. :D These blogs are not popular, nor do I wish for them to be. Popularity brings with it too much noise and distractions and yes, spam, and I'm better off without having to deal with those. ;)

There's one fact I love about these two blogs, that I don't actually do a rigorous promotion for them, because of which they tend to have people who are genuinely interested. This holds more true for the book blog, because I'd rather have a few reader, book-lover, genuine review-seekers to be on my blog than many random people just because I know them from somewhere. Genuineness adds such a feel-good factor! :)

# 8: I'm one of those 'old-school' characters. I've never really understood the term properly, but despite being the kid of the 21st century, brought up in co-ed educational backgrounds, among super-fast technological developments and super-fast people, I'm the kind of person who'd have been happier living in 'the good old times'. I rarely identify with the modernities, I refuse to believe in changing roles and behavior of people where everyone is convinced that being fast and chant is the way to success. I'd prefer to go slow and steady in any kind of relationship. I'm aware of everything new and modern, but I'd rather not live that way.

# 7: I love writing. It's one activity that never makes me feel jumpy or anxious when I have to do it. I feel nervous about a lot of things, including group activities in class, presentations, and wherever else I'm supposed to answer. But that's not the case with writing. It's something I've always been comfortable with. I don't write great, I don't have a good vocabulary, but I'd just always prefer writing in simple words (because okay, no great vocab -_-) for everything I need to convey. Well, maybe not everything, but most of the stuff. I was that weirdly awesome kid in school who loved English classes and looked forward to them; the one who loved doing grammar exercises, who never had trouble writing answers, who wrote short essays that got read in class. :D #nerd mode on. 

# 6: I don't get bored. Seriously, that makes me a boring person for others but I don't get bored myself. :P There's always some thing roaming around in my head, for my brain never sleeps, and if there's nothing (or no one :P ) interesting enough to observe, there'd be whole sentences forming in my head, as if it's writing a book on its own. It's crazy, but I love it. Considering how I anyway don't get much time to write, at least my brain has taken it upon itself to practice. ;) And yeah, lack of boredom tends to make you patient because you're not restless when nothing interesting is happening around you. 

# 5: I have interesting interests. Y'know, they're interesting to me. The thing I've noticed about people who're patient, and weird and fun, is that they have interests outside or not strictly based on their main area of academics. There has always been something I've had when I got bored of studies. Books, art and craft, some online course, blogging, learning and practicing photography, reviewing books, collecting clothes' tags, etc. One more reason I can't get bored! 

# 4: I'm 16% tomboyish. Mostly girls might not like to call themselves tomboyish and count it as an 'awesome' thing about them, but duh. I feel awesome when guys in class play cricket and I can ask for an over to bat, when we have a fun play-thing and I am the rare girl who actually can bat and ball and catch (seriously. Some don't even know how to hold a bat. o.O ). I loved my childhood days when I played with G all sorts of games; cricket (how I loved it), basketball (making a swiveling motion and saying 'Basket!' was awesome), cycling (I still would run off on a bicycle if useless dogs don't run after me), skating, taking the remote controlled Renault awesome car to the park and operating it with ultimate cool-girl attitude, etc etc. I can seriously go on and on. :D 

# 3: I'm kind of above the trivial things. I don't mean to dismiss those who do talk about such stuff, but for me it's cool and I feel awesome that I can't be bothered about little things like who's hot on TV, or what's "in" in fashion, or how someone acted because someone told them how someone else said something about them. o.O This took a while to think to form the sentence, I can't imagine how people get the energy to gossip about it. I'd rather discuss the book I'm reading with someone who seems to understand. But when people themselves tend to be critical about everything, I don't feel like they'd understand the point and so I'm left with just a few who allow me that liberty. And I love it! :D

# 2: I'm the slimmer, older, pink-loving, cheesy version of an amazing girl with an amazing blog who happens to be one of the closest friends and my soul-sister. :) 

A note to those who don't believe in making friends online: I used to think like you too, and then I discovered blogging. And if you are at the right blog, you'd get to meet and talk to the most amazing people. Evidence is here. ;) I have awesome people in my life. Those who love me even when I seem to behave like the craziest person ever, who actually laugh at my jokes (and they are actually good if you have that awesome level of understanding 8| ) and these people include my family and best friends. Thank you guys. ^_^ 

# 1: I have faith in my dreams. Even though from where I am right now, I can't see the destination, I do know I'd get there. And I'd make most of the journey, because the means is important to me, not just the end. I make achievable goals and aspirations too. For everything I love. I always wanted to see more people reading, not just because "I" like it, but because it is an amazing thing. Sometimes unfortunately it might not work, if you ask and force someone to read a book, but I got to know how one can indirectly influence people and facilitate their discovery of books they love. Whenever someone says that they started reading more, or have read books based on my reviews, I have felt that feeling of success and happiness that I really can't describe. :)

***

I started writing this post almost a month ago. This prompt was given a month ago. After the introduction, I had points 10 to 1, numbers written. I did not know what to write, I couldn't figure out the awesome things about myself. Even today, I had to take help because I was sitting blank. I asked the two best people, I asked my mom (who invented a term called 'negative awesome things' because she wanted to point out the bad ones too -_- Thanks, mum.) and then when I finally started writing, it came to me. I have a lot more points in my head now!! And I can't really say a lot on it because the fact that I felt so good after so long, is something no one can understand fully. I just need to say Thank you to all who facilitated this. Keep looking out for more awesomeness! It's sure to come! ;)

Why you should like me for me!

The first obvious answer would be because I am, without a doubt, quite an awesome person. This isn't any observation, it is repeated-by-even-more-awesome-best-friends, who remind me of this fact all the time, especially when I get slightly put off by my sadu college. But I'm as such not talking just about myself here. I mean every single person (who isn't really a criminal or a crook or a mean kid in an MBA college. Okay wait, we can ignore the last category because..... well, just forgive them and hope they get better). We do realize how every one of us is different, and not just DNA wise. There is nothing called a 'wrong' person, we just have ideal people or characteristics or behaviour we want to see and judge people against them. Apart from the fact that I don't understand the logic behind the 'ideal' stuff, (because who is to say what is ideal? There are just basic, moral, ethical norms to be followed. Anything over and above is purely individualistic) I also don't like how we are naturally attuned to striking someone off just because they don't seem to follow the herd category. 

See? The picture says it too!
Pic source: Google j!

I'm not talking about weirdos. And this is actually a slightly demeaning word if you think about it. We just tend to use it for fun, I mean I call myself a weird girl - weirdly awesome, yes, but weird all the same - but by saying so we're saying they aren't 'normal'. How is 'normal' defined anyway? We live by the society and the majority thinking around us most of our young lives. We're small and we get influenced. We think and start believing in what we're conditioned to believe in. It is rare when someone starts questioning, thinking, wondering if what one's been told fits with one's own, individualistic thinking self. That is when you might realize that there is no 'ideal' as such. It's just the majority perception. Do you really feel that way too? Or are you scared to move beyond and over the generalized thought process, fearing you might be ridiculed too?

Alright, keeping weirdness aside, the basic point I wanted to make revolves around one strong characteristic I, and thousands of other people have: Introversion. I'm a very proud introvert. I love the fact that I don't have to openly display myself to the world just to feel good, that I don't speak words in a way that might be hurtful to someone, because that realization would just about make me feel bad about myself. I love the quiet way I get to live my life, the much-desired space and privacy I get, the way thoughts swoosh in at random and swirl and settle in my head, making me think of the many possibilities of how the world could be. I love how I can think over things properly and then make decisions, how I can sense a feeling without words, understand an expression without verbal conversations. I love how amazing people of the world are considered as introverts and how we have wonderful examples of awesomeness!

Did I always feel this way? No. Precisely because of how I've been constantly pushed, prodded (sometimes roughly) towards being 'more open'. I've been reminded ever since I was a kid that 'the world out there has no place for those who aren't outgoing', I got to participate in public speaking competitions (where by the way, I have performed well, but still), not out of will, but because people thought it'd do me good. This college has made me participate in thousands of group activities (when was the last time we had an individual assignment? I don't remember) and hundreds of presentations, and still I don't think I have become 'outgoing', as they'd been saying all this while. I sometimes feel incapable, precisely because people decided to overlook the soft skills and basic things like human character, for face value. I'm sorry. This whole process and mehnat has only made me feel bad and under-confident. As a kid, I used to be good at art and craft, reading and writing. I feel useless now since I can't draw a bird. I haven't read properly since months! 

Since I don't expect anyone to change this world-wide perception, it is up to me how to deal with it, the first step being understanding myself and looking at myself as everything I am, without the 'being outgoing' benchmark. Realizing my capabilities, I need to find out more people who are more aware and mature and not as ignorant as most of us are. I came across this wonderful book (about which I've talked before in a previous post), Quiet by Susan Cain, which talks about the power of introverts in a world that explicitly favors extroverts. Wanting to listen to a nicey TED talk today, I came across this author's talk on the same subject. I have to say it's brimming with awesomeness! A few key points I liked listening to include:

1. Leaders like Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi, among many others, were introverts. What they did was because they didn't have a choice, even when they didn't feel like being the centre of such attention, because they were driven to do what they thought was right.

2. The most creative people, although they seem to be good with people, have a most serious streak of introversion in them. Solitude is an important ingredient of creativity. It matters, it is like the air they breathe.

3. If we look at the major religions, all the seekers were going off by themselves, in solitude, and found revelations. Those are what they brought back to the society.

4. Although there is zero correlation between being he most extroverted and having the best ideas, the groups tend to go with the extroverts' ideas. 

5. Why do we make introverts feel guilty? Why has society always favored the man of action to the man of contemplation?

6. Social skills aren't unimportant, but the more freedom you give to introverts, the better ideas they'll get because they'd be in their comfort zone.

Food for thought? I feel there's still a long way to go. I'm just talking about myself here, and I know how I never liked my schooling (or college much) because I never felt 'in place'. I was doing things to 'keep up', to make myself more 'employable'. And in this process I have lost an invaluable part of myself and I utterly loathe this consequence. I'm happy though that there is talk about it, an effort to do away with this biased perception. My mom, a teacher for kindergarten kids, tells me how they do realize that every child is unique in their own self and they do let the quiet ones have their own space. They identify their talents and put them where they might be comfortable. At least for me, even such an effort is a relief, because I know how it must feel like when you're a kid constantly under a vigil eye, ready to pounce on you and prod you towards where you don't want to go. 

So yeah, if you can't look beyond 'top' performers as being verbal, loud and 'in your face', that is your myopic view of the world. There are thousands of awesome people out there, who are far better than the rest when it comes to using their brains, or being creative and coming up with ideas. More so, they're more likely to be better perceiving, understanding and simply, awesome!

***

When was the last time I posted anything? Almost a month! And it is all because I was being made to engross myself in a thousand group activities, exams, people, blah blah nonsense. The biggest point-of-cribbing in my life right now is not being able to read as much. I mean, the last book I read was completely read in the metro, while traveling to and from college. And they say college's going to be even more hectic now. Dude? I seriously don't want to live this corporaty life. I'm only losing myself gradually! You can almost see how I have to try hard to hold on to stuff like this, like posting a random post on my blog! I have so many drafts pending, you can't imagine! This would have been in the drafts too, had I not seen this video and forced myself to think and work towards holding on to things that matter. And now I feel awesome :D

PS- My birthday was awesome! ('T was on 9th, thanks for the belated wishes. I'm graciously accepting them :P ) Thank you dear blog, because of whom I got to make amazing friends who are actually reasons that I feel confident about myself, and less sucky and with the ability to deal with most kinds of nonsense. I owe you my happiness! :D