What math does to me.

There's only 2 things in my mind right now. One that I will not mention here. And the other how much I suck at math.

I suck at math.

This post is an unfortunate result of my doing math.

I blame teachers. 

I blame my lack of attending classes like abacus and shit that teach kids who aren't old enough to spell mathematics correctly to make crazy ass calculations that I have difficulty with after 12 years of normal people math in a mater of seconds. (Please forgive the scanty use of punctuation in the previous sentence - its 11:30 and I'm not in a mood to punctuate certain sentences while being very particular about convoluting them as much as possible, the simple motive being making your reading less enjoyable. I don't really care if my motive has been achieved.. Actually I dont care about anything at this point of time. So forgive the punctuation thing or dont, see if I care) 

Back to what I was saying, I blame how the people who teach me only do the easy questions and leave the hard non-do-able ones for the dumbasses like me. 

I blame their methods of teaching - either thinking I know everything or the exact opposite, explaining tiny things that kids in 6th would know and making me feel dumber than I am. 

I blame the fact that I'm not genetically a genius.

But you know what? It's none of their faults, it's my fault. I can blame no one but myself! I dont slog as hard as I should, and whats worse? I tell myself that I work my butt off, but all in vain! Pssh such lies.

But on my part - it is frikking hard. Every time I do math, I get a huge headache and my head gets literally heated up, I start sneezing, fall asleep, get mad, and develop an insatiable need to destroy something, among other things. And I am no genius, no where close.. and I find this shit extremely difficult.

I'm done.

conclusion - I suck at math.

My first poem.

Dancing and jubilantly flying past
the happy hues through the frame;
In a blur or in squiggly lines
But always keeping their tone light,
Whizzing away through the night.

Viewed through the screen of fog
they're even more beautiful.
Time passes, my eyes stay fixed,
Seldom tearing themselves apart
from the frame, anchored to their dance.

The colours, my only companions now
diversify in rhythm and pattern -
Attempt to console a desolate soul.
All in vain for the fog holds strong
A quiet melody lost in chaotic noise.

Eventually it ends, as all good things do
The light is lost; there's no more colour.
The grey picture in the frame moves ever so slowly;
prolonging the pain and tightening the shackles
around my lungs, heart and soul.

Then the pictures halt;
the journey has ended.
My presence is acknowledged.
I exit the car leaving behind the pictures;
The colours in the frame and the memories from the past.
The fog flows free down my cheeks.

Pandora's box

Could Pandora have made things any worse for herself (and us)?

Mythology – Pandora was the first woman on earth; she was really cool even though he was made to screw “man”kind. She could sing and persuade people and was pretty too. But she was also curious. (I wonder why it is that in these myths women are really awesome and stuff at first, then curiosity gets the better of them and they do something forbidden which ultimately leads to DOOOOM!) So anyway here’s what happened in brief: Prometheus stole fire and gave it to the man, Zeus got mad coz he wanted the fire for himself and other gods and divine peoples. So Zeus made Hephaestus create Pandora and set her up with Epimetheus, Prometheus’s brother, and gave her a box (yeah that’s right, Pandora’s box :P), in this box was all the evil of the world (duh, naturally) and she was told never to open it, but she did as Zeus knew she would. When she did, out flew all evils like sorrow, illness, misfortune... you get the flow. She was like Holy Shit and shut it quickly but by then everything had escaped except HOPE.

When this story is told, people say “all the evils in the world escaped, but there was one good thing in the bottom of the jar – Hope” (This itself is an example or ridiculous hope) which I think is just really stupid because hope is the biggest evil. Ignorance is bliss, right?

Look, all the sorrow and misfortune is out there and it’s bound to prey on you at some point or another. It’s bad enough without hope, cause you’ll be devastated as it is with the attacks of the evils and as hope is with you, you start thinking that it will get better; hoping it’ll get better, when actually the evils are gaining ground. Sometimes this hope grows and grows and becomes what your lives revolve around during times of trouble, and that’s when the gods decide to squish the hope under their feet, so when it finally crushes you, it’s a lot worse than it would have been if you hadn’t hoped.

Then you might say letting go of hope is like surrendering. So what? You’re gonna get gobbled up anyway, why make it more difficult for yourself? Thinking “Give up without a fight? How stupid/lame/cowardly!”.. Yeah, that is your hope-brainwashed head speaking. You know you’re going to lose anyway and still give it your all (and are treated as a hero by other oblivious naive people, ok good thing this.. but still) AND you end up getting screwed worse.

But here’s the worst part – even if you do agree with me about hope being horrible, you can’t do anything about it. You’ll still hope.

SEE! EVIL!

All that aside, the story is kinda flawed. The evils attack because they were released, hope was never let out. So humans shouldn’t be able to hope at all. But then maybe we hope, because it is still with us, but then there shouldn’t be misfortune, because it’s not with us anymore. OR, maybe when we have these things with us we can chose to employ them as we wish, but when it’s out there it gets to annoy whoever it wants and decides the intensity. Make what you want of it.

Masterchef Australia

When we (my family) were trying to kill time after school, flipping through channels, hoping there’d be something nice to watch on Starworld, we often came across Masterchef – Australia, USA and the worst of the lot Masterchef India. And we’d stupidly scream at the TV as though the people inside could hear us, saying that it’s stupid, melodramatic, such a complete waste of time, “Are the Starworld people crazy to allot so much time to this shit”, “I don’t understand what has to go wrong with people’s brains for them to actually sit and watch this” and what not. There was also an instance where my mother was telling us about some friends who religiously watched Masterchef and the news together as a family every day (my father was very enthusiastic about adopting the news part into our family routine) and we were like o.O? Seriously? Masterchef of all things??

But guess what? We figured out what goes wrong.. actually we didn’t really figure it out; more like something went wrong with us too. My mother, brother and I watch Masterchef at 9 pm every day that it’s on. I don’t even remember why we started watching… At the time, it was kind of weird. We’d watch it between shows, during the ads in another channel, and we frequently forgot to go back to whatever it was we were watching. And Masterchef was showered with more of our critical crap. Now, we know all the people on the show, we try to predict the outcomes of the elimination challenges, team challenges and immunity challenges! We go “Oh, I wished she had gotten eliminated instead of him” “I can’t believe they gave that a 9 and the other one only a 7” “Holy shit! Did you see that? That’s insane! Crazy idiots..” Hehe, Masterchef is fun. We still make fun of it. Their metaphors and similies are simply to die for! :D

My father hasn’t been converted yet. He was appalled when we told him about it (btw, we still haven’t incorporated the news watching :P)… But don’t worry, give him some time, he’ll get hypnotized too.

Maybe you should start watching too. It's amazing for killing time!

Twin-Twin

I wish I had a twin. I have a brother; there's a very small age difference between us - not even 2 years. But he's still not a twin brother. I wonder if this a common thing people wish for. But then again, I wonder if most people spend as much time as I do with twins.

I've always had some association with twins.. Now, 3 my best friends are twins. Make what you will of that. :D

I've known quite a lot of twins actually.. 

> Twins who seem like they can actually read each other's minds. Which is like really cool for someone who wants a twin.

> The coolest type of twins though are the Yin-Yang types. They do exist, they're not just in books..It would have been so amazing if I'd had an evil twin.. Or even better if I was an evil twin!

> Pair of siblings who act like they don't give a shit about the other or are you know the typical siblings to each other. They kinda kill the whole awesome twin buzz... but eh, whatever.

When I'm bored sometimes and when I'm in other people's accounts, I pretend to be an evil twin of myself or that after years of being suppressed and tortured; I somehow managed to escape the dungeons and free myself from the wrath of my evil twin. That's fun. Some people get freaked. Others think I am a freak.

I think about how it might've been if I had a twin or triplet even.. (But triplettism is asking for a bit too much right? Besides, I don't know any triplets. I wish I did)

Hey, maybe we'd be or might/could have been telekinetic evil-good twins!!

Sigh but time travel to the past isn't possible, so maybe I'll have or adopt (by chance, of course) telekinetic evil-good twin kids.. that would be awesome too.

Trivia

Siamese twins - named after Chang and Eng Bunker (naturally they were conjoined twins) who were born in Siam, Thailand. 

Universal Brotherhood

This topic has been a favorite for all KV's and some other CBSE schools for a while... It was given to my class, among thousand others I'm sure, as an article to be written as homework. This is one of the only essays that I like that I've written for school. 


Consider the schools in Trivandrum to be a universe (or earth or world, whichever). Each school represents a nation. The students of each school, speaking for the general crowd, are devoted to their name, irrespective of whether they actually like going there. It is more the case of an identity. Loyolites with their pack mindset epitomizes. You often hear people say, "You mess with one of them and it's like provoking an army." This is not to say that the other schools are any different.

While this may be a good thing; students watching out for one another and providing support and all that, there is an ugly side to it too. Ugly because there's domination in strength of numbers over reason, development of a mob mentality, ridiculing others and considering them inferior - all because they have allegiance to another name; because their parents put them in a different school. All of this is the exact opposite of universal brotherhood.

But try imagining this... Remove all the separate groups of collective identities but keep the passion for one another and the looking out for others part. If this happens, it will widen everyone's mental  horizon, break narrow ideas and in short;create a world of reason and compassion. A place of universal brotherhood.

StUPid DisGUSting Creatures!

For someone finds herself standing between people's shoes and likely to be squished bugs (generally loathed by the human kind) very frequently.. I really want to exterminate all; I mean ALL, the cockroaches in the world! Just thinking about them makes me scrunch up my face and shudder. I can't image what contribution they could possibly be making to the eco system. 

As a matter of fact, I've never seen these creatures outside; I only see them at home - in my cupboard, in drawers (both the wooden compartments we store things in and undergarments) in corners of the rooms... And in my bathroom!! Pieces of shit, they hide in the shower curtain waiting for me to make a small movement and then they jump out, scaring the life out of me. What's worse, these repulsive creatures ambush you after you're done with a nice long bath and you think you're the purest creature in the world. This is what happened to me last night. 

I was blissfully going to bed feeling as clean as I could ever be; you know, like when you smell really good, when it's nice and cool when you walk out and you think your skin is soft (even if it really isn't any different from 10 minutes earlier), for all you know, you might be glowing..  so that's when one of those stupid disgusting creatures fell on me from the sky (top of the door to be precise). It's not like the other bugs; it claws at your skin and it feels like its coarse, hair like things on its legs are inside you and you won't be able to get it off. Horrifying. So anyway, I whack it off my arm and guess what? It flies around and lands on my leg! UGH! 

It was too dark then, so I couldn't find and unleash my wrath on it. 

I wonder what went wrong with whoever it was that made creatures to make that thing. And give it wings too! They don't even know how to use them! They lift off from the ground, then are completely lost and out of control and plop themselves down wherever possible. Being things that seem too stupid to survive, the species appear to have done research or something, coz now they deftly maneuver themselves around the naphthalene ball thingies we leave around the place to end their miserable lives. (I'm not going to use Hit! or anything cause though I vex roaches I'm not willing to kill the planet or myself for destroying them, sooo...) They just don't die! The dumb creatures, as I type, are jubilantly chewing on clothes and waiting to pounce on unsuspecting people.

Staring Competition

Thought of and drafted in the English period. Ideas taken from Alice in Wonderland and Scooby-doo!

Alnet is a boy. He is lost in the woods.

The canopy of the stupid tall trees ensured that no light would pass through.

It's pitch black, he walks pointlessly in no particular direction.. Till he reaches a place were he can make out shapes in the dark. Still no colours, only vague borders of trees and bushes (well, he hoped they were only trees and bushes) in shades of extremely dark grey close to the ultimate black. He moves further in that direction; pitch black again, he carefully retraces his steps.

Alnet looks up despite having decided not to, for the last time he did he was overwhelmed by panic on seeing more darkness closing in on him, this time he sees tiiiny bits of light. He's not happy, he's still doomed. But being doomed in a place where there is a bit of light is better than being doomed in the blackness.

He legs ache horribly so he sits.

One might think it impossible but after some time Alnet is bored. Initially when he got lost, there was panic and fear. Everything he saw, rather didn't see, intensified his hysteria. The air was, still is by the way, filled with sounds made by creatures that survived in that colourless word and any small addition or subtle change in the pattern made the unnaturally attentive Alnet jump. Alnet is bored, but not bored or stupid enough to chance the forest again.

He sits and imagine shining eyes in the bush. When bored and lost in the forest, imagination goes into hyper-drive. He sees florescent eyes in bright green, orange, blue... They appear and vanish to the rhythm of the forest dwellers. One pair of eyes around which the others dance, didn't disappear..

The music changes, it's faster now to better suit the staring competition taking place between the Boy and the Eyes. Both unblinking, totally into the game. The Eyes smile and blink, like a father losing to his 5 year old in arm wrestling after putting up a "good fight", and like the 5 year old, Alnet (FYI, who is not 5) is overcome with the same kind of achievement and grins widely.

The music has changed again. The Eyes blink again, the entire moon is exposed sending a small stream of brilliant white light through the leaves, it grabs the absolute attention of Alnet. He looks up. He snaps back to the real world. Eyes. He looks back to the bush where he had seen the eyes. Not there anymore. He is suddenly aware that he did hadn't imagined them.The moonlight subdues too soon leaving Alnet in the midst of another panic attack. The music of the forest is still playing but he can't hear it anymore. He hears movement near him, he jumps up on alert. Now the light is gone, completely gone. It's more black than ever before. For a reason that can not be explained, he steps back.

He hits a tree. His hands fly to his mouth just in time to stop a scream from escaping. He whips his head around psychotically, searching, not seeing anything. The white light cuts through the black again... two meters in front of him is a huge tiger. Alnet sees nothing magnificent or beautiful in the creature. It's sheer size makes Alnet stop breathing. Another dreadful staring competition starts, the boy unable to look away from the powerful, emotionless eyes.

This time, Eyes doesn't bother humouring the boy; the tiger leaps, a clean bite on Alnet's neck. It's all over in a matter of seconds. The moonlight having witnessed the evens unfold quietly makes an escape. And oblivious to the whole scene, the music continues.

There's a reason for everything.

There's a reason for everything.. well almost... I was just reminded of these annoying 10th standard kids who twisted up and found/created loopholes in everything that I said... so there's a reason for almost everything.

Reason reasons...

The reason for this post - I made the blog look like what it does now, this afternoon. I don't know if you like it. But I do. :D Very happy with it actually. And unconsciously a lot of thought went into it (OK, that sounds contrast-y but it makes sense, alright?) so it seemed like a waste to not have someone else know, or not have the possibility that someone might know.. (Interpret how you may)


Smitshafthain - Smitsh and Afthain. Two of the most important guys in my life, who together make up a huuuge part of me. I love this name! Smitshaftain, despite people invariably mispronouncing it and screwing up their faces while reading it for the first time, like they're being gagged or force-fed some disgusting medicine. It's unique, it sounds cool, it makes me happy just looking at it! :)

Kilmill - It's one of my favorite nicknames, I'm not called often by it. My father called me that when I was tiny, still does on rare occasions. I was crazy about nicknames when I was a little little kid. I was upset that I didnt have an official nickname for kids to call me by in school.. screwed up tiny kid brains.. I had many ranging, from Kkutty to simple-timple to Kilmill, all courtesy Achan. Later I realized how awesome my nicknames were especially when compared to those ammu's and achu's and.. eugh the worst - KALLU! (My apologies and sympathies to all the Ammu-Achu-Malu-etc people out there.) I mean, people just assume that they have some god-given right to call every girl named Kalyani, Kallu. Like I said.. Eeuughhh! Horrible name - Kallu.
Kilmill is even more cool, coz it has mill from Millennium in it.. Hehe, Millennium will always be a part of me!


The black and purple background - I love black! My room is black.. it's not depressing or hot, I love being there. And I love black with bright blue zapping through it. That's what I was looking for initially but then I found the black-purple thing, I usually stay away from pink and purple and the sort, but this caught my eye and it made the black look even better, more mysterious. It also gave me the sense of being taken into a different dimension, galaxy thing.. so that means it's special. Anything that takes me to those places is... Or maybe it's a family thing. My mother's book called A Swish of Violet, it's cover has the same colours. :D If you're into poems, go check it out. It's കട്ട! ("katta!" meaning "Solid!" in the sense that it's real cool)

Hey Amma, my black becomes more awesome with your swish of violet! :D

The dandelions - My attention span is like a dandelion when it comes to most things like what I write, for example; I get bored writing about something, so I twist it into something entirely different and end it.. Also, I like dandelions. Plus if we're going with the my mind-dandelion thing, I like to think that my thoughts are free and flying around all over the place like the fluffy seeds. Hehe, I like that imagery. Nice and light and airy. I wish I were a dandelion seed.

Hmm what else?

Why am I here? - Coz I like writing. I've just realized that I don't honestly care if people read it and think I'm geeky or cool, whichever (although this is something I claimed a long time back). And because when I started I had more fun than I imagined I would have. Also because my father was excited when I told him about me blogging and that was more encouragement that anything else. Thank ya Acha!

Glasses and Mood swings.

I am frequently described as weird or hyper or crazy or LOUD and that sort.
As of late, I've become more tame. The new words are sober or moody or boring and even quiet.

People think it's like some switch I have, so I can be jumpy one second and invisible-types the next. My crazy friends, when I'm in the latter moods, tell me to switch back, and the non crazy ones tell me to "BeeeHAVE" and stop bouncing so much on normal days. I do get both kinds of moods, but it's not like I can help it. Well yeah, I can, kind of, but not to the magnitude each group wants. Because I'm not a switch, I need a lot more work.

Anyway, a friend of mine, not sure if I'm permitted to take names, is trying really hard to figure me out. At least claims to be trying. And like that's going to work at any rate, even I don't know me. But this friend did make an observation, one that actually seems to be accurate for once. I get into this almost goth skin when I'm wearing my glasses or when they are near.. Is that possible?

Sure, I hate my glasses, they make me look horrible and old (not that I'm one of those plastic creatures who call themselves girls and worry about wrinkles at 20. No, nooo.. not one of them. This is in the sense that I like being a kid, I don't want to grow up and the glasses make me look, say 16-18) and my behavior curiously enough becomes my perceived version of the Adult from my nightmares (I don't actually know many adults like that) - deprived of fun.

You reckon my glasses are jinxed? Or cursed maybe? :O
Haw! Could it be that the glasses are some excuse for my subconscious mind to let loose the mature, boring adult in me that I have strived so hard to suppress? Is this proof that such an adult actually exists within me? Am I really crazy? Crazier than I pretend to be? Will the person I mentioned above read this? Is that why my "friend" supplied me with the information of serpentine glasses? Did this person want me dead? Am I dying? What?! WHY!!
AAAAAHHHHHH!!!

[Kalyani couldn't take it anymore! Some unseen evil force puller her mind, conscience and what not inwards, sucking with it everything, like a mini back hole.. Outwardly, her head vibrated and then burst (like a watermelon)! She is no more!! And surely enough, near the remnants of her watermelon head lay her cursed bronze-pink glasses gleaming in a non existent evil light, its draconian laugh echoing in all of this sorrowful Kalyani-bereft world...]

My Essays

My typical essays till last year, maybe even a couple of months back were of the same old boring standard form.

Boring title

Definition of the thing

Problems it has or had or it could have

What might have been, what could have been, what should be

With everyone's cooperation, I'm sure it will be a success!!!

I was so terribly bored writing these. The same dead tone, try reading between the lines, there's no emotion, no real interest in it, there's Nothing.

I was happy with them though, they served their purpose, in fact they served me pretty well and got me (lousy, worthless) marks. I didn't even know what I was missing.

(I'm bored, I'm wrapping it up) I wrote an essay for fun (contrasting in nature to my previous ones), my mother thought it wasn't me, she thought it was really really good, so I think to myself Hmmm...

Then I read some of Zarin's and Nazrin's work, they used words that only their species of dictionary gobblers would understand but beyond that they wrote informally, like they were talking to the person who might read it and really connecting (I dont care if that sounds cliche) with them. Like they actually meant every word of what they wrote and most importantly like they were having fun.

They write crazy well, but the sad part is that (according to me anyway) their work gets praised to high heaven for the wrong things, ok, that't not right, their vocab deserves praise too.. but so does their language, doesn't anyone care about anything other than the mysterious and fascinating five-syllable words??! Sheeesh!

Anyway, having seen that and clearing my head of the fog that was pumped in there by my schooling in the previous years and also acknowledging the fact that I could write like that (minus the big words), I started enjoying writing.

(yeah maybe I'm not wrapping up after all)

Now I write for fun. I don't write like the twins (Nazrin, Zarin), I don't write in the way the school taught me, I write the way I feel like writing. My writing now finally unique, like I had claimed to be. (YAY)

That is not to say I'm some great literary genius or anything. What I make these days is BIZARRE! Often not making much sense, unconnected, skipping details in some areas and going into crazy details in others. But I have soo sooo soooooo much fun just writing. On rare occasions though, these bizarre things actually turn out well, or so my parents and friends tell me, and frankly that's all that matters.

I'll probably put up some of my crazy crap up here. Who knows, you might actually like it.

What do you think?

NCERT textbooks in English after every chapter prints questions. There is bound to be a question based on the readers opinion; do you think <something moral> ? If you were someone, what would you have done? How would you have liked something to happen? And so on.

Sometimes these questions are one sided or jut plain stupid. 'Do you think animals should be killed for personal gain?' And they you have "correct" answers. We're talking about opinions for God's sake! How can you say one is the correct answer while the other is crap..?!

When students do come forward with their own views, often swerving from those "correct" answers, they are discouraged or told that they are wrong.

What's worse.. In classes, mostly in middle school, where the kids get their notes dictated to them, they don't even realize that they are having "their opinions" also read out.

The height - What do you think? Hold up, the teachers will tell you after the refer their guide.

If confronted with such a question before the lesson is completed, a kid will rummage through his/her notes, scan the pages and then say "I dont know (what I think about something), the teacher hasn't gotten that far yet."

Printing press.

An amazing teacher taught a class filled with blockheads, sadly a group that includes me, and got this screwed up class to admire him. Some people give adjectives like "more like a friend" or "fun" and that sort for a teacher who they like. This guy wasn't really any of that, he was simply a fantastic teacher. Horrible misfortune fell upon our class and he moved away. And that was that.

A new teacher arrived. Naturally when compared to the best she seemed, well not good at all. But having realized that it wasn't exactly fair on our part to compare her with sir, we were willing to try to see her as we would any other teacher. But then she went and fell off the end of the earth, by which I mean she disappeared. Days and even weeks went by without a teacher. Being the geek I am, I suggested a student teaching thing. And I got the first slot. My first class was pretty shitty and I can't teach, but on the flip side my classmates were extremely cooperative and actually listened despite my high speed blabbing and other commendable non-teaching skills... hmm, maybe I don't give my class enough credit.

Anyway, our disappeared teacher shows up without warning (and unfortunately the rest of the class do not get to teach) in a whole new avatar. As opposed to her flexible, interactive and kind character she had displayed earlier, the new version was mean and full of herself. She had abandoned the methods we were used to and those which produced colourful results and had adopted new, and frankly quite stupid, methods. (That finally brings us to the point of this post.. it seems that this part is longer than the rest. Oh well) So now the classes are horrible, even when not compared to the legend.

What I did in class today is given below. A friend of mine suggested I put it online, so then after I got home I thought what the heck and here it is.

<Some notes are scribbled casually. From the missing words and horrible, suicide worthy grammar and spelling mistakes, you can tell that the person writing had no interest what so ever, a disgrace to all students who generally do listen, I might add. But it doesn't take long for this person to realize that the teacher is just reciting the textbook.. btw, this person referred here is me.. and the notes that followed this realization are.....>

Tell me, why are we copying the textbook? If that was the point, what is the need of a teacher? My teaching sucked, granted, but it was an attempt at teaching, and not reading the stupid textbook out loud and making the class write it down. I fell like I'm in a printing or publishing house in a time when novels and other books were handwritten.

A person reads out the content of the author's manuscript and the 30 strong workers (here, our class) mechanically write it down without processing a single word.

What's worse, she stops and asks, says actually - its pretty rhetoric, "Are you understanding?"
This can be compares to the reader pausing and saying, "What an amazing story, right?" The workers exhausted and scared of losing their jobs nod in unison, as does the class but in fear of what I wonder.. Maybe it's out of mental exhaustion and a tiny thought that the torture may end sooner if she was pleased.
The reader knows full well that the workers do not get it, yet she pretends they do and continues to read the manuscript and the machines are turned on again.