Five things I did not understand about the FIFA World Cup

1) The vuvuzela.
Who invented this instrument and why hasn't he been shot yet?

2) All the unnecessary excitement.
Everybody freaks out over almost goals and almost saves and corner kicks and swift kicks and whatnot. Even the commentators go crazy. WHAT?! They didn't actually score a goal. Calm down!

3) Scoring own goals.
How does the goalkeeper react? It's so crazy near the goal as it is. Everybody is freaking out and hyperly running here and running there. The goalie is trying to cover the entire goal all by his lonesome self. He sees his team member take possession of the ball. He breathes a temporary sigh of relief. And suddenly BAM! The team member shoots the ball into his own goal! Does the goalkeeper beat him up after the match?

4) Extra time.
As if ninety minutes weren't long enough, they have extra time? Why why why? They don't even show close-ups of the boys so how am I not supposed to be bored? It's just random figures in jerseys running around and what is the point of that?

5) Little to no dancing.
This Coke ad made me wait so excitedly for someone to break out into a quirky dance routine. But no. All people did was run around and jump on each other when a goal was scored. Waka waka was written for you guys. DANCE!

I liked watching the game right after it was over. Not the actual game. Not the highlights. The segment right after. That's when they only showed all the goals scored and nobody got excited over rubbishy corner kicks and almost goals. And there were cute footballers running and being all happy and sometimes, if I was lucky, they took their shirts off.

"I don't like jokes!" "I don't like you!"

Yesterday mom tried to coax me off the computer to go eat lunch with her by saying Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was on. As if that would work. It did but I didn't want her to know that. I got up five minutes after she gave me that piece of vital information - five agonizing minutes no less - because I didn't want her to think she'd won. Yes.

Anyway, as I was watching the movie (I giggled wildly at every single joke) I remembered when it first came out. I was eight and wasn't at that stage of my life where I had to watch every new movie yet (I'm still not but that's because of lack of funds more than anything else). But everybody had watched this movie. Everybody. Naturally I *had* to watch it too. Except I didn't. Or couldn't. I don't remember why but what I do remember is having to hear everyone go on and on about it as I smiled and tried not to feel like the loser I secretly knew I was.

What was my brilliant solution? I pretended I had watched the movie too. But since I was lying, I didn't really know what to say when everyone got into excited discussions about the plot and whatnot. I did the next best thing. Every time a discussion popped up, I would say "But Kajol looked so much better with long hair than the yucky short hair. Don't you think so?" Every single time. And then everyone would excitedly get into a discussion about that as I would stand and smile proudly at having overcome my loserishness by throwing around a piece of information I got through the posters. So smart I felt.

So to answer your question, yes I've always been a weird person.

P.S. I did end up watching the movie weeks too late in a very shady theatre with my mom after throwing a humongous tantrum.

Why yes, I *am* made of awesome

How was your week? Not awesome? Aww that's too bad. Well not really 'cause I like it when my week kicks your week's butt.

Why my week was awesome:

Reason no. 1

Someone accidentally recharged my Vodafone account with 400 bucks. So I had Rs. 333 more in my otherwise balanceless account than I should have had. Of course the stupidly efficient people over at Vodafone must have realized their mistake 'cause it only lasted a couple of days where I didn't take advantage of the free money at all but even then, the little time that I thought the good luck gods were smiling down at me was deliciously awesome.

Reason no. 2

I have a great job. And even though I'm just an intern who has to work five full days for no money, I love it. Love. I love the small coffee cups and the same tasting pulao-with-raita-and-papad that I eat everyday. I love the dog who's always sleeping at the bottom of the stairs. I love how it's a graveyard in the morning and buzzing with activity in the evening. I love reaching early and leaving late. I love eavesdropping on melodramatic conversations. And I love what I do.

Reason No. 3

My raita was finally enough for my pulao. Never had it happened before. My raita always ran out no matter how much I tried to save it to drown the not-so-bad-but-not-so-good tasting pulao in. But now I've mastered the art of saving the raita right up to the very end and I'm very proud of myself. Stop judging me.

Reason No. 4

I found out that the one bus I used to desperately wait for after work isn't my only alternative. All three buses drop me home. Or very near it. I discovered this when I was fed up of waiting for my chronically late crowd infested bus and just sat in the bus which annoyingly appeared every four minutes just to see where it went. And luckily I didn't end up in another part of the city. I was so elated that it dropped me in familiar territory, I didn't notice I was lost until I didn't know which way to turn. A nice aunty came to my rescue and helpfully told me how to get out of wherever I was to get to where I wanted to go. I even struck up a conversation with her and tried convincing her that I really did stay nearby but I just hadn't been to or known about the existence of this place I was at. I felt very Western too because hardly anybody in India strikes up conversations with perfect strangers. If a random boy so much as smiles at me, I glare suspiciously back. That's how I was brought up - to treat strangers with a mixture of distrust and hostility.

Reason no. 5

One of my co-workers left for Hindustan Times. Thursday was her last day and as she cleared out her desk, she found a lot of things she wanted to get rid of. The things included a lot of junk but also a Spongebob keychain, two Spongebob books and a Happy Meal toy; all of which I inherited. People couldn't believe how genuinely happy I was. Oh I also got yummy free farewell cake. Plus a yummy free farewell lunch. But what made my week was the surprise Spongebob surplus.

And after the awesomeness that was last week, how did this one begin? With a lizard on my bedroom ceiling. And now I'm paranoid that it's going to fall on my face. Even though mom assured me that she shooed it out of the bedroom window when I was hiding out here. But I know she's lying because she said we should sleep on the bed today and not on the floor. Mom doesn't sleep on the bed during summer 'cause it's so hothothot. When I suspiciously asked her why not on the floor if there was no lizard, she didn't answer and turned up the volume of the TV. I called her a liar and said that I hoped the lizard would fall on her.

So now I'm pretty sure the karma gods are going to make the lizard fall into my mouth.

I wish my leg was haunted but all I got was a stupid cold

In the words of Lorelai Gilmore:

Ugh, I hate having a cold. It's bad enough being sick, but anybody can have a cold. I mean, I'd like to have a good illness, something different, impressive. Just once I'd like to be able to say, "Yeah, I'm not feeling so good, my leg is haunted."

So yes I have a cold. And I'm not happy about it. What kind of person is happy to get a cold you ask? Phoebe Buffay that's who!

I am not a nice person to be around when I have a cold. I sneeze very loudly at regular intervals. I'm all disgusting with my runny nose and watery eyes. And I'm constantly grumpy with no qualms about stabbing people in the eye with my pencil if they so much as laugh too loudly. You wouldn't be averse to going on a murderous cold-induced rampage if you got colds like I did. My colds are never gentle with barely audible sneezes. My colds are violent and ruthless and everybody I come in contact with knows about them. I sport a permanent scowl and sniffle every few seconds which makes my nose itchy and my throat all scratchy and my head hurts and -- there! I sneezed again and nobody said Bless You. A legend holds that it was believed that the heart stops beating every time you sneeze and the phrase "bless you" is meant to ensure the return of life or to encourage your heart to continue beating (thank you Wikipedia!) So if my heart decides to give up on me due to lack of encouragement and I die, blame the people working in the City section of DNA.

My department people (all three of them) aren't here yet. The boss doesn't come in during the weekend (Friday is included) and I think the other two are following her lead. So now I'm grumpy about not doing anything productive today besides making a few phone calls.

Also, the canteen has jalebis today. I don't want jalebis, I want rasgullas! They had rasgullas yesterday but by the time I got around to ordering, the canteen was out of them!

Yesterday I happened to mention how I love Spongebob related merchandise. I was seriously considering buying childrens' DVD set from Crossword because you got a free Spongebob soft toy with it. So anyway, Nickelodeon sends a lot of goodie bags to ya! (lesson no. 1: ya! is always in bold) and my boss decided to give me a few Spongebob goodies. BUT THE STUPID OFFICE THIEVES STOLE THE SPONGEBOB COASTERS SHE WAS GOING TO GIVE ME! Yes, apparently my office has thieves and they deprived me of Spongebob! I hate them! Hate is too mild a word. I completely and utterly abhor them and (an idea I stole from the episode of Castle I watched this morning) I'd cheerfully pour honey on their eyes and set loose a nest of fire ants on their face.

I think the cold is hampering my ability to type 'cause I'm having to use the backspace key a lot more than usual. So I'm also grumpy about that. And it's so cold temperature wise too. Whoever controls the office air conditioner obviously thinks our bodies have copious amounts of fur on them because jackets do absolutely nothing to counter the cold.

Six sneezes in a row and not a single Bless you. Make that eight. Now I hope I die just out of spite. Their apathy and inability to utter two simple words will kill me and then they will have to live with that for the rest of their lives.

Stupid cold.

My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance

Edit: I just saw how long this post actually turned out to be. So you're not obligated to read the entire thing. Except you totally are because you'd hurt my feelings otherwise.

Mom put me on spring cleaning duty yesterday. I was supposed to clear out my monster shelf and make a pile of things to be given away to the raddiwala. Mostly because we're poor and need the money but also because our house is being overtaken by books. They're like these needy little things crying for a home and I have no space for them in my life! Well I do obviously but my house doesn't. Even though we ran out of shelf space for books a few months ago, I insist on buying new books and add them to the ever increasing pile of homeless books which are randomly dumped around the house in the hopes that someone, somewhere will take care of them. But nobody does. Until yesterday. Shelf cleaning = space = non-homeless books.

Every time we try to clear the house, mom insists on tearing out unused paper from my old notebooks and keeping them in a safe place in case I ever need to use them in an emergency. Or in college. Every. Single. Time. Yeah mom because I'm really going to scramble around looking for the papers you hid when I'm trying to take down an important telephone number or address. Or I'm going to carry sheets of paper to college to take down notes on just so I can promptly lose and/or misplace them and not find them when I really need to study or when I have a project due and only find them the next time we decide to clear out my old books and you insist on tearing out notebook paper again! Yesterday I almost had a hysterical breakdown trying to convince mom that we don't need any more paper. Of course she still mutilated my notebooks anyway and didn't even tell me where she stored the emergency papers. She never does.

I found awesomely random things while clearing out the shelf though so I'm still glad I did it.

Right off the bat I found these two books which I found so hilariously epic that I have to tell you the names.

HOW TO TALK TO ANYONE - 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships
and
PREMARITAL SEX - Morality of Dating, Courtship and Petting

And Petting!

You think I'm making this up don't you? I'll click a picture when I'm not sleepy and prove that I'm completely serious.

I also found:
1) Stationery - all of which I could have used during my exams.
2) Random bits of craft items
3) Folders. Oh the folders! I found so many I could probably start an office right here.
4) MY FYJC bus pass (for the uninitiated FYJC = First Year Junior College. Then there's SYJC i.e. Second Year Junior College. I'm semi-officially in TYBMM which is Third Year Bachelor of Mass Media. You're welcome)
5) MY SYJC fake I-card. By fake I mean they gave me a fake I-card when I lost my real one. I had to pay 500 bucks for a crappy piece of paper on which they stuck my photo. Stupid fake piece of crap.
6) My school calendar. I'm going to revisit some of my hymns later. I may or may not use them as blog posts.
7) Menus of restaurants in Colaba. I don't know why.
8) Notes dating back to SYJC
9)An envelope containing 4 Moserbaer CDs. Where were they when I needed them? Chilling out in my shelf apparently.
10) Old phone bills. Again I don't know why. Mom could have just as easily thrown them away rather than stashing them in my shelf. Then she made a big thing about how we should tear them up into little pieces before throwing them away because they have our phone numbers on them. I called her paranoid and didn't tear them up. Mostly because my number has changed.
11) Pamphlets that we had made for Cutting Chai last year as part of our P.R. strategy. Our contingent name was Chacha Chaudhary Champs. Yes, they obviously hate us. I also found a Chacha Chaudhary mask which amused me for roughly 5 minutes.
12) I also found P.R. stuff from Detour from the year before last. There our contingent name was No Parking. At least Jai Hind doesn't make its hatred to us known quite as much as Nationals does.
13) An empty photo album
14) Loads of empty printer paper. To go into the multitude of folders of course. Mom has stolen a lot of paper from her office over the years.
15) My diary from when I was 17. I read the entries and giggled. I was such a drama queen.
16) My diary from when I was 14. Slightly less of a drama queen then. And yes I had separate diaries because I could never keep up with the whole diary writing thing. I used to write for a few days and then get bored. I think I also have one of my 12 year old diaries.
17) A notebook which had a few snippets I'd written about this book series I was so determined to begin when I was 15. The whole series that I so meticulously planned was very embarrassing; so obviously I'll blog about it later.

My favourite find however was these letters and cards and scrapbook type things from my friends and my ex-boyfriend. One of the cards reminded me how my friends used to "tease me with" (it's in inverted commas because I'm not sure whether it's a grammatically correct expression but we use it a lot so I'm going to say it anyway) this boy called Calvin from our French class back in FYJC. Why? Because I'd gotten mad that he got more marks than me in one of our exams. My inner nerd pops out to say hello now and then. I read a few of the letters and laughed and awwwed like crazy. There were also these letters from my ex and scrapbooks that he'd made me too (yes, we were that couple) which I read a bit of and laughed and awwwed again.

So the moral of this story is that cleaning is not always the worthless exercise in futility I once thought it was. The End.

P.S. I probably made a lot of spelling/grammatical/logical/numerical errors. But I'm really sleepy and I'll check them tomorrow OK?