Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

So here starts another hectic winter break, away from the winter wonderland of Illinois and onward to the more tropical and exotic lands that I hail from.

Merry Christmas to all!
Happy Hanukkah!
Eid Mubarakk!
and Happy Holidays (to be more general and avoid missing out on the various festivities)...

As the new year draws closer I wonder what I will resolve myself to do this year- lose weight (at least part of all the excess baggage), study harder (not slack off reading fanfiction and watching movies), be a better person (I'm great, but there are times I could have been less... vicious), write to family more often (I do, but my mum's always complaining that I have no time for her)... all of the above (I guess I should try, right?)...

I think next year I might go visit my uncle in New York and spend a white winter with him, my aunt and my wonderful cousins because I've been dreaming of a white christmas for all my life... I really should meet and talk to them more often...

My grandparents are celebrating their 50th Anniversary for the 5th time this year this week... but their 50th Anniversary isn't till next year... I've learnt not to ask and just do as I'm told... :P

Anyhow... goodnight, all... and good luck. and have a wonderful new year.

Love & Happiness to all!

Where are we?

There's never been reason for me to be ecstatic. There's never been reason for me to be depressed either. I live in a state of blissful delusions of a life I think I'm living, ignorance is bliss, if you chose to ignore things that upset you you're inevitably left with nothing but happiness. What is that happiness worth though? one that forgoes all emotion that one has felt in all their lifetime. Experiences make us who we are, blocking them out doesn't give us the chance or the opportunity to grow as we should. We should be happy and grateful for all that we do have since many others don't even have that. Things can only get better if we want them to. So let go of what's holding you back and holding you down and move forward. This is your revolution your evolution; make of it what you will.

Crawling Under My Skin...

There isn't a day that passes that I wish I wasn't dead. Everyday ends on a sour note. Everyday I wish I'd just die already. Everyday the thought of consuming a bottle full of Vicodin or Valium Every time that I look at, or talk to someone they are hurt. I am a hurtful person and I don't like it. My family is the first of all that I hurt. Everything I say and do hurts them. The fact that I can't trust them hurts me, and inevitably it hurts them. I'm the bane of everyone's existence. A big fat unwanted blotch on the face of humanity. Some would call it self-pity. I call it self-preservation. I'm trying to live. I'm trying to be me. Experiences make you who you are and I am what I am, accept me the way I am and don't expect me to change! I love you the way you are. I love you regardless of what you say and what you do. If you think hurting me emotionally is going to bring down those carefully constructed impenetrable walls that I've put up around my heart, you're wrong. It'll only reinforce my frigidness towards life and all that I believe in letting go. Yes, the past haunts me. Yes, it affects my decisions and my life. No, it does NOT make me unhappy or resentful. I believe in love and second-chances. I believe in miracles even though I'm not quite certain about a certain supernatural force, I am willing to believe in all that is good in the world and trust that the world is a better place.

I'm not suicidal, not in the least. I do occasionally wish I were dead, but don't we all at some point of time or the other? I'm too cowardly to take my own life and too brave to commit suicide. I'm a paradox of paradoxes. But death intrigues me and it is crawling under my very skin, burning my insides as it slithers through and permeates my blood....

Love, Emotions & Other Frivolous Things

So there's this boy whom I've not met in 4.5 years. He's the first (and probably only, well, other than my BFF (because what I have with my BFF is non-negotiable but I'll accept whatever little I get with him, I love him far too much to lose him over stupid unfounded affections that I might not even feel if I got what I wanted because often with BFFs you see that you might think you're in love with them, but you're better off as friends in the end... yeah, when it doesn't even matter *i know "BAD JOKE"*)) guy I fell in love with,. that I loved him.... and he apologized profusely for hurting me (which he never did, funnily enough)...

of course he'll never know that even after 10 years I'm still in love with him... maybe not as much as I was that day I laid eyes on his haughty smirk as he handed me my notebook in 4th Grade, or when he was knight-in-shining-armour when he was the only kid who spoke to me back then... but then again it has been an awfully long time since I've met him...

In that awfully long time I've forced (yes, FORCED) myself to "fall" in... so i guess... I've jumped in "like" with other people, who found it hilarious to try and break my heart in the worst possible ways. with words, public embarassments, by dating my friends, but breaking their hearts, stalking them, trying to be friendly with me so that I can stalk her for them... errr... TMI!

I've also been in a pseudo-relationship with a psychotically depressed pervert who I ended up dumping because I was "guilted" into the damned relationship in the first place and then I didn't really like him, he wasn't funny, or interesting, or intriguing, he was just a pervert, a high-school drop-out, unemployed loser who spent more time talking about the girl who he wished he had (and whining about himself and shifting blame on me when he hurt me) and still lived with his mother because she payed his car insurance and phone bill.

've had my heart broken a million times because I always jump for people I know will hurt me, even though technically I'm the bitch, because well... it was all in attempt to get over him...

so... yeah... nevermind...

I'm crazy... Ignore me... I have no life. I have no love. I have no emotions, just frivolous things that, well, obviously don't matter....

Changes....

Change is inevitable... between the smallest increment of time... from the moment i started writing till the time i finish. Change is unavoidable. Sometimes it doesn't go with the plan you had for yourself and sometimes you couldn't be happier because of the change.

Love changes, relationships change, friendships change, people changes, times change, feelings change, looks change, attitudes change, hate changes, landscapes change, winds change, enormity changes... everything... inevitably changes...

It's easier to ignore changes than to accept them if they're not in your favour, but accepting a change is the easiest way to get over it. In the complexites of the crux of the situation, change is always for the good. it makes you stronger, it tests you and it sets you off on a new page or chapter in your life.

They are also never easy- these changes. Many times a change in one aspect of life leads to changes in other aspects, and so many changes can never be easy...

Grasping onto the frayed edges of what was would leave you in denial of life and existence... leaving a person who was once full of vivacious energy, hollow and forgotten in time..

It time for change, accept it and move on...

Listening to: Elsewhere - Sarah McLachlan,
If Your Missing (Come On Home) - Bethany Joy Lenz (One Tree Hill)

Summer, Family and Stuff....

It's been a few weeks into summer break and I'm already sick of it all... I want to go back to the only place I feel truly at home... I'm in Dubai, and its horribly hot here, I almost passed out yesterday... I'll be going to india in a few days hopefully things'lll get better there...

Failure...

We've lost everything, we're down and out, it feels like I can't go on, and my fears are shining bright. My heart beats faster, my movements slow down. I don't think I can take it anymore. I don't think that I can go on...

Why is it that whenever we want something or need something we lose it? Why is it when things seem like they're going well, everything turns to ashes? It makes no sense that I don't know where I'm going or what I'm going to do when I get there, but when has anything ever made sense to me? My heart is burdened by the songs of many, and even though I say I'm the earth, sometimes it gets too much to deal with... I want to go back... Death just seems so appealing to me... but I know better... I know better... right?

There's Gotta Be More To Life...

Routines. Day in. Day out.
We wake up with a plan, we go to sleep with one. On a subconscious level we all do it, yes, even me, the evasive one.... it's hard not to, even if the plan is to just laze about and not do anything....

There's got to be more to life than the monotonous cycles we live in. More to it than just you and me and work. It's not as simple, but there's got to be, there just has!

Is our existence as meaningless as we structure it? If it is, I don't see the point in continuing or standing in the sidelines waiting for something to affect our "lives".

A Tale Of Insomnia From The Nights Of A Sleeper...

in·som·ni·a (ĭn-sŏm'nē-ə)n.
Inability to obtain sufficient sleep, esp. when chronic; difficulty in falling or staying asleep; sleeplessness.

I begin now, to understand, why lack of sleep is so addictive. The last few nights have been overwhelming in the sense that I've barely slept at all... my brain and eyelids feels heavy but I feel alive. Caffience humming through my veins dousing me in wakefulness even though my body is protesting endlessly...

sleep (slēp) n. A natural periodic state of rest for the mind and body, in which the eyes usually close and consciousness is completely or partially lost, so that there is a decrease in bodily movement and responsiveness to external stimuli. During sleep the brain in humans and other mammals undergoes a characteristic cycle of brain-wave activity that includes intervals of dreaming. A period of this form of rest. A state of inactivity resembling or suggesting sleep; unconsciousness, dormancy, hibernation, or death.

Try as i might sleep evades me. In the tresses of my unconsciousness looms a great darkness. Fear reverberates through my very core... I'm scared... of sleep and dreams, of the nightmares that plague my usually dreamless sleep.

Who is that, there in the shadowy darkness? Who is it that frightens me so?

Drowning in the flow of things...

The end of term is fast approaching. Two more midterms and then a week of Finals... arrggghhh! It's driving me insane, the constant hammering of blood in my brain. The never ending migraine from the lack of sleep and too much reading. Math Math Math Math Chemistry Math Math Rhet Math Math Physics Physics Math Phyiscs and on and on the cycle goes- too much work, too little time. I'm moving with the overwhelming tide of work. Unable to get out of the cumbersome dreariness that comes from reading too many lecture notes and living a runaway life where nothing but work surrounds you. I want to get out. I need a break. Three weeks never seemed longer.

Got the position

A few weeks ago I randomly sent in an application to be a Peer Leader for incoming Women in Math Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, where I study. So anyways... I decided I would apply an hour before the application was due and managed to send in my application with but 30 seconds to spare.

The interview was relatively simple. I told them how important it was to be truthful- dish out the good and the bad, give an unbiased view of things. I told them I was an introvert and I stammered alot throughout the interview.

But you know what? I still got it. yep. I did.

I'm here now and this is me.

Broken, ridiculed and confused.
Alone, afraid, lost and abused.
I thought i didn't deserve happiness,
To feel free, loved, smile or enjoy
I was ready to give up and be done.

They broke me with their hurtful words.
Like broken-winged, helpless birds;
My reality and faith was blurred.
I didn't run away from the pain
And I couldn't forget even though I forgave.

I fought for me.
I fought to be.
I fought because I knew i'd regret otherwise-
Everything I was, everthing I had
And then I knew I couldn't give up.

To smile and know i'll be alright
Hold my head up with pride,
To be able to smile-
Despite the unbearable pain,
I grew up regardless of what they'd said.

I'm here now and this is me...

- Tanvi Damani
(March 26, 2007)

So Here We Go...

The end of spring-break heralds the coming of fun and... mid-terms. A home away from home, a sanctuary for my troubled mind away from my troublesome past...

I'm glad to be back. I am. Really. The person I've been able to grow into here hasn't been lost on me and I will forever be indebted to this foreign country for that. As the end of my Freshman year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign draws closer and closer, I can't help but feel the unexplainable warmth and comfort that one usually feels at home. This school has come to mean so much to me in such a short while. Maybe it's because I'm so accustomed to moving away ever so often, that this place appeals to me. The people are wonderful, friendly, non-judgemental, non-interfering and nice.

I miss home. my mum, my dad, my little brother... but I'm glad to be here.

So here we go... back to the routine and schedule, mid-terms and midnight snacks, friends and fun, books and memories...