Heart in a box

I was watching today's episode of 'Grey's Anatomy' and it made me think quite a bit about my own life. I am not a doctor to know if the medical procedures they show in the series is correct or wrong but in this particular episode there was a beating heart in a box. A real beating heart kept alive through a machine. In a series where the characters have seen as many deaths as they do, this beating heart - not in a person's body or stored in ice but - in the box represented inspiration. The Doctors looked at the heart in the box and got inspired, and it was every bit the miracle that all the Doctors needed to keep going through their day. The heart made them realize how passionate they felt about their work and it was so amazing to see them go back to work so much more inspired by looking at a heart in a box.

Since I have my final essay due by the end of this week and none written, I got to start thinking about my own line of inspiration.

Ever since I first read about Oscar Wilde, I was hooked. The man who lived so grandly and had to die in poverty, you cannot get a better artistic story than that. And when I read about the thousands of money Lord Alfred Dolygus made by thrashing Wilde after his death, it just made me more convinced I have got to know more about him. I couldn't wait to know more about him. Hence when I had to write a paper on his books, it gave me a chance to know more about him, his life, what he thought about. Although I am aware even reading all of his works will never let me glimpse more that a little of his life, I couldn't wait to start on my essay. Couldn't wait to write down all the things on my mind into paper and keep note.

In my second year, I wasn't a huge fan of Emily Dickinson. In fact I missed my tutorial for that class. I am not a huge fan of poems in general, was never realy good at it hence my reluctance to attend another poetry class. Turns out, my tutor waited for me thus forcing me to take the class. During that class, my tutor said the most extraordinary thing. It is interesting to know that most of her poems hasn't been titled, but instead numbered. He said it was because Dickinson died before she titled her poems and the publishers had to improvise and number it. It was so amazing to know that we could read her work, research her life and analyze her text thousand of times but still never find out what realy made her write what she did. It was such an intriguing fact, I haven't stopped reading her poetry ever since.

I have to write on Postmodernism this week. I spend the whole semester on her and considering I am in my fourth year, it should be easier to write that any of the other essays. But there is no 'heart in the a box', no incident that jumped up and made me want to write about it. Encounters that made me want to read more, to write more, to not wait till I could start writing. You can call me just plain lazy but I am not inspired. Not inspired to write about postmodernism, the way I was about Wilde, Dickinson or any other writers for that.

I have to write it though - it counts towards 20% of my final marks but I am just waiting and watching for the heart in the box to inspire me.  

Love over-rated

Just recently one of my close friend broke up with her boyfriend - turns out he was cheating on her - and since then she hasn't stopped crying. Now she is a perfectly healthy girl, but ever since the break up she hasn't been outside her room, she doesn't socialize with people and the minute you even mention love or other similar words, she starts crying.

So last night after one of our you-are-too-good-for-him crying sessions I was telling her to move on when she said she feels so heartbroken, she can't function properly and it got me thinking about love and the power people give to this lone emotion.

I am always mystified with the idea that love is the only all consuming emotion there ever is. The reaction of people who have just broken up, my friend included, is example enough. There are so many other relationships- friendship, parents, motherhood - yet you never hear casualties created because someone argued with his best friend or parents or mother. You just hear plenty of he/she killed herself because of a failed relationship - that is the most extreme scenario. But even in a normal breakup,most girls are so heartbroken after a relationship, they almost turn into vegetables and boys are even worst, drinking and throwing their life away because the girl of his dream does not reciprocate these same feelings.So I wonder what is it about love that makes the person so miserable he/she is willing to throw away an otherwise perfectly healthy life? 

Yes, a few good heart-to-heart is good for any person - it takes the load off. Crying for a good measure of time is also good, frees your heart of ill-fated emotions and well, clears your eyes off dusts. But to be crying continuously, like it wasn't a boyfriend you broke up with but your whole life is just plain dumb. And to throw away the prospects of a normally healthy life because one single relationship did not work out is even dumber. It is just a relationship that ended, not your life, so why waste away your whole day on a relationship that could not even withstand a simple hurdle.

Love is not suppose to make you so weak that you feel you can not exisit beyond it. That is not love, that is attachment, desperation, the terror of being lonely, name it anything you like but it is not love. And by the way, your heart is a muscle, it can not break. If it did, you would actually be dead instead of complaining you feel dead inside. I have never been a romantic person. The notion of a Prince charming is too tacky for me, if I see a couple holding hands, the first thought that enters my mind is sexual, and even with the 'love of my life', my idea of a happily ever-after is a few good years at best. Sure, I believe there is an intense emotion that makes you feel like you can not like anyone else as much as you do a particular person, but that is just that for me - an intense emotion - not my whole life ready to unravel if that person doesn't like me back. And if falling in love is going to make me a quivering mass of hysterical jello, then I don't want to fall in love.

I will write

You want me to look beautiful. Wear a pretty dress. Make my hair. Stand still, looking like a fragile doll. Opening my mouth only to sing praises of you.

I know what you expect of me. A naive do-gooder who writes sentimental love stories. A girl only concerned about fashion, petty lover's quarrels and frivolous little problems.

Nothing bold.Nothing stark.Nothing that will challenge you.

I refuse to bow down to it.

I will write. About Violence. About sex. About racism. I will write about the whole weight of the world and you won't even know it. I will write.With no shame, no explanation, no excuse for my writings.

You can love my work. You can hate it, criticize it. But you are not patronizing my work with your expectation and ideals. These aren't your opinions. These are mine. I am not professing to be good. But I am not accepting yours are any better just because you have a different view.


Note-This article was written after an intense Feminism class about limitations faced by many female writers.

Graduates!

When I think of the last time I wrote anything it makes me shudder to remember that it was almost 3 months ago. Cliché as it may sound, I couldn't write because I was busy contemplating the course of my life. Realy I was! I graduated last month, you see. And if you know me, you would know I was deciding whether I should come back and search for a job or extend my stay and continue for another year.

I remember when I was a fresh class 12 graduate and got selected for scholarship; I singed a bond with the government agreeing to be among the teacher-candidates. They said we were the promise of the future, the future lecturers, send away not in India but in 'Third Country' as they put it to become better educators. Sending us away with so much promise that when we complete our course we would come back and be directly appointed as assistant lecturers. 

Now,if you have been following any newspapers you will already know the chances of that happening are Nil. Now that we are about to complete our course, we are neither young enough to believe RGOB is going to deliver their promise nor naive enough to assume it is that simple. I am not saying students deserve to be appointed as assistant Lecturers just because they are on scholarship. There are students from India and Sherabtse who must work equally hard to get the same position. We are not so naive as to think there won't be other students applying for the same position, so directly being appointed as an assistant lecturer might as well be a myth. However, the vast number of competitor for the same slot is not what bothers me; once you are in your final year and have seen the number of unemployed graduates, you kind of expect the competition. You prepare yourself for an even higher number of students competing with you next year. So a given number of graduates clashing with you for your desired choice of spot is a given. 

What disheartens me is the number of slots available to compete for in the first place.This year the vacancy for the position for an English Assistant lecturer in all of the University under RUB is zero. Yes, you heard it right, there isn't any slot for English assistant lecturers in any of the universities, yet no one can contest that the majority numbers of students graduating each year is always BA English. So I am wondering what will happen to all these BA English graduates? What are they going to do?No doubt,there is journalism but there are already so many journalism graduates trolling around, literature students would surely be in a disadvantage. Ofcourse, just because there is no slot for an English assistant does not necessarily mean the graduates will be left behind. I am sure they will find a job in the end, either after RCSC or private but what are the chances that the job they get selected for will be the subject they majored in.

RUB managed to squeezed a single slot for 'Creative Arts' in Paro College of education, and one can argue that it is enough but any literature students will know there is a vast difference between 'creative arts' and 'literature'. I am not a science student so I cannot profess anything of the sort for them, but they are students as well, so perhaps their concerns are as similar to mine. I know for a fact that there are only 4 slots for Mathematics this year and I am already friends with 6 Mathematics graduates who are applying for the same slot. So now I am lost as to which among them will manage to bag the slot.

Competition is a fact of life, everyone expects it, but what if there is no slot to compete for in the first place? I certainly did not undertake literature for three years so go Home and work in a job completely irrelevant to literature. I certainly would not be completely competent in teaching a subject I don't know much about and I certainly would not be passionate about it. With the number of graduates increasing and vacancies decreasing every year, if the number of slots of English assistant lecturer is zero this year,I certainly cannot imagine any improvement next year. 

I am aware that it is usually when RCSC examinations are about to take place that there are so many articles about graduates, you might want to gag over another similar piece.But my days lately have been filled with browsing RCSC and RUB website hoping they will announce something, anything that will reassure me that while I am holing up my part of the deal, they will honour theirs. And if only I was sure there was going to be a job to compete for in the first place when I get back, I would not have been contemplating my next course anyway.

Best Friends!

When we are small, at one point or other the English teachers always ask the students to write a paragraph about your Best Friend. So we write usually about the person who sat next to us at that moment without even realizing the weight that comes with the question. I just thought Today should be my turn to write about mine.

I met her when she was 8 or a year older. We were in class 4 then. I remember asking her to help me draw a diagram for me and after that we just became friends. She is my best Friend, the best person I could ever have. I am sure everyone has said the same about one friend or another, but not with as much conviction as I do right now. And if you knew just how much time we spend being friends apart from each other than with each other, you will be surprised we even managed.

I remember one particular incident that I think I will always remember. When we were pretty small we once volunteered to write charts for our class, she being the artist drew the whole picture, wrote the entire description and decorate it and in the end, selflessly sign it with both of our names. Just for the fact that I sat with her while she worked. She is that kind of a person. We used to be classmates then. After that, we just became inseparable. We lived in the same building, sat next to each other in class, had the same garden and even had our roll number right after one another! We would always be together.

I had to change schools at the end of grade VI, but it hardly mattered. Each year we would write letters. I would get one just before my Birthday, one around 1st August for Friendship Day, one before each exam wishing me luck and an after asking me about my results. It is not that we could not call each other up and talk like any other teenager, I guess we preferred the old way of writing letters. Anyone who has ever received a letter would know the difference between a phone conversation and a personal letter send only for you. They make you feel special. We choose to write letters. And at the risk of sound very childish and cliche, I still have my bunch of letters from her as I know she has mine.


When I saw her next, it had been 6 years since we saw each other. Lots of things had happened in both our lives by then but that didn't matter either. The moment something serious came up, she would always the be first one to know and She would always be the first one to respond. We chatted for a day and talked about everything and nothing at all. I don't even remember what we talked about, we just walked the whole Changangkha Lhakhang road talking!

The things with us is we spend more time apart than we do together. Right after we met, both of us had to leave for our Course respectively. She is in Sri- Lanka right now doing her MBBS and I am here in Wollongong. It has been 3 years since we last saw each other. But it has never affected us. We write to each other everyday even now. The maximum number has been 18 E-mails in a single day. Our Facebook walls are full of wall posts from each other and if a sad status comes up, each of us will be the first ones to respond.
I have good friends,lots of them. I am not saying I don't but she will always be my Best. They say your Soul mate is suppose to make you a better person, they say the only person who will stand by your side no matter what, is suppose to be your partner, but Not for me. She is the one who makes Me a better person. She is the one who I know will always stand by my side no matter what and I am realy grateful for having her. I know this sounds like a clichéd teenage piece for anyone to read, but this One I am writing it for her so I am allowed to be emotional.

I am Fat

'God, I need to reduce my weight' - That is pretty much what I always say every time I look at a mirror. Don't get me wrong, I am not fat. In fact I am thin, thinner than most girls I know. But somehow I always end up saying the same thing.It is like a refrain that is stuck in my head - 'I need to lose weight, I need to lose weight. I need to lose weight...

I am not a very active person so I never exercise. In fact the only exercise I have each day is my 15 minutes walk to uni and back and that too is spend only because I absolutely have to walk. The last time I ran to stay healthy would be Sports day in Yangchenphug and that would be 3 years ago! I don't usually starve myself to death, but that does not mean I eat healthy. I eat a lot when I feel active enough to cook but if I am not I can't be bothered to make the effort. Everyone tell me I am thin and I am. For a girl who is turning 22 soon, I am 39 and the heaviest I have been is 44. I know I am underweight and believe me, I get enough scolding from everyone around me to keep me company. But that does not stop me from obsessing over my weight. I don't want to be thinner than I am now for I am sure I might catch some horrible disease but I don't want my weight to increase too.

I still think I am fat. I am not saying it is true but it doesn't always have to be false for me not to believe it. I often wondered why that is the first though that pops in my mind when I looked in the mirror despite knowing that I am thin. I think the answers lies in the fact that we girls always pitch ourselves against each other. I can be optimistic and say all girls are friendly about our weight but the fact is we are not. There is always constant competition.We compare our looks, our hair, our clothes, so why should our body weight be any different. And for any girl, one will always be fatter compared to anyone else, no matter the truth! For me, I have always been called to be among the thin category. The first comment people give me when they see me is that I am thin, either as a complement or complain I can't say. Even girls who are thinner than me think I am thin and now I have internalized it so much I realized I don't want to become fat because then I wouldn't be the thinnest among my friends.

I can be typical and say obsessing over body weight is overrated but it wouldn't be the truth. I do care. I want to be thin and I want to remain thin. Because that is how I grew up, thinking that being thin is in vogue, the fashion that is 'in' all the time, the thing that most people obsesses over hence my mirroring obsession. There are enough articles written about girls obsessing over their weight. There are lots of girls who think they are fat complaining that thin girls are now on the verge of disappearing. There are people who complain that girls obsesses over their body so much as to starve themselves to death. But writing from a girl who has always been called thin, believe me we would not try so hard to be thin if only you did not want to be that thin. I don't think anyone would starve themselves to death if only it wasn't the 'it' things at the moment. 

Furthermore, it has only been a while since things has changed and anorexic has been termed a disease with boys stating 'bones are for dogs and we prefer meat on our women'. But the fact remains that being thin has remained in vogue for so long, it is difficult to come out of it. Thus the comparison and desperation to starve ourself to death just to be thin. 

What DO I write about?

Sometimes I wonder if I write junk. Does my writing matter? Do people read? Do they even care what I write about?

I want to write love stories, the small fights that underlines every story, the big one that tears every single one of them apart, the small romantic gestures between the two points, the heartbroken lovers. I want to write about every little detail that matter in a love story.But it hardly matter to readers who are already out of love or married for that matter, for they have already been there, done that, written about that. So why do I bother to write something that has been repeated over and over again? All the stupid arguments, the petty quarrels, the love tryst, it might as well sound like a stupid teenager's puppy love to the readers.

I want to write about fashion, about the endless obsession that comes with it, the ever changing trends that stick to one place for less than a second, the compulsive behavior of girls to stick to that millisecond. But people say fashion is just a waste of time, a frivolous that only those who don't have anything better to do concerned themselves with.  They say it is just appearances, a mean to provide vain people with more time to be narcissistic. And I refuse to be defined as a girl more concerned with fashion than climate change.

I want to write about climate change, fight about global warming and say I do care about the environment. I do care about resources. I want to write about how each of us live in ignorance thinking the other person is doing something for the environment. But there are already people writing thesis about these findings, people with banners protesting against climate change, students being taught environment-saving strategies in schools so am I not late in thinking to write about it?

I want to write about politics, argue that the present government is not doing enough, debate about the current tobacco control act, argue that  just because the government is acting inhumane does not mean it gives everyone the right to throw stones at them! But hey, I am just a kid who reads about it in the Newspaper and forums anyway. What will I know about politics that other already haven't debated about? What will I have an opinion about that others haven't had already?

I want to write. I want to write about the daily happening of my life, about the nonsensical movies that I watch, the little debates that roommates have, but hey everyone is going through the same experiences everyday. Why would anyone want to read about the monotonous banality of one person's life? Isn't the person who experience it themselves more apt to write about it than the person who presumes to know about them?

I want to write. I want to write my own opinion about everything, about nothing, about the world. I want to point out things I don't like, things that I want to change, things I think should be changed but then you can simply think of me as a cranky young girl dissatisfied with her life enough to make others' uncomfortable. I want to be creative, write poems flouting conventions, create stories without grammar, write magic realism within my reach, try something new. But then I will just be the strange girl who has no command of the language and created a blog only because it seems to be in vogue.

I want to write. Without reasons. Without excuses. Without fear of being termed frivolous or arrogant for what I write. I want to write but like The Picture of Dorian Gray's quote, "Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter", people who write so often write their own life in paper, and I am so confused I am not sure which face to present to be scrutinized.

Perfect

He was the perfect guy there ever was, the perfect student that every teacher wanted, the perfect embodiment of a loving son, the perfect guy any girl would want.When someone remembers the first time one learned that the earth is not flat an image of a ship hulk in class 2 textbook comes to mind, for me and anyone in my class we remember the arrogant egocentric boy who volunteered the information when we were still ignorant 7 years olds.

We first knew about him when his name came up in the School topper list when we were still in Junior high. After that there was no stopping him. His name would pop up as topper in every exam.Competitions and he will be among the winners, debates and he would be involved, sports and he will be running among the participants, you get the idea. Teachers always wanted him to be Captain since he would be the first person to get things done and if we had a group assignments, we would all wish to be in his group because we knew he would do anything to make his group win.I guess he was egoistical up to a certain level but when you have that kind of brain to back one up, who would not get a bit high into the head and everyone acknowledged him as such. To top it off, he was not bad-looking either so if his brains didn't make him the most popular guy in school, the girls going gaga over him made him known anyway. But the fact was he was a good guy, charming, funny and friendly with everyone despite his popularity. If you were in trouble he would be the first person to help you and you could always count on him. That was the way he had always been and for all the years to come since I knew him he just seem to excel more and more. 

It is like what people say, in the end the nerds will always turn up at the top and the popular boy in school will end up being a dumb jock or the fact that one can only go up to a certain height before falling down into the dumps.It happened to him in high school.That was the year he changed. The school mills said his parents went through a bitter divorce - I am not sure what the reasons were but everyone knew they separated nonetheless. In schools we would hear bits and pieces of what was going on with his parents, how the court case was proceeding and despite all talks about secrecy, rumors have a vicious way of being circulated especially in High school. But he wasn't the same guy anymore then.Believe me,I am not making excuses for his behaviour and I am sure he made a conscious decision to be the way he turned out to be.Perhaps he did it because he was tried of listening to people talk, perhaps it was all an act to tough-up the divorce,perhaps he was just a 16 year old kid unable to cope with his parent's divorce but fact remains that he changed.

It is easy enough to guess how he changed.He didn't hang around with the popular kids anymore, instead he would be with the hoards of boys who are traditionally marked 'naughty' in every school.The kind whose regular 'hang out' would be the dark alleys of places like Clock tower and Zangdopheri.He won't miss classes traditionally and didn't bunk even now but he wasn't concentrating either.He was still very brainy, you could tell by the way he still scored good marks but he would do anything not to call attention upon himself in class. He sat at the last bench, sleeping or under some kind of 'influence' and you would never see him make any effort to be present. He is still the same boy in some ways, a dark aura just seems to evolve around him. He would still help you if you asked him and he would still love me. But he wasn't the life of the party anymore but rather the brooding guy who stands in the background and nothing in his manner invites any questioning about his life making him an even scarier person to approach. 

I don't mean to make him a character larger than life or something that you only come across in fiction but I am in love with this guy you see, so everything about him just multiplies for me. I loved him since the day he walked into my class and never realy stopped.When we were teenagers I thought there would be no reason for the school's popular kid to have to do anything with me.There were so many girls better and prettier than me. So I never stood a chance with him. I thought I wasn't good enough for him thus, I never thought about a relationship with him. And now that I have grown up and come to terms with the fact that I want to be with him, the irony of it all is that he thinks he is not good enough for me.He says he doesn't want me getting involved in his complicated life because he is not good enough to pursue a relationship with me and that is just realy sad for me. Perhaps before, I naively loved him more for the fact that he was the popular guy in school and the fame that comes along but the fact that I still love him,after he has changed so much makes me believe that it wasn't all because of that. Believe me, it isn't anger or frustration that I can never have my relationship with him that you read in these lines, it would never be that, it is helplessness because although he thinks he doesn't deserve a relationship, I know he does but I can't do anything to change his mind.

So I always wonder when was the right time to get into a relationship with him? Was it when we were still teenagers figuring things out? Should I have pursued the relationship then when I wasn't ready? Or is the time now right when he thinks he is not good enough for me? Or was it never meant to work out anyway?

Call me a Slut - I will live up the Name!

Yes, the word 'Slut'. Being a Bhutanese, I am sure everyone cringed a little when I used that word. Being a boy, I am sure you thought that is one girl I am not suppose to take Home. Being a girl, I am sure everyone thought that is one word I should stay away from. But what does it actually mean? 

Does it mean a girl have slept with too many people? Does it mean she dresses up too freely for your taste? Who knows perhaps it means she loves her body to do as she pleases and enjoys a sex life that in any male would be considered 'normal'! No one exactly know what the word mean yet they use it all the time to express their displeasure.    

Last week a rally 'Slut Walk' was organised in Boston and has been gaining popularity around the world. The rally was organised against a Toronto cop who told a group of female students at York University that the best way to avoid getting harassed was to not dress like a 'slut'. This comes a long way for blaming females for dressing up the 'wrong' way. How many times have men used this word as an excuse to do as they please. Tease a girl, but 'dressed like that, she was asking for it right?’, abuse her and 'she must get comments from all the other boys so what is a few more',  sexually harass her and one can easily say 'she was asking for it'. From daily encounters, it happens constantly up to serious cases where rapists are actually not punished because the girl was dressed in a sexually attractive manner. [You will be surprised by the number actual legal cases who actually put up this defence.] 

It is surprising how society have often made it seem like it is the girl's fault for their own mistakes. For who will come to the rescue of a 'Slut'? Any girl who dresses up in the manner must surely be asking for it, so they invent a name 'Slut'. Being called a 'slut' marks a girl as an 'easy' target, an easy prey who is more likely to respond to their sexual connotations. An easier defence to draw up to, an easier consciousness to live with, because the girl they teased/ harassed/abused was a 'slut'. There have always been debates about rape and the blame game and it has been a constant tug of war with court defences lining up stating the girl's apparel. But how can anyone in their right mind say it is the girl's fault for being raped? How can anyone think a girl dresses up the way she does because she wants to be ogled by every living male within sight! How can anyone say girls dress up because they want to be jeered at by every passing male. 

It is not a girl's fault. It is the men who commit these actions! It is their inability to control their own desire that bring about harassment. It is their own prejudiced that makes them comment on every action that girls undertake. It is their own inhibited mind that makes them think girls appreciate being teased, that girls like lewd comments aimed at them, that we mistake harassment as anything other than harassment. Furthermore, who gives them the right to even comment on what clothes we wear? We don't go on whistling every time a good looking male passes by in front of us, we don't go on calling out names when a boy happens to cross a street. 

If you start looking back on the days woman were actually considered 'inferior', you will have to go a long long way. Joan of Arc was burned alive because she dared to go out into the male sphere; Queen Elizabeth had to fight for her birthright when the throne rightfully belonged to her in the first place. Woman in 18th Century had no other purpose but to be a decorative piece for their husband's property. Nineteenth Century women were considered 'too soft' to be in the outside world confining herself to be the 'angel of the house' which is nothing more than a glorified name for a house maid. And when it was time for writers, it is not surprising that women were not allowed to take up the pen. And we all know the history of unequal vote rights. For goodness's sake men have used The Bible to treat women as inferior interpreting 'men' as the whole human being instead of the gender male. So we have a whole history of injustice done right there.

But it is funny how we read these histories of female subjugation. We are shocked women were treated so badly, aghast that anyone could justify such treatment and say 'hey, that is so unfair. Men were realy cruel'. And then we smile and say we have progressed from those stages. We are treated equally now. It was in the past. We can vote now, right? What we don't realise is that it happens every day even now. Look around you, you don't see a boy quitting his job because he became a father. You don't see boys dressing up every time they get out of their bed because they know they will be judged based on their beauty. You don't definitely see people naming boys 'Sluts' just because they sleep around too much instead they are accolade for being the men of the men. No, it is just the females. 

It is surprisingly easy to overlook the fact that this is one word that is used exclusively for female and it is even more easier to forget that there isn't a word that means the same thing for a male. We are judged for everything we do. If we dress up in anything a little more exposing then we are called sluts, yet if you dress up in a traditional uptight way you will never hear the end of how uptight you actually are. It doesn't even need to have anything to do with sex for someone to call you a slut. Go drinking and you will be called one. Try enjoying parties a little more than usual and you will be labelled. Try having a number of male friends and God, forbid you will never live it down. No one knows what it actually means and it has already gained so much connotations one would even shudder to use that word and try so hard to never be called one. 

The word 'Slut, it is nothing more than a word rapists came up with to provide an excuse for their actions, it is nothing more than a word that gives them free reign over what you do and what you wear, it is nothing but a word that makes you turn on each other blaming one's self and your own gender. It is nothing more than a word society came up with to give make you feel ashamed of yourself, your body, your sexuality. This month's 'Slut walk' was inspired by that - To do away with the connotations that women are constantly faced with. To do away with the blame that comes with being harassed and being blamed for it, to throw away the excuse that every rapist seem to have for violence. To do away with the intent that dressing and experiencing your sexuality in your own way is your fault and knowing that there’s nothing you can do that will make someone harass you, anyone but their own fault.

The rally comes to Sydney on Monday and I for one can't wait to join them! One might read about the Slut Walk and think hey, it doesn't concern me or Bhutan is too small a country for these things to happen. Believe me, if you are a girl you have tried your whole life trying not to live up to that name and if you are a boy thinking we would never do such a horrible act, think of the times (if you did any) you ever called a girl a name she didn't like from the side of the road or prank called a girl because she appeared to be more 'friendly' than other because harassment in any small amount, is still harassment. 

Romance and love stories

Have you noticed how popular love stories are?Visit any blog and you will find at least one story about love. Read any magazine and there will always be a short story dealing with love. More often than not, love stories always seem to have the upper hand in any situation.Try posting a love story in Facebook or blogging about love,it will have more likes and comments than any other post and in a shorter span of time too.

There is no question that romance is the most popular genre. The fact that Mills and Boon alone releases 30 titles a month goes to show how large the reading audience really is, as opposed to merely 15 titles of other combined genre.Pick up any book from a library and there is more chance of it being a love story than anything else.The stories does not even have to do with the typical love between men and women,there are stories revolving around a mother's love, about love between two friends, brotherly love,love in a family and everything else that can possibly be constituted but it always revolve around the idea of love.

Furthermore, no matter what the story is, there is always a short span of romance in each book.Mysteries novels seem to contain love in the form of mysteries, Thrillers often present love as the main motif behind every crime, horror stories deal with the presence of an unfulfilled dead lover and even an abstract piece seem to have some notions about love. For instance, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde mostly deals with aestheticism and art but somewhere along the line, there is the love story between Sibyl and Dorian Gray. Hemingway's 'The Sun also Rises' talks about modernism and detachment yet still has room for a love story. Despite themes of love in these small genres, this hardly even begin to encompass the involvement of love in actual romance stories. Any story about a boy and a girl blatantly evolves around the idea of love.Someone writes a story about an old lady and somehow it ends up telling the story about her 'unfinished' love.One starts a story about a Solider at war and it is about missing his beloved lady.Write a vampire story and even that seem to be about how the vampire fell in love with a human.Stories about Russian mobster, drug addicts, a prostitute, students, etc and somehow it always seem to end on the same note - Love.

Every writer seem to be obsessed with love story. They either write about a past love that they have experienced, an ongoing experience or something that has happened to someone else or sometimes even a story that he/she wishes to avoid. A few years ago there was a huge obsession with happy ending.Pick up any book and it always provided you with a happy ending.It didn't matter how many villains were after the couple, it didn't matter whose family objected their union, it didn't matter how impossible their love was, in the end love conquered all and the writer always provided you with the perfect ending.The prefect example - Twlight! Then came the obsession with 'unfinished' love stories. It usually starts with the tale of an old man or woman reciting the story of her youth, of the dashing man she fell in love with, about his leaving for war, about his promise to return and about how she is still waiting for him to return, thus leaving their love story un-ended.The perfect example - Most of Nicholas sparks's books.

I suppose the charm lies in being able to manipulate the story as one wishes. You are the writers, you can do anything you please with the story. The situation you choose will be your own, the predicament you put your characters in will be yours alone, you can choose a happy ending, you can choose an 'unfinished' one, you can damn well kill the lovers if you want.That is the charm, but then this goes for every other story too I suppose.

Love stories, more often than not, provides a platform for people to carry out their fantasies.People often write their own prefect ideals in the protagonist of the story. One can make your 'hero' to be handsome, daunting and charming, employing all the characters that one, oneself find more appealing and creating your own version of perfect guy.The girl will be beautiful, sweet and prefect presenting your own version of the ideal mate. It is always about one's own mind playing out their own ideals of romance and readers love it, falling for the same old ideals of love and chivalry, searching for their own perfect boy/girl in the pages of some story, hoping the love story comes true for them.

They say female readership is mostly associated with romance but if you are a male and reading this, don't tell me you haven't read a love story and liked it. Don't tell me you haven't written one yourself, be it with hatred or with remembrance. Everyone always does it at least once.Of course, one can always write about politics but there will always be someone who won't be interested, you can write about currents affairs and there will be someone who will be least bothered to read it. But that never seem to be the problem with romance. People always seem to stop and read a love story - some because they can relate, some because they want it to happen to them and some merely because they want to feel it - but people always do read.

We seem obsessed with love stories, with romance. Story telling doesn't seem to function without the theme of love. But why? Why are we so obsessed with this idea of love? What is so special about a love story? Most often these love stories are fictional, portraying the desire for a world full of love that we want to live in, so does that mean the real world we live in doesn't contain love? Are we living in a world which is so out of love that the only place we can find love is in the stories? Furthermore, most characters these love story presents are creations of the writer's mind so does that mean the world is full of jerks that the only perfect version one can find in a man is in the books? Are there no girls who actually equate a boy's ideal love? Most people read love story to escape reality so does that mean that the reality we face is not of a world full of love?People say that one only obsesses over things they don't have so if love exists in the real world, doesn't obsessing over something we already have seem redundant? Why create such a fuss over this idea of love?

How does things work around here?

This is going to sound very funny but I still haven't been able to figure out how things works out in my blog. I mean it is my blog and I have been writing here for a few months till date but the moment I need to find a new background for my blog or change the title to a new font, I am completely lost. 


I know where to write and edit parts of my info but that is about the only thing I know what to do here. I am thinking it has been several months so I should  be able to have figured out how to upload and modify the page but no I still don't. I open the pages of all the other blogs I follow and oh my, they are beautiful. Everything is colourful, everyone has pictures and everything looks so bright while the only thing that is bright in my profile seems to be nothing. Everything is black and white.The only reason I kept it black and white before is because I don't know any better. Of course I knew how to upload pictures. If one has a Facebook profile, uploading pictures comes naturally to you so that is why you see so many pictures in most of my posts. I uploaded it because that was the only thing I knew how to do here.Today while I was writing though, I thought I should make some changes and I did. I found a new background, changed the pictures and made my page a bit brighter but that is it. That was all I could figure out how to modify and even that took much too much time for me to be able to figure out.


Then I see facebook account being linked to the blogs and networkblog linked to the pages and other blogs names that are linked to the one you have. And I haven't a single clue how to connect a single one of them! Perhaps it is as obvious as everyone seem to think or perhaps I am just being a blond but please tell me even you had or are still having as much problems figuring out how to make your blog beautiful! For me it is turning out to be much too hard a task to master!

Today I am just so proud of myself for having figured out how to change the pictures, I am uploading this picture which reflects my sentiments so well right now! :)

The Prince, the Pauper and...the Dark Knight.

Have you ever noticed when we were realy small how we had dreams about who we would fall in love with? How one made a list of all the qualities that we think we want in our future boyfriend? The perfect guy and the long list of endless dos and don't that you think he should be like before falling in love with him.You think you want a person who doesn't smoke or a person who values being a prefect gentleman and all those other qualities that you think he should have that will make you fall for him.You think you know everything you want in that guy - his good behaviour, his bad habits, the way he should live- and as we grow up we bring those lists with us, thinking about eventually falling for a guy exactly like him.


Then one day you find the perfect guy, one who ticks all the right boxes. He will be the kind of guy who will always treat you right, the one who does all the things that you like, has all the qualities that you always appreciated in a boy and will always love you. He will be the most obvious choice, the boy your parents approve, the boy everyone knows will always be nice to you, the boy who is your destiny if you just look at all the long list of qualities that he fulfills from your most wanted list. He will be your perfect match and you will be happy with him. There will be nothing complicated about your relationship. But then you realize somehow you will not be satisfied with just being happy.You won't be happy with him being nice to you, won't be happy despite all the love he showers on you, despite all the qualities he fulfills from your list. You will be happy but you will never feel like you might die with too much happiness. It will always be mediocre, the life you lead with him, the love you have for him, the happiness he showers on you, the hurt he deals you. It will all be mediocre.You will never feel complete with him. So you move on leaving behind the perfect guy you grew up thinking is everything you ever wanted in a boy.


But since this is not the end of the world, you go on searching and dating, waiting for the one guy who will make you feel complete. In every story there is always be a good guy. He will be the kind hearted, easygoing boy who has always been there for you when you need to cry. The kind of boy who was with you through all those heartbreaks you suffered from all the other boys, the one who has patiently tolerated all the other guy while all he wanted to do was shake you and ask you to be with him. So finally you go out with him, thinking there can't possibly be a single thing that you would find lacking since he loves you so much, knowing you will hurt him for life in case you can't fulfill your promise to love him. He is the one guy you know you shouldn't get into a relationship with. Not because he is not the perfect guy who fulfills all the qualities that you deemed so essential for yourself but because you know he is better than all the guys you know, because you know he is your best friend, and because no matter what you do, you know you will never deserve a boy like him. But you get into a relationship anyway and all your fears comes true. It doesn't work out. It doesn't because he knows you so well he knows you are lying when you say you love him even if you haven't realized it yourself, because he knows he is not the person who makes you feel complete and he knows you will never love him the way he always did. He will  know although you try there will always be something missing in the relationship. And he will be the kind of person to let you go because he would want you to find that something that is missing.


So you go searching for that missing part and find it in the one guy you know you shouldn't. The kind of guy who is all kinds of wrong for you. He will be the guy everyone warned you against, the guy you know you should walk away from, the guy no one would wish you to be with. He will be the kind of guy who you know is going to hurt you but you still fall for him anyway. He will be able to shatter your heart in a million pieces if you just so much as allow him or even if you don't. The kind of guy who will make you burst with happiness, the boy who with a single word can take the same sunshine away in the next minute.He will be the one who will thwart all the qualities that you thought you want in a boy and still be at the top of your list. He won't treat you like a princess nor would he be a perfect gentleman. But you won't care that he doesn't fulfill all your desired qualities, you won't care that he is the complete opposite of what you thought you wanted in a guy. You won't care how many protests you edict from the people around you, you would still go and fall for him.He will be the reason why none of the previous or future relationship will work out with anyone else because your heart will whisper that he is the only guy you are ever going to be in love with.And you will know you love him because you will know despite being the most complicated relationship, he would also choose you - over the girl who made him feel like the perfect guy, over the simple girl next door and over all the girls in the world. Because for him you would be the complicated one, the one who can tear his heart apart with a single blow but he would still choose you. So you love him.With all of your heart.You don't readily set out to fall in love with him, in fact if you can help it you don't want to be in love with him at all but in the end he will be the only person your heart will ever want.


So in the end what is the use of all those list that made for a perfect guy? What is the use of making a list when you don't even know what your heart want? What is the use of searching for the perfect guy when in the end, you don't even love him? What is the use of trying it when someone else when you know it is not going to work? But most of all, why in the world would the heart fall for a guy who is all wrong for you?

Mistakes

Do you remember when we first met I did not even know how to cook? Do you remember the day you said you didn't even care if I didn't know? Do you remember how you said my cooking was good even when it was burnt? Now even the best of my cooking feels like ash in your mouth. 

Do you remember all the late night we used to stay up just talking about you and me? Do you remember all the late night movies we watched? Do you remember how all those nights suddenly turned into you walking in with a bottle of rum in your hands? Now I never see you without. 

Do you remember telling me how beautiful I look no matter what I wear? Do you remember kissing my cheeks whenever I was close enough? Do you remember telling me you can't bear to not look at me? Now I don't even exist for you. 

Do you remember the day you told me you loved me? The way you wrote a poem for me and asked me to be with you? Forever? Do you remember the night you said your heart will always belong to me? Now you can't get away from me fast enough. 

Do you remember the day I stopped being the girl you loved? Do you remember the day everything changed? The day you found me with another man? Now all you remember is that day.

Facebook and Stalking

'Hey, Singey just got tagged in his friend's album'

'Does he look good? Lets look at his pictures'.

That is pretty much how my roommate and I spend more of our evening.We stalk.Even just saying so, I know it sounds all kind of creepy but the truth is, we still do it.It starts with a simple update of an status or a picture uploaded on Facebook but once we start, it is just one click after another.

More than usual, it is one of our crushes that we stalk and hardly any girls. If there is a guy we have a crush on in our friend list then there is no bound just how many times we go through his profile in a day. We know everything there is to know about that guy, all his pictures, the tagged ones, his friend list, the whole love triangle that he is trapped into - the girl he loves, the one who loves him, the guy who has a crush on the girl he loves - Every little things that could possibly be deduced from every update from his facebook profile, we already have it memorized.

And we hardly ever miss an update. If he updates a status, we are so quick to interpret what it means, relating it to the already accumulated knowledge we have about him, if he uploads a picture, we are among the first ones to go gaga over the good looking pictures and if by any chance, he changes his relationship status to 'in a relationship' or 'committed' there is no bounds of the 'Awwww, he deserves better' or 'I can't believe he broke up' comments from us. Of course the stalking doesn't stop there, if he is in a relationship,we have to know who the girl is, 'Is she pretty enough?' 'Do you think it is for real?' and on and on. 

It is almost like the re-hash of the gossip mills of high school days, only this time we find out through the person's online profile and through his slip of a comment or update. We don't meant any harm of course, in fact we try hard to maintain the fact that the person never ever finds out.We do it tactfully, no comments on his status if we don't know him personally, no likes on any pictures even if he looks really good and we always chicken out when it comes to chat, 'We don't want the guy to know we have been stalking him now, do we?' -That is always our excuse. But we never realy stop clicking on his profile anyway. 

Facebook gives us a whole new level for stalking. It is just such an interesting way to keep track of everything that has been happening it their life. An old high school crush and we have him in our friend list, an acquaintance we only saw for a couple of time and he is already added, a cute unknown guy and a friend request has already been send. People we know, people we once knew, people we just met, people we have no idea about but if there is something that catches our eye, the next moment he/she is in our friend list and we have browsed through half of his/her album. Call it a girl thing, girls being girls, noisy and inquisitive, I am sure most girls do it, we have just become experts in hiding the fact.

Literature Vs. _________

No, don't ask me if I have free time.

I am still stuck on the thousands of books from the 5th century while everyone else keeps on writing more and more books right this minute. I have the Tubadours lyrics to finish, the Le Morte D'arthura to complete, the Ovid poems to translate and that is just completing the first half of the century.Then comes not only Chaucer but also his different translation and of course we being the proud literature students are never satisfied with just one translation, we have to dig deep trying to find the French translation, Italian translation, Walsh translation and every translation that has been made possible. And then finally like most Bhutanese are so fond of pointing out, we have to master the Master of English, Shakespeare, himself. Furthermore, it is not one play per year, it is one play per hour and we are suppose to finish the whole of his Thirty-seven plays within the semester. If citing Shakespeare's work as the paradigm where English language began and his language as the best and hardest of all that the language has to offer is an excuse to remove his work from your study, then don't for you haven't even tried reading one of the scripts that some of the Scribes wrote in earlier days. Try thinking about the plays you so naively considered 'difficult' when you were in high school, then try imagining the whole lot of them being thrown in on your head to be completed in a single hour, then try asking do I realy have free time?

You shudder at the though of reading one poem by just one of the poets, a single 500 pages novel, imagine how it feels to be Us.There is Austen,Wordsworth,Keats, Blake,Shelly,Plath and on and on goes the name. It never stops, it just continues on adding name after names. We have to study the whole set of poems that has ever been written, the whole set of novel that has ever been published and search for meaning where it is sometimes impossible to depicter. Believe me, sometimes it feels like it is the Creation of the world that we are reading about, that is how massive it is. And we are not satisfied with just the authors, we need to know about the whole movement that each history goes through -The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Transcendentalism, The French revolution and so on and still we are not satisfied. We have to analyse, study and interpret everything in every possible way. And it is never a simple case of a single interpretation for a single text, we are expected to read the author's point of view, the society's criticism of it, the reader's own view, intertextuality and whatever the any person deems possible to interpret!

Furthermore, it  is not enough that one study the Classic. Ask anyone and they will tell you, the person who study classics are either book-worms or nerds with total lacking social skills! Come to think of it,go to a party and try talking about Jane Austen or William Wordsworth, most of the people will think you are a bore, not to mention it would be difficult to find anyone who is even willing to listen in the first place. And why would want to be a bore right? So Yes, we go and read. Read all the popular book that comes up, every new sensation that has taken the world by storm - Twilight, Vampire dairies, or any latest Celebrity's autobiography and discuss it like we can't live without them for God forbid, if it is revealed that we didn't read the latest fancy doing the rounds, how are we,literature students suppose to survive without knowing about the latest book? How on earth is it possible for us not to have read the book? Aren't we suppose to be the one who likes book? Take the most popular book that you avow so much to a literature class and look how easily it is shred to pieces by the people around the tutorials, discussing the good point, the bad points, the narrative style, the voice, the desire, the tension....Then tell me if I am suppose to like the newest chick-flick you are such a fan of, that you so consider to be of the utmost literary quality.

One complains that they can't 'express' their feeling properly to their loved ones, imagine what we have to do. An individual person has so much trouble explaining their own feeling to someone they know, imagine how hard it is for us to interpret the thought and feeling of so many writers -writer that we don't know personally - so many times over and over again. And to be addressed to one's Tutor who is going to grade you according to your expression, decide if you are good enough or not, don't tell me 'expressing' your emotions to someone you already know is that hard!

We know you have work, I am sure you work is as hard as it is ours but we never presume it is easy for you. We never deduce that just because you spend more time writing things down on a paper, you gain any less idea than we do in our own respective fields. So what makes us so different? Why be so - for lack of a better work- partial to our work?

So No, do not ask me if I have free time and Yes, stop and think before you go on accusing me of not having too much work, stop and think before you go on and ask me what the use of my Arts Degree is.Because believe me,if you had to do all the works we do and still face as much criticism as we do then you would have given up a long time ago.

Soulmate

Do you believe in Soul mate? The one person who fits into you like the perfect other half? The one person who makes you feel so complete you can only belong to him, and no one else? The person who makes you feel like you are his only reason for existence, the center of his universe? Do you believe that God made a single person just for you?

The thing is, I have always known mine. I have always understood the way Sansom felt about Delilah, the reason Shar jaha dedicated a monument for his Mumtaz, the feelings that drove Romeo to kill himself instead of imagine a moment without Juliet. I have always know it. You know, the feeling Jacob describes in Breaking Dawn, as if your whole universe is in symmetry and you know without a doubt that every steel cable in the universe ties you to him. I know where my center of the universe lies, the person the steel cable binds me to. I have known him all my life.

My soul mate.

I have always known I belong with him - the other half of my heart, the center I always revolve around. He is perfect - the way his face splits up in a smile when something pleases him, the way his eyes cringes at the side whenever he frowns, the way he gets all gooey-eyes when he is pleading. I know him with every fiber of my body - that guilty smile when I catch him doing something he shouldn't, the cute face he put on whenever he knows he is going to get his ways - every expression that crosses his face. I can understand the feeling behind every artist's song and for me all the love songs are always meant for him. He is the center of my universe, the soul reason for my existence. 

And the things is, he knows too. He knows where the steel cable of the universe binds him to, the center of his universe. He knows where he has always meant to belong, the person he has always been meant to be with and he says he loves her, his reason for existence - Another girl, another being, another soul. 

So do I believe in soul mate? I used to. 

Literature - Maid of Astolate

A friend of mine asked me why I choose the title of my page to be known as 'Maid of Astolate' while I could have used my own name, prompting me to write this article.

Ofcourse, it is easy enough to recognize the name. You only have to look it to guess just how crazy I am about literature.The Maid of Astolate is actually a fictional literary figure, more commonly known as Lady of Shallot. I am sure most of us studied Tennyson's Lady of Shallot when we were in junior high. It is said that Lady of Shallot fell in love with Sir Lancelott when he was travelling to rescue Queen Guinevere. Tennyson just took a part of the story to focus on her. Literature makes imaginary characters come to live like Tennyson did with the Maid of Astolate. She is one character I have never been able to forget.

More often than not, we always come across fictional characters in books that we immediately fall in love with. You only have to look at thousand of girls who can not seem to forget Darcy from Pride and Prejudice or Wuthering Heights's Heathcliff. Or even Edward Cullen for that matter! And we often do transcend those qualities from book into our own life. For instance, girls still look for qualities that Darcy or Heathcliff possess in their real life partner and dream about it, making it so much more difficult for boys to live up to their ideal expectations.

We read because we can relate to it. The more we can relate, the closer the book feels to us. One would never realy want to relate to the villain of any story instead choose to be closer to the kindhearted protagonist but despite that we usually understand where the anti-hero stood from, understanding his reasoning despite our distance from him. But then we also read to escape. Someone once said 'Literature is the perfect antidote to life' and I absolutely agree with it. The thrill is not just about getting home and picking up an old book to read when you are tired. It is more than that. It is not just for the feeling that you might learn/feel/know something from the book that you haven't experienced before. It is for the feeling that the book leaves you with at the end of the story when you finish reading it.Of course now that I write about it, it sounds corny but being corny does not stop people from picking up a book to read.

The thrill of reading old classic books always has a very different appeal. But it is not just classics like Shakespeare that hold the realm these days. We have Eat, love and Pray by Elizabeth Glibert or My Sister's keeper by Jodi Picoult which might as equal any Austen novel. We always get vary of comparing newer literature to older ones. We are not bounded by any rules that one should like the classics better than the modern ones. But more often, even if a person likes a new book better, he/she would never compare it with older classics. This has always been the case.We are always daunted by the thought that old literature are classic which can not be equated but then when we look at it, ages after we are dead and long gone, our children might look at these book the same way we now view Shakespeare and Austen. 


Of course, if years from now, children might start considering the Twilight series as we now study Shakespeare and Marlowe, then I can only shudder at the thought of what Literature quality has come to. But then it always happens, doesn't it? While our seniors studied Shakespeare's 'Tempest' and 'Merchant of Venice', now all the student gets to read is few, if any, works by Shakespeare. We were among the lucky batch to catch the last Shakespeare play 'Taming of the Shrew' in junior high. But then ofcourse, this is an old issue and have been adapted for few years now but it still does not fail to say something about our education system. 


I am a literature student and of course everything I just wrote about is common enough to be my opinion as well as anyone else. But I am not making excuse for writing something down that is so common one can easily take it to be obviously obvious. A lecturer once told me that once you have an opinion, you are suppose to write it down for the mind has this tendency of changing every moment. Once written, you can always come back to look at it and know where you began, so this is me writing it out, whether I change my opinion on Shakespeare and Twilight is as good a guess as anyone else's. 

Addiction: Depression

I am changing.I didn't spend ages hiding in the bathroom crying before,didn't spend hours applying make-up trying to hide my black eyes,didn't stay holed up in my room making excuses to explain my bruised arms,wasn't so anti-social that now the only place in a party for me seems to be in the corner,hiding.

If anyone were to see me,I am sure my life would look like a rehash of a bad addiction movie.Only for me the addiction seems to be Him.

I wasn't this girl before, was like any perfectly normal girl.Happy and content in my own uncomplicated world.And now it seem like a life time ago.A different lifetime ago when everything changed so much.

I remember painting my room to its now darkish purple hue to the extend that it looks almost back on my regular sunny plaster white walls.That was when the changes first started.His favourite dark colour in place of mine.And after that it was like I didn't notice.Everything just receded into a dull feeling on the side of my heart,as if I was watching someone else's life turning into this nightmare rather than my own.

I don't remember when he first asked me to switched my music taste from pretty Katy Perry to his dark Metallica songs.I didn't notice when I started preferring his dark clothes to my usual colorful ones to please him.His favourite food in place of mine, his friends instead of  mine, his favourite movies, his hobby, his routine.Everything his, nothing mine. 

His life,nothing mine.

He loves me,I suppose,in his own sick way.Like the way he brought me flowers in the hospital the day after I cut my wrist when I found out about the first of his women.The way he threw the vase containing the same flowers at me the same night screaming that it was all my fault.Everything always seems to be my fault.His affairs because I couldn't please him the way he wanted,his office frustration because I wasn't a good wife at Home,his boss's anger because I couldn't entertain his boss well.

I don't remember how things reached this stage,how things becomes so messed up.I was suppose to be smart.I was suppose to be know when to get out.I was suppose to listen to everyone who said he would be bad for me.A lots of I was suppose to, I suppose.But I didn't listen. Didn't notice a lot of things.Didn't do a lot of things.And now I can't seem to remember when I became so addicted to this dark depression,anything else seems to scare me.

He says the depression is also my fault,that he keeps me happy enough and I just try to twist everything up.And I suppose he will say this is also my fault,when he sees me in the bathroom floor with the empty pills and tequila bottles.I bet he will get angry.I bet he will scream in rage when the Doctors aren't able to bring me back.I know he will,I am just hoping I won't relive to see him rage this time.

Privacy, authority and Involvement

I was featured in someone else's blog. I remember watching 'The Social Network' and thinking Mark was such a jerk for blogging about his ex-girl friend. Furthermore like she says 'Internet is not something that you can easily erase, it is written in ink for everyone to see and wonder'. Don't worry, my case isn't so dramatic. My cousin didn't write anything bad about me. He just mentioned some of the things that we chat about but that got me thinking if it is appropriate for people to involve someone else in one's blog.

When you tell a story you can never realy complete it without involving someone you know regardless of what you write. One can write about climate change, environment or some abstract topic without involving people you know to a certain point. But more often than not, people from our lives are always involved in our stories. One would be a fool to think they can write about their life without mentioning the people around them. Even in a imaginative piece, people are inspired by things around them, something someone said or things that happened to him. The people in ones' lives is inherently a part of that story, article or blog for that matter, So one involves them in one's stories, in their articles and in their blogs.

The question is - is that fair? We are the ones who is writing the story, the ones who started the blog, not them so is it fair for us to involve someone else in our blogs?  Do they even want to be in the blog? Does he/she approve of you writing about him in your blog? You start a blog, you write about your problems, you thoughts and your opinion so why is someone else who had nothing to do with your decision to start a blog involved in it? Does he even read your blog?

I guess there realy is no problem if one is writing an ode to someone or something funny about the person involved but problems always arises if you are writing less than flattering words about the other person or something that incriminates the person involved like the movie 'The Social Network' for that matter. Furthermore, like in the movie, how is it fair for the person involved to be plastered all over internet without any chance to present their side of the story. And what is to say that just because you put hands to the keyboard first makes your version of it any truer than the other person who doesn't write? It is like mentioning someone or something in an autobiography that the other person would rather have left untold. We have seen it happen often time. I guess one can resort to mentioning only the good parts and steering away from the bad ones but then when have humans been that perfect and how is it fair that you only tell one side of the story? That in itself creates problems.

I suppose one could always ask permission from that particular person but things doesn't always work that way. If you badly want to share an interesting fact but can't find the person, what do you do? Do you publish it without their permission? Or you don't write and miss out giving interesting facts? Furthermore isn't it obvious that the person involved will never approve of a writing that presents him even in a slightly negative way? And which of these things is actually yours to make the decision of? Where is the line where you stop mentioning other people? Telling your side of the story would be only half the story so do you stop in your side of your story or continue even without permission?

I know that by writing this piece my cousin also features in my blog and I think it is so ironic that I couldn't even write about who to involve and who not to involve in my blog without already involving the person who made me think about it in the first place.