Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Embarrassing Moments [4]

            I dedicate this embarrassing moment to a dear fan, who was concerned about the frequency of  Hindi Bindi posts. Due to the entirely busy schedule that had become mine over the past year, the frequency of my posts became stagnant and since our conversation, I wasn't able to change it much, but I promised this post... and I try my best to keep my promises. I'm not keen on calling names, but Ms. Potter, you know who you are. =) Congratulations to you on your impeccable results and everyone else who excelled in their 2013 examinations! It took a great deal thinking about the perfect embarrassing moment to dedicate to you as I was hoping to impart a great life lesson lol. Then it hit me that  you did so well in form 5, that the school would undoubtedly take you back for form 6, and although I can't guarantee you learn a great life lesson... I can almost guarantee you won't be making the same embarrassing mistakes I made in form 6. 
           So surviving form 6 seems pretty easy apart from dreadful CAPE, but looks can be deceiving. Being in form 6 for the first time, you will definitely feel the power rush, I mean you're apart of a selected few who have the authority to do and say whatever you want [within reasonable limits obviously]. You have designated free periods, you have a shelf in the library that you finally qualify to borrow books from, you can be in the hallways during scheduled class times, you have BFF status with some of your teachers, you can spend your lunch times in the labs, you have younger students asking for your help, permission and finally giving you respect, you now have friends in high prefect posts to help you out a little, you get to make major decisions such as the theme your house will choose for sports day and the bazaar booth that you all will run if there isn't a disco..... should I really go on? You get the point, being in form 6 brings on a lot of responsibility but it's nothing that you can't handle without having fun... except for packing and stacking chairs in the hall =/ 
           Back in my lower 6 days, which was 3 years ago [feels old* as it felt like just yesterday =( ], I was a dedicated form sixer and felt as if would have gone to any end to make matters work for my school. Save yourself the embarrassment from the start, and don't go extremely out of your way and put yourself out of convenience for non-academic ventures in school, as your actions would not be greatly appreciated in the long run. That sounds like bad advice, but seriously! Say you come home on a Wednesday night with a lab due on Thursday which also happens to be a non-academic event, for which you need to make a banner because you are the 'artistic' one in form 6. You could do your lab first and then stay up as late as necessary to finish the banner, or you could complete the banner and then rush to do your lab which you probably can't complete because you're too tired and will eventually finish it off in the morning. Your biggest mistake was bringing this shitty banner home to complete all by yourself! Because let's face it, as that banner hangs above everyone's head at the event; no one is going to know exactly who did it, no one cares who did it, no one cares that you stayed up till 3 am completing it, and no one will pay more attention to it because you, 'an artist' did it, compared to if  a 'non-artist' did it. And the greatest truth of it all, is that after this grand event, your 5 hours of painting and colouring will be resting sweetly in the garbage bin. Save yourself this embarrassment that comes with this form 6 responsibility, and instead of taking on this project by yourself.... during a double free gather some friends to help you even if they say that they can't paint. Firstly it'll be much more fun as you'll have the company to joke and laugh with, secondly you'll finish faster as with 4 helping friends you may finish in 1 1/2 hours leaving you with loads of time to finish your lab early and catch some sleep and thirdly, even if it's not a masterpiece nobody cares! It does it's job just fine =) Sadly I must confess that I have fallen victim to this banner shit for Sports Day, luckily I didn't have any labs due.
          As I said, I would go to any length for my school... and the lesson of this post is to not venture to too far a length as you could eventually fall off a cliff and die.... of embarrassment! The second and main instalment of this post occurred when I was in lower 6. My cousin, who was fed up of the boring, lame repetitive stalls that we have every year, decided to think up something new and well I who was quite bored of our bazaars as well was quite intrigued by this new idea. So basically this idea was that we'd have a booth which would obviously be Fanta-bulously decorated, where people who wanted to model their outfits for bazaar and wanted to be considered the 'Best Dressed' would come and model on a podium for about 15 minutes. Within that time they would be assigned a number and other people would come in, and pay $5 to vote for their favourite outfit and we called this; L'ambiance Chic.

Yes, this is the actual sign we made for the door lol.

            Like I said, my friends and I were very dedicated to this cause of creating this new stall. We tried to gather other people to help but I don't think they were particularly fond of this idea as it kind of seemed as if we were whoring out people =S. I don't think that the teachers were fond of this idea either, but somehow we got the permission... I'm not sure how it happened, but I know it happened during a free period. Now my cousin was the head planner for this as it was her idea we were working with, and well it kind of seemed like a brothel because the original idea was to "get 'good looking' models to come model and people would come and vote for their favorite". Lmao, and well the theory behind this is that "people would pay to come and see good looking people". This is really embarrassing already! Now without thinking this completely through and not yet realising how superficial this really was, we began looking for models. Now the problem is that contrary to what you may believe, not many people are keen on modelling and putting themselves up for display. While the decorating and the budget was on track....the income of willing models was not. This is when our desperate and thirsty man behaviour began as we tried to recruit people to model or else we wouldn't have a stall. We began going from class to class asking people to model... however being an all girl school, getting guys was difficult. So here's a list of embarrassing things I did in order to make our bazaar stall successful:-

- I was forced to give my name and contact info to this guy at lessons, who we asked to recruit models at his school for us...... He never recruited anyone!
-At a later and more desperate state, I had casually asked this same guy to model and he said yes, but never showed up......For the rest of extra classes that I had with them and probably all now; they think that I think that they are gorgeous model material.... which they aren't.
-At a much later and a much more desperate state, my cousin managed to convince me to ask people on facebook and for some crazy ass reason I put aside my sense of dignity [btw a key point to surviving form 6 is that when dealing with people that aren't from your school, never ever part with your sense of dignity] and actually starting asking guys from my chat to model for us. I can't remember how many people I asked, but I know that I was rejected my all! Never send an ugly person to do a good looking person's job! Obviously that was the prime mistake we made lol...... Now I have to live with the humiliation that several people on my facebook think that I'm crazy attracted to them as I asked them to model for me.... when that is definitely not the case.
-On the day of bazaar, a few of us partnered up and went around asking people to come to our stall and vote lol.......Desperate times call for desperate measures.
- In the end, my friends tallied the votes and we had to present this 'Best Dressed' tie and sash that I made, to the guy and girl who got the most votes. Now time was drawing near to the end of bazaar, we had closed our stall and somebody needed to make the announcement over the sound system and well no one wanted to do it ...so I volunteered as I figured that no one would know it's me on the mic [it won't be embarrassing as nobody would see me]. By this time, the hall was crowded and they had somebody performing blah blah... They cut the music for me to make the announcement of the winners and I believe the runners up. When I volunteered for this task for some reason I thought that the winners would come outside and meet me, I completely did not think that I would have to go on stage and present the winners with their tokens while talking on the mic still and be seen by everyone.... but I did have to =| It was one of those awkward moments when you know people want you to come off the stage really fast and so while I was talking on stage my idiot level went sky high! I think I was talking really fast so that I could just get it all done with, and when you talk really fast nobody understands a word and basically you sound stupid. =|

           After something like that, how could you not enjoy hiding at home for a three week long vacation?? Oh! I believe we managed to make $500 doing this crap lol =) So that was my advice for avoiding embarrassing moments for incoming form sixers, just in time for the start of school next week =D You're all welcome! =P Other tips include; don't get dots and don't get on your teacher's bad side... AHHHHH What the heck! You're only in lower 6 once, go ahead! Embarrass the hell out of yourself! Make wonderful lovable memories as that's what you'll have to keep you warm as you face the cold face of CAPE unit 2 =) 

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Becoming 20

             I turned 20 today. My teenage years have officially come to an end! And weirdly enough, I don't miss it and I'm quite accepting of this change. Maybe because the change isn't so prominent, like I'm still using the same toothbrush as I did when I was 19 for goodness sake =P. I remember last year when I turned 19; I had so many regrets, unfulfilled wishes and desires which left me with the worst feeling in the world, and I could only pacify myself with the sole accomplishment of placing on the CAPE Merit List. As a result of that, I made a promise to myself to change this and accomplish everything I wanted to do throughout my teenage years in this last final year of teen-ess. I even made a list! By the way, lists are very efficient... so I'm definitely a list maker now lol. I'm very proud to say that I kept this promise to myself. With a year off I had enough time to be able to accomplish many things since turning 19 last year. I worked hard to accomplish the things on my teenage list, that it almost makes sense to turn 20 now; so that I can start a new chapter of my life and make a new list.
                 In my last year of teen-ess, I managed to:-
-Get my drivers license.... but still not allowed to drive =|
-Learn to drive both right hand and left hand cars....... and still not allowed to drive!
-Somewhat dye my hair a crayz colour... but I learned that dying your hair isn't everything it's cut out to be...it was pink for a while but black is more professional.
- Finally clean/pimp my room.... so that I could actually walk on the other side of the room lol.
-Write SAT's and 2 SAT subjects..... I wonder why I didn't do this after writing CXC :S
-Write BMAT.... never had I felt so stupid but I did manage to score really high in the essay! But then again I don't know anyone who hasn't :/
-Write CXC Physics and get a distinction.... I'm so proud of this because in September my mother tried to put me in lessons and everyone refused me. I remember talking to this one lessons teacher in particular and when I said that the only topic in Physics that I know is graphs, he told me that it is impossible for me to learn the entire form 4 and 5 syllabus in 4 months. Well with the help of my friends and a brave lessons teacher that we only came to know in the middle of December, I was able learn everything in one month =D Take that mean teacher man! hmph.
-Attain two scholarships.... open government schol and an admissions schol from UoT, lolz even though the University of Toronto one isn't so big, it makes me feel better about myself =P lol lol.
-Get into medical school... =D Med school is very hard to get into btw!!! sigh*
-Get my hair cut properly..... and re-grow it lol.
-Start learning classical Indian dance......... key word is learning lol.
-Umm.. Read 7 books so far this year..... lolz that's a lot, I usually read like 3 books a year =| 
-Umm...Try sushi... and love it.
-Actually play Holi... on public grounds with strangers..... way too much freaks for my liking lol.
-Raise a baby parrot... :D she's too adorable... well at least I believe it's a she....

             Well obviously I didn't too many 'cool' things this year, but at least I got some stuff done and I have no regrets...which is a most awesome feeling. However there are things I haven't managed to do like write a book, which is something I always wanted to do before turning 20.... It was hard not accomplishing it at first but even though my teen-ess is over and I won't be noted as an amazing teen writer... life goes on still, and I could still be the next Rowling perhaps?

"Time flies. It's up to you to be the navigator." Robert Orben

            Within a year I was able to learn so much and I had time to think and look at life from my perspective not society's perspective. When I was 18, falling in love and doing crazy teenager things seemed to be the things that made you a normal eighteener. But now I know that there's more to life than falling in love and having a great love story. Eventually I realised that it wasn't about silly stories that I couldn't tell and more about stories that I would want to tell... stories that if the world knew I could hold my head up with pride. And that became more important than having many little stories that I could never tell anyone. Over this time, I learnt that setting goals for yourself is most important, or else you would have spent the time wandering aimlessly. I've learnt that any relationship involving people should be discussed between them to prevent misconceptions of where the relationship stands. I've learnt that no matter how badly you try to prevent it, things will always change, including yourself, so be gracious and accepting about it. I've learnt that the only people you can truly count on is yourself and God. I've learnt that the key to making delicious, melt in your gulab jamoon is using less flour ( yea I'm somewhat of an expert now lol). I've learnt that guys don't care about your face, for them it's all about the body. I've learnt that the phrase 'the truth will set you free' is most accurate, no matter how biblical it sounds. I've learnt that not everyone that you're fond of will have your best interest at heart, so learn how to identify those people so you can keep a safe distance. I've learnt that confidence is really what makes and breaks a person and as cheesy as it may be; your inner thoughts really are reflected outwards. I've learnt that the proper way to wash your hair is to actually massage your scalp, not scrub. For the longest time I wanted to be 'popular'... oh dear God I feel like this should be an embarrassing moments post but anyway, might as well continue. For the longest time I wanted to be 'popular' for the same reason everyone wants to be popular and well I guess from the start of time I was never popular people material so my dream of popularity was never attained. It's only now I realise that I shouldn't have wasted my time trying to be popular but rather have realised my nerdiness earlier and work towards being more successful and skilled to have an impressive resume. So the summary of this lesson is to be yourself and don't pretend to be something you're not, especially if it's counter productive. I've learnt that being independent is very important for survival but breaking away and leaving your parents is as difficult as self dependency itself. So to decrease the difficulty of moving away from your parents, slowly learn to do things for yourself over time, this is great advice for those of you planning to study away from home. For introvert people like myself, I've learnt to not be afraid of stepping out of my comfort zone as there's so much out there, you just need to be brave. And lastly, many people learn from their mistakes, however I try to limit my embarrassing moments  these days and I find it wiser to learn from the mistakes of others. Obviously this last lesson requires judgement as you can't watch your friend marry their first love and have their marriage end in a divorce and tell yourself that you won't marry your first love as the same may happen to you. However you can see that their spouse was an adulterer and know not to marry that person as it would be lead to the same outcome........ unless they were cheating on your friend with you because what you both had was real unlike their marriage to your friend. In a case like that you are a horrible friend, and well in the end if they could cheat on your friend they could cheat on you... which brings us back to my lesson of learning from the mistakes of others which is what this post is somewhat about, all of you learning from me =). 
          I hope that these lessons would have somehow helped you and made an impact on you as it did on me. I started this post on my birthday and I'm finally posting it now, some weeks after so please forgive that. Another goal of mine that I didn't get to complete before turning 20 is completing 100 blog posts... but it is now my goal to complete that before heading off to university, so stay tuned =). For those of you turning 20, Happy Birthday and may the start of this new decade move you closer towards the person you want to be and bring you your heart's desires =)