Individuality

It's not often that I post about my decision making process. I tend to like to share more event related posts on my blog. It's the concept of walking the talk instead of talking the talk. However, today I'd like to share an outlook in my life that I most currently am dealing with. It will be interesting to see where I go and what I do from here on.

At "quarter" life, I am in the midst of deciding, manifesting, and solidifying my individuality. I have already become myself and who I'd like to be in many ways but there are still some hard battles left. Like meditation has taught me, it will take an unwavering focus to face the long battles I am beginning to undergo. As the gaming industry would put it: the harder levels where the consequences, risks, and rewards are amplified. Transforming and metamorphosis sometimes require the opposite of hibernating in a cocoon. A self perpetuating system of growth with the accompanying tools of building good habits, unwavering solid principles, and more confident, committed, and effort-driven resulting actions or simply put: dharma (thought) & karma (action). 

The first and foremost step is to always remind myself not to compare myself with others as everyone's journey is different. It's one of the major reasons I've kept off social media. 

The second is to find out what it is I do need and want. 

The third step is to go out and act on it.

The fourth step is to maintenance(this includes maintaining a sense of self)/progress, assess quality, and contentment. 

 The sixth step is to tweek or adapt as needed with new knowledge. 

In this way, I have begun to be able to help me help myself. In my younger days it was more about exposing myself to the world and seeing all the different lifestyles out in the world. Now a days, it's more about solidifying who I am. It's priceless gratification but also so challenging! It requires me to develop a new kind of strength through mental, physical, and spiritual training. If I am successful, it will serve me well for my current life and the rest of my life. If I find my own success, I hope I will be able to share my training at one point so that I can help others as others have helped me along in my own journey. 

Family

Today, I had the chance to go over my Masi's  (Mom's Sister's) house. I hadn't been in quite some time as I am busy with my studies and work and they had just recently moved here from Bharat/India. It was absolutely refreshing to reconnect with family. There was a warm fuzzy feeling; the kind that just leaves a slight smile lingering on a face. The problem-solving, world-observing, base-touching, and timeless conversations filled the room. Laughter and wisdom of journey paved way of intellectual debates and due conclusions for the mind to ideally ponder in this warm environment. We all felt as if we had come from the same tree even when others may say we were born and raised in two different countries with their own worlds. I felt right at home; I wasn't wrong, this is where I belong. Such a simple night that re-enforced the pre-existing value of family within me. & Dare I even say to others that it was preferable to going out on a Saturday night. (:

Full Circle - Connecting with the Mother Land

I googled my name out of curiosity recently to see what my name may bring up (in honor of gracious professionalism) which brought me back here, to this blog. It's been a while since I've posted mostly to keep a more private life as I was seeking. But here I am, brought back full circle to my old blog. I've most definitely grown since from facing challenges in my life. As my values get tested more and more, I've finally buckled down to decide on who I am. Otherwise the world will just continue to decide for me, and that hasn't worked at all for a brazen girl like myself.

As it happens to be, it is the season of Navratri, my favorite Hindu holiday. It was a fun night at the local temple where I got a break and chance to devoutly pray and ask for forgivness to the goddess Amba/Kali/Parvati etc. in my favorite forms of garba, dandiya, arti, and meditation. Although I did not stay for dandiya this time as I have clinical/school early tomorrow, I did partake in the other three. I found myself selecting more traditional garba garbs without the flashy mirrors or tassels even. I some how found solace and beauty in the simplicity of the lightweight, movement-allowing garba dress that must have been popular in my great grandmother's time. I felt lucky enough to have such traditional (or "vintage" as they say now a days) garbs as they are not made this way anymore. The skirt is so light weight yet there is so much cloth that the skirt extends much the way a mexican cinco de mayo dress would. Hard to find modern dresses that could accomplish both so I relish this unique combination that allows for simple beauty and freedom of movement. 

When I came home from the temple, I found myself talking to Father-dearest, about life growing up as a child on the family farm back in India. These stories always bring admiration, humility, peace, and sometimes laughter to my being. I loved hearing stories of my ancestors as well. It made me feel like I was a part of a bigger picture somehow and I built many values that I cherish from them. These stories always helped put life back into perspective for me when I feel lost. I've decided to restart my concise daily prayers in the morning and like Mulan add honoring my ancestors into my routine. Any who, we were talking about his cows/oxs whom he always seemed to recall after looking at people (myself included). He spoke fondly of them and told me how my great grandmother had worked with/ helped raise them. It reminded me of a very important lesson (right now I am re-seeking the lessons I have learned in life and this time writing them down so If I forget I can be reminded) that lesson being, you should give twice as much than what you receive in any co-operation and then you can expect some return. Even then, you shouldn't really expect anything in return when you give altruistically. By temperament, my very nature or perhaps great grandmother's blood makes me more of a giver and animal friendship & cooperation enthusiast. There is something so rewarding, fulfilling, and happiness-bringing about it.

My First Recorded Rap :)

This goes to the song: Epik High - Maze

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o-XDo1Kac8

Z a p kraz

Zap loose control

Lemme show u how we do it

Uh Check it out

Hehe

Walkin thru streets not know where to go

Lost all control and ur feelin so cold-uh

Day in and day out, constantly chasin and

runin after what can’t exist

endin up lost or back to the stahrt

where u ganna go bro? when you lost all control

tryin to do any thin to get outta this sh- hole

we goin with the flo cause dats how we rohl                               

I may not be the brightest

But I kno my flo is the tightest

I’ll strive to be at the top, the mightyest                                                                  

And that’s why imma out shine ya                                                             

Nd pass right by ya

Too sleek to detect on ur radar

I’ve learned to be a fihgta

And follo my desiya

Go ahead call me a dreamer, but watch who’ll be an achiever

(Chorus)

Its stressful wishin, sacrifice

he list goes on, it’s the facts of life

But when I get there it’ll be king me

I aint afraid anymore of the slient screams

Carrying the burdens when u barely kno the person

That’s the difference between a pharaoh and a servant

I choose to serve no man but serve man kind

But at the sametime avoiding all the landmines

Then u blow up u exit or u grow up

Or get locked up

The pigs catch u eatin doughnuts

But I’m keepin it real, cause that’s how we deal

Forever bein a mystery

always done up in steel

Just no my past was no breeze

Or even a stroll in the streets

I wasn’t born with everything you had

But check

 I’ll make it like had more than that

 (Chorus)

I’m not so complicated

That u can’t get wit it

Just kno that

When I’m a free bird, no one can control dis shit

Word

Live life how u want to

Cause theres only one chance to

Peace.

* what ever is italicized comes from the original rap

My Portfolio Proposal

Cars look like People.

                Yup. I said it. Cars look like people. Let me explain. Every time when I’m traveling, I love to look out the window and just look at all the scenery and different cars.  Then traffic time comes, and I sit there looking at all the rear ends of cars. Strangely, when I was little, I thought that each car’s rear, well, looked like faces. Let me illuminate before you think I’m crazy. The rear lights were similar to different shaped eyes, and the bumper or the black outline of where the trunk met the rest of the car was a mouth, and the color and size determined the gender and the side view mirrors were the ears. But there’s more to it than just that.  With the prominent characteristics of each car, I turned it into and visualized a human face in my head. At first they look like caricatures but then I shape and re-shape in my head and they look like real people that you might find walking down the street. And when I compared what I had at the end to the car, I realized, cars look like people.  In my mind, some cars smile, some are grouchy, some are African American and some are Asian, and some are lost and some are found.  Each car is a person with a personality and profile.

                So enough with the explanation; here’s what I plan to do. My objective is to draw at least  5 well developed car people. Car people being the person I developed in my head from looking at a car’s rear end. And with it, I’ll have a picture of the car next to it. Hopefully, people will see the relationship between the car’s features and the person’s features. My plan for the first week is to go picture crazy, and take digital pictures of at least 50 different car rears. From there, I’ll upload them and select the 5 lucky cars that get to be transformed into humans. Of course, I’ll blur out the license plate while I’m at it. From there, I will print the 5 cars out on large photo paper. This will conclude the first week. The second week begins the drawing period. From here, I will select the mediums I want to use to make the people depending on what feelings are evoked from the pictures of the car’s features. (Mediums I have in mind are canvas with acrylic, drawing board, or photo collage etc.)After figuring out the mediums, I will begin to do several sketches of features in my design book. By the end of the second week I should have rough sketches of human faces to go with each car. This concludes the second week. The third week goes to making caricatures in the selected mediums. I’m starting to refine these features a bit more at this point. As well as finding people with similar features to what I have in mind and taking reference photos. This concludes the third week. The fourth week is dedicated to making the people become real. 

                Even then, I feel as though I’ve given myself extra time in the beginning so I will probably have more time to make the car people come to life than just one week. For the display, I will have the car pictures on the right side and the car people on the left. (For the lack of my clear explanation abilities, I have an example layout at the end of this report.)Now that I think about it, It is kind of similar to what Shawna did for people who associate numbers with color. This is me associating car rear’s with people’s facial features.  The challenge will be to get what images I have in my head perfectly down on paper, and refining the way I think imagination wise (It’ll help me in vision my piece perfectly before I begin to try and put it on paper). Drawing realistic human faces will be a great challenge for me but I have confidence that I can do it since I’ll have reference photos and enough time to do rough sketches before I start the real thing. I think this will be a challenging project for me as well as an opportunity to let others into my strange artistic and imaginative world.

Portfolio Project

In portfolio, we are starting a new project. The only guidelines are to make sure you are working for a complete 4 weeks on the project, and that it has to be some sort of a series. I'm very excited for this but don't know exactly what I want to do.

At first I was thinking photography. It would be a great chance to get some more shots to my collection but the thing is, I don't have a digital high quality camera. I only have a great analog camera. And film now a days is pretty expensive, so I'm debating on wheather or not to really go through with it.

Then I was thinking of painting. Thats still an option, but again the canvas would be expensive, and I'm not exactly the greatest at painting.

Then I though of carpentry. I wanted to make a walk through story book page with 3-D characters in a story book setting. Its not that expensive but the thing with this is that I think it will take too long to finish.

The last idea that I had was to make my ME collection clothing range come to life. But that would take way too long to do all of the pieces, so maybe just creating one.  Or maybe even creating a new piece. A girl who took portfolio and graduated last year, I think also did this so it feels a bit unoriginal. But I think this option is a very realistic one for me but I don't have a sewing machine XP. I've always wanted to make my own clothes, and how great would it be if I could do it for this project?

Recent Tsunami

Recently, I went to the FIRST regional at WPI. There was a team from Hawaii there. I was concerned for them since there was a chance for them to get part of the tsunami. Luckily the girls on the team said that it wasn't at all that bad in Hawaii and their schools had been evacuated safely.

However, Japan wasn't that lucky. with an 8.9 earthquake and tsunami there was a great deal of destruction. Not too long ago we all experianced what it was like for Katrina to hit and how we are still trying to recover from it. Homes and personal belongings destroyed, not enough food, lack of drinking water just begins the list of hardships. Here is video link for those who havn't seen footage of the damage: