RAYS OF SUNSHINE.

In so many ways, I have reached an impasse in my life. It is an easy thing to be frank or honest with your friends, even easier to tear up a family member because they can take what you have dealt them all these years in fits and identity crises, but it is an entirely different challenge to be true, just, fair, open, trusting, and HONEST with your own self. When Aesop and the Bible and Hammurabi said those things about the Golden Rule, and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", they did not factor into account that oftentimes we treat others with much more kindness and generosity than we ever treat ourselves. I know that in every hard and stressful situation, I put my blinders on not unlike the horses in Montreal. I can only go charging full speed ahead, eating from my trough and occasionally taking a break to take inventory of my hardware and my bodily functions. It becomes hard to not only see the light and smell the roses, but I am so consumed by the apparen...

i love notebooks. too much. i love how they somehow whisper you can do better tomorrow. its a fresh new page. i love how you can rack em up to either tell a chronological story or an illogical one. the simultaneously represent all the tenses: have been, will be, am currently. i love straddling that line--telling stories that are not quite one way. i love melding my unique experiences and stories, marrying them with what could have been. where my expectations far surpassed my realities or where living in the moment far superseded anything in my wildest imaginings.  notebooks live in that moment before that moment. you buy them when you know you're going somewhere, starting something, making big plans. they encompass that crisp apple crunch on a fall day; that satisfying slurp of a milkshake while the sun bakes the back of your neck, sickly sweet, laughing next to the one of your dreams. they are the fulcrum of the balance between a spoon of maple walnut and that spicy chaider, ...

so it's september 11th. a day that now is recognized in history books. a date that is older than all elementary school children. a date filled with dread for those capable of remembering, and a date forever filled with guarded urgency, felt alongside utter patriotism and gratitude for humanity. i remember reflecting on 9/11, as it is now called, and thinking that no other date in human history is filled with so many different projected emotions. for south asians, it is the day where we took the place of our japanese brethren and had finally experienced that rite of passage that is true blue collar hatred and racism. the problematic nature of classist society--the lack of education-- causing our families to be targeted in any and every capacity. temples and gatherings were secretly or openly watched. students couldn't engage in cultural discussions for fear of being thought of as extremists. and to this day, a gathering of brown students is often seen as having a radi...

from my instagram, my first day working at widener library :)  So I am here again. The day before the first day of school. For me, this day is a lot more significant and heavy and loaded than the actual first day because of this thing called anticipation. I keep putting ideas in my head about how things are going to be. I keep envisioning scenarios, thinking through situations, always putting myself at the bottom so I know how far I need to climb. It's nice to know that in a lot of ways, the climb is over. I have "made it". I have been given the opportunity, the privilege to study at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. But in a lot of ways, I'm still climbing. I have reached the end of one goal, just to find myself making 10 others. Goals which I may or may not ever reach. Goals that need to be reinvented to fit my life, not the other way around. I have finally learned that planning your life to fit a goal is not what a goal is meant for-- goals are sup...

Some of my updates on life, thoughts about the election, and all the neverending connections I keep making that exhaust, exhilarate, and motivate me:        So, I haven't blogged since 9/11, not because of a shortage of topics to blog about, but more because I was ill-equipped to deal with my life, and was thrust into multiple situations and confrontations and leadership scenarios that I had hardly anticipated. Within the months of September and October, I reframed and redefined my priorities in life as well as for this year, and my current involvement reflects those shifts.  Here's a quick list of the things I have done in September & October:  recruited 8 new dancers for USC Drishti practiced every week until near the end of October for different performances  performed at APASA Nightmarket done henna design work for 7 people worked faithfully for a social venture that I am really excited to be a part of networked with eve...