RAYS OF SUNSHINE.

One of my best friends, Naureen, came to visit Boston from Miami over Valentine’s weekend. Every time I host someone, I realize the reasons why I moved back east, why these cold and dreary places still feel cozy enough for me to commit my life to. Also, I realize why I need to keep on keepin’ on even though life is an uphill climb in negative degree cold with the wind slamming in your face all day long. A great galentine’s weekend is comprised of: long late-night catchup sessions coupled with the restful sleep that only comes after giggling and feeling fully understood aimless drives where the conversation totally causes you to lose track of where your destination is, reminding you life is the journey--in the doing, not the endpoint.  NOMTASTIC indian dinner & a movie (“How to Be Single”)  impromptu Sunday brunch with new & serendipitous friends  LA Burdick hot cocoa, smooth, rich, and satisfying right before heading to the airport  I haven’t ...

Last week, France finally hit the crescendo from the religious right toward the liberal left in the form of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper who have published provoking comics, attacking every group and way of life as a way to poke fun at humanity. However, it can be said that you can mean what you say, and say what you mean, but you can never control how someone feels about it. And this was just the last straw for those "extremists" living in France.  The French government places so many restrictions on faith practices that differ from the French or Gallic way of life. Christianity is allowed to be openly expressed in the form of Christmas markets and festivals, while hijabi women are condemned for wearing their faith expression through fashion.  The meanings of faith expressions belong to those expressing, not the government. If you ask a hijabi woman if she feels she has freedom in relation to what she's wearing, she oftentimes does. The c...

To be or not to be? To create or to destroy? To understand or to dismiss? These are the questions that I think of when I think of artistic freedom and cultural competency. The events worldwide this past week say much about how sophisticated world politics has become as well as the snowball effect of technology and media on human behavior. I am talking about the Parisian killings at "Charlie Hebdo" last Wednesday, January 7th, and the struggle between freedom of expression and maintaining human decency. Here is Vox Media's in-depth coverage of the whole situation on a timeline:  http://www.vox.com/2015/1/7/7507849/charlie-hebdo-attack-terrorists-paris-shooting  From @BBCNews When we were kids, we were taught simple life lessons like "Say what you mean, and mean what you say because the people who mind don't matter, and the people who matter don't mind," and "If you have nothing nice to say, it's best to say nothing at all." This ...

“For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice.” ― T.S. Eliot @Mahabalipuram with my father. The bandages are from the fight-or-flight incident mentioned below. Never bunker dive or run away screaming from wild monkeys into gardens walled by stone.  This year has been a trying one, but I am so grateful for how much I've grown emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. I questioned and hardened my core beliefs and values, which were tried beyond their limits. This year marked many firsts and surprises for me. I quit school--stepping away from an institution most revere-- to examine what brought me there in the first place. I found that many situations were of the "right place, wrong time" variety or even  the "wrong place, wrong time", with only time illuminating the difference. My favorite meal in Hyderabad. Paneer Tikka Masala Dosa, South Indian filter coffee, and mango ice cream.  ...

me with the stata sign in 2014 So, let's recap on where I was last on this blog: hopeful, going into my interview, which went incredibly well last Wednesday. Now, in the interim, my temp agency got me a short-term, data-entry gig at no other place than   MIT Admissions . me in 2010, pre-graduation from Burlington High School I feel like I am living in a sitcom right now. How can I portray HOW ridiculously full circle this opportunity was? My tenuous, pre-frosh connections to MIT include: my dance teacher who worked here for about 6 years her kids are alumni ( '10. '13 ) now, and were the accomplished family friends to whom my parents always looked to for inspiration and comparison signing up, and never making it to Splash! after CTY every summer… sorry, MIT!  MIT SAT prep classes performing/practicing at Kresge multiple times volunteering for MITHAS  OBSESSING over MIT blogs, especially Mollie  & Jess Kim  circa 2006-2008 h...

JFK's old sailboat that he'd take out on Hyannis weekends. x3 Finally, I am at a point in my personal independence that I could decide to take my morning for myself and spend it at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Anyone who has known me knows my longstanding  obsession  with JFK, this library, and his Bostonian background. But this was the first time I had been back there since I was twelve years old! And reading "Elusive Hero" with my  legend ary coke. (October 2014)  Spending good time reflecting on my life and the man who was so bold he looked illness&death in his life as part of his christian struggle. A man so amazing he followed his family's history yet reimagined their life. A true leader. Someone who was the everyman and christ incarnate for this country. My fave president. #jfk (September 2013)  Just seeing his sailboat and this site, right next to UMass Boston, relaxed me so much. Reading Chris Matthews' "Elu...

So, for all the people wondering "what are you up to? Wait are you still in grad school?" In November last year, I stepped back from my graduate program. Long story short, it just was not the right time. I realized there is a lot I want to figure out about myself and the best career path for me before committing to a graduate program I am not sure about. One of the biggest challenges was realizing I have multiple passions and instead of wholeheartedly pursuing them all during my senior year of my undergraduate career, I picked only two (education and science journalism. Oh, Annenberg! The road not taken!) and chose to bide my time in graduate school. Instead of trying to work and applying for many different and difficult advocacy positions or trying Americorps, I chose to pretend to know what I wanted. I chose to leave the job search for next year. Now, I realize there are quite a few tracks that I am not only qualified for but have unique insight towards. And that it is...

You know that first-day-clean-slate-feeling every new school year as a kid? That feeling that no matter what is going to happen, you will have your friends, you will have lunch to look forward to, and new teachers and new adventures to be had during recess. The familiar routine, revived and renewed. I feel that when I see this empty page on my screen. Waiting for my thoughts. Waiting for my meandering views on whatever comes my way. I can't really explain the calm that envelopes me as I first dip my fingers in, checking the temperature of the water before diving deep. Deep into the terrifying abyss that sometimes is my mind. It feels so good to want to write again. These past few months, I had been feeling the absence of sense. That apathy is more crippling than anything. Instead of every sensory feeling translated into swarths of words, like birds that yearn for release, they beat against me like a rock-- I was unwavering, unrelenting. Paralyzed. Suddenly, I felt passive rath...

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...

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...