State of the Xinu

Tired. Very, very tired.

My left shoulder is dead from lugging around multiple hard cover books and my laptop.

My hair is dead from lack of love and hair product (no time for love, sniff).

My skin is dead (or alternatively, has come alive as mutant monsters do, for I have sprung a forest of zits).. I'll blame stress and/or hormonal imbalances.

And I am, slowly but surely, dying too. Sigh. Although, I suppose everybody is so I'll shut up about that now.

Oh you know what else I'm dying for? FRIDAY. Um, but then again, I'm sort of wishing it wouldn't come either. Here's the deal..

Pros of Friday coming soon:

• This week from hell, which includes three major assignments and stacks of reading, will be over. Hallelujah.
• Ramadan will be over (woohoo, Eid is on Wednesday folks)

Cons of Friday coming soon:

• I'm going to have to start packing and moving.
• I'm going to have to deal with the fact that I'm leaving Waltham.. which, for all that I crib about, has been a wonderful home and town to live in. I'm going to miss my building.. and my concierge.. and the covered parking.. and my RIVER! And the ducks! And the swan who swims with the ducks... dammit I might just end up missing the commuter rail. Man, I'm a sucker for routine.
  

Saw a kid on the T today who was wearing new Gap jeans. How do I know this? He forgot to take off the long, rectangular size sticker from the back of his leg. I was amused and did not point it out to him. Heehee.

Also, in general, I must say that there are way too many blind people in Boston. You won't see any homeless people, barely any Blacks or Hispanics.. but the no-sighted are everywhere. It makes me sad.

In other news, I am in love with DuPont. Just finished reading a (very long) case study about how they've been managing their brand for the last, um, 200 years and I think they are awesome. Finally, a reason to be proud of Delaware.

Also, I have decided to pitch my new product idea to them (or any other industrial sciences company that will listen): the Pen-Lighter. What is the Pen-Lighter you ask? Well, it's a writing instrument that is a highlighter on one side and a pen on the other. Because anyone who has ever tried to study on the train knows how hard it is to manage switching between both types of pens to make notes. Clever eh? The pens could even be clip-able so that you can swap colors and click them together to make your own customized pen! Whaddya say? It boggles the mind that nobody has thought of this yet.

Alright, back to the grind.

I KNOW THIS GUY!!

My friend Agapios is the guy in the pink shirt! He's a Greek-Cypriot popstar!

लाकड़

लाकड़ जल्के कोय्ला होए जाए... ख़ाक
जिया जले तो कुछ न होए रे... ना धुंआ, ना राख
जिया ना जलैय्यो रे, हाय
जिया ना लागैय्यो रे...

~ ओम्कारा

Here I go again, I promised myself I wouldn't think of you today
It's been seven months and counting, you've moved on, I still feel exactly the same
It's just that everywhere I go all the buildings know your name, like photographic memories of love
Steel and granite reminders
The city calls your name and I can't move on

Ever since you've been gone, the lights go out the same
The only difference is you call another name
To your love, to your lover now
To your love, the lover after me

~Savage Garden

Jean Pool

On the T today, I saw a girl in purple skinny jeans.. and I suddenly remembered that I too had owned purple jeans when I was about 14 (although purple wasn't really fashionable in 1990s Dubai, but I wore them anyway, thank you Zeus Jeans at Sana!)...

Anyhoo, I saw the girl and felt a pang for my youthful days.. so I have now resolved to get purple skinny jeans. If not skinny, then at least purple. If not purple, then.. well.. at least some jeans. I need jeans. All my current pairs are loose, old, tattered.. and dead. Just like my souuuuuuul. Sigh.

So, here's a question for the audience. How many jeans does one need in a wardrobe? How many do you own? And would you buy a purple jean?

Today on the T

On the Green line platform at North Station, a lady walked up to a young blind boy with a guide dog, and greeted him. When the two shook hands, the boy said cheerfully, "It's nice to see you again."

That made me sad.

"You need to blog less about poetry, and more about your life."

Well, well, well. Everyone's a critic. Yes, I'm looking at you, C-Flat, I'm putting you on the spot, Mr. I've Just Bought A House & Had a Nephew. I love how other people go silent for weeks and I say naught, but god forbid I should add a few rhyming couplets and everyone's in a tizzy. Is this blog really the only way you guys will know what's happening in my life? Whatever happened to email, dropping a comment, or even - gasp - making a phonecall? Hmm?

Still, I shall grumpily acquiesce. I'm all about customer service, after all.

So, lots has been happening folks. Grad school is basically taking over my life. Four hours of classes everyday, and anywhere between four and six hours of study each day outside of them. Craziness. My days are full of classes, studying, fasting, taraweeh, apartment hunting, apartment-moving-planning, being a graduate assistant to two professors, and did I mention fasting? I'm barely sleeping, not eating, and usually in a slight state of panic.

You know how I'm typing all this right now? I made a conscious decision to procrastinate reading two chapters of Consumer Behavior for tomorrow.. a conscious decision to waste my $30K investment in grad school. Christ. I know I'll be up until 1am catching up on reading, but here I am. So, don't ever say I don't love you guys. *sulk*

Anyway, school's going well. I'm enjoying the classes, and the people are quite nice although I haven't yet made any "friends". I probably won't, though, since I'm not one to ever make "friends". I've always been the sort that drifted around from group to group, saying hello to everyone - the cool kids and the nerds - but never really finding a place of my own. Plus, I really haven't been able to socialize with everyone because of Ramadan, but hopefully should be able to do so in a couple of weeks, and get to know people a little bit better.

My program contains 37 people - and only 6 of them are boys. Ugh. Which means I'll have to make friends with.. y'know.. girls. But they all actually do seem quite nice, so I'm not that freaked out. We've got people from China, Taiwan, Japan, S. Korea, Philipines, Greece, Uganda, Venezuela, Germany, Canada.. yep, it's quite a diverse group. Even got a Tibetan guy called Tenzin who was born and raised in India and loves Bollywood. What were the chances?!

In other news, fall is here! Thank goodness, I was getting quite sick of the heat, humidity and rain. Bring on the winter, Thor.

Also, I love Firefox 3.0 so much that I don't care about Chrome. And I don't like the new Facebook. Puh.

I just watched an episode of Top Gear in which Jeremy, Richard and James test drive three cars in.. wait for it, wait for it.. Iceland. Oh. My. God. I couldn't find a YouTube clip of the segment but I am now completely dying to go to Iceland (as if I wasn't salivating enough before). It is so unbelievably beautiful and scenic. It really looks like heaven on earth. Crisp, blue skies... icy mountains, lush green hills, water, snow, sky... sigh. One day, maybe, one day.

Let's see.. what else, what else.. oh yeah, did you hear our economy's in a complete meltdown? And we have a nasally VP candidate who can see Russia from her bedroom window? And most of Houston is under water? 2008 really is continuing to be as shitty a year as it was when it started. Well, can't fault God for lack of consistency. Oops, is that blasphemous?

Also, the other day I saw a guy walking down Moody Street wearing a t-shirt that said, "My idea of social studies is going to parties." I thought that was pretty funny.

I also saw a lady on the Green line platform at North Station make her 10 year old son smell his own armpit and then lecture him on the need for personal hygiene. I did not find that funny.

Ooh, ooh.. I'm going to see The Swell Season tomorrow. Super excited. Although, I think I'm going to end up crying during the show and my friends will worry. Oh well. I'll pretend to be hormonal or something.

Alright, that's all we have time for today, folks. Until next time, here it is, your moment of Zen:

Prof. Waters: "Split into groups and discuss. If you like, you can go outside to talk."
Tenzin: "We should go out."
Me (distracted, writing something down): "Hmmm."
*pause*
Tenzin: "Wait, not like 'go out'! I meant go out of the class to discuss! I mean, you're married!"

Nice save, buddy, nice save. Freud would be proud.

Killing me Saufley

"I want to find out how to stick my fingers into the pulse of American culture and twist it so people will somehow start thinking that reading, and being intelligent, is something to aspire to; so people will stop equating dissent with treason, and pacifism with weakness."
~Ben

Universal Poem #2

Sometimes I miss you so much, I don't miss you anymore,
But then I miss missing you, and so I miss you even more.

You know?

Box of Worms

So, Pandora has now launched an application for the iPhone, allowing you to stream your Pandora stations for free on the phone, while you're on the go.

This is very, very cool. Why? It means you can save a lot of the money you normally spend downloading favorite songs off iTunes because you can listen to music for free. And, you can now have the convenience of listening to playlists created by someone else (in this case, the music genome project) instead of having to put together your own.

Aargh, damn you Apple. I really don't want to be a Mac groupie and get an iPhone but it's becoming harder and harder to resist you. Why do you have to be so damn cool?

Poked, prodded.. and pooped.

After walking around town for six hours in blinding heat, while shivering with nausea and other flu-like symptoms that continue to persist, fatigued and weakened without food or drink, I have come to the following conclusions:

1) Speculum is quite possibly the scariest word in the English dictionary. And gynecological exams are officially the biggest effing curse of being a woman -- low self-esteem and hair removal be damned. I hereby diagnose myself with Post Traumatic Penis Envy.

2) My favorite leather sandals are officially dead. I know this because my feet smell. Bad.

3) Against all logic and natural instinct, I'm probably moving to a place in Coolidge Corner, i.e. on the dastardly Green Line. Sorry Red Line, I tried.. but you're just too crappy and undergrad-y for my cushy professional/post-grad ass. Yes. I have a cushy ass.

Bah.

Month #9

It's September 1st. That means it's the 4 year anniversary of the xinugeist. Happy birthday, dear blog. You've been a great friend all through your 475 posts (although the number could have been higher if I hadn't ignored you for all of 2005... sorry about that). But here's to many more years of ranting, raving, whining, and despairing of this thing we call life.

Also, Ramadan kicks off today. Woohoo. Looking forward to a month of fasting, praying, sin-purging, and (lets face it) lots of samosas. Mmmm. I will miss my music - I borrow from Lent and give up music while fasting because it distracts me so much from holy thoughts and activity - but I think my soul could do with some internal re-focusing and maintenance, don't you? (umm, rhetorical question, don't bothering answering that one).

So, you'd think that Ramadan would bring out the best in people given that Grand Ol' Lucifer is locked up in Hell, right? Nope. It seems that his minions are completely capable of keeping the sleaze alive without his help.

Earlier today evening, I sent about 40 'Ramadan Mubarak' text messages to all close friends and family - it's an annual tradition with me, I always send them for Ramadan and Eid. But apparently I had one of my friend's numbers saved incorrectly because the message went to someone else, someone I don't know at all. It was an innocent enough mistake, a numerical mix-up, but it got creepy pretty quick.

This is how the text message conversation went:

Me: Ramadan Mubarak! May your fasts be rewarded and your prayers be answered in this blessed month! Zeenat.
Response: and eid mubarak 2 u 2. but are you family, friend, or foe? Zia
Me: Sorry isnt this Shahid?
Response: not even close. sorry.
Me: Sorry!
Response: sorry is not going to cut it. you owe me a choc blast for the mental anguish you have caused me.

Seriously? Ew. Is this what the world has come to? Anonymous text flirting on the pretext of a religious greeting? Whoever this Zia creep is, someone needs to tell him that (a) Ramadan should never be used as part of a pick up line, and (b) you can't demand ice cream from a complete stranger. I know people who will disagree with me on (b) but no, the line has to be drawn somewhere. Ugh. So creepy. I think I need a shower.

In other news, I'm still trying to get over this disease that progressed from head cold, to stomach flu, to throat infection. O bug, whatever you are, please kick in properly and then get the hell out of my system? It's just not working out. We need to go our separate ways. Please don't feel bad.. it's not you, it's me.. blah blah blah.

Also, I'm sick to death of apartment hunting. We have been scouring Internet listings for weeks, and spent the last two full days checking out places in every neighborhood on the Red Line, and came up with naught. Why are there no decent places available for October leases? At this rate I'm going to end up being stuck in bloody Waltham until the day I die (which might be soon enough if this flu doesn't go away.. in which case, I'd die in Ramadan and go straight to heaven.. hmm.. I have to re-think this whole disease thing).

The good news, however, is that I've got my fall semester schedule and I have no class on Mondays. Woohoo, 3 day weekend. However, I also got some of my text books off Half.com and, umm, this stuff seems hard. And here I thought I'd be coasting my way over the 22 year olds. Durn. Still, I'm looking forward to orientation this week. Classes start next Tuesday, the 9th.

Also, I'm happy to report that I've been zooming through my Netflix queue recently, and watched some really enjoyable movies - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (utterly brilliant), The Darjeeling Limited (depressingly addictive), Juno (fun, but sort of overrated), Amelie (impishly adorable), The Last King of Scotland (marry me, James McAvoy?), and Death at a Funeral (hilariously dark).

Up next: The Fountain, which I've been dying to see for ages (Hugh Jackman + fantasy theme.. what more do you need?) and Hamlet, starring my favorite Shakespearean actor, Kenneth Branagh. Yes, I know, I know.. I'm getting a little Hamlet-obsessed, but have you ever known me to do things by halves?

All in all, the movie-watching spree has reminded me why I was a Film major at all. Cinema rocks.

Alright, time for bed. Must be up early and my throat/chest is on fire, so I should get some rest. I'll probably be hitting a metaphorical snooze button on the blog for the next few weeks due to Ramadan and school starting and apartment moving, but I'll try to keep up. Wake me up when September ends!