Yesterday I FINALLY put Jesus Camp back in the mail to Netflix, after maybe a month of it sitting on my bookshelf.

Today I got an email that told me I'd be getting The US vs. John Lennon tomorrow and I got really excited, because hey, I've wanted to see it for ages and VH1 was taking forever to air it (they were working on the acquisition back when I was still working there).

Two minutes ago I just saw a commercial on VH1 for this Friday's premiere airing of -- wait for it -- The US vs. John Lennon.

Can whoever's in charge of my life please let up a little on the irony? It's getting a bit exhausting.

ETA: APPARENTLY NOT.

From a phone conversation with my mother this evening:
"You should start putting yourself out there, find someone nice, have a long engagement. But don't bring home a boy with tattoos and a ponytail, I cannot have a tattooed son in law."

WTF MOM! If you're going to force me to get married, at least let me find someone who I think is hot. Seriously I don't know who this woman is anymore.

* * * * *
Also I watched the last five minutes of Mission: Man Band this weekend and saw, like I expected, that I hadn't been credited. It's not that I'm torn up about it or anything but that basically ensures that my entire nine months there is going unrecognized. Considering all the grief I went through getting the talent their checks for that show, I think that's a little unfair, but whatever. I'm in a much better place now, both emotionally and in terms of my own career goals, anyway.

That's a pretty to-scale image of what the sleeping situation in my apartment is like right now. My cousin came down from Westchester yesterday and decided to join the party so now I have three -- count them -- THREE -- people living with me in my studio which was cozy enough for just one person.

They're all leaving tomorrow so it will be back to me, by myself, for the first time in what seems like an eternity. We have to get through tonight first, though. God help us all.

I feel like all my posts lately have been of the "I AM ALIVE" variety.

Having said that...

I AM ALIVE. I also am 23 and have long, eye-covering, hipster bangs now. I've just been super busy at work and my mother is staying with me in my teeny tiny studio until the beginning of July, so that leaves very little time for me to update.

Without going into too much detail, things are going well and I'm cautiously optimistic about the future; and for those of you who are curious about what I'm doing now that the pilot's been completed (and are my Facebook friends), you can mosey on over to my Notes section.

Until next time!

I try to keep quiet about my future plans and things I hope for, but apparently I can't keep my big mouth shut for more than 5 minutes at a time. That worries me, because then not only are my expectations raised, but so are everyone else's.

I'm just working towards going home. That's all I care about anymore, the four blissful days where I will be with my parents, NOT worrying about crappy celebrity television. Change is in the air, I think, but playing the waiting game is always the worst thing in the world.

The only thing I promised myself on New Year's Eve was no more Gatsby's in 2007; no more 1020 either. (Lianna made the second promise with me). I have to start branching out and finding a "regular" bar closer to where I live, so I can walk home instead of taking a cab or my two-subway commute at 2:30 in the morning.

My parents are coming back into town on Thursday to see my grandmother and aunt off to India, and I am so terribly excited for them to arrive. Unfortunately, it also means that after this weekend I won't be seeing them for a while. It used to be a joke whenever we talked about them moving to Jersey to be closer to me, but the more we talk about it the more I realize that's what I want.

This weekend tied up a lot of loose ends for me. In a way that's good, because although I didn't necessarily plan it this way, it will give me a lot of room to start fresh this year. I have a vague idea of where I want to be in the next twelve months, but plans always change. I'm flexible.

1. I LOVE IT. My mom said that she initially chose a different one but put it back because she knew I'd like this one better.
2. Goodbye Anna Sui, hello J'Adore.
3. My mom gave me pretty much all of her colorful beaded necklaces since she doesn't wear them anymore.

My parents were in town this weekend and we did the crazy touristy holiday (wandering around Rockefeller Center, seeing Mamma Mia, shopping, etc.). It was a lot of fun, but now they're gone and I need to take a nap because I forgot to put my phone on silent last night, and we were awoken three times to my Flavor Flav text message ringtone going off when people messaged me to wish me merry Christmas.

(The ringtone goes, "FLAVOR FLAV! YEAH BOYEEEE, pick up the phone!" In case you were wondering.)

Happy holidays to all of you! I hope your weekends have been wonderful.

PET PEEVE: People who use the word "karma" in the wrong context (I just saw a stupid Yoplait commercial where the two girls are talking about how good the yogurt is and they used it. IT'S JUST YOGURT. GET OVER IT.) It's someone's religion, smarty pants. Learn what the word means before using it.

ACQUISITION: One blazer, one comfy pair of sweatpants, three pairs of Calvin Klein bikinis, two hot bras, and one gorgeous teal tote bag, all on sale for cheeeeeap.

ANNOYANCE: Losing three hours at home when my flight out of New York was delayed on Thursday, which subsequently led to:

DISAPPOINTMENT: The fact that Thanksgiving weekend is now over, and that I now miss my parents more than I thought possible (especially when I first left home).

EXCITEMENT: I figured out some awesome gifts to give to people for minimal money. They're so much more personal than storebought gifts and my overworked bank account gets a little vacation. I win both ways.

WISH: To be a child again, and to not have anything to worry about except naptime or whether it's going to rain so I can't play outside.

TRIUMPH: I got my mother hooked on Arrested Development this weekend. Too bad it's about eight months too late.

TOO SOON: While window shopping with my mother I happened to point out the kind of engagement ring that I'd like (what? It's just a silly ring, at least I don't have the wedding planned out). Later, I made a crack about having to edit my wedding slideshow/video myself since no one else in our family knows how to do it. Apparently she didn't get the irony in the remark because now she's concerned that since (as far as she knows) all I do is work and sleep, I'm never going to meet anyone. I wisely kept my mouth shut about all past escapades.

SEEN: Stranger than Fiction: good. The Departed: FUCKING AWESOME.

WANT: A cute dress for the holiday party, a nice pair of flats I can wear every day, and enough cash to touch up my now pathetic highlights. My roots are about 4 inches long. I'm not exaggerating.

OVERALL: November is ending much better than it started -- but I hope I'm not saying that too soon.

My mom called me at 8AM to tell me that my grandfather passed away in his sleep last night. It didn't really hit me until I got home from work today, and checked my mail in Lerner for the first time in a month, and saw a birthday card that my grandparents had sent me about a week ago. Now I'm supposed to go to a dinner at Lucky Cheng's for my birthday. I can't very well back out on my own party but I can't help but wish my parents had waited to tell me until tomorrow, so I could have celebrated wholeheartedly instead of thinking about what I've just lost.

(15 hours of sleep + homecooked food + being as unproductive as I possibly can + 8 hours of E! and bad VH1 reality TV)
X all day, every day
X one whole week
=
HEAVEN.

That said, I can only take trashy TV for so long (although spending a week drowning in celebrity gossip is a totally underrated form of stress relief). It's been nice not using my brain for a while, but I'm starting to get a little restless.
And I am totally excited to get back to New York, although I'm having a slight dilemma about a couple of things (nothing too massive, though).

But I'll definitely take one more day of this. I'm really going to miss these weeks at home, doing absolutely nothing.
And I'm FINALLY going hardcore shopping tomorrow! About time, too, because my spring wardrobe is seriously lacking.

Let's take a guided tour of my family.


Standing (left to right): Ratnam (hired male attendant), Bhanu (maid but might as well be a member of the family), me (I look like an idiot because I can barely keep my eyes open for the flash), my mom, Rama Periamma.
Sitting: Thatha, Patti.
(My dad was behind the camera.)

So basically, I didn't take a lot of pictures in India. I had a great time, but I don't feel like writing about my trip because I feel like that will trivialize the whole experience. I don't know if that makes sense outside of my head, but it works inside somehow. I wanted to post this one just for my own memory's sake.
(On a side note: LOOK HOW I TOWER OVER EVERYONE ELSE IN THIS PHOTO. And I'm considered "average height" here.)

Meanwhile. I spent the afternoon yesterday and after orientation today chilling out on the couch and soaking myself in a major wave of childhood nostalgia.



HELL FREAKING YES. I should have written my thesis about these two. I could have probably filled about a hundred pages with how AWESOME this show was.

I had the hugest crush on Big Pete when I was 11. No lie. I used to daydream about him moving in next door and us dating.

(Again, it all made sense in my head.)

Photos from hanging out with my family and before I went out last night.


My mom and I right before going out to lunch on Sunday. I love this picture, but my teeth are so crooked!

( i would like you to dance...take a ch-ch-ch-chance. )

Awesome weekend at Vassar with Reeya (mehnaz), although I'm sad that I missed SASAfest.

I'm still down two actors (my leads, of all people) for my final project. I'm starting to get REALLY nervous.

My room is a disaster because I haven't been in it during the day for more than 2 hours at a time for the past week. I don't talk to anyone anymore (with a few exceptions). The combination of school and work is eating my soul. I've loved the experience of holding down an internship while being a full-time student -- it's made this semester incredibly fulfilling -- but I don't know how much longer I can take this without sacrificing sleep entirely.

Getting excited for summer, although things still aren't set completely in stone. Hopefully I will be in the city, but I do want to go home for a week and a half or so, just to see my parents and take care of mundane things -- doctor's appointments, renewing my driver's license (21!!), etc. And apparently my dad wants me and my mom to come with him to Oregon in August for his IIT reunion? Which should be fun. We always seem to take our vacations in the northwest.

I cannot wait for this semester to be over, but I also feel like I need so much more time to get everything I need done accomplished. I've been so wrapped up in worrying about my film final that I've kind of left my other classes to the wayside. I've been walking around in a daze for the past 4 weeks. It's not necessarily bad, but it's very unhelpful when attempting to focus.

Friday at work I realized that I've had my LJ for three years. It seems like aeons and yet negligible at the same time.

My dad and I drove 10 hours in pouring sheet rain/sleet through Pennsylvania, got stuck in a 2 hour traffic jam, and almost skidded off the road due to I-271 being completely iced up.

But, I'm home at last. Mom had hot tea and bhel waiting for us upon our return. :)

No school stress for another 3 weeks.

It's so snowy and beautiful and Christmasy here. Last year at this time my dad and I were driving through Chennai and Andhra to get to Tirupati, and subsequently got ripped off and almost arrested there. Although I absolutely love India, and want to spend my life working there, I kind of missed this atmosphere then -- it's what I grew up with, along with this house and my family. I really want my parents to move to a warmer climate, but at the same time, if they do, I'll miss this place and the memories associated with it so much.

tsdelight, I had a great time during your visit, and I hope the rest of your time in NYC (minus the rain and soaking shoes) goes well.

A in Hindi and B+ in Topics so far. Kind of upset, I thought I could have done better in Topics, but we'll see how I do in my film classes and *grimace* Econ. Hopefully this semester turned out better than the preceding ones. My mom was talking to me the night before I left and told me "It's OK even if you get a C in Econ" and I started screaming "I can't get a C! I've never gotten a C in my life!" and she had to calm me down. It's so weird that I'm the one so worried about grades, and my parents, who spent my high school years demanding nothing but As from me, are totally calm about it now. I just wish Columbia would be a little more efficient with returning marks before January. Grawr.

I'm kind of worried about my course load next term, and that it's going to be too much for me, but I think it's wayyy too early to be concerned about practical things like that. ;)

Like sansira, I received a shipment from Eros, but my parents are being crazy and full of Christmas spirit and not letting me open it until tomorrow morning. So I guess I'm left to lying on the couch and watching Amar Akbar Anthony in the living room with a cup of tea and a blanket. *contented sigh* Sometimes I wonder what the big deal about college and independence and New York City is. I know I'll be dying to go back in 2 and a half weeks, but right now things are just about perfect.

I go into things saying very loudly that I have no expectations, but yet I keep expecting things to happen and wind up thoroughly disappointed at the end of it all.

Sometimes I wish that the love of my life was someone who I was intensely irritated by at first. That would make things a hell of a lot easier. And spare me a lot of unnecessary hatred of myself.

But, on to brighter things before I leave for class this morning...photos from this weekend, round 1.

( There's no sleep at a shaadi. )

Ugh. The last thing I want to do is go to Film Theory. But there's so little time in the semester left. It seriously feels like classes just started. Last year was a blur, and this term feels like it never even happened.

If the remaining 3 semesters are only going to go by faster...then I'm absolutely terrified.

1) My big crazy extended family is awesome. This weekend was so much fun. I haven't celebrated Diwali like that in so long -- surrounded by people I love. I miss waking up to the hustling and bustling of an Indian home accommodating a houseload of guests. I ate so much...now extra gym time is in order. Suchinth and Shamika and Priya and Geeta Aunty everyone were all so warm and friendly and caring -- and even though I really missed my parents, and wished that they were there more than anything, they all still made me feel like I was at home.

2) ( Veer-Zaara! (review, with some spoilers ahead) )

3) I would like to use this opportunity to proclaim that I am in love with this man:



And never mind that he's supposedly engaged to Aishwarya (or is he? I actually don't really know for sure) -- she's a little piece of plastic with no soul. He needs a real woman of substance...namely me.

That is all. :) Now off to study before my computer shuts itself off on me again. I want a Powerbook.

Garba = a lot of fun when:

1) people include you in their larger circles (because more people makes it so much more enjoyable) and
2) you have 2 dandiya instead of 1.

Unfortunately, neither happened last night, but it was still a great evening. The place was FILLED with desis dressed so elegantly and spinning around in circles -- it was so beautiful to look at from the topmost seats (I wish I had a camera so I could have taken a picture). Falguni Pathak (the "Navratri Queen" as my sister-in-law calls her) was performing -- I had no idea that was going to happen -- no WONDER the tickets were so expensive. Prash and Priya and I got back at around 2 and then watched the last hour of Hum Tum before going to bed. My feet are so sore from running around Nassau Coliseum barefoot for 4 hours.

My cousins see me as an equal now, as opposed to the baby sister of the family. My sister-in-law even let me borrow her chudiyan for the night (which were impossibly difficult to get on and off...) That makes me so incredibly happy.

The look of amazement on Prashant's face when his dandiya broke in half was PRICELESS. :)

Someone suggest some music for me to download, I need new aural splendor.

This morning I purchased:
-- a green tee (same color as the background of my LJ, except a bit lighter) with a bicycle repair ad printed on it
-- a cream winter hat and gloves to match the interior of my gorgeous suede jacket
-- a red cardigan with a yellow seal of some sort (and the requisite Latin writing) embroidered on the left top corner
-- a pink sweater

Retail therapy works wonders for angst.

I need some more yellow in my wardrobe.

My parents are the most adorable people in the world. My dad calls me to make sure I'm not having problems with my econ sets, my mom calls to tell me about the awesome things she bought for me in India, and I call them to tell them the latest gossip from Bollywood :)

...main Hindi nahi jaanti hoon.

At least that's how I feel after talking to my cousins. :(

OK so my mom wasn't on the plane, and in fact called me about 15 minutes after I posted the last entry. :)

I asked her about the piercing -- for her complete, honest opinion. She said: "Roopa, ordinarily I would tell you to just go ahead and do what you want...but you have to remember that you have a really sensitive nose...people are going to be sticking their fingers up your nose, and you won't be able to stop sneezing, and if you have a piece of metal lodged in your nose you're just going to be miserable all the time."

She's right. I hadn't thought about it from that point of view. My nose IS extremely sensitive (if i as much as rub it a little bit, the sneezing goes out of control). And I obey her blindly in terms of health advice, because this woman knows her shit when it comes to the human body and medicine. She's worked in health care all her life -- she wanted to be a doctor initially -- so she knows what she's talking about. She reads medical manuals for fun, for God's sake. :P

Thinking about it today, I really wanted the piercing just to enhance my "Indian-ness," but now I realize that there are so many other ways I can do that. And this morning, as I was putting on the Ganesha necklace that I wear every day, without fail, it suddenly occured to me that the connection with my culture has to come from inside me. It's true that nose piercing is a beautiful part of Indian tradition, but it alone is not going to be able to bring out the desi in me. Only I can do that, and if I do say so myself, I've been doing a damn good job so far.

Everyone who's talked to me in the past week has pretty much had to deal with me babbling on and on about getting my nose pierced this weekend. I was all set to do it today...

...and then my mom, who's on her way to India, called to let me know that she was all right (because she knows I freak out about loved ones flying long distances, even though me doing it myself is a piece of cake).

At that moment, I felt like the world's most ungrateful daughter.

Now that my mom and I have gotten so unbelievably close, I realized that I would feel absolutely horrible doing it behind her back like that. She would be so hurt when she found out that I hadn't told her what was going on -- that I had been hiding things from her -- even if it was for fear of her being disappointed in me.

And what makes me feel even worse is now her cell phone's off. Which means she's probably on the plane and therefore unreachable for 20 hours. So I can't talk to her at all, let alone about this, just when I miss her so much and need to hear her voice more than anything.

Now I don't even know if I want the nose piercing anymore.

I wish I felt like I was a better person right now.