Pictures speak louder than words...

A sign drawn in the sand
And a touch of a stranger's hand
I wonder what it means

Time spinning round and round in this space
Then it's gone without a trace
I wonder where it goes

Deep in the night when I hear no sound
I feel my heartbeat slowing down
My mind's released and free to wander
As I sleep

The past buried deep inside my head
All the words that have gone unsaid
I just want to let them go

Life on a distant star
Or a boat to where the wild things are
I just want to let it flow

Deep in the night when I hear no sound
I feel my heartbeat slowing down
My mind's released and free to wander
As I sleep

If you're quiet you'll hear the sound
Bits of the world as it spins around
We feel lost and we feel found
When we sleep
When we sleep
When we sleep
Sleep

Two worlds colliding in my head
I watch you as you sleep

Two worlds colliding in my head
Two worlds colliding in my head
Two worlds
Colliding in my head

- Amanaska- Sleep (Buddha Bar)

Orkut tells me fortunes everyday. I get my kicks out of my morning cuppa tea and orkut fortunes. Today it is "Tomorrow's life is too late. Live today." Sorry, didn't see that one coming. At all. Specially because it is tomorrow already as I typed this. Oh, ought I to have lived yesterday?
The last two weeks have been very full of PTMs (Powerful Therapeutic Moments, for the uninitiated) and also very full of minor annoyances (which are now threatening to blow out of proportion). I understand that many organizations are undergoing paradigm shifts, but not paying employees is not an acceptable way of dealing with your transitions. Ok? Ok.
Ever seen a movie that makes you rue the fact that you earn enough to spend on movies?
I did today. It made me feel violated in more ways than one....even if you are generous enough to overlook the irrelevantly crass language, which I wasn't, it did not make sense. You know when you sometimes watch a movie thinking in the last scene it will all fall into place and I will go home having understood the story? And it happens? Well, it didn't. Anyone who doesn't know what movie I am talking about and can guess, will get the reward that I have set aside for the person who fixes my title dilemma in blogspot.

* One of my biggest fears is that a pigeon will come inside through an open door or window when I am alone at home. This is very closely followed by the fear that I will step unknowingly on a dog while walking on the road and fall over it. And be attacked.
* When I acquire new clothes, bag, folder, footwear or other stuff, I don't like to use it immediately. My logic behind that ('It will get dirty') is often a source of amusement for my family (read 'Navin')
* Music soothes my nerves like nothing else. A hot cuppa tea comes a close second.
* I am extremely fascinated by colours. That there should be so many shades, so many hues, so many colours...is so amazing!
* I find the sound of water very relaxing. Paradoxically, I am scared of deep water and drowning.
* I am pretty superstitious at times. To the extent of qualifying diagnosis for OCD.
* The other OCD aspect in me is my excessive attention to detail. This has landed me in academic hell many times. And I am yet to change.
* I find cooking therapeutic. As long as what I am making turns out good.
* I am not as quality consistent as I would like to be in many things I do.
* I hate fire crackers, specially the noisy variety. I don't mind the ones that make pretty, fancy lights, but I hate the bombs. I have never ever burst one in my life. I like to say it is because I am an environmentalist, but it is actually because I am scared of them.
* When I was tiny, I used to howl at night if the zero watt bulb was switched off. Now, I have difficulty sleeping with the light on.
* When I am by myself and faced with a problem, I talk to myself aloud about how to solve it. I keeps me calm.
* I hate shopping, normally. Sometimes though I enjoy it. Specially if it is with Navin. Or for him.
* I really, really enjoy working with data, in research settings. One of the biggest highs in my life is to see that 'significant at p < 0.05'. I miss research more sorely than anything else in my career.
* I am pretty good at logical reasoning, though I don't use it as much as I should.
* I love trivia. Even if it is useless. Specially if it is useless.
* I'd much rather read the book than watch the movie. I feel books give you a visual creative license that movies can not.
* Waking up in the morning is the most difficult chore of the day. Specially in winters. Ironically, winter is my favourite season, and night is my favourite time of the day.
* I am not a very television person. There are of course exceptions.
* Contrary to popular belief, I am not good at staying in touch with people. This is because I can not sustain phone conversations or online chat for over 3 minutes if they are not heading in a particular direction. I get distracted. Again, there are exceptions.
* I used to be a coffee addict. I have now given up. Tea has taken over.
* I am very fond of kids, but not very good with them. This has reflected in my choice of work, and I now work primarily with adults.
* I'm very finicky about spellings, grammar, punctuations etc. It bothers me incessantly, if someone I care about writes it's instead of its, your instead of you're, or doesn't capitalize the 'I' while writing professionally.
* I love birthdays even if they are not celebrated.
* I love new stationery, brand new books, notebooks, pens, pencils, erasers, sharpeners, pencil cases, the works...they remind me of school days. Back when I was a kid, my biggest fixation of the day used to be whether my bag has more 'compartments' or my brothers :)
* I often google out a word or type it on MS Word to check its spelling. Even when I am fairly sure about it...

It was a wet afternoon. The rain gods were pleased and indiscriminately blessing. I had no raincoat, nor umbrella. My school bag had no zip, and was not waterproof. I knew when I got home, that the colours of the red and blue lines on my english notebook would have run into each other on the edges. That the squares on my math notebook would be smudged. My brand new rain-shoes, worn without socks, were biting into my foot on atleast four different places that I could feel. I knew I would discover more of them, once I was warm and the numbness from the cold water receded. I stood outside the school gates, scanning the horizons rendered hazy by water droplets everywhere. The trees were lush green, greener than I remembered them from the previous afternoon. There was a muddy puddle around me, I stood on a flat stone as though it were a pedestal.
The wind became fiercer, the rain, heavier. I sought refuge inside a building, cold, for some unknown reason, nervous, and alone. It was dingy but warmer. The breeze from outside still made me freeze, but I was safer from the tirade here. At least I felt safer. Notes of a song drifted out of a window on the ground floor. I don't recall the song. I do know it was something soft, very Buddha-Bar-esque. The notes were light, warm, dry. I can't explain how, but they were.I wasn't alone anymore.
The song made me think of sandy deserts and the starry night sky. It reminded me of a lone, tired traveler in search of an unknown destination, seeking directions from nature. There were no words, just endless instrumental music, the kind that transports you elsewhere.
I heard an auto honking nearby. Ventured out and saw it was mine. Elated though I was, I felt like I was leaving a friend behind. A friend who did not yet have a name, whose name I might never discover. Looking back once towards that elusive window and its musical enchantments,I made the saner, more rational decision. I got into the warmth of the auto.
Nineteen years later, I still wish I had knocked on that window and found out what song that was...

It's that time of the year again...or rather it's past that time of the year. When you review the 365 odd days gone by, become nostalgic, and say, "Those really were the days!!!Ah, 2008..." (Or perhaps not). The season for top ten, bottom ten, middle ten and nondescript ten listings. The moment for new resolutions, which might have never been required had the older ones been adhered to. The time for parties, crackers, unmitigated rowdy-ism (no, am not a cynic through and through, just a realist. Any decent psychotherapist will give you the difference :)). Not that there is anything wrong with any of the above...people have their own way of coping with the passage of time.
One thing that changed in the past year, perhaps (it's difficult to say) is that people have begun to take public security (I hope), a bit more seriously. One thing that stubbornly remains unchanged, though, is blogger still doesn't allow me to type titles in English (reward's still open). My faith in technology takes a deeper and deeper blow with each passing day. Ah, well...
On an entirely different, unrelated and irrelevant note, here's an excerpt from one of my lectures a year or two back:
" Psychologists began to outgrow behaviourism when they discovered that there is more to the psychological framework than the simple 'stimulus-response' patterns. Behaviourism treated an individual like a vending machine- you put a quarter, you get a candy. But there are unknown variables, the 'x's, that influence human behaviour and make it much, much more complex than that. Sometime, you insert the quarter, and there is no candy...sometimes there is no quarter....and..well...you get the drift..."

What can I say...Thank God this is not my profession!
HAppy New Year!