Of Insomnia and Junk Thoughts

Have I turned into an insomniac? I thought only old people or billionaires or harried housewives suffer from insomnia. I don't fall into any of those categories, then why me????
Last night I twisted and turned in my bed till 2:30 am, after which I took off the sweatshirt I was wearing and tried to sleep again. [I just read my last sentence and think I need to do some explaining here] I thought probably I am feeling a little too warm and uneasy in that thick sweatshirt I had decided to wear to bed, so took it off and no, didn't bother to find something else to wear. I am all alone at home folks, so I can wear anything or nothing to bed [Grin]
Anyway, the trick didn't work. I was so frustrated that I got up, finally found something suitable to wear and went into my Dad's room to dig into his closet. I was hoping to find something to drink :-). That plan didn't work either, we have shifted only three weeks back to this house and a lot of our stuff is still packed. I recalled that Dad has ordered for a bar to be built where he could proudly display his collection of bubblies and Scotches and the likes. Turns out he will unpack his bottles only when the bar is ready. Sigh!!! No late night indulgence for poor me.
I had to finally doze off counting sheep in my head. I really don't want this to happen again. I don't have the luxury to nap in the afternoons, and without a good night's sleep I feel mentally and physically lethargic the entire day. I tried to understand the cause of the problem and figured it out too.
I have so many things going on in my head that sometimes my mind gets hyperactive and just refuses to shutup. I am going to vomit all my thoughts here, as they come to me, hoping that they won't bug me tonight.

I need to go to college for documents....
Wow, college, sigh!
In the first year of hostel life, I used to bug my roomie to madness. Our gang used to forcibly hold her down and scribble whatever came to our heads on her arms and legs. 'F*** me n Kick me', 'Come Hither' and similar stuff :-)
Hmmm now I am fondly thinking of my roomie.
Gosh, need to write essays for two colleges and submit before 1st December.
Get to work Nicky, what are you doing!
I am thinking of working for 2 years post MBA and then take a shot at the civil services exam, for Indian Foreign Services...... :-)
Honey, you need to apply to colleges first to do your MBA and you are still short of essays and some paper work :-(
I got a funny proposal last week.... I am smiling and thinking how funny can guys be... I will write details about it on my blog :-)
Write your essays first :-(

And so on and so forth.... most of my thoughts are pure junk. I wish I had a spam thought filter in my head.

A Visit To My Alma Mater

Hmmm... at least there is something good about collecting documents when applying to universities. I got to visit my school, my alma mater, and it felt like visiting a long lost nanny of my childhood. The first thing I felt when I entered the huge gates was a feeling of pride for having once belonged to that wonderful place, CJM Dehradun. When the guard asked what my business was, I told him I wanted to see the Principal and that I was an ex-student. He looked at me and asked again, "Which batch madam?"
"Err.... 2000", and I immediately felt as if I was old. Gosh, it has been 8 years since I passed out!
"Oh, long back" the guard retorted, as if he wanted to cement my view.
Anyway, it was great visiting CJM again. The building still looks beautiful, ancient, graceful, like a cultured and well-bred arrogant lady who never seems to age. It is more than 100 years old, yes, the school was founded in 1901. Some history it has, even the then Queen of England visited it sometime before independence. Yeah, I am proud to be a CJMite and I always will be.



The Church in school campus. I couldn't capture the whole structure :-(






















That old but sedate building is Father's residence at CJM.
And below are some creative pieces of art from the paintbrushes of kids :-)

What It's Like Being Devil's Lil Sister

Finally.... the effing exam thing is over. I partied yesterday with a careless abandon that I had forgotten I was capable of and then slept like a dog only to wake up late and groggy this morning. And yet, where is the feeling of relief??? It just isn't there. I feel like I have stepped from a storm into a tornado. I just hate documentation and paper work and financial statements and running around offices and you know what I mean. However, I have to do it all and do it fast :-(

Meanwhile, something very annoying happened with me. I was getting some anonymous comments on my blog, which I admit initially made me quite curious. I really wanted to know who the anonymous reader was and does anyone blame me for that? I mean, aren't all girls curious about such things? However, after a somewhat sleazy comment from the anonymous reader, I decided to not pay attention or at least pretend to ignore, as it obviously was some prankster trying to be funny. After ignoring for a couple of days, I started wondering why the anonymous reader wasn't commenting anymore. And then, I had this conversation with my sister yesterday

Dido: hey, I read some anonymous comments on your blog. Who do you reckon that is?

Me: Dunno. Some creep, but I have decided to ignore now. Sooner or later there will be more comments and probably I would be able to figure out who that is.

Dido: (Cruel maniacal laughter)

Me: (Stunned but obstinate silence)

Dido: Well, they were from 'Yours Truly'

Me: (Insane maniacal laughter) I knew it.

Dido: Haha.... you didn't and you never would have. Gosh, I shouldn't have told you, it was such fun. I could have carried on more.

Me: Shutup.

Thus I came to know that my sister, in one of her usual fucked-up efforts to provide amusement, had targeted me and pulled one on me succesfully. She did get a lot of amusement from the episode, as she always does when I am her victim. She is devil personified and I have the enviable honour of being devil's lil sister.

Shortlisting B-Shools --- OMG!

Shortlisting universities where I would eventually apply has turned out to be a far more tedious process than I imagined. At the beginning of my search (like a month back), I had a very vague idea of what I wanted, so I went by university rankings. However, I soon realised that it's a very lazy way to look for prospective B-Schools. I then narrowed my search to B-Schools who are known well for IB and HR. I then looked for the average class profiles in those schools and there placement statistics. I knew that my GMAT score would definitely be above 650 and below 740, I knew what my work-ex was, I knew my academics. So studying the class profiles was a great help. I knew which industies and what sort of companies I would prefer after MBA, so the placement statistics were a great help too. After all this search I have identified 11 schools but there are 2 particular schools which I think would be a great fit for me if I get admission there (Texas Mays and Maryland Smith, also BYU but their essays look scary). However, these schools are pretty much on the top rungs of the ladder when it comes to rankings and that scares me. Admissions have become even more competitive, thanks to the recession, the number of people applying to B-Schools has gone up. Lets hope for the best (for me!).

Now came the fun part of identifying schools. I considered locations, weathers etc. My trip to US earlier this year has given me a good idea of what many places in US are like. Good thing was that I visited both the east coast and the west coast. I closed my eyes, recalled my trip and tried to imagine what it would be like living as a student in all those places. NYC is so crowded that it gave me a feeling of being at home :-). Also, there are people from all over in NYC and that makes it a very interesting place to be in, plus I love the cold weather, however, it's a very expensive city. Washington DC seemed boring initially but I really loved the wide streets and avenues. It seems to be a quite place after the hustle and bustle of NYC, although I am sure the place is very alive. Buffalo and Niagara are too remote for me, no point considering them. Then comes Florida. I was in Orlando for around 5 days, I liked the place but just as a holiday destination. I won't fancy living or studying there. Moreoever, it took me weeks to get rid of the horrible tan I had acquired in Orlando and Bahamas. The tanned look doesn't suit me at all, I look sunburnt and fried rather than having a golden brown sheen (Sigh!). Then we went to San Francisco in the west coast. It's a beautiful place with a very unpredictable weather and interesting history. Again, SFO has people from all over, especially China. It has so many hills that I again felt at home. The city has some very pictureseque views and charming houses. Nice place I would call it. Our next visit was to Las Vegas. Ah! the place that I loved the most (remember I was on a holiday). Vegas can simply spoil you, with the grand and luxurious hotels and the number of ways of having a good time. Gamble and drink away to glory in Vegas but I seriously doubt that it is a good place to live. Los Angeles was another story. I liked the crowds, the places (Beverley Hills :-)), the weather, also the chance of meeting celebs, in short almost everything about LA.

Phew! I hope I have covered almost everything that needs to be covered while identfying schools. Oops! I forgot, the TUTION. I have also considered which schools have a more affordable tution and give a better return on investement. With all this search and also the advice of my consultant, I hope I am applying to the right places.

Random Thoughts

I am writing from my new home in Gurgaon. We don't yet have curtains and I have a big glass window next to my bed. I am lying on my stomach and facing the window and right at this moment a crazy looking fella in a balcony facing my window is staring at me.

I still have cold and cough but I am feeling much better.

After my post titled 'Feeling Low', I got some very interesting responses. A friend suggested that it seems I have too much pent up energy, so what I need is sex. Another friend said I should meditate and practice yoga. Another suggestion was to get married and settle down (I really wonder what people mean by settling down). Best response was from my sister, she said that yelling and fighting is my everyday behaviour ("ye toh tu roz karti hai") so I have no cause to worry about it.

I read a lot about Barack Obama today and I was impressed by the man. Although I rooted for him, I did not know much about him. I now know, why he has that brilliant personality - he is a Leo, that's why :-). I would anyday have a Leo world leader over a Virgo (McCain). Then there are those other interesting facts about Obama. His Harvard education, his inclination to writing (he has authored two books), his unusual origins, his impressive height (6' 1.5"), how he met his wife (while working together), everything makes him charismatic. I hope he appears as brilliant and charismatic after his term in the White House as he does now.

Agonies

When it hits you, it hits you from all quarters. I have not had such a bad bout of fever and cold since a long time. Dad never fell down from stairs ever in my memory. I never before post-poned an exam when it was very important to get over with it asap. We never had to move house amidst all such confusion and agonies. However, all this happened together in the past two days.

Well, life's an adventure!!! So be it.

I have decided to take the TOEFL on 15th November, I couldn't possibly take it earlier.

Duh!!! And I can't write now.... my sister, the most irritating, insufferable, full of sick jokes, and distracting person in the world is reading this over my shoulder. She is like plague and I can't get rid of her right now. So I will write a follow up post later.

She just took a bite off my leg for writing this...........

It's my turn to do the same to her.......

Feeling Low

When you are feeling low, you get irritated at everything. I just fought with my Mom because she wanted to change the bed sheets on my bed. Yeah, ashamed as I feel while writing this but it is true. My reason was that she had to do it exactly when I sat on the bed to do some work on my laptop. I completely ignored the facts that (1) She was doing me a favor, it's not her job, (2) The important work that I had to do actually was to play football on Facebook, (3) I had not changed the bed sheets myself and it's already nearly mid-day. Yesterday I fought with one of my best friends because he is in Delhi after a whole year and met someone else before he met me. The truth is that I couldn't have met him even if he had asked me to, for my own reasons. However, I nearly yelled at him. Poor thing, he was scared and said lets meet now. I yelled some more at him and asked him to not call me till I don't call him back. Nice guy that he is, he called me today to ask whether I was still angry and I was so embarrassed that I wanted to disappear from the face of the earth.
The causes of my bad mood are many, three reasons that I know of and some other yet undetermined but equally forceful ones. The first cause is that I have lost the urge, excitement and enthusiasm for my preparation. The Diwali break turned out to be suicidal for my exam preparation. Another bigger reason is that I am very confused about a major decision concerning my life. I swing like a pendulum between the To-Do and Not-To-Do states. Still another reason, the biggest one, is something that I don't want to think about, so I won't even consider writing about it.
Pull yourself up Nicky!!!! Yeah, I talk like that to myself all the time. My conscience is a separate entity, not a part of me. The fastest way for me to recover from such insufferable phases is to start dieting immeadiatley and to go for long and brisk evening walks. No, I don't feel better after binging on food. Well, I do, but it's momentary. I can imagine the state of mind I will have this evening during my walk. I will start with a slow walk while contemplating on the issues at hand. Slowly my pace would become brisker and I would start thinking that exams are something that I have been facing since the age of 3 and I have always (almost!) done well. Then I would accelarate my pace a little more and think that I would just leave the major decision on my family and God and then play along. I already know there's no major risk in playing along. I would finally think of the last reason when I would be at a nearly running pace. At this pace, I am so much at peace with myself and so full of energy that nothing in the world can pull me down (excpet a speeding truck, maybe!) and hence, a cheerful state of mind would drive away the bugging anxieties.
You know what, I am already feeling better!!! :-)
Looking forward to my evening walk :-)

Diwali and After-Effects

We had a fabulous, rocking and spirited Diwali this year. Blew up loads of crackers (Shh!! I am not anti-crackers, though I am anti-pollution :-) but spare me for a day puhleez), had an amazing barbecue, ate all sorts of sweets and snacks, got gifts ranging from accessories and dresses, to photo frames and perfumes (I even got a nightie from China!). I have gained at least 3 Kgs in a week and have lost all enthusiasm for TOEFL. I have posted some pics from Diwali, here they are

Chacha (my uncle) narrowly escaped being injured from a wayward rocket but his new trousers weren't that lucky. Apart from this solitary incident, Diwali was peaceful.
I got my official score report for GMAT and my score in AWA is 5.0 out of 6. I think it's good though only 55% people scored below 5. I have to get back to the grind without losing on time as I am already running short on it. My targets for this week are to prepare for TOEFL and to find a consultant.
I finally got a pic clicked wearing my knee-high boots but it's not a great pic.
Yeah, the boots are not very visible. I will get another better picture soon :-)