Last post of year 2009! Welcome 2010!

Wow... I can't believe that already a year has passed by. And what a wonderful year it has been! I am no longer the same person I was in the beginning of this year. This year has helped me mature a lot. There are certain things I cannot share publicly. But my close friends know when I say that a lot of things that happened in my life has made me mature a little further. Of course, I still haven't tasted the full reality of this world yet. Because I'm still a student. But at least I got an idea of what's out there...

I started my Diploma in Hinduism Teaching this year. And God, has it been wonderful! There were so many things I've learned this year! It has been a life-altering decision to take up this Diploma, and I'm thankful to God for opening up this door for me. I feel like I am continuing on a journey I left unfinished in my previous births...

The most wonderful thing about the second half of this year is the strengthening of the friendship bond. Lots of "going out" with friends, lots of "spending time together", and I simply love it! Life is just all about simple and beautiful things. Its us who make it all complicated by thinking too much. One good lesson I've learned this year!

I made two new friends this year! Praga and Dinesh!! :) I only wish this friendship will continue... Although now both are in Malaysia. I miss them!! I realise this year, I've made quite a number of friends, and most or all of them are from Malaysia!! Haha...

Studies keep going up and down, but my quest for Honours is still on-going. This semester my grades went down a little, but there is still a little hope next semester. This brings down to what I can expect to happen next year. Either I will graduate in May/June and join the workforce, or I will get better grades and proceed on with Honours year, graduating in 2011. Any way at all, next year's going to be another turning point for me.

No matter what, I'm so thankful to my family, friends and God that everything is going on fine! :) Thanks a lot dear friends, who have made this year a wonderful one for me! And even for a few of those who have given me unpleasant/depressing moments in my life, thanks for helping me to grow (over you)! Thanks dears! :)

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A telugu song I like this time...

Name: Ne Tolisariga
Movie Name: Santosham
Original Singer: Usha

Ne tolisariga - by...

Lyrics:

nE tolisaariga kalagannadi ninnE kadaa
naa kaLLeduruga nilichunnadi nuvvE kadaa
swapnama nuvvu satyama telichi cheppave priyatamaa
mounamO madhura gaanamO tanadi aDagave hRudayamaa
intalO chEruvai antalO dooramai andavaa snEhamaa

rekkalu toDigina talapunuvE kaada nEstamaa
ekkaDa vaalanu cheppunuvE sahavaasamaa
haddulu cheripina cheliminuvai naDipE deepama
vaddaku raakani aapakila anuraagama
naDakalu nErpina aaSevu kada
taDapaDa neeyaku kadilina kadha
vetikE manasuku mamatE panchumaa

prEma neetO parichayamE edO paapama
amRutamanukoni nammaTamE oka Saapama
nee oDi cherina prati madiki baadhE phalitamaa
teeyani ruchigala kaTika visham nuvvE sumaa
pedavula pai chiru navvula daga
kanapaDa neeyavu nippula sega
neeTiki aarani manTala roopama

nee aaTeEmiTO enaaTiki aapavu kadaa
nee paaTEmiTO E janTaki choopavu kadaaa
tenchukO neevu panchukO neevu inta chalagaaTama
cheppukO neevu tappukO neevu neeku idi nyayamaa
pErulO praNayama teerulO praLayama
pantamaa bandhamaa

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I loved it :)

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Loving my lab... :)

I really love my lab and my lab mates!! :) I'm so lucky indeed to have gotten such helpful people... I got my clones!! Yeay! :) Still a long way to go... But I'm so happy! :)

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So beautiful...

I Remember You
You're the one who made my dreams come true
A few kisses ago

I remember you
You're the one who said i love you too
Didn't you know

I remember too
A distant bell
And stars that fell
Like rain out of the blue

When my life is through
And the angels ask me to recall
The thrill of them all
Then i will tell them i remember you

(George Michael's song)

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Two wonderful songs

I was watching a drama series and came across some lovely songs which really touched my heart. It was really nice, but they are old english songs. I tried searching for them online on youtube and found them both in one video! It was fantastic! I feel so great about finding two the songs I was looking for in just one video!! I mean, what are odds of finding two songs you were looking for separately, in just one video? Well here it goes:



First Song: A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square

That certain night, the night we met,
There was magic abroad in the air,
There were angels dining at the Ritz,
And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

I may be right, I may be wrong,
But I`m perfectly willing to swear
That when you turned and smiled at me
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

The moon that lingered over London town,
Poor puzzled moon, he wore a frown.
How could he know we two were so in love?
The whole darn world seemed upside down

The streets of town were paved with stars;
It was such a romantic affair.
And, as we kissed and said `goodnight`,
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square

I know `cos I was there,
That night in Berkeley Square.

Second Song: The Very Thought of You

The very thought of you and I forget to do
The little ordinary things that everyone ought to do
I'm living in a kind of daydream
I'm happy as a king
And foolish though it may seem
To me that's everything

The mere idea of you, the longing here for you
You'll never know how slow the moments go till I'm near to you
I see your face in every flower
Your eyes in stars above
It's just the thought of you
The very thought of you, my love

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...

உனக்கோர் பேர் தான் கிடையாது
அதனால் சொல்ல முடியாது
கடலை பிடிச்சு கையில் அடக்கிடத்தெரியாது

வின்னில் போனால் நிறமாகும்
மன்னில் வந்தால் மழையாகும்
கோவில் போனால் சிலையாகும்
கோடியில் பூத்தால் மலராகும்

ஒத்த வார்த்தையில் சொல்ல சொன்னால்
உனது பேரே அழகாகும்

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Love my family!

For a first time in a long time, I had a fun time with my dear family! :) It is so nice to be with them. But it also hurts to think that they cannot relate with me in terms of my new-found interests. They seem like very different people from myself, although ultimately we all belong to the same family.

Still, I love them very much! They have already been very tolerant with whatever changes I've made to my life and they have been very trusting and not so strict with me. So for that, I am grateful to have such wonderful parents.

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Just some pondering...

I have come across many kinds of people who range from non-believers to staunch believers. From one extreme to the other extreme. These are the people whom I have either met in person or read about in the news. It is interesting to finally meet someone who has a conception of God as being formless. I know two of my friends who think like that.

This is interesting because it is literally difficult to think of God as being formless, especially when you have a certain level of personal relationship with God. I am only now trying to understand this concept as it is difficult for me to shift from form-God to formless-God. For now in my life, I pray to God with a form because it helps me to visualize God, someone/something that is helping me create favourable situations in my life and helping me achieve my goals. It will take time for me to understand the formless and attribute-less aspect of God as it is a very high concept.

I guess people who pray to a formless God, only do so because for them it seems ridiculous to believe in Shiva, Vishnu or Ganesha. I totally understand this because these characters are fictitious. They do not really exist. However, the ideals they represent is what that should be taken note of rather than the personality itself. I have already mentioned this in a post I made in July. It's like I said. Having someone to inspire you, but it is not a person in reality, but God Himself/Herself with a form.

I guess it is nothing wrong to see God however you wish. As long as the aspects of God are still attached to the form you give to the God. Having a conception of a formless God somehow seems funny, because a formless God still has attributes like omnipresence and omniscience. Can someone pls enlighten me on how you conceive a formless God and why?

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Universal knowledge...

A very interesting passage for your reading pleasure:

What is to be done and what is not to be done, what is proper and not proper - these things you already know, of course, because you have a certain innate sense about them. No one can plead ignorance of what is right and wrong. This knowledge is universal.

What do you mean by universal knowledge? All monkeys, for example, born to live on treetops, need to know something about the law of gravity - and they do. Ifyou were to observe the mother monkey, yo would see that she has no concern about whether there is a baby holding onto her or not as she jumps from tree to tree. The baby monkey, however, holds onto its mother's bosom for its dear life. It is definitely afraid of falling, whereas the mother is not. She just keeps leaping from one branch to another, while her baby holds on tight.

Suppose, however the baby monkey had to undergo some education to know that there is a law of gravity operating, that it must hold on tightly in order not to fall, and that it if did fall, it would be injured or it would die. If all of these hings had to be taught to monkeys, many of them would die for want of education and the species itself would sooner or later become extinct.

Fortunately, every baby monkey, without being educated, seems to know what is done and what is not to be done. Without going to Harvard or Cornell, without joining the Moral Majority, it knows very well that 'I will fall if I let go of my mother.' That 'I will fall; is one piece of truth and 'if I fall, I may hurt myself' is the second piece of truth the monkey seems to know. The third piece of truth is, 'To fall and get hurt or be killed is not good forme or for my species.'

Instinctively, then, the monkey knows all this. Since monkeys are made to live on treetops, the minimum knowledge every monkey must have in order to survive is to know, 'I will fall; objects come down; I will be the victim if I don't hold on to the other branch when I leap.' This knowledge must be given to monkeys along with the creation. Only then is there any hope of a monkey living its life on the treetops.

Such knowledge is instinctive and is what we call the creation. If that knowledge is not given to a monkey and it has to be educated in order to know how to survive, then I would say that there is a defect in the creation.

Similarly, as a human being, I am born with a faculty of choice. Unlike a monkey, however, I can choose to live on treetops, on the 20th floor of a building in Manhattan, or in a cottage on some riverbank. I can choose to go to Alaska and keep only my nose out or I can live in the tropics. Because I have the faculty of choice, I can choose my course of action. I can choose various ends and various means to achieve those ends.

That human beings seek securities and pleasures is a common fact that we have already analysed. And in seeking these ends, they have to follow certain means to achieve them. More often than not, upon analysis you will find that the problems lie only in the means and not in the ends.

(For example, stealing in order to provide for the family. The end is 'providing for the family', which is not wrong. But the means, 'stealing', is wrong.)

This passage is interesting because it shows that we have a naturally in-built consensus of what is right and what is wrong.

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Can we be friends?

It is so damn irritating... I've had it... Finally, I want to get it out and in the open.

Why do Indian guys always go, "can we be friends"? I'm sick of hearing this again and again. You don't know me at all. And still you want to ask to be friends. I don't understand this mentality of Indian guys... Can someone please enlighten me?

Friendship should happen by itself, and it is not something you initiate. You meet a person a few times, you get to know that person slowly, and then you get to share personal thoughts with that person and get connected with them. The moment you share these personal thoughts is the defining moment when you have subconsciously accepted the other person as a friend/confidante.

Without all this happening, how can you become friends with a person you have just met and trust them with all the things you share with them? The trust on the other person is developed only in the first few times you meet that person. If so, how you become friends immediately? Just like that? Especially a friendship between a guy and a girl.

I guess their definition of friendship is different. But still, it is ridiculous, the way they ask. I would say, if your definition and their definition of friendship does not seem to match or complement each other, then forget it... Move on.

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The daunting future...

Call me paranoid or anything, but seriously I am very scared about my future. Especially at this stage of my life, I am very much scared. You can call it the 'quarter-life crisis' or something.

Ten years ago, I was so naive enough to write in my diary the following words:

"Dear diary, I wonder who my future life partner would be like... I just wish he is all the things I want him to be. I don't know who he is, but I am already in love with him so much!"

The entry continues further. I wrote this when I was 11 or 12 years old, while I was still in primary school. I was such a daydreamer back then, believing so much in all the "prince-charming" nonsense... But looking at my life now, from the point where I am standing, it is really daunting.

Well, what am I really worried about here? That the guy I will one day marry will make me happy at first and then totally rip apart my heart? That this guy will cheat on me? That this guy will one day stop loving me? Not really. Yes, I am worried about all this. But I am more worried that I will stop loving him... I will never cheat on anyone, but the scary part is I losing interest in my love. This will happen to all of us. Most of us are worried that the day will come when both the man and the woman will get bored of each other. Not one ounce of love is left in the relationship, not even after the bundle of joy has come into their world to brighten it up.

This is something to be scared of that will happen after the marriage. But the most scariest of all is that I don't trust anyone at all!! I find it very hard to trust someone, because everyone has something about them that can surprise you! If this is the case, then how can my parents expect me to make the biggest decision in my life just based on trust on a guy whom I have never known before in my life (maybe known for a few months to a year)?

I am not supporting love marriage here. Hell, that is far worse than any form of arranged marriage. You are entirely on your own when it comes to love marriage, unless your parents are agreeable to your choice of partner. But in an arranged marriage, the rest of the family from both sides are with each other.

Marriage is a beautiful thing. It is not just the boy's and the girl's decision to tie the knot, but the guy's family's and the girl's family's decision too. I would really love to go through with it. But I leave everything in God's hands and let Him take care of everything, as I have limited control over such matters.

No matter what type of marriage it is, love or arranged, my strong opinion is to never go against parents' wishes. If your parents are looking for a guy/girl for you, then you make the final decision. On the other hand, if you choose a person as your life partner, then let your parents make the final decision. This is something I strongly believe in. And if I were to come across a guy whom I like, I will bring him to my parents first before I take any decision.

Although I wonder what their reaction would be like! Haha. I believe that my parents are open-minded and would care more about my happiness than anything else. I believe they trust that I would make a good decision in choosing my life partner. I also believe that they are reading (or will soon read) this blog post right now... ;)

Apart from all this, the fear of the future is still there. I think I would never be able to trust anyone, until unless I know them for atleast a year. I believe in taking things slow and starting with friendship. Maybe being friends first can prolong the lifetime of a happy marriage. But its totally scary man!!

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