Life's tough, get a helmet.

I recently decided, in one of my inspirational moments ‘ENOUGH OF THIS LAZINESS’! Let’s do something worthwhile and learn something new. Lying about staring into space would only make Jill a dull girl (if she wasn’t already!) So I started giving myself a motivated pep-talk (yeah, told you i was weird. Usually do it when no one’s around, though. Wouldn’t want to end up in an asylum). So anyways(i digress like crazy, don’t i?!) i went on in this vein:
‘YOU can do anything you want girl. It’s all in the MOTIVATION. It’s in YOU.’
Can you learn to cook? Off cooooouuuurrrrrrsseeeee! What’s there to it? Get a ready-to-eat sachet of your favourite meal. So there. Enjoy. Ah, these modern times. But do learn how to switch on the stove. Wouldn’t want to burn down the house.
Can you learn to talk philosophy? Off cooouuuuuurrrrrrrrssssssseeee! What’s there to it? You just throw in some weird sounding words and nod along with what the old man is saying. Yes, yes. What a theory he gave. And don’t forget to learn the big names. Wouldn’t want to baffle people by talking about what a great philosopher Einstein was, would we?
Can you learn to become the ‘classy’ madame? offff cooooouuuuurrrrrrssssssseeeee! (yeah you know, ‘what’s there to it?’) Just get satin material, bully your tailor into transforming the thing in to a sheath like gown. Put a false tag-Vera Wang? Ah, faux pas! No one would fall for that. Its’ India after all. Rocky S would do. Or maybe Manish malhotra. Whichever you can spell. Crash an elite party, check ‘em out in the newspaper. Most resourceful. And end up there with a bribed friend and dazzle everyone with your wit. Don’t forget to find a fake profession for yourself. Need a good conversation starting topic anyways................Exotic once like maybe a Bartender could help.............and, yes, do try to flaunt the tag on your dress. Another piece of good conversation.
So basically, during this long and fantasy pep-talk, I forgot the purpose behind it. I lay there talking to myself, and mum suddenly came up to me and asked “ what are you yapping about? I hear an offfffff courssssseeeeee every few seconds? You alright?”
I smiled apologetically. “Sorry mum. Actually it’s a class project. Our teacher has asked us to pronounce all the fricative sounds and write down where they have been articulated.”
Mum looked at me like I had two-heads. Mumbled something unintelligible and went away, grumbling. The thing with studying a subject no one has heard of is, you can invent great excuses...................!
So Can you fool people into believing you? Offffffff cooouuuuuuuurrrrrrssssssssse! (this time i lowered my voice an octave). Just sound aggressive, throw in some jargon which no one has heard of(make it up. Always works) and go on and on until your victim gets bored and walks away grumbling! ;)

Books. They have given me so much.........! Whatever I am today, its because of what i have read. My writing skills, my speech, my knowledge (wot knowledge? ;) it’s all because i used to curl up with a book since my toddler days! Yes, it was Disney story books when I was little, i used to sketch on them and chew them and tear them..............ah the love i had for them!
Then it was the Enid Blytons and the ‘older’ story books......the Nancy Drews and the sweet valleys, the Goosebumps and the fearstreets.......trading with my school mates, and reading them by hiding ‘em infront of my big Science book, and mum never knew! Ah, so clever they made me! These books were a fascination. The adventurous fatty, the tomboy George, the naughty Darrel, the o’sullivan twins, the clever Nancy, the sweet Bess, and those horrific R.L.Stine ghosts..............and who could forget my favourite sweet valley twins, Elizabeth and Jessica.......ok i could go on with this forever!! But all have stayed with me and i have had innumerable adventures with them, and solved mysteries with them...........and learned sooooo much.
Now i see the analytical side of these kiddie books. The insight into people’s characters, the laws of life, their worlds, so unknown to my inexperienced eyes......what a world i had unveiled. I knew about scones, when people could not even pronounce it, i knew about boyfriends, even when my friends said ‘eeeewwwwwwww!’ to boys(i mean me too ;)!
Then i graduated to the ‘thinking’ books..........the classics, the moderns..........and the philosophicals( though yawn!! Still) and the Harry Potters.I absolutely adore classics, they are sooooooo...................’classic’! What beautiful language, what mannerisms, what insight and thoughtfulness.............and tragedies. It’s just too romantic for my own good! And the brutal modern books, so not afraid to portray reality, so succinct and true.......and of course Harry Potter. I am really proud of the fact (however absolutely dumb) that i started reading it way before it became so abominably famous. And well, I am absolutely jealous of any other Harry potter fan........so well. Stay away! Most people think it’s kiddish, but i think i haven’t read a more philosophical book. I would give anything to have 1/10th of J.K.Rowling’s talent, she’s like ‘omg’! She has the cleverness of Hermione, the wit of Fred and George, the wisdom of Dumbledore and the courage of Harry...........it’s just too good for words.......so i’ll just stop before i ruin it (if i haven’t done that already!)
Now I read books by the dozen, so I cant even start naming them......I heard someone once saying, reading books is like borrowing someone else’s thoughts, you lose your own identity.........is that so??
Am I ‘splinching’ my character?? I for one, don’t think so. Books give me new views and new ideas. When i read a book, my usually dormant imagination comes alive and kicking, not because i ‘borrowed’ an idea, but because i ‘found’ one.(and not in the plagiarising sense!!)
Yes there are a lot of downsides to reading books. I know that i have neglected a lot of important work because of them. At some points of time, I have even become asocial (also antisocial, but very rarely). I have read some books which have affected me negatively (like i had become impossibly romantic!) But still, if you know where the line separates fiction and reality, you have nothing to fear(and yes, i know that!)..............this post has gone on too long. So will stop......will get back with the next.
Long live authors and their books. Hope to join them someday. J

"The winter evening settles down
with smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o' clock
The burnt-out ends of smoky days."
(PRELUDES-T.S.ELIOT)
Such exotic imagery. It brings to my mind a vivid picture of long dark palace hallways, in that Long-ago Victorian time, full of bustling homely-maids, preparing for "supper" and the fire blazing away in the fire place, and the man of the house sitting with his evening paper....and the burnt out ends of smoky days..............ok. stop.
I quote this to bring about the exoticism of Linguistics(which is actually cheating, coz this is literature! :-P). Yes, this is Literature, yet i study it as Linguistics. so there.
But Why? i see the 'burnt-out ends' of smoky days when there are none in reality. I see 'colorless green ideas'(ok I am not whacko!) when 'they sleep furiously'[Noam chomsky, 'mother' of Linguistics(lol, just made that up! the 'mother' part]
Anyway, this use is termed as 'foregrounding'. Where you dont really make sense but actually do.
Bah, wot a way to tribute. half of you must be thinking, what crap is this linguistics........sorry, but i just realized I am really bad at this!!
Linguistics is an analytical and scientific technique of viewing languages. it looks for connections between languages, the 'whys' and 'hows' of languages.........and other things along that line.
what I personally gained in my three short years of its study at the undergraduate level is an insight as to why people tend to speak the way they do, from where a certain pattern or an anomaly occured in the use of language, what sound were we articulating(and why?) at a particular situation......and so on.
At first, to be honest, i thought what friggin crap this is. we all know our language, and there's no use for studying all that.......but later, when i read some path-breaking works of great Linguists, it actually occurred to me that, hey, people wrote thick never-ending books on this, this has to mean something!! :P
Anyway, now I am leaving this intriguing subject behind(officially. would love to continue reading up on it, but let's just pray i follow-up on that)and so would like to quote a poem on the study of Phonetics(sounds in a language)
I take it you already know
of tough and bough and cough and dough?
others may stumble but not you
on hiccough, thorough, lough and through.
well done! and now you wish, perhaps,
to learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead: its said like bed, not bead-
For goodness sake dont call it "deed"!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.)
-T.S.W(1970)
the poem's only asking us to understand the difference in pronunciations, and still seems to make perfect sense with the strings of sentences connected together(syntax study)........lovely.

Finally, after years (yes years!) of putting it down, and then writing an entry and deleting it again (5 times) due to fear of commitment to it, I have officially started my blog. And what i feel is -relief! I have wanted to do this for quite a long time but could only get up2 here.
Anyway, I would love to start with a bit about ‘moi’. I have been a student of BA (linguistics) these past 3 yrs of graduation, and I chose to change my field to management(have no idea, why though.) Now I am going to study at IMT-Ghaziabad from June onwards. Just finished up with my final year exams, now for 2 months i am as free as a bird.......Anyway, I live in this ‘countryside’ kinda place in Aligarh which gets hellishly boring, so moving out is a definite ‘eagerly-awaited-event’ for me!
I love to read novels like a maniac (and puhleez for those who want to crack a PJ here, that’s a metaphor only!). I listen to music a lot. My typical position at home is earphones plugged in and a novel in my hand, sitting by the edge of my bed all curled up, and every1 has to shout in my eardrums to get my attention.
Anyway, enough about me (though of course not yet, there’s a lot to come!). But basically, I want to talk and blab and fry any kinda topic I feel like ‘talking’ and ‘blabbing’ and ‘frying’, so whatever grabs my attention.............
Firstly I wanted to write a sorta ‘tribute’ to linguistics, coz I’m finally leaving it and i do feel bad that i won’t get to explore it further(though I am gonna keep it ‘at my side’ whichever way i can). Have to prepare an apt tribute, so will get back with it in my next post. Soon.
Aaaaaaah, so I welcome myself to the blogger’s inc. (since no1 volunteered to L)
Comments always invited (very eagerly. I could hold you to a gun-point if u don’t leave 1, but hey, no pressure!)