Yang: Positive, bright, masculine energy

I take offence at negative and feminine. Patriarchy, you can’t always make yourself out to be positive- watch out.

Anyway, I’m digressing. We’re hear to talk about the biggest narrative of my childhood. A narrative that has had a tremendous impact on me — both psitive and negative — for better I hope.

For all masoochist readers out there. My writing will always try to end on a positive note-even if the stories themselevs don’t. So pack your bags and cha cha.

The defence officer’s daughter

Marina Keegan. A magna cum laude from Yale. Her digital footprint screams creative, bubbly, lively, charming, super friendly, helpful, and optimistic.

A huge shoutout to Taylor Reneau, one of my most inspiring favorite YouTubers, for introducing me to this enigma called Marina Keegan.

The title of her book-The opposite of loneliness seemed like water to my parched social life. Naturally, I began by conducting a background check on the author (don’t want to waste my time on a bad reviewed author you know-oh Ramya, who are you kidding). To say I was floored is an understatement. By the time I read about her, I was a mess of myriad emotions-sadness,jealously,regret, a tinge of self loath at not being like her, and a wave of get you butt off the ground at least now Ramya.

Her work, as in the book is hard to fathom, keeping in mind her age. Her first story is morbidly ironic(more on this as you read on): it talks about a college girl coming to terms with her ‘sorta’ recent boyfriend’s death. Her fiction work progressively talks about people, places and situations so diverse and well put together, you wouldn’t believe how a 20 year old found the experience to talk about these emotions. Her stories get me thinking-about the ephemeral nature of life, of my priorities in life, what I look for in my loved ones, and as usual this left me with a sense of general melancholy. Melancholy partly because I have no idea what I want my priorities in life to be. (Up for a blog post, Ramya?) Evoking melancholy, as an emotion is good let me tell you. Its only so many people’s writing that can evoke emotions in you, whatever end, positive or negative, of the emotion spectrum these be on. This lady has the power to bring emotion both in fiction, non fiction and her life.

We’re so young. Its ridiculous to think we can’t achieve something or somebody has already done it and we’re too old or behind to measure up. (sic) These lines gave me the much needed push to buckle up.

A girl, or should I say lady, I would never forget. Now comes the part I’ve been deferring to.

Marina Keegan, this person whose mere digital foorprint seemed to have more life than my four years of college, passed away a week after passing magna cum laude from Yale. It was not a health disease. NO. It was after her boyfriend accidently fell asleep at the wheel.

The number of lives she touched and the mark she made in barely four years can be witnessed by the book her mentors, friends and family put together. Her impact on the institute and her undying spirit can only be estimated by the award instituted by Yale-the Marina Keegan Award for Excellence in playwriting- whichwill stand that test of time, much after we all move on.

Yes. This story is a reminder of how elastic your heart strings are. Mine, by the way, are quite sore since the last few days with so much pulling — thank you very much for asking.

Level 1 interaction unlocked

Today I couldn’t work well; switching back and forth between different social media tabs, flipping through others’ happening lives, funny videos and posts on FB, to the ‘inspiring’ to random to ‘why couldn’t I have been the one to write this type’ quora answers, going through youtube, giving in to clickbait, and amassing random knowledge on some esoteric topic.

However, today, I unlocked a level of social interaction. I was awkward around people, almost for the entirety of my BTech based on prior experiences(?) Enough is enough, I decided. Three years is too long a time. Time to turn over a new leaf. Ellie June, another teenage youtube’s advice rang at the back of my head — consider any person you’re intimidated by as my friend already. This gem of a advice WORKS gals. It was in the first/second video of hers I saw. It helped me soo much, I can’t even delineate properly. I stopped trying to pause and admire people’s normal conversations, or trying to fit in. I just considered them as old friends and interacted and it has made all the difference.
I may berate myself for watching so much youtube, reading so much fanfiction, spending an inordinate amount of time procastinating, however, let it never be said that I don’t learn from my distractions. I can safely say, my ‘social clues’ for interacting lately have majorly sprung up from these very youtube videos and reading about how friends interact.

Being 21 and claiming to be so socially awkward as to not know how to interact may seem far fetched, though sadly true. It makes up for an interesting story. Remind me sometime, will you?

Level 2 Interacting with people I admire/intimidated to talk to as equals

Realization did not come dawning upon me over the course of a day or two. For me, the process of understanding my social awkwardness was and still is a process.

I have two reasons in my mind right now, which according to me is what is feeding the awkwardness.

1. My lack of self-esteem/confidence because of which I fear that if I talk to people I find cool, they won't consider me cool in return. This works for elders/people I find cool in general
2. I don’t feel like spending too much time talking to people as I used to consider it a time waste.

I now realize that I just have to be myself to talk to people. Fuck what cool people think of me. I’m ME and they should like me or they aren’t worth my time.

I’m proud of how I interacted with A in Gurgaon. Someone I admire, I find cool, I caused them to laugh by being myself. I also ribbed them off but they couldn’t get angry cause of my playful tone. Yay! I have a playful tone which I could bring out because of my peace and happiness at that point! I want to continue his peacefulness and happiness throughout this year and make it my lifestyle.

In this post, we would examine how to build a CRF for the reddit database and try and improve it in the next post.

People come and go
into the everyday — 
the everyday that you consider life

a moment of inspiration,
momen’ of brightness,
on lucky occasions lasting
even after the doomed exit

only after
the cloud clears
you reflect why;
that ray of sushshine
can’t be you

you begin
your new agenda
positive and bright
takes a couple o’ days? a week?
for it to break
back into the
endless cycle
the contemplations
thinking its all for naught