Woke up @ 6am, got dressed, and stood in the line for 2 hours out Miller Hall in freezing 25F (-5C) temperatures to register for my Fall 2003 classes. Had a hot chocolate while waiting and read the first 100+ pages of A Thousand Acres. Still have to read 250+ pages, hopefully before Wednesday. Got Math quiz in a bit, have to study for it. My weekend @ home was pretty good and we had a lot of fun @ NYC, when we went to see my cuzin Purvi @ the annual cultural show @ her school. Pretty much all of the stuff there was amazing, from the Lion Dance to the Step dance in total darkness. I completed A Gesture Life yesterday, and have to write a report on it now.

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother writing this 'blog. What exactly am I writing... what I do or what I feel... Do I always write the truth? Do I only write the 'good' stuff and leave out the formidable 'bad'? Should I even bother writing the stuff that I do write and regret leaving out what I should? Lately, all I write about are events, actions, and plans. No feelings... no thoughts either. I guess I'm just too stressed out right now to do anything except complain about being overworked. It happens in the last month of every semester, the test of my mettle. Every semester, right around this time, I register for more classes than I can handle next semester. And every semester, right around this time, I regret taking so much load and having so many deadlines.

I just had to take one look @ last year's 'blog around this time to remember nothing is new this year, except of course, SNOW in APRIL! Oh well, I'm just hoping things will get a bit easier on me with time, though I don't see how, considering I have a fully loaded summer ahead of me, a very heavy study-load for Fall, and even more work in Spring 2004, hopefully my last semester in Rutgers. I haven't yet planned what I want to do next. Right now is the worst moment for me to plan anything that will decide my future. Though it is imperative that I quickly make up my mind and take steps towards achieving it, lest it might be too late.

Sometimes I feel like I'm being too harsh on myself; nobody asked me to dream of a PhD. Over and over I keep asking myself why am I doing all this, and as yet I've never been able to answer myself. I don't know why, I just have to. It's like some unspoken force that's driving my ambitions towards some unachieavable goal - as if I wereborn to study and work hard. On one hand, I have this rigorous eight-to-ten year tenure of relentless academic pursuation, and on the other, I can just stop after a B.Sc, get a decent job, and in time, start a family, quite like my best friends back in Calcutta.

I am fortunate that I have the freedom to choose the course of my life. I am unfortunate that I have yet to choose the course of my life. Often I act very confident of my plans, as if I've everything planned out two decades in advance, when I don't even know where I'll have my dinner tonight. Well, most of the times I am in fact quite proud of my sound decisions, if I may call them so. But it's at times like these, when I'm more confused than confident, that I find myself stuck in the whirlpool of 'What-Ifs'. There's a lot of what-ifs about me that a lot of people know - what if I wasn't a programmer, what if I hadn't come to US, what if I hadn't made the decision to study so much in mere four year... And then there's that bunch of what-ifs that I repeatedly keep asking myself; myself alone.

Sometimes I realize I sound quite shallow in my writings, other times, quite hyper, hopeful, and energetic. At this moment, I think I just sound morbidly taciturn, for I unwillingly choose not to divulge what irkes me at this very moment. More so, as I write this, I realize my selection of words is getting unusually figurative, quite distant from my usual prosaic flow of Pop-culture cliches. At first glance it is merely the award-winning literary works that I've been unenthusiastically indulging myself in for over a week now, rubbing off on me. Yet as I look deeper, it is not the recent reading that is prompting me to write as such, it is the fact that I can write in this way, and yet have forever refrained from doing so, by no choice of mine.

I always, and only, write what most people can understand without having to refer to a dictionary or a reference manual - for I was taught to write for others. I remember growing up, when I wanted to pen a document with unfamiliar multi-syllable words, often unpronounceable due to our strong Indian accents, I was criticized, even rebuked for being pompous and pretentious. Despite my ability to express myself eloquently using only the words that I felt were nothing short of appropriate, albeit uncommon in vulgar usage, I was told this is not how one should write. I should write so that everyone can read and understand easily. I realize that is true when one is attempting to convey facts and information. But not right now when I'm trying to express how I feel. Just for your reassurance, I'm feeling quite good right now. Nothing to worry about overall. What I mean is that I'm slowly realizing that I can indeed write well, have always been able to. Just that I was never challenged, never expected to pen a Pulitzer prize winning text. Am I saying that I write so well that I deserve literary honors? Far from it. I'm merely expressing my regrets for having to shape my writing skills to fit into the cliched journalistic mould - the one that's easy to read and understand. One can argue that using big words is not the only way to express one's thoughts, and certainly not the most popular. I had no response to that argument until right now. Now I know why I should not limit myself to writing what everyone can understand - because now I've decided to write for myself, and nobody else. When I write, I expect no readers, other than myself. If someone wants to look into my life, my thoughts, my writings, step into my shoes and look at it from my point-of-view, for you've already looked at me from your own. This doesn't mean my 'blog shall be utterly incomprehensible henceforth. It simply means I'll not stop myself from writing HOW I want to write. Of course, I will stop myself from writing WHAT I want, if I deem it too personal, vengeful, or potentially traumatic to anyone, including me. But no more shall I pretend to be a sixth grader bitching about the mess that his life is. Now, I shall masquerade as an English major sniveling at every convoluted contretemps that life excoriates me with :)

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