Life's too short: 12 to 13

Wide open spaces and crystal water

 2012 was a very special year.

It was the year I understood the meaning of rock bottom. That new low that takes pretty much everything out of you leaving a mass of skin and bones.

You begin to question the point of many things, it's like wildfire; first toward yourself and eventually toward everyone and everything around you.

This was the year I realized how emotionally frail I could be. How I realized that I did in fact held many things in account to determine how happy I was at the time.

Thankfully, with a bit a faith and support from close friends (you know who you are, and you don't know how much it meant to me that you were there, thank you so much)  I managed to overcome that and made my 2012 a year of firsts

Academically, I got my first A in a University Level Math Course. And it's more amazing given the fact that I got a C the previous term before. It came to me that in University, how much you study wont help if you don't study effectively. Without a solid idea on what your planning to achieve during your study period (getting an A or anything in between does not count as a goal), its tough to manage expectations. Imagine studying very very hard and in the end your effort is recognized with a grade lower than what you expected. I learned from my friend that you should never think about points lost but rather points gained because YOU did put effort to study so had you not studied a particular section, things might have been different.

Enough about academics, lets talk about breakthroughs and firsts !

1. Had an epic journey all across America and Canada

Vineyards

 There's a reason why stories about travel are always so long (like the The Odyssey which was 1000+ pages). Words, pictures, videos, pretty much any form of media can't do justice to explain the beauty, the mystery and the wonder of visiting a place other than what your used to. You get this feel, kind of like asking a girl you barely know in class out for coffee.It's exciting, nerve wracking but on a whole extremely uncertain.People like to ask, " Hey, Im planning to go to ...., how is it like there ? " which I believe is futile (because experiences are always subjective and you will never get the same experience anywhere) and in fact will ruin your experience of learning a new place. Sometimes, its just much more satisfying to go into the deep end and experience everything first hand. In addition, it saves us the trouble of taking about cliches during conversation

" Hey how was London ?"
"Oh, as people say, wet and dull"

(The next best conversation killer to " It was good" or " Okay, i guess")

    2. Living in a Bachelor Pad with an Amazing View and great Room Mates

What I wake up to every morning !

I'm not gonna lie when I say Engineering is a drag ! It demands a lot of love like the neediest girlfriend/boyfriend you'll ever meet in your life. Days left unslept, Coffee grounds brewed and voraciously guzzled every morning before class, Exams unstudied and House rent unpaid.

Thankfully, I'm blessed to have such understanding and great roommates.They all bring something different to the table, one's a suit for suit replica of JFK (without a bullet lodged in his brain) and the other is a supporter of the "greatest human collective of all time"(1), Liverpool FC (IF YOU DID NOT LAUGH AT THAT, YOUR OBVIOUSLY A LIVERPOOL FAN AREN'T YOU ?). You have all the elements of a great boarding school life, a great view, great company, great dining and conversations. Sometimes we also kick back to a bit of old school vinyl records from the Beatles using our roomies gramophone  The Ultimate Bachelor Pad ? Since we got our new TV, that's definitely a YES !

3. Survival Skills 101- How to operate a stove and an oven

Baked Chicken is my  forte (for now)

Last year, I was indebted to the folks at the Chestnut Dining Hall for fulfilling all my dietary needs. This year however was different, I was on my own and frankly didn't know much about stoves and oven. To save time, our house shared cooking duties with another house 3 floors up. In total, there were 7 of us, and I cooked solely on Fridays.The best part about cooking on Fridays is that since the following day was a weekend, you know everyone will have to come back home for dinner at some point (unless, they had assignments due on Monday, which were quite often ) but nonetheless, I still managed to gain some sort of fluency with an oven and stove. 4 months of cooking (free styling as I call it because I have no idea what i'm doing 70% of the time) has made me a lot more confident in my survival skills (it was either that or eating out which sucks money out of your pocket, IT WAS SURVIVAL IN THE MOST FISCAL OF TERMS).

Those are pretty much my highlights of 2012, if anyone asks me about 2013, I have 2 things to say about it

1. I'm carrying over my list from 2012 (which for the life of me, I can't remember)
2. I want to simplify my life, things are just getting way too cluttered for my own good


Have a belated Happy New Year, its overrated anyway, at least the fireworks were good.

(1) This is a quote from John Green during one of his crash course videos, I think it was the last one for his history videos. He writes amazing books like The Fault in Our Stars and an Abudance of Katherines. I get this feeling that 50-60 years from now, our children or grandchildren will regard him as their version of J.D Salinger or John Fitzgerald