Life in the UK

In my life, the only thing I have enjoyed doing is travelling to places and collecting souvenirs. For some time now, I have been happy with where I am. There isn’t much to say except that I listen to myself slurping tea.

Thinking of this country’s history, I am happy that I have arrived here at the right time. I have been to Warwick, Brighton and my trip to Cambridge was blocked by a beautiful genie from heaven.

What sucks is the plumbing that has to be done.

But the good thing is that the architecture of the castles reminds me of clouds, brown branches of almost-dead trees and black grains of sand. There are books on the bookshelf and some postcards that I forgot to send to some dear friends. Clearly, I like holding onto things I like.

Ironing clothes takes out a lot of energy.

All I can say is that the temperature is just right, and spring is almost here.

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Today is a Prose Day

Today feels like a prose day. What runs in my veins, what shines before my eyes, a monolith of silence can only be interpreted by sentences, not poetic lines. These sentences are as different from lines as tadpoles are different from silkworms. Tadpoles grow into something; silkworms stay as they are. Both, interesting organisms in the cosmos.

I want to reflect on this week – one of those weeks, where nothing particularly interesting happened on the larger scale of things, but small things changed and therefore changes happened. For example, I finished a teen show called “Never Have I Ever” on Netflix. I don’t know why. It stereotypes the Indian-American experience to the degree where I was rolling my eyes non-stop. But I stuck through. I also watched “Behind the Curve”, a Netflix documentary about Flat Earth conspiracy theorists. I want to say that it opened my eyes to something, but most of the arguments seemed pseudoscientific to me. I think the patronizing attitude some scientists took towards these flat-earthers – that they were potential scientists that fell through the crack – seemed the most interesting to me. Have I been close to falling through the cracks? Or has my privilege, in terms of pills or therapy, always stopped me from going completely cuckoo? What makes me think that any of this is real, after all? Maybe we all are living in a terrarium and not a globe; who knows?

Next week is the Induction for my PhD program beginning at Leeds Beckett University. As you could probably sense, I’m losing my mind trying to stay steady. But I think its okay to be nervous and excited. This is a new chapter; a whole new experience awaiting on the other side. I have two expectations from life as I go through this new chapter – one, that my mind does not play tricks with me as it did a few months ago; two, that I go through this experience with an awareness of all the resources that can help me. These two expectations, or lowkey prayers I am sending out to the universe, contains everything I fear, everything I have buried deep into my psyche, everything I do not want to remember.

Some day I will write about losing my mind. That day is not today.

To happy beginnings and finding new arenas of pleasure. 😊

PhD Admission and other Life Updates

Been a while since I posted anything on here. It’s been a busy time, with the devil-year ending and bringing with it some good news. I secured PhD admission at Leeds Beckett University, UK and is currently in the process of the tedious visa application journey. It is hectic to say the least.

While the initial excitement has died down, (read: waking up thinking “we’re moving to Leeds”) I still find myself looking up Quora posts on PhD life, and Instagram photos of snowclad Leeds. While its too early to say when the move might actually happen, thanks to the new COVID-19 strain in the UK, it is reasonable to expect a February in Yorkshire, as one of my proud and overjoyed former Professor put it.

I would love to elaborate on what I want to be working on, but this blog post might not do justice to the topic. I am still reading around the topic and hoping to gather some kind of foundational basis on the subject, than make a fool of myself in front of my guide. I am also prone to 4 am anxiety, resulting in an hour-long early morning reading and then a guilty, yet satisfied return to bed for more sleep. This has been life for the past two weeks.

In other news, my book launch with The Quarantine Train is scheduled to happen this Sunday, January 10th at 6 PM. Will be posting more details on social media soon.

I have also begun using the Alicia Souza planner, which is bringing me unreasonable joy for a 20-something year old. It has all those cutesy stickers that should not, logically, make someone happy, but want to throw up and yet, its good to have some colour and joy in life. I’d recommend TinyChange planner though – it’s the best one I’ve used.