tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53401101090600312722024-03-13T02:02:06.137+01:00The CyniqueenConveniently cynical. Procrastinates now and then. Literary, creative, bemused; Waiting for Something to happen.Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-18522994244764030282015-08-22T11:51:00.001+02:002015-08-22T11:52:38.526+02:00Little Nothings - I<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A question mark floats around in her head languidly, unhurriedly. Unattached to any articulate thought. But still there. Breathing, swimming as do tiny fish on the ocean floor. It darts from one corner to another. Not thinking, not working - just a small burst of curiosity, of wonderment - just the <i>feeling </i>of a question.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The poor air conditioning of the hotel room swirls warm air around, and in Lila's head, spurts bursts of sunset-orange light around the hotel room. She puts on a thin robe over her nightdress, opens the sliding door to the balcony and sits in one of the plastic chairs facing the ocean. The clouds all look like question marks.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">----</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Note: Skipping past the apologies, the I'm-so-sorry-I-haven't-been-posting - it's been a phase where I haven't felt like writing. Every time the thought would occur to me, I'd feel like I'd overeaten and was being forced to eat some more. So I didn't. </span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now that little magic flakes of creativity have started a low buzzing in my head again, I'll write those thoughts here. As they are. Little to no editing. I'm going to try this out. Okay? Okay.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cheers and ocean love from Greece (from Greece!),</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span><br />
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<br />Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-82889435347978226502013-07-17T10:37:00.000+02:002013-07-17T10:37:18.838+02:00Listalicious<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My life has been the most pleasant ordeal of dealing with thesis stress over the last few months. </span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In this time I have surpassed my own prior levels of low self esteem, constantly in war with the dark, evil part of me that thrives on negative, self-deprecating thoughts and the positive, beamy part of me that radiates goodness and encouragement and tries to sprinkle my self esteem with tiny, but colourful rainbows with pots of feel-goodness at the end (read: writing encouraging messages on post-its and sticking them on the wall against which the study table rests. The evil part is such a little prick that it picked out a capital L on one of the post-its and thought 'Haha. Loser. Just like you!' And just like that, it hurled some rainbows from the Happy me into a burning, stinking pile of negativity, fanning the putrid flames).</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's not quite as bad as I just described. I'm not crying or hugging my knees and rocking back and forth or something. I just got carried away with the liberation of writing in a language I can properly express myself in after so long. </span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyway, it HAS been rather cumbersome, boring and challenging at times, but I don't have to work much longer and I have already started my list of things to do after I'm done.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Since dealing with the stress has been my main activity (besides, of course, working on the damn thing), I thought I would, being the benevolent person that I am, share with you my favoured methods of coping with the horror.</span><br />
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<b><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u>Coping mechanism #1:</u></span></b><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate oh shit I have to submit in a month. Oh well. Procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate <span style="font-size: x-small;">procrastinate procrastinate</span> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate procrastinate</span></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">How do I manage to achieve such colossal levels of procrastination, you ask? Why I'll tell you: tumblr tumblr pinterest facebook blogger pinterest blogger facebook tumblr</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u>Coping mechanism #2: The Pretend Mechanism:</u></span></b><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">*Play reggae music as you work, pretend you're on the beach.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">*Pretend the stand fan whirring behind you is the sound of the waves.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">*Pretend the murky cup of coffee is a glass of pina colada.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">*Pretend that the healthy snack next to you (because you turn into a feeding monster when you work, so you have to eat stuff like cucumbers and puffed rice) is a plate of something seafoody.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">*Pretend that the linoleum floor is actually cool sand.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">*Marvel at the new personal levels of escapism you have just achieved.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">*Burst into angry Ihateeverything tears.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">(I didn't actually burst into tears, just sighed at the new levels of patheticalness).</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">****</span></div>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sometimes, well more often than not, I'm just sitting still, frustrated because my mind has switched off and refuses to give me any material to write about. So...</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u>Things I do when I'm creatively blocked:</u></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></b></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Stare out the window.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Stare at the floor.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Stare at my freaky pimple upon a pimple in the mirror.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Stare at the mirror. Not my reflection in the mirror. Just the mirror.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Stare at my notes.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Type inane things and then backspace like wheeeeeeeee.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Drink coffee.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Drink jasmine tea.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Drink buttermilk.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">With salt, with mint, with mint and sugar.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Pace restlessly.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sweep the floor like a maniac.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Open the window.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Close the window.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Snack.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Fill ink in fountain pen.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ask everyone I know how they're doing.</span></div>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">How's everyone doing?</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-25084611380936481482013-06-28T11:34:00.003+02:002013-06-28T11:34:54.253+02:00A tiny, irrevocable Statement of Truth<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I started this blog one night in 2008 on a whim, because I was sick of studying and wanted to vent (five years later, I'm still studying, heh. That's a different story, though). I barely took it seriously until about three years ago.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After a longish spell of abandoning all types of writing last year, I've been prodding myself to write more consistently again. </span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm perfectly clear about the aims of this blog: not self promotion, not the number of followers, but simply the pleasure of writing. The fact that it's online simply aids in putting a bit of pressure on me to keep at it. Because I can be incredibly lazy sometimes, even when it comes to doing the things I love. Maybe this happens with everyone, I dunno.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The fact that it's online makes me think that someone, somewhere, at some point of time might stumble upon my writing and so I have to try to write in the best way that I can. I keep honing my writing. Rewriting, double-checking several times over, which I know I would not have done otherwise. </span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Besides, even when I do write things offline, I don't go shoving them under people's noses for feedback, you know? So putting them online is a good compromise, precisely because of the low readership and all. If someone does like something I've written and wants to say so, or has something to add, that's great. And if not, well, at least I have the feeling that someone might. And that eggs me on. Plus, there's the whole big blogging community, and if you're well connected, it can be a lot of fun. (Note: I'm horribly connected...but it's still fun).</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Why a sudden introspection of this blog that I know barely has any regular readers? No, it's not some silly blog anniversary, I think those are corny. I hate to admit it, but a few weeks ago,I felt slightly dejected that I haven't been getting any sort of a response to anything I've written in a while (except for this one time I accidentally published a draft that was never meant to see the light of day or darkness of night. It was a very very bitter rant about the bad week I was having. K. got in touch immediately and then proceeded to send me many funny pictures so that by the end of it, I was struggling not to laugh out loud at the workplace).</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I don't publicize the blog on Facebook or the internet in general, least of all because it's anonymous. Which I realize doesn't matter much. It's not like I'm dishing out scandalous details of my extremely eventful, fascinating life. I mean,I literally haven't spoken to anyone face to face but the cashiers at the supermarket all week. And the concierge of my building, because my kitchen counter sank last week when I put a pot full of potatoes on it. Sank, as in it is now uneven and if I spill some water on the stove, it trickles down to the back. Because my kitchen counter is slanting. And that, that was the most interesting thing to happen to me probably since spring started. It's because I'm writing my thesis though, not to worry. My dead social life will revive in precisely a month and a half. </span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But I digress.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This blog is in need of a makeover, name and all, because as it was recently pointed out, I am the complete opposite of a cynic. I was a firm believer when I started out, but things have changed over the years. I also need some people who know about this stuff to help me out, but right now, I only have time for my thesis. And aimless day dreaming about visiting home. And all the people I will meet and the things I will eat. And the things I will eat. Did I mention the things I will eat?</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyway, I suppose I wanted to put pen to paper ('fingers to keyboard' will never have the same charm, so shut up if you were going to correct me) and say it to myself: it's okay to want a little validation sometimes. Who doesn't?</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Also, I disagree with the band of people who think that blogging is such a self involved and selfish thing to do, that people just do it to get attention, that they think it makes them feel smug in some way (said people were unaware that I blog). It's a mean outlook.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Aaanywhichway, to those who say these things, if you don't like blogging, then do stay away.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am fully aware of the fact that my epic declaration will probably not garner so much as a cough in way of responses <span style="font-size: x-small;">(which is okay, really)</span>, but here I am anyway. Very, um, determined. And strong. </span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Determined and strong. Looking like this at everyone who happens to read this post:</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5AFEOPL5ytEGelzVYAdz1n0vLd5ENcTTOpfF6eRmkbutxXFXipO09Q3HvL0GAg-vbVeblRyP_6u8fq90aUefvIAbE-pPb7H4Jwez_Xs3OXk2D2pQWNjvlnwLnuwdfSYjhvsOzgP1h4lI/s1600/nativity34.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5AFEOPL5ytEGelzVYAdz1n0vLd5ENcTTOpfF6eRmkbutxXFXipO09Q3HvL0GAg-vbVeblRyP_6u8fq90aUefvIAbE-pPb7H4Jwez_Xs3OXk2D2pQWNjvlnwLnuwdfSYjhvsOzgP1h4lI/s400/nativity34.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">'Choo lookin at? <br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Via Allie Brosh at <a href="http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.de/2010/12/year-kenny-loggins-ruined-christmas.html" style="background-color: #ead1dc;" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">this brilliant blog</span></a>.</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-35156091569678360882013-06-19T12:31:00.000+02:002013-06-28T12:48:51.665+02:00Being an Intern (The Flip Side)<span style="color: purple;">If I hadn't finally, at 26, been a few months away from starting a career (that's right, 26 and starting a career. Not 'building upon' or 'improving' or 'progressing ahead on an already brilliantly successful path', but starting.), I would've called this blog 'The eternal Intern' - really, I would've.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">I've done, let's just say, <i>several</i> internships. And lucky for you, I'm in a wisdom dispelling mood today. Now, I'm a sneaky little intern. I'm not going to tell you which thing I learnt or did or didn't do where. I'm not naming any places I worked (or might be working) at, on account of I don't want to discredit anyone and lose my own credibility with them. And respect and stuff. So. Here we go:</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">Things about being an intern that you should be aware of (the flip side):</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<u><b><span style="color: purple;">Starting out at the very bottom</span></b></u><br />
<span style="color: purple;">You will have to put your ego aside. And you will have to do this for many aspects of the job.In India, in a lot of places (especially government organisations) they have '<i>chaprasis</i>' or 'peons': people whose job entails doing errands, making <i>chai </i>and serving it, carrying files and messages across and so on. This is not the case in Germany. Everyone does everything here. That's the official version.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">So your position as an intern is very low. Imagine a deep, mouldy well with smelly fungus at the bottom and rainbow cakes on top. You live in the slimy fungus. Now, in some companies, a few rainbow cake crumbs might be scattered your way (good quality work assignments, new things to learn, etc) and sometimes, they literally send across internship caviar - this is usually when they're short of a colleague and so you have to do the job. Except you do it for free.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">Just to clarify, I have never done an internship where I wasn't respected and the people weren't really nice. I'm only talking about this in terms of the sort of work you're given. Or not given, as the case may be.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<u><b><span style="color: purple;">Show me the moneh (or don't)</span></b></u><br />
<span style="color: purple;">How shall I put this: you're literally not even going to be paid a cent. I have never been paid for doing an internship (although I have earned money for articles I've written while doing the internship, yay!). And it sucks. And it really makes me think about the way interns are sometimes exploited, where doing the internship as a part of a course is obligatory and you're doing a full time, unpaid internship. How is it fair if you have to pause your student job in lieu of an unpaid one?</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">When you have an interview for an internship, it's tricky bringing up the topic of payment. I've gotten used to asking it as a sort of customary question which is always answered negatively. Don't be surprised if the question is met with muffled laughter - it hasn't happened to me, but there was this one time I asked the question, I was answered with a "sorry, we don't pay interns" and I swear I almost heard laughter and this subtext: "bwahahahaha. Oh, honey. NO."</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">I've just remembered, I did once get a gigantic packet of toilet paper rolls at an internship because they had ordered too many. I genuinely thought that was awesome of the boss. Does that count as some form of payment?</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<b><u><span style="color: purple;">No one has high expectations of you</span></u></b><br />
<span style="color: purple;">Which is horrid when you first thing about it, but it's great because (a)you're starting with a clean slate and (b)you can ask for and will receive honest feedback without feeling bad about it because the whole point is that you're there to learn. Which makes me think that people are probably more careful when they start out, they try to do their jobs better, you know? Like how you drive more carefully when you've just got your licence and five years later you're swerving like it's the bat mobile and not the pot hole filled roads of India?</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<b><u><span style="color: purple;">Your time is the least important in the entire organization</span></u></b><br />
<span style="color: purple;">Not having anything to do while you'e an intern is arguably the very worst bit. I detest it. I mean truly, completely abhor. If it was a tangible thing, this waiting, I'd go find one of those clubs they show in prehistoric age cartoons and batter it and beat the crap out of it till it was no more.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;">But this is something that my experience as an intern has taught me - your time is less important than the lone office fly every one is trying to swat. And less important than the people trying to swat it. Less important than the boss who calls you into their office via telephone (via <i>telephone</i>, this bit is crucial to what follows) to DIAL NUMBERS for long distance calls they're making. This actually happened to me.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">It's bad. But you just have to learn to deal with it. And while you're dealing, find ways to kill time while still managing to look busy (basic tip: don't surf cat memes with mouth half open). Step one while doing useless internet surfing at work? MUTE THAT COMPUTER. In fact, you know what? The very first thing you do when you start an internship? Mute that computer! You don't want to leave the sound on and then accidentally click on the video of the dog that laughs like a hyena. Or a Harlem shake video - imagine that blasting in your office space.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;">My point is, you're going to spend a lot of time doing nothing. A LOT. A lot, a lot.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">I'm not going to finish this off by tying a pretty little bow around the whole thing and saying that oh, it's not that bad. You still meet new people and learn how not to be. You start forming your own professional network. Because you do. Of course you do. But I'm not spelling it out.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">Because the good stuff spoils you and let's you think life's alright. The bad stuff, however, turns you into a tough mofo and lets you know that being a grown up is not easy.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;">Not easy, but still, it's good fun. You get full freedom to decide when to clean up the cat poop in the living room. And, no one forces you to eat your greens.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">The Cyniqueen</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">P.S: Seriously though. It's pretty okay. Don't be afraid.</span>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-78747210459482568002013-05-22T11:42:00.000+02:002013-05-23T00:37:18.203+02:00Again and again<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What's with me and monsoon-sickness? I woke up today and with my eyes still shut against the noise of the world, I could tell that it was overcast outside (well, mostly because dazzling sunshine wasn't trying to rip my eyes open like it usually does. I have flimsy curtains). And for no reason, I thought of how it is when the monsoon finally starts one late evening and it's absolutely divine because the heavens have saved you from the scorching heat. And the lights go out of course, because that's what happens in Goa. It's a natural reaction to everything. </span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So anyway, you don't care about the electricity cut because it's raining and it's finally cool now. You slap on some mosquito repellent (anyone else remember the sticky, goopy, thick, pistachio-coloured, strong smelling Odomos cream?) and get into bed, happily lulled to sleep with the rhythmic sound of the rain drumming on the roof.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Do you remember that feeling, when you wake up the next day and you've forgotten that the monsoon started, but then you feel the overcast darkness and hear the errant drops still falling softly from the leaves of trees? I didn't even know that this was a thing, that it was a real, legitimate feeling like the first day of school until I woke up today and felt it.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I must be homesick again, because every time that happens, I start dreaming of family weddings in minute detail. Cousins happily married in real life are made to go through the wedding ordeal all over again in my dream world, houses are exchanged (relatives from dad's side of the family get married in homes from mum's side of the family and vice versa). Last night, it was two cousins getting married at the same time. I guess it can't be anything but homesickness.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Or maybe it's just escapism? The last couple of weeks have been tinged with an oozing guilt, leaking out of my mind. I still have some time to go before I submit this thesis, but sometimes I find myself thinking if I honestly need that second Master's degree. It's bollocks, actually, I'm just trying to avoid it all.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Started reading 'Autobiography of a Yogi' by Paramahansa Yogananda in an attempt to cleanse mind of bad thoughts. And because I need to read something before I sleep every night. I thought of re-reading Bridget Jones' Diary or The God of Small Things, but then I thought may be I need a dose of spirituality in these troubled mental times.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Also, I finished reading Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh, my very first time reading him (brilliant, but not for me) and The Great Gatsby, which was also sort of okay.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyway, I have decided to work at home today, because it's raining so perfectly outside. And I'm wearing my tent like night gown and I don't want to change into decent day clothes accepted by society just yet.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I love wearing lazy clothes while I work, don't you? I love being a slob <strike>sometimes</strike>, I love it.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Raindrops and wisdom,</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-85311544810536241592013-04-25T14:07:00.000+02:002013-04-25T14:07:22.741+02:00When it rains in Berlin<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgm1jlk0Ax6jVPhALnFu3GLmEGLkTvLpWky-aA6Bh25ItkNPbZ1eniVbaWC4BT4s5JUuZoFOb3b6Qa_z3v4hV7C_0COLnB1Bc0ohaZpkxoNHWy8BL8tMXKHRIuQy9Kb2ZEGEOCdzBogm8/s1600/Rain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgm1jlk0Ax6jVPhALnFu3GLmEGLkTvLpWky-aA6Bh25ItkNPbZ1eniVbaWC4BT4s5JUuZoFOb3b6Qa_z3v4hV7C_0COLnB1Bc0ohaZpkxoNHWy8BL8tMXKHRIuQy9Kb2ZEGEOCdzBogm8/s640/Rain.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">By <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lilymonster/4829690474/" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">Anomalily </span></a>via Flickr</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Something finally gives way. The panicked desperation for a delayed spring, still needing to wear earmuffs and thick gloves. Piles of old snow blankets, dirty and tinged with Berlin's black soil but determinedly solid, unrelenting, refusing to thaw. They cling still on tops of shrubs, collected in muddy heaps on sides of roads and sidewalks, on hidden corners of roofs and deserted patches of earth.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The sparrows still chirp, their loud cries defiant, shrill in the unseasonably crisp freeze at this time of the year.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Then, something breaks. You're too warm in that winter coat, so you switch back to your thinner jacket, still cautious, still painfully aware of Berlin's fickle weather swings.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But it stays that way. And then, out of nowhere, snow turns into rain. Not piddly no-drops like you're standing next to a fountain, but <i>rain </i>rain. Drops like spears, crashing on the perfectly smooth pallid roads, barraging on everyone, ratting out weak umbrellas.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You blink around and wait. For that muddy, earthy fragrance when the first drops of rain sizzle on the scorching, wrinkled, thirsty soil. For the wafting smells of hot fried <i>bhaji</i>, <i>pakoras </i>and <i>samosas</i>. For warm, roasted peanuts in newspaper cones. For signs of little stalls crowded with people, squinting at the rain, a rustic glass of hot cardamom <i>chai </i>in their cool hands, blowing on it to cool it down.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You wait for that squelch of shoes in the water rivulets born out of the downpour. For the splashes of water as people on two wheelers, late for work, irritated with errant raindrops sliding through their raincoats and wetting their backs, speed by, drenching hems of <i>Kurtas </i>and pants with muddy water.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It starts to rain harder. I wait for chaos. For street urchins and school children on their way home from school, jumping in puddles. For the loud croaks of hidden frogs. For the electricity cuts that don't happen.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Back in Berlin, the tram rattles to a stop and everyone gets in, irritably wiping the raindrops off their minds.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Because here, in this perfect world so far away from home, not a hair is out of place. Bright umbrellas have popped up everywhere, people scurry past me. No one's cooking food on the street, no crowds have huddled around rickety food and <i>chai </i>stalls and no one is cheerful at the spring that has brought warmth but rain instead of sunshine.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">How could they be happy about it, how could they begin to understand, when they don't know what magic monsoon conceals in its muddy, splashing, trickling, cooling folds?</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">*******</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I wrote this on one of the first days of spring a couple of days back, when it felt like monsoon in Goa. In Berlin.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And this song kept playing in my head on loop all day. Sigh.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/cmD6GfZgKX8" width="420"></iframe>
</span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">-The Cyniqueen</span><br />
<br />Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-70316386059455547962013-03-24T10:44:00.000+01:002013-03-24T10:44:37.400+01:00A random list of miscellaneous things<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Since I think I've sort of been bogging everyone down talking about the depressing winter that REFUSES to end, and also because it's been long since I've done one of these, I'm making a random list: </span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXiWujKi_9HklGQoV_l_hlbv-bMT9N58KtsE7XfXGmCO6QqJCjUZXw-eeSBuBuAocAsQ_77ZYQEGw5xvjsqp3B33HhOXqHJ9aSMhNRHVUWFMcQxqiNp-Us-n9qbkIw5DLu110hyphenhyphenNspPW8/s1600/wake+up+sleep+survive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXiWujKi_9HklGQoV_l_hlbv-bMT9N58KtsE7XfXGmCO6QqJCjUZXw-eeSBuBuAocAsQ_77ZYQEGw5xvjsqp3B33HhOXqHJ9aSMhNRHVUWFMcQxqiNp-Us-n9qbkIw5DLu110hyphenhyphenNspPW8/s400/wake+up+sleep+survive.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Via weheartit.com</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Snow and frosty cold in Berlin is a fuckillion times better than boiling heat in Pune or Goa.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm getting a lot of great practical experience in my new internship.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And it's in this lovely neighbourhood with just the right balance of diversity, coffee shops, cleanliness and quaintness. I've honestly never seen anything like it.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I scrubbed the floor of my tiny apartment last weekend and it is now back to a respectable standard of cleanliness. Before that, it was so dirty (oh god I can't believe I am typing this even as I type it) that I was too disgusted to exercise on it, because I sometimes do <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surya_Namaskara" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">Surya Namaskar</span></a>, where it's imperative to have a clean floor *hangs head down in shame. And then sees now sparkling floors and feels less bad.*</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I don't posses the ability to pack light. Like if you took all my DNA, pried it apart or wrung it really hard to get every single essence of my traits (dormant and active), you would not find amidst the greasy juice, the trait of packing light. My bag which I carry to work (which is half an hour away from my place) hurts my shoulder because it weighs like 18 kilos. It seems that my prehistoric ancestor should not have survived on account of the giant dinosaur would have killed him if he insisted on carrying all his cave rocks and animal skin-skirts with him everywhere. But then again, I'm really good at raising each eyebrow in quick succession to a beat and it seems to me that evolution decided that the unibrowed Neanderthal should be allowed to pass on this miraculous talent to his progeny. (Okay, Neanderthals and dinosaurs didn't coexist, I'm aware. But two words: poetic license).</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I love wearing <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=kurti+tops&hl=en&sa=X&rlz=1C1TSNO_enDE520DE520&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=pcJOUbOVCsajtAbiy4GADA&ved=0CD4QsAQ&biw=1792&bih=667" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">kurtis </span></a>in Berlin. Besides the fact that kurti and jeans is the most comfortable daily wear on the planet, it makes me feel very exotic. I can never, ever wear a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bindi_(decoration)" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">bindi </span></a>on a kurta here, though. Just, no.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For a while now, I have found this brand of ceylon-assam tea bags that taste like proper Indian chai. And then I found ginger tea bags, which is actually just ginger water. So I mixed both to make adrak chai <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(ginger tea)</span>. Didn't work.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Not being able to talk to my family regularly sucks. Internet problems make Skype impossible at times. I love whatsapp though.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I had started reading Churchill's biography (because I like biographies) but last week, I officially and very guiltily abandoned it because it was too full of military, imperialistic jargon.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Once, when I was extremely distracted by my own thoughts,I walked into a wall. This happened in class. Embarrassing as it was, thankfully, it happened in Germany. If it was in class in India, I would have tots had a white <span style="background-color: #ead1dc;"><i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_hydroxide" target="_blank">chuna</a></i> </span>mask on my face to add to the mortification.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">People sometimes leave garbage bags in the elevators in my building. I hope they crap their pants in public for every time they do this.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">-The Cyniqueen </span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-14521362555980267752013-03-12T12:19:00.000+01:002013-03-12T21:14:15.918+01:00Ain't no sunshine when you live in Berlin<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1PDCsu-MXBdJ5oHzcMv9jDfSIggCqZmqr7Ac-vF4zrToaVkr0DqPNV3FUSxF1wEiilKyA7jQhACKnvULYhBwwo_jzsGrw4JL9pgnFH3hFfvSGE4OjBPEmMAg21IBsRo2wXGrdLZPseQA/s1600/Cat-in-the-Snow-Wallpaper-cats-28363007-1280-1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1PDCsu-MXBdJ5oHzcMv9jDfSIggCqZmqr7Ac-vF4zrToaVkr0DqPNV3FUSxF1wEiilKyA7jQhACKnvULYhBwwo_jzsGrw4JL9pgnFH3hFfvSGE4OjBPEmMAg21IBsRo2wXGrdLZPseQA/s400/Cat-in-the-Snow-Wallpaper-cats-28363007-1280-1024.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;">So cute I can't even</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;">There's a strange glowing light in the sky right now, and it feels...different, a little like biting cold, but extremely pleasant somehow. Oh wait, that's the sun. No wait. Nope, never mind, its gone back into the butt of the clouds where it has been residing for the last few months. Seriously? I'm not even exaggerating. Remember how I started off <span style="background-color: #ead1dc;"><a href="http://www.cyniqueen.blogspot.de/2013/02/kickass-cloudy-procrastination.html" target="_blank">my last post</a></span>? I don't always do that.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;">Usually, I'm not the sort of person who sits with my chin in my hands, pining away when it's a cloudy day. I mean, sure, it's really pleasant when the sun is out. Except in the summer in India when it just stops short of searing into your skin and makes you want to wear an unmeltable ice-outfit at all times.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;">So anyway, over the last few weeks, since January actually, the sky has been a dirty mix of ash grey mingled with a pale dying blue. All the time. And I thought may be I was making too big a deal out of it, but then I read that this winter has been the darkest since 1950 something and it's been the second darkest winter in Germany since they started keeping records. So I'm not paranoid.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;">After all of this hopelessness, we had a glorious four or five days of sunshine and *gasp* warm-ish weather last week. Everyone hastily packed away their winter things, made plans to go sit in the sun with closed eyes and idiotic grins and started shaving their legs in anticipation of short, springy dresses (I mean just the women and our transgender friends, obviously. And cross dressers. You know, in a city like Berlin, this list could go on for a while, so I'm going to stop here).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;">But then, before you could say <i>Betriebswirtschaft</i>, it started snowing again. And it didn't stop all weekend. Out came the winter coats, the fancy hand creams and everyone's grumpy winter faces.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;">Now I really find myself craving some sunshine. At this point, I absolutely insist that you go <span style="background-color: #ead1dc;"><a href="http://whenyouliveinberlin.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">here </a></span>and <span style="background-color: #ead1dc;"><a href="http://whenyouliveinberlin.tumblr.com/post/44138613156/when-its-sunny-for-more-than-5-minutes" target="_blank">see this one in particular</a></span>. Someone at my office where I'm doing my current internship discovered it and everyone was laughing for like five years. Makes most sense for people who live here, of course.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;">So. That was the weather report for this quarter. Next week: Could your house plant be killing you? Stay tuned.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;"><br />Suspiciously,</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: purple;">The Cyniqueen.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Image via google.com</span></span></span>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-38699317861369661342013-02-17T22:40:00.001+01:002013-02-17T22:41:40.162+01:00Kickass cloudy procrastination<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir9Zi9zoRcoJQhfAynWugl9wE-l2J8p4AVCLEdZDRyPBmfUJRWD1Qgdex17cbQB7qz8r_ZRdYGiRQuQmtGMK3d3RLr2npjnLL5hiNdveb4S11nHfnwCg-c3Vwl9q6MjqGWNSLW-9MRyo8/s1600/SDC18146.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir9Zi9zoRcoJQhfAynWugl9wE-l2J8p4AVCLEdZDRyPBmfUJRWD1Qgdex17cbQB7qz8r_ZRdYGiRQuQmtGMK3d3RLr2npjnLL5hiNdveb4S11nHfnwCg-c3Vwl9q6MjqGWNSLW-9MRyo8/s640/SDC18146.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Berlin has been having a LOT of these days lately. On most days, it doesn't bother me me much. But I've slowly started waiting for the morning a splendorous shining sun just bursts through the clouds like an arrogant rock star and tells winter go to shove off. That would be nice.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Operation clean up, as I had called it in my mind because it sounded kickass, has in fact, <i>not </i>been kicking as much ass as I thought it would. But I try doing a little bit here and there when I have time from watching movies, which has been my main task lately. </span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As Utopian as it sounds, it's true: I have to begin writing what is called a Master thesis for my course soon, and I'm looking to do something with movies and the portrayal of journalism. So everyone I know has been obligated to produce a list of movies they can think of with journalists in them. I really want to do something with the movie <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_(2002_film)" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">Chicago</span></a>, one of my all time favourites, but I watched it again last night (for research, you understand. The cookies were merely a tasty aid to get my intellectual juices flowing) and I have a feeling I'm going to have to let it go. So any suggestions or ideas are welcome.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Also, Pinterest is threatening to destroy my life with its magnificent procrastination inducing powers. </span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And, I miss India.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Love and warm, glittering sun rays hitting you like <i>pew pew pew!,</i></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span><i> </i><br />
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<br />Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-5903758774252030732013-02-08T16:16:00.000+01:002013-02-08T16:16:00.241+01:00Dirty talk<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What's brewing, Netizens?</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've been feeling very positive about writing recently. Turns out, a figurative kick in the creative part of the brain helps.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Until a few days ago, no amount of proverbial kicking and prodding seemed to ignite my will to clean my tiny apartment, though. It was not a pretty picture, let me assure you. I kept sliding down a spiral of disillusionment. See, I always figured that at some point in your life, you stop acting like a child and kind of get your shit together and have this efficient household.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Getting your shit together means being a grown up.</b> It means becoming the kind of people your parents were when you were a kid. It means that things in the house progress smoothly and efficiently. It means bills being paid properly, the subscribed paper actually being read everyday, pets being fed at the right times and having a well stocked kitchen at all times. It means periodical cleaning and never running out of milk in the house. It means taking out the garbage every day and changing the sheets and pillow covers every week. It means the laundry getting done before you have to reach into the laundry bag to retrieve dirty socks because there aren't any clean ones. Thank God, at least I have a laundry bag and not some big old plastic shopping bag whose mouth wobbles every time you throw something in.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It really scares me to think what will happen if I never grow up and have like a baby or something. I have these really disgusting thoughts -- will I forget to change it, will I lose it in a pile of papers or forget where I put it? What if I have a family and I can never teach them that you're supposed to fold your clothes, keep them in the cupboard and pick them out in a civilized manner everyday? What if they think that the norm is to keep a knotted pile of wrinkled albeit clean clothes in the laundry basket (or in my case, one of those big, blue, brilliantly shapeless IKEA bags) and wear them out of the bag till it's empty and that's how you know it's time to wash the clothes again. Small saving grace, though: I always, but always, make sure my kitchen counter is clean, because I grew up with the 'food is sacred' philosophy and I end up feeling really guilty when it's dirty.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When I was a child, and then when I got older, I just figured somewhere down the line everyone kind of 'adults up', stops messing around and starts living like someone's watching them. I was still waiting for my imaginary <i>beobachter </i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(*watcher/observer. But it sounds so much better in German)</span>. But I guess they're not coming.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So after this horrid phase of disillusionment, I admitted to myself, very grudgingly, that there is no magical, springy moment where you learn to be grown up -- you just have to do it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And that's how my week's been. Other things? Cooking chicken curry for friends over a really fun dinner, landing a very promising internship, beginning to be able to see a still-hazy but certain end to my student-life a few months from now and really, really wanting a cat, thanks to <a href="http://www.worldforall.in/" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">this NGO</span></a> in Mumbai who's doing such a commendable job and posting the most adorable pictures of animals for adoption on Facebook. Which makes me break into a string of incomprehensible, mushy baby talk. Which makes for some embarrassing moments when I'm out in public, with sane, functional people around and I realise that I can't control the mushy squeals.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Eeeeeeeeee,</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span><br />
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<br />Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-75604147197177286792013-01-30T22:57:00.001+01:002013-05-22T21:34:42.974+02:00Smokin' mad<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I love that in Berlin, you can go out of the house wearing literally whatever you want and not get stared at in the U Bahn. I love how the roads are full at 3 am on a Saturday morning and the delicious smell of soft, hot french fries wafts from little eateries that would probably sell <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batata_vada" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">batatawadas </span></a>in India.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What I don't like about Berlin, besides <a href="http://www.cyniqueen.blogspot.de/2012/05/cause-growing-up-is-awfuller-than-all.html" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">the Crazies</span></a>, is the smoke. I don't mean weed, although you don't chance upon its sweet-ish smell very often in Berlin. Just sometimes, when wisps escape from under the <i>Studentenwohnheim </i>doors or at underground pubs. The smell of weed doesn't bother me. Nicotine does.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The fact is, for all of Germany's love of rules, they go easy on Berlin. Which is may be a good thing when it comes to breaking the pedestrian signal or for people with the aforementioned weed. But Berlin missed the memo on smoking being hazardous to your health. Berlin, my Berlin of the fat birds, the Schrippe and the alternative culture, encourages smoking.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's not just the second hand smoking, which is bad as it is. It's that ugly stench. The smell of nicotine clogs your nose, fills your lungs with a burning, singing smell. It hits you straight away. And worst of all? It stays. It slinks into your clothes when you're not looking, and sits in your hair and on the inside of your coat - which means almost every time I go out on a weekend in Berlin, I come back smelling like the smoking room at airports. I then proceed to hang my coat, my scarf, my top and jeans (and several other layers of clothing I'm wearing because it's winter) on a hanger and hang them in various corners of my tiny studio apartment so that they air out. I do this even before I remove my make-up, before I go to the bathroom. before I start foraging for a very early morning snack in the kitchen. Then I sleep, with nothing to do for my hair and skin at the moment, which the smoke does not spare, drilling its stale odour into my very bones. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwZD7Uhrqf_V16613DiExeD2tBTaqSXwKwA54a-wloZEM4OpO4cGLHjticdKGSupbUlwTw4nFn_zHYWZoz961zPku2XMdRKl9A5syauQBijgf8qJEFCRKDUMmTTALnjTZv4ZWjTQzPJHA/s1600/pink.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwZD7Uhrqf_V16613DiExeD2tBTaqSXwKwA54a-wloZEM4OpO4cGLHjticdKGSupbUlwTw4nFn_zHYWZoz961zPku2XMdRKl9A5syauQBijgf8qJEFCRKDUMmTTALnjTZv4ZWjTQzPJHA/s400/pink.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Pretty in pink, but still you stink. Sigh.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now look, I can give you this much: when I whiff some smoke as I'm walking past somewhere or someone, because of its cultural context, it pulls me into a momentary happy place, with friends and good times and relaxing, even though I don't smoke myself, as anyone must have figured out at this point. But it does not mean that the smoke smells good. Worst of all are the pubs that let you smoke. And in Berlin, that includes a LOT of the pubs and bars.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What do you do when most of your friends smoke? What do you do when you're in a smoking bar (because of your friends) and your friends start to light up and look at you and go "Oh I'm sorry, do you mind if we smoke? Would that bother you?" You look around at the hundred other Berliners in the bar smoking around you, and what are you supposed to say to your friends, with their half rolled cigarettes in their eager hands?</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Are you supposed to be the uptight one that won't come out unless they're going to a non smoking place?Are you supposed to meet them only at cafes for <i>heiße Schokolade</i> and sit huddled in your apartment in the evenings? Because once you tell your friends that it bothers you when they always pick a smoking bar, you can't un-tell them. And then every time you go to a smoking bar, they'll probably be thinking that you're horribly uncomfortable the whole time. And if you go to a non smoking bar, you'll be thinking what a bitch you are for making them go out in the cold every time they want to smoke.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Look, I know what you smokers might think of me. It's how some people might think about vegans or people who never drink or dance at parties or people who aren't friends with people because they smoke or drink. I get it. But why should it come down to choosing between your health or your comfort level and having a good time?</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">*****</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The unpleasantness with having to air out my clothes happened several times over the last few days. I figure I can write best about things that are really getting to me right now, even though it will probably mean my friends reading this. Oh well.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Image via google.com</span></div>
Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com0Berlin, Germany52.519171 13.40609119999999252.209891 12.760644199999991 52.828451 14.051538199999992tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-16330100053806517552013-01-21T20:39:00.000+01:002013-01-21T20:39:41.890+01:00Ennui et all<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've let my mind and my thoughts take their own course for a while: no leash holds back ennui, no sieve filters the muteness of my brain.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm being vague, I know. Doing that thing I don't like. But my mind has been stagnating of late, as have I.</span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It doesn't matter much why I haven't been posting. It has been a sort of letting go, a sort of going wild. </span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">To put it a lot less dramatically, I've been lazy :P </span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Well, that's not entirely true. See, I've been going through this excessively diffident phase(which began somewhere around <a href="http://www.cyniqueen.blogspot.de/2012/05/oops-i-did-it-again.html" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">here</span></a>), and it has poured over, quite profusely, shall we say, to my self-worth as a writer (or someone who writes, to sound a lot less pretentious). Having been extremely busy with university and the such, the aforementioned laziness refers to a sort of giving up after a defeat, of lying where you fell, not heaving yourself up, dusting off the mud and saying 'let's try that again'.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But I must try and I mustn't let diffidence get the better of me, as it almost has. So here, in this little digital space I'd like to think of as my own, where no other voices sound except the echoes of my own thoughts, I'd like to say that I'm making a start - back to writing, back to hoping, back to trying, back to being ready to fall again. And stand up again.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Back to reading more, thinking more. And not letting my mind slide back into that happy, languid silence of creativity, too indolent, too satisfied, to want to lift a thought.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm going to try. </span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Capiche? capiche.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Resolutely,</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-30180406678558026102012-07-05T22:49:00.000+02:002012-07-05T22:49:31.931+02:00You're my bad habit<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidAiVQjeqs6fCAbHlPwChmlaMmaD8Sd3KbiLSO0Ku5PfM9CsYHZlwMe0UwmdK_TAa4pOXAjjPCP2RmHpfBJ9cIreANXIxZ_qM11c2NmMnq8lp7jJ_WC2JV6l3Vich82zn5MWGRczrQTkM/s1600/Carrot+Cake.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidAiVQjeqs6fCAbHlPwChmlaMmaD8Sd3KbiLSO0Ku5PfM9CsYHZlwMe0UwmdK_TAa4pOXAjjPCP2RmHpfBJ9cIreANXIxZ_qM11c2NmMnq8lp7jJ_WC2JV6l3Vich82zn5MWGRczrQTkM/s640/Carrot+Cake.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple;">Why are 'bad' things always the most delicious ones?</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: purple;">Bad habits</span><ul>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Naps that pull you in and sink you into perfect oblivion.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Doodling in class (my latest penchant -- writing German names and words in the Devanagari script).</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Surfing rage comics on my smart phone.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">My smart phone.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Eating that one last morsel of chicken curry even though I know I'm full.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Hot chocolate (for when it's cold).</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Talking to myself.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;"><strike>Not being able to decide</strike> Indecisiveness.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Midnight "epiphanies" that you know are just a way to avoid studying.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Venting your anger at the elevator button. (It's like you want to hit the STOP button on something else).</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Making too many lists.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Letting the dishes pile on a little longer than necessary.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Slipping into tawdry, remarkably shameless tardiness and running around like a tornado trying to restore the place to some basic accepted standard of cleanliness when you're expecting company.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Not letting go easily enough.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Thinking too much.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Shopping too little.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Chai.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Stationery.</span></li>
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<span style="color: purple;">Life summary - The end of a hectic semester, the beginning of a promising internship, the reevaluation of goals and right this second, almost ground-shaking thunder. I never understood why those kids in <i>The Sound of Music</i> were so terrified by it. Doubt cleared.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;">Berlin has been hot and humid since a couple of days. Not particularly sunny, but a cloud of heat floating along everywhere you go, making your clothes stick to your skin, emanating hot waves of air from your scalp, making your face sweat and your skin burn. Feels that way, in any case.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;">On the other hand, I'm enjoying every second of Salman Rushdie's <i>Midnight's Children</i>, which I'm currently reading. Next stop, The Little Prince, as soon as Amazon decides to actually send me my copy.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;">And here is a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/OmniscientOwls"><span style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">lovely new venture</span></a> from a friend of mine who wants to bring an online reading community together. I really love the idea and the enthusiasm that people are already showing. Do take a look!</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;">Thunder and suspense,</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;">The Cyniqueen</span></div>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-57301919970052516732012-05-22T01:11:00.001+02:002012-05-22T01:12:38.285+02:00'Cause growing up is awfuller than all the awful things that ever were.<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Narrrr, sometimes I hate pretending that I'm a grown up. Think about it, really. Someone back in the prehistoric day decided that in order to grow up, you had to stop being a child. And truth be told, I don't see what is so terrible about childhood, that golden time when it was really really hard to be sad.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The truth of the matter is, we are all one hobo-trying-to-grab-your-hair away from snapping. Which happened to me at the subway station a few days ago. The hair grabbing attempt, I mean, not the snapping. The snapping is currently hidden away in the folds and curves of a </span><strike style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">looming </strike><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">screeching university deadline, which has assumed more urgency than other things like losing your mind.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And I must also, while I'm at it, tell you about my epiphany about work/homework/procrastination related stress. We're never actually stressed out about our tensions and problems. The thing that causes the stress is </span><i style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">the stress itself</i><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. Take that away and you simply have that assignment you have to write or those pile of dishes you have to do. Take that burden off your shoulders and you're light enough to just do the thing that's getting you down. I realized this and was all woooooaaah, but as it turns out, setting this theory to practice is a bit stressful. Heh.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It was almost 30 degrees today and it's so so surreal how 30 degrees in India is like tralala but here in Berlin it just feels like a furnace. Time to buy that fan, I think.</span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirWDE-fxPwp7c9-TTXv11AsGcQKhJRsdm8Bmh3LjccGAt-Vd_ZoGeyUsuTLR9EA8YPy7Hm33jgH414ydqIehDEsy6bdv6Vwlp8g61MK1zyGjHnSxvdsTaMIsg5iDX0yn_BfUJJoe3JaVI/s1600/Y+U+NO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirWDE-fxPwp7c9-TTXv11AsGcQKhJRsdm8Bmh3LjccGAt-Vd_ZoGeyUsuTLR9EA8YPy7Hm33jgH414ydqIehDEsy6bdv6Vwlp8g61MK1zyGjHnSxvdsTaMIsg5iDX0yn_BfUJJoe3JaVI/s400/Y+U+NO.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Har har</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This profound meme I found captures how I've been feeling for the last few weeks.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Oh well. It gets better, right? Blogging always helps.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Waiting for Godot,</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">P.S - If you didn't understand the title, you absolutely must listen to 'I Won't Grow Up' from the Peter Pan movie. You <i>m</i></span><i style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">ust</i><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">.</span>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-80555016163063814832012-05-10T01:11:00.002+02:002012-05-10T01:21:36.295+02:00Groping in the dark<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA9GLpCWe6wfm9XqcVxPBdlGjw-_fWSZOO20vXG08yv7ieEIWFRLyzleCSQH3cZT-yluTLWz8PHF9Qdag3tV4Q1tsGRdwp4bmYqG3cy7SBZKf2rrkeK4ANl6m5Mfpu0qmnIak407uXEw0/s1600/Cuppa+Chai.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA9GLpCWe6wfm9XqcVxPBdlGjw-_fWSZOO20vXG08yv7ieEIWFRLyzleCSQH3cZT-yluTLWz8PHF9Qdag3tV4Q1tsGRdwp4bmYqG3cy7SBZKf2rrkeK4ANl6m5Mfpu0qmnIak407uXEw0/s640/Cuppa+Chai.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple;">Weekend chai mug. Oh Yeah.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: purple; text-align: center;">Listening to </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanson" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;"><i>Chanson</i>s </span></a><span style="color: purple; text-align: center;">while trying to deal with impending deadlines.</span>
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<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;">Trying (ever so desperately, ever so unsuccessfully) to deal with homesickness, that illness whose cure I can't afford right now.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;">Trying to pinpoint the exact moment that Berlin became my wife and India my mistress instead of the other way around (I want to say husband and lover, but it doesn't convey my point in the same way, does it? <span style="font-size: xx-small;">Also, this metaphor has nothing to do with my views as a woman</span>.)</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;">Trying to shoo away the recurring gloom that intercepts every sentence and every thought on days like today.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;">University is like trying to get on a speeding train which decided not to wait for you but expects you to hop on anyway. I still like it better than not having anything to do. </span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;">Being able to have Indian tasting <i>chai </i>in Berlin is funnily the only thing I can orient myself to on some days. Something about the fact that it tastes exactly the same in another time zone, something about its memories with people and places in my life, something about the fact that it reminds me all at once of being at home in Goa and in Pune, of drinking an end-of-a-work-day cup with my sister, the 'open canteen' in Pune, being in the PG (Paying Guest accommodation) with my roommate and being in the kitchen of my grandparents' place is pretty damn comforting.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;"><i>Toast with me</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;"><i>A toast to tea</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;">Gloom be damned,</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;">The Cyniqueen</span></div>
</div>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-33967776676746009292012-05-01T22:41:00.000+02:002012-05-01T22:42:44.270+02:00Oops, I did it again<br />
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<span style="color: purple;">Hellew blogosphere!<br /><br />Le bullet points: </span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: purple;">I just finished a spring internship </span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">University just resumed </span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">I have no time to breathe </span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Creativity is being throttled by aforementioned breathing difficulty </span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">My face has surrendered to acne without the slightest struggle of a fight. Yet again.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: purple;">Last night K. and I video-recorded bits of a concert by an awesome band called The Legendary Lost Mojados. It was a part of university work and felt very hoity-toity, what with lugging the camera and tripod around and getting asked for our business card. Heh.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: purple;">A bout of self-doubt seems to have left me creatively-paralysed as it were and all attempts to resuscitate my fading writing-abilities have been disappointing.<br /><br />Until I figure out what the hell this phase this <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(and hopefully have some time to work on the idea for a new blog that has been fermenting in my mind)</span> the posts might be scarce. Or there might too many for you to keep up with. <br /><br />Flowers and spring love from Berlin,<br />The Cyniqueen</span><br />
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<br />Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-42772458290067589692012-02-29T12:40:00.000+01:002012-02-29T18:11:41.669+01:00Keep calm and leap on<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Things could have ended badly for her. They usually did. She hadn't spoken to them in months, may be even a couple of years. It was hard to keep track of these things when you were on the road.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It was hard to remember the smell of burned toast on a Sunday morning and the sudden start of the old taps sputtering blasts of cold water on your skin with no prior warning.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">When she was on the road, hopping from one city to the next, flying to different countries every week, drinking precisely 3 cups of chamomile tea a day and singing exactly 8 songs every night (except when she got an encore), it seemed easy to treat it all like an unreal haze. Especially if you counted all the heroin.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">She'd squirm, when out of nowhere, a pale, glowing evening sky would remind her of the creaky porch at home and their old blind dog who sat there in the evenings slobbering unceasingly.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Today, she turned 29 years old. Her phone rang and it was them. How could she not say yes? How could she not leave it all to go see that dog that slobbered, the porch that creaked (even when no one was sitting there), the taps that startled and the blackened toast you treasured more than any cheque?</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">She boarded the plane with shaky hands. In a less sane world in a big city, the bosses were furious. Her phone kept ringing. But she had already answered the most important call of all. <i>Keep calm</i>, she told herself, <i>and leap on</i>.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The plane crashed exactly 40 minutes after it took off. When they found her body, she had the faintest smile etched upon her face.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The traces of heroin in her body which actually killed her, they found several weeks later.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">***************************************************************</span></div>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Too morose? This is a part of Fantabulous February started by <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/09633396022346388859"><span style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">this </span></a>talented blogger. Last day today, but waiting for more bloggerly awesomeness from <a href="http://sold-for-shoes-overweight-intellectua.blogspot.in/" style="background-color: #ead1dc;"><span style="color: purple;">Soumi</span></a>.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Love</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-77190743833176998732012-02-07T13:19:00.000+01:002012-02-07T13:23:09.786+01:00Like a drop of ink in a glass of crystal clear water<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjNRu2h1tz5xjGERHOa2BjOx2_HWPrLkzAiMO6RuEH4wgl3lDEXwg3n_TZk3aKwUVv5XRIbE9c1Z_br7IZnqX3oa9e4ADfUYfPHqrvUReeOi_fMUd0ld-V6W_iT-0yDROGXXWVASBqY4o/s1600/Ink.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjNRu2h1tz5xjGERHOa2BjOx2_HWPrLkzAiMO6RuEH4wgl3lDEXwg3n_TZk3aKwUVv5XRIbE9c1Z_br7IZnqX3oa9e4ADfUYfPHqrvUReeOi_fMUd0ld-V6W_iT-0yDROGXXWVASBqY4o/s640/Ink.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Set yourself free</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Setting yourself free is more than just physical boundaries.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's more than being able to buy what you want. </span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">More than the freedom of deciding that you want to watch a movie at one AM on a weeknight. </span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">More than getting the haircut you want because you don't care if he/she doesn't like it. </span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">More than saying yes to fun and no to homework. </span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">More than taking a cab one day because you had no patience to wait for the bus. Even more than trying something new. </span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">More than doing something because you can. </span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Setting yourself free does not mean being free of love.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Setting yourself free means being unencumbered enough to look beyond yourself, to do something for someone because you want to. Because you can.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Kanika says <a href="http://stone-paper-scissor.blogspot.com/2012/02/fantabulous-february-day-seven.html#comment-form"><span style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">day seven</span></a> of Fantabulous February is going to be a good one. I agree :)</span>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-537575128236182102012-02-04T19:43:00.000+01:002012-02-04T19:48:15.367+01:00Epiphany<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglnPpWFChVB9tWg1ze6U4JVUSFrVm5GoxFsnCrzvFpCq3_xNKfeK5nRmD5z3zQtizaLXdWMHckEZ3Ezftea47CJyYkKgFwA8rehXMJXIJQzpWs6ZXgowU61GEo0LqfVLHGS-EKLQ8egvQ/s1600/tumblr_ltkyo0Rjl21r34yxfo1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglnPpWFChVB9tWg1ze6U4JVUSFrVm5GoxFsnCrzvFpCq3_xNKfeK5nRmD5z3zQtizaLXdWMHckEZ3Ezftea47CJyYkKgFwA8rehXMJXIJQzpWs6ZXgowU61GEo0LqfVLHGS-EKLQ8egvQ/s640/tumblr_ltkyo0Rjl21r34yxfo1_500.jpg" width="496" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Because in the crisscross craziness of life, when one moment meets another, magic happens, sparks fly and everything comes together like a rainbow on a sunny day. Like yesterday, when the sun shone so prettily on the fresh, shining mounds and drapes of snow, nothing else mattered.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This is a part of Fantabulous February for <span style="background-color: #ead1dc;"><a href="http://stone-paper-scissor.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: purple;">Kanika's awesome blog</span></a>.</span> Go take a look!</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-74958096790876402742012-02-03T22:48:00.000+01:002012-02-03T22:49:23.759+01:00Snow big deal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I woke up to my first proper snow day today.The dry tree branches were drooping with it (as you can see in the picture) and the cars parked by the road were draped with an impeccably symmetrical white blanket. </span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I stomped in the thick snow and stared </span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">wondrously at tiny snow flakes that settled on K.'s black coat. I clicked pictures of snow in heaps and snow on bushes and snow on tables and chairs (which had been left outside, for some reason). And snow mixed with mud and snow stuck between the tight, hexagonal spaces on a cobbled sidewalk.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Oooh, and yesterday I saw condensation on a window which cold wind had turned into big, shining, magnificently opulent looking crystals.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And I saw some soft, white snowfall, which danced and swayed gracefully to the ground like a performance.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I love my first European winter!</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Soft ice and snowflakes,</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span></div>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com0Berlin, Germany52.524268 13.4062952.2151175 12.774576 52.8334185 14.038004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-33484084134391151692012-01-28T13:04:00.001+01:002012-01-28T13:04:43.103+01:00A minute too late<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihkXC6jNXY2Q7b1ksW_0duSP826OUk8EmoK2rQujWOFwiaWRFrz6DzcZyxF_rR-9WsQCJCxfZp50yylMIZ8xhUXn8QUuJr0COQfzbshAWY4Rc11sVESAj6sgs_WeXt_fjXjl7zgWmg13U/s1600/Saturday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihkXC6jNXY2Q7b1ksW_0duSP826OUk8EmoK2rQujWOFwiaWRFrz6DzcZyxF_rR-9WsQCJCxfZp50yylMIZ8xhUXn8QUuJr0COQfzbshAWY4Rc11sVESAj6sgs_WeXt_fjXjl7zgWmg13U/s400/Saturday.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Only for the longest eternity, I want you by my side</span> </td></tr>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just for a minute I want to close my eyes and forget that I have a magazine to </span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">conceptualize</span><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> and a radio-program manuscript to write.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just for a minute I want to sip on hot ginger <i>chai </i>(with whole fat milk).</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just for a minute I want a clean room, an organized study table and a devilishly beckoning unmade bed</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just one for a minute, I want to feel the hurried impatience of turning the page in a book I can't put down.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just for a minute, I want to read as if there's nothing else to do.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just for a heartbeat, I want the hollow, crashing sound of the waves resonating in my ears.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just for a minute, I want nothing else to matter, except the peace I feel when I'm lying in bed.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just for a minute, a lingering minute that does not want to leave, that shuffles it's feet at the door and keeps looking back as it's walking away -- <b>just for that little diamond of a minute</b>, I want today to feel as Saturdays should -- lazy and free and bed-lounging and jazz-playing, with the glittering promise of a sloth-y Sunday right ahead.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Sigh. Such is life.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Yours longingly,</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">P:S-</span><span style="color: purple;">[<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Photo via weheartit]</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-40360604930266651782012-01-15T00:16:00.000+01:002012-01-15T00:16:27.920+01:00Quick Post (Because I miss you and love you)<div style="color: purple; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
The you in the title is you, dear reader. The me, on the other hand, is a bit ashamed at not having posted for a while. I find it very hard to post when life is happening at a fervent, bursting pace as it is now now. So, where does that leave us? At bullet points, of course, I am tempted to say, but I mustn't be lazy.</div>
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So. The coolest thing happened to me last week. I was running to catch the train (descending down the steps of the subway train station). The train was in sight when the alarm signalling that the doors were about to close sounded. But the driver saw me and STOPPED THE CLOSING DOORS MIDWAY. I couldn't thank him, but I sent a lot of happy thoughts his way. Love small, silly, happy moments like this :)</div>
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Also, there's still no snow in Berlin. I saw snow <i>once </i>and was terribly excited about it, until people pointed out that what I saw wasn't 'real' snowfall and it's normally much thicker and prettier. They say it's one of the warmest winters in Berlin this year. I'm scared of minus temperatures, and I'm a little paranoid about whether I'll survive, but dammit, I want to see some of that white wonder.</div>
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University has been a little crazy, with lots of work and classes. I'm trying (hard) to organize my thoughts about what I want to do in the future. Sometimes an option glows before my eyes like a volcano sputtering fire. And the next day it dwindles to a tepid ember, impassively waiting its end. For how long can this back and forth-ing of career options go on? I can only hope it yields something fruitful.</div>
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And now, I have to go watch a film and write a critique about it.</div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">(But before that, some indulgent Roadies 9 viewing online. Teehee).</span></span><br />
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Love and purple feathers (because that's a nice image, isn't it?),</div>
<span style="color: purple; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The Cyniqueen</span>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-41380258085037559632011-12-10T15:30:00.000+01:002011-12-10T15:34:23.449+01:00Because sometimes, jazz flows through me like the current through a river<div style="color: purple; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Going through a huge jazz phase right now. Even though it's always been right up there with country music and swing, these days its been ticking inside my head like a thought that won't go away. Scratch that - like a thought that you don't want to go away. </div>
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You guys, I have so much to tell you. Like the fact that the approaching winter can be a pain and rock at the same time.</div>
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That Austrian cheese "<i>aus dem Bergen" </i>("from the mountains") and Glühwein from the Christmas markets here is magical.</div>
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That I rediscovered the <a href="http://super.tacheles.de/cms/" style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;"><i>Tacheles </i></a>house (that I've told you about several times before, <a href="http://cyniqueen.blogspot.com/2010/10/snap-back-to-reality-end-of-lovely-and.html" style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">remember</a>?) last night with K. Met some of the people there, happened to land up in the middle of a Mexican birthday party, got a new cloth bag which says very coolly -<i> Kultur kann man nicht kaufen</i> - which in English means - you can't buy culture. And then there's an asterisk and right at the bottom, in small letters, it says <i>aber </i>(meaning 'but'). Cool huh?</div>
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The artist is <a href="http://www.roeloffs1.de/" style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">Tim Roeloffs</a> and his work pulls me out of my comfort zone and makes me think. I also bought <a href="http://www.roeloffs1.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=270&zenid=531e99856bf3ada617c5fa1855eaca7e" style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">this postcard</a> right here. It means 'Berlin - The City of Peace'. I love that little bear and the dove.</div>
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And my birthday was last week and it was really good. One of my many lovely presents (from friends I now have, hallelujah!) was the Amazon Kindle I got from G, complete with a book I was waiting to read. Moment of crazy dancing here for the awesome people in my life:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4EmiygATArlMIc4NW4CyoFuy61q81NNXf1rNXzrmdJPb2uytSXiNbhqvnFat1Ujvzck8ef_L0yb9XY4H8kBCKpomlJqvQ8cGwWDw2ywj574B7VwsrXgMkVeSKV5FmUiSD04P7VwQNGvQ/s1600/Dancing+banana.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4EmiygATArlMIc4NW4CyoFuy61q81NNXf1rNXzrmdJPb2uytSXiNbhqvnFat1Ujvzck8ef_L0yb9XY4H8kBCKpomlJqvQ8cGwWDw2ywj574B7VwsrXgMkVeSKV5FmUiSD04P7VwQNGvQ/s1600/Dancing+banana.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A dancing banana</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtwDEROikgsR1ns1Rn2gN_dZuowNrn4FH5VjmmufiB2jUmBQLf2hZHJW2uflYL7lbin4B4eoBBEiTkLZ2jyty5vtL7E0iaRQ4Gx2HWV9gUhNfu33uXzWyPOeO08WCtcF96k-PKwtusa9g/s1600/Pink+dancing+cow.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtwDEROikgsR1ns1Rn2gN_dZuowNrn4FH5VjmmufiB2jUmBQLf2hZHJW2uflYL7lbin4B4eoBBEiTkLZ2jyty5vtL7E0iaRQ4Gx2HWV9gUhNfu33uXzWyPOeO08WCtcF96k-PKwtusa9g/s1600/Pink+dancing+cow.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A dancing cow WITH bananas (and udders for genitals)</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Thank you Google images for the awesomeness. Ironically, the cow is smaller than the banana. </div>
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Lots more to tell, but for now, Saturday sloth is calling.</div>
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Tata!</div>
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Love and bananas,</div>
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The Cyniqueen</div>
<br />Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com3Berlin, Germany52.524268 13.4062952.2151175 12.774576 52.8334185 14.038004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-10629471375462723232011-11-11T12:14:00.001+01:002011-11-15T23:23:45.236+01:00When you live in Berlin...<div style="color: purple; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The last, crumbling signs of autumn lie dulling on the ground and winter is slowly reaching out its frosty hand, frost being the operative word there. I know I don't usually start with the weather (or do I? Eh, don't really care to remember), but when you're in Europe, you can't not talk about the weather, you simply can't.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6tI_X9axodFUgKEZeCqi3gjwBeH4bz025z6wT-AyqPrkkee1u0WgXfTluAeUkO9CAGD4RUiWDHsTMbLZQlylMS7URvgKp5f5C9FmEfrxZMal1kPB7L8QB6e_V02xCetXV_0uYYNPq-nQ/s1600/Frost+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6tI_X9axodFUgKEZeCqi3gjwBeH4bz025z6wT-AyqPrkkee1u0WgXfTluAeUkO9CAGD4RUiWDHsTMbLZQlylMS7URvgKp5f5C9FmEfrxZMal1kPB7L8QB6e_V02xCetXV_0uYYNPq-nQ/s640/Frost+2.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">See? How can you </span><i style="color: purple; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">not </i><span style="color: purple; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">talk about it?</span></td></tr>
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<u><span style="font-size: small;">More things that happen when you live my life:</span></u></div>
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<li><span style="font-size: small;">Your language becomes a royally awkward hodgepodge of English and German that makes you fumble and falter no matter what language you're trying to speak.</span></li>
<li><b><span style="font-size: small;">You realize for the first time in your life how cold some things really are - keys, door handles, coins, zips, for example- especially when you have to heave your hands out of the warmth of your pockets.</span></b></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">To your mild surprise, life still has many, many firsts to offer that make you want to act like a child (blow smoke/mist in the air, pick up leaves frosted overnight and stare fascinatedly at everything wintery).</span></li>
<li><b><span style="font-size: small;">You listen to old hindi songs on your mp3 player in the
train and cherish the secret joy it brings you, surrounded by people
who don't know the language and may never understand the beauty of
Kishore Kumar or R.D. Burman.</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You click pictures every time you see something novel. Which is all. the. time. Oh yes.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You begin to want hot chocolate everyday and feel bad about it.You discover that the sugar-less Cappuccino from the vending machine at your uni is surprisingly good.</span></li>
<li><b><span style="font-size: small;">You discover the pure, unadulterated joy of cooking Indian food in a foreign land. Of bonding with your mother and grandmother who taught you to cook, and feeling their presence next to you, guiding you when you're cooking something even though they're continents and oceans away.</span></b></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You cry a little when you have to write a report on the German political situation that you know squat about. You also snivel at German literary texts that you are supposed to read up on and understand. You wonder at how it is possible to understand every single word in a sentence and still not follow what it being said. You nod obediently at people, even when their German is too fast/thickly accented. You wonder or cry about it later (as the case may be, especially if the German in question is spoken by a teacher giving important instructions for the next class). Basically, you cry a lot. And by 'cry' I obviously don't mean sob. I mean your eyes well up a bit/you want to tear something or scream just a little.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">To put it simply, there are several moments of deep self doubt.</span></li>
<li><b><span style="font-size: small;">...but then there are days you're proud of yourself because you just did one more thing today you never thought you could have :)</span></b></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You learn to budget a little better. A little tighter. It makes you feel a little grown up. And then you buy Aloe Vera gel for 7.40 Euro and save like a squirrel the rest of the week. </span></li>
<li><b><span style="font-size: small;">You finally stop saying 'Rupees' at the end of every sum and switch to Euro.</span></b></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You learn about some huge cultural differences between India and Europe. You can't wrap your head around them.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">...and some things, like smiling at strangers, you love and adopt as your very own.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You learn that moving away to a new country means finding new brands of personal products. Which can be a pain. </span></li>
<li><b><span style="font-size: small;">You think you're going to miss your train everyday and run... then you bake in your 50 layers of almost-winter clothing.</span></b></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You wonder how bad and gloomy January will really be, especially with everyone painting such a bleak, depressing picture.</span></li>
<li><b><span style="font-size: small;">...but you secretly wait for the first snowfall of your life (and hope you can cope with the cold).</span></b></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;"> You do a happy mental dance when you give tourists directions to a place in Berlin.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You feel somehow browner, just a tiny bit. It makes you respect your heritage :)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You get frustrated at your hair's lack of effort to be
presentable in Berlin and its animosity towards the water here. But
then, after a couple of weeks, the bounce comes back and you look normal
again. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></li>
<li><b><span style="font-size: small;">There are some moments that jerk you away from Berlin, from Germany, from Europe and hurl you back to India - to a sight (beige, smooth, sparkling beach sand) or a sound (hundreds of honking cars) or a taste (pani-puri, Goan bhaji, batatwada, hot, soft chappatis) or a person (family). It leaves you bewildered, exasperated and yearning in an incomplete, torn sort of way.</span></b></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">You try eating a lot of new things and decide you like most of them (except for duck that one time. And 'tropical fruit tea').</span></li>
<li><b><span style="font-size: small;">Incense sticks never smelt holier.</span></b></li>
<li><b><span style="font-size: small;">Life was never this stimulating.</span></b></li>
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<span style="font-size: small;">More later. Probably. How has everyone been?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> Love,</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Cyniqueen</span>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5340110109060031272.post-70021297468748949832011-10-16T21:04:00.000+02:002011-10-16T21:04:34.559+02:00Something More<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGyVT2-zCOQ9NshvwOmqZfuSIqQZIzFR1832_G8w-mAKguqdx_ptadJLVAjQxxNIDkefLUsR2wpn0EK2spZWVchsGgiIdb-2m7w9QSgWZBvTFb4vz0WXYUv319N3-FT1MJNY-3BJKlumg/s1600/Autumn+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGyVT2-zCOQ9NshvwOmqZfuSIqQZIzFR1832_G8w-mAKguqdx_ptadJLVAjQxxNIDkefLUsR2wpn0EK2spZWVchsGgiIdb-2m7w9QSgWZBvTFb4vz0WXYUv319N3-FT1MJNY-3BJKlumg/s640/Autumn+%25282%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Things happening/being mulled over presently:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-size: small;">Autumn - bites you in the face and produces awesome mist type thing in the air when you exhale/talk. Not to mention how beautiful the bright yellow, fiery red leaves on trees and rustling, whispering heaps of dried leaves on the ground (like in the picture above). I can almost hear my skin cracking gently against the cold. Also, I keep hearing the term 'golden autumn' (goldener Herbst) everywhere. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">The end of waiting. Almost - My course starts very soon. I'm excited, but have mild concerns about starting out a Master's course in a field I've never studied before and in a foreign country. Oh yeah, and in German. Mild concerns *pulls out hair and runs amok*</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">My only friend/confidante/support here moving away for a while. It's going to feel like the first day of kindergarten. Like the time you're cooking something and you realize you're out of salt. Like when you're only pair of shoes breaks when you're travelling, y'know what I mean?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: small;">Upside of aforementioned course - fewer students in each class, which means a higher chance of being able to make friends. Past experience sits on its throne of smugness and scoffs at my optimism at hoping to make some reliable friends (and not the kind to flake out on you in times of need, as has unfortunately come to pass several times before), but I'm planning on dethroning it and being the one who scoffs. With my new friends, hopefully.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-size: small;">I am soon going to be in possession of some very coveted substances - Indian cooking ingredients! As much as I have come to love Schnitzel and Quark (curious? Go Google), I can't wait to make some decent Goan Sol Kadi and attempt (hopefully successfully) to make chappatis and Pav bhaji and things like that. Yum!</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="color: purple;">Task for the day - Go listen to </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-phhm3EofQ" style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: purple;">Take That's latest song</a><span style="color: purple;"> if you haven't already.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">An icy, misty, autumny flying kiss to all,</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Cyniqueen</span><br />
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</ul>Cyniqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09407963948441525826noreply@blogger.com4Berlin, Germany52.5234051 13.411399952.2142546 12.779685899999999 52.8325556 14.0431139