On Beauty and the Beast

On Beauty and the Beast

No no, this is not review of some movie or drama. This was something I wanted to publish when I was in Thailand but I couldn’t. I came across some article yesterday about plastic surgery and I remembered this post I had prepared long ago.

I never knew I would get to have a first hand experience of fad among girls to look more beautiful. Although many cultures influence Thailand including Japan, South Korea, China and India, I never thought they would be following some things to extreme level.

For me, Thailand’s culture is quite open (as against what I had read before going there). And by open, Indians generally mean clothes especially for girls. So whenever I bought the so called “short” clothes, I was always demanded an answer and I always had to assure them that I’d not wear them here in India.

Well, it was not that bad. I know it is gonna take time for Indian people especially elders, to fully open their mind and accept something like this which is totally opposite to our culture. I mean I showed my friends the clothes recently and they were awed, a reaction I was expecting totally opposite to my parents.

(That means although the thinking of girls in India is changing about the clothes, it is giving rise to crime against women on the other hand and hence parents of girls are sceptical about it. But I just don’t understand the mentality of guys there. Just clothes or a little lack of them I should say, make their brains go haywire eh? But that is totally going off-topic. I’m sure I’m gonna write on this in future for sure.)

Where was I by the way? Oh yes. So when I was there, I got to know that girls there are as crazy about good looks as we hear or read about in South Korea. I don’t give a shit about what you do with yourself. But I do get frustrated when it starts affecting your overall health. Plastic surgery gone wrong – you become a laughing stock. Whole lot of medicines – your body gets damaged. I didn’t know why the ladies there were facing so many health problems until I came to know it was due to their obsession for beauty.

Just recently I read an article by an English teacher in South Korea who, when told her very young students about inner beauty, was blankly stared at because they didn’t even know what inner beauty was. Well, it was unsurprising to me.

I just need to ask these people that ok, you want to look like someone else – more beautiful – I accept. But imagine a world where everyone looks the same. Ah! A person like me who already is weak in learning faces will go crazy (I already am, just by imagining it). What is the use? Who do you want to show? Your fellow guys? Ha! A person who can’t accept you whole as it is can never be a good friend let alone boyfriend (or girlfriend as a matter of fact).

I must say peer pressure is one of the major factor in going for such things. “Ah! She is so beautiful, I need to do better than her otherwise all the guys will see only her.” “Why don’t you, for once, just try it? You will need to go to salon some day or other.” The second one – I myself heard a lot, after which I had to give in and go to one last year. But those were nominal things like hair styling and all – normal things which girls in India generally start around 6-7 years before I started. I didn’t go before that because I never felt bad about myself. But my friends took me there and I still dread that painful eyebrow shaping thing.

Although I’m considered just average according to Indian society – I don’t have fair skin, I have a lot of dark circles, I don’t go for everyday treatments some girls generally go for and I don’t own beauty products like eyeliners, sunscreens and blah blah blah (Now I think about it I don’t even have a lip gloss!). Thus, I’m kind of, what you call it, backward in such knowledge (My 6 years younger sister knows more than me). But I do feel good about myself because I know I’m kind and honest. That is enough for me.

I again deviated from the topic. So what I’m trying to say is – go for beautification products, I’m not against it. Even if I’m , it’s not like people will stop using them. Who am I to tell people to stop what they do? Moreover, no girl cannot be using beauty products, otherwise she is considered a fool.

But my dear fellow human beings, you need to take care of your health. If you’re going for something which may go wrong and you may never get back what you already have, think twice. The ladies around me there had learnt the lesson already after going to hospitals for the same. If you’ve to spend money again on your fitness or the same procedure, don’t go for it. Just don’t. You need to love yourself and lessen comparing yourself with others. Because there is that one person in the world, who is going to be yours, no matter what you look like. So don’t worry and instead of spending money on beauty products, just keep your diet healthy, have lots of fruits, drink lots of water, do lots of exercise and have lots of sleep (who am I kidding?). That would benefit your face as well as your body.

I only wrote it because I felt strongly about it. My views are my own and no one else’s. So if they hurt you, that’s your problem. I’ll give rest to my rant here.

Today’s Song – It’s been long since I posted some song. Today, a Japanese song from OST of naruto – 

Changmin bids goodbye to Cool Kiz

Changmin bids goodbye to Cool Kiz

I know, I know. It’s too old a news. And I was frantically waiting for this episode on KBS World TV channel of youtube. It actually exceeded my expectations. What a close and exciting match! It was worth the wait. Now it’s 2:30 a.m. here and I’ve a lot of work tomorrow (I mean today morning). Couldn’t wait for the morning though.

The last basketball game. I’ll miss you Changmin and I’ll miss watching basketball on Cool Kiz

How language learning helped me in my interview

How language learning helped me in my interview

So, as I told in my last post, I appeared through the interview yesterday. Although language learning has been written on my resume from the beginning itself, nobody had asked me about it till now. Yesterday they asked me for the first time – about my level and all. And I told them the truth – what all I can do with Japanese and Korean and Thai. It took like five minutes of my interview. That means they were interested in that aspect of me too.

Yesterday’s firm (which is my employer now XD) was a first for me in many ways – I cleared my first GD of my life. The topic was related to current Indian political scenario and even a person, who doesn’t read much newspaper should be able to speak on this particular topic, coz it’s all over internet these days, you know?

So where was I? Ah! Yeah. The main thing I wanted to tell was that I was  a depressed soul before yesterday – going for tests and all everyday, missing classes (though I’m not that much of a class going person), the fun others already placed people were having and such were all frustrating me. I had started searching for a career in languages.

And then I came across this particular article where people had listed their experiences with languages and their current jobs. Quite awesome experiences. The only difference was, they all had degrees in modern languages or the particular language of interest whereas I am a complete self learner.

And then they said, “Oh! You’ve listed Korean and Japanese in your resume. Then you can do project in Japan!!” I was on the seventh heaven…… So yes, finally, my language learning did me wonders. 🙂 So now I gotta work harder for the languages and increase my level soon.

Today’s Song – Oh yes, the third and last song from my current playlist of DISH//. Technically, since my last post was published today only, I should’ve inserted that song only. But oh well….

Freedom

Freedom

Ok, so to declare, I’m finally free. I got placed today and now I’ve a lot of free time on my hands (or so I hope). It’s the best part of being a BITSian. If you’re a single degree student, your official courses finish in 3rd year only. All you’re left with is six electives which people generally start with their 2nd year. So by the time you reach the last sem, you’re done with at least 3 electives (That’s for 2010 batch or before. Now things have changed, so I think it’s 4 electives by the starting of 4th year.) To conclude, I just have 2 subjects this sem and then I graduate. So I’m gonna make a list here of what I’m gonna do which I soo wanted to but couldn’t till now. Here goes my list:
1. Languages – My language studies have lagged far far behind and I’m starting to have second thoughts about TOPIK this season. But I don’t want to give up now. So I’ll go ahead with it nonetheless.
2. Blogging – Ah my posts! I have watched and read so much already that I have tons of things to review, not to mention the trips I took in Thailand and haven’t posted reviews for them. I’ll start working on them now.
3. Coding – Although I was ranting about it recently, but now, I’ve seen the trend of recruiting and the firm I’m going to, also requires some amount of coding. So yeah, I’m gonna learn that.
4. Novels – Ooh the library, I’m coming to you. BITS Pilani’s library has got an awesome collection of novels and I’m gonna read as much as I can.
5. Drawing and Sketching – I soo wanted to resume with the designing and animation work. Now I can work in that direction too.
6. Coursera – I’m pretty sure, you must have heard about the trending MOOCs all over the internet. I need to catch up with the ones I’ve signed up for.
7. Reading – My GK is poor – like very poor. I need to read up a lot of material and improve in that area too.
8. Sleeping – Of course. How can the bucket list be complete without this? Gotta take a lot of rest now. No formals, no tests, no waking up early and dressing up, no going to 1 km far away institute to take tests in so cold a weather.

Any suggestions for me that I can add to the list? I think I can take up a musical instrument too. Also, look forward to a lot of reviews – be it places, mangas or dramas. See you soon…..

Today’s song – I have only this song for now from my newly discovered J-Band Dish//

What do actors do anyway?

What do actors do anyway?

So today, there was a heated discussion going on on the lunch table and all they were saying was “What do actors do by the way?” “They are probably earning way more than they work.” “See us, we work so hard and yet we don’t get what we deserve.” “What is their social contribution?” “They only entertain people, making fool out of them.” and so on and so forth.

I don’t understand how can people just bash someone else’s profession? (Seems like my tag line has changed from “they are also human beings” to “how can they do this to others?”) I so wanted to say these things – Then can you act? Can you keep awake more than one day consecutively like they do? Is it so easy to become someone else? If they are making fool out of people, then public is idiot too. Moreover, you people are the one who say “Let’s go to watch that movie, it’s got awesome reviews.” That time you don’t think that they are fooling you? If they are sucking out your money, then whose fault is it? Theirs? Then just don’t go, don’t watch them.

Social Contribution you ask? Imagine a world without the dramas and movies – What? Can you watch News and Sports all the time? Talk about engineers (I’m one too so no offence). Aren’t they making fool out of people – introducing new technologies day by day – just making few changes here and there and you get a new product – happening so much nowadays?

If they are not there, who would I fangirl over? Who would introduce me to their countries’ culture? How would I learn my languages. Taking their countries to an international level, isn’t that a social contribution? At so many instances, they are bringing glory to their land, just like sports players, then would you say same thing about the players too? Do you even know, how much hardwork goes in just maintaining themselves, according to YOU – you, who think they are doing useless work?

I mean, I can think of so many things. I can’t even imagine what they really go through, just to entertain the audience. But again on a table of eight, if seven people are in agreement, what could the last person, who has no standing among those seven, do? I only left the table as soon as I could, which I think was the best decision. If only, people would grow up and start thinking about others. I guess, the world would be a lot better place.

Side Story 1 – I finally came to a decision as to what I should ask my mentor to bring from Japan. I asked her to buy me manga for elementary students so that I may learn Kanji and one for an acquaintance of mine who asked me to bring something Japanese as a souvenir from Thailand. Unfortunately, I’m not getting anything original Japanese or Korean here which suits me. So, now I just hope, she gets what I want

Side Story 2 – If I had known earlier that she had plans to go to Japan, I would have introduced her to J and K pop. In four months, she would have become a total fan. I’m sure, now she’ll get to meet so many idols but she would never know they are one. I would’ve asked for autographs and all.

Side Story 3 – I finished Sungkyunkwan Scandal in three days. But because of that, the current shows I was following – The Suspicious Housekeeper, The Future’s Choice and The Heirs – lagged behind. But I don’t want to resume them now because, they’ll take my variety shows time then. I don’t know what to do……

Side Story 4 – I’ve again come back to Japanese songs. This will go on for probably one week. I have been listening to OSTs of Cardcaptor Sakura, Gintama, One Piece, Naruto, Inuyasha, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Angel Beats, Natsume Yuujinchou, Mirmo, and many many more. With each of them, my college memories are associated and it comes back like it happened just yesterday.

Today’s song – Then, I would post an OST today. Oh! Because, I’m writing this in lunch time from my office and I can’t play it, I don’t know if the larger one has video or not or if the smaller one is the TV size one or not. So I’ll post both. I’m sure many have watched the anime. Just revisiting the  childhood –

Status

The abundance of slowness (via medium.com)

The abundance of slowness — Content Creators & Curators — Medium.

Needed to share this no matter what. Coz I’ve been there and done that. Needed some inspiration.

Because, we need our time too, hence we need to learn to say no. Some people including me can totally relate this post, people who just say yes and take unnecessary loads of work over them. I need to slow down too and become more efficient. A must read…….

20 Signs You Really, Really Hate People

20 Signs You Really, Really Hate People

This is funny and true to quite a large extent. Although I knew it anyway. But does need a share 🙂

Natalie Koh's avatarNatalie-Kay-Es-El

1. The idea of getting your ass out of bed, dressing up and stepping out of your front door is just

Michael scott no

2. When you take public transport, you can’t help but think:

theres-too-many-people-on-this-earth-we-need-a-plague

3. You’re on your way to meet a friend and then you get a text from her saying she’s brought a tag-along.

This is your reaction:

dont need another friend

4. You find yourself praying that plans get cancelled all the time.

cancelling plans

5. When you get invited to a house party, you pray to God they’ve got a pet so you can act busy and not interact with actual human beings.

6. When people tap you on the shoulder, or try to do that cheek-kissy thing that white people love, or touch you in any way:

you-dont-know-me-like-that

7. When someone whips out a camera and everyone squeals in delight, you’re just like:

Robert Downey Jr Pained Photo Taking

8. You loovvvveee the internet. And the invention of mobile phones…

View original post 319 more words

Underestimating a language

Underestimating a language

Some two months ago, I had this strange experience. What happened was, I was asking the word for “home” from a Thai person and got confused with the ending of the word. The word is ‘Baan’. I just wanted to know if it is ‘Baal’ or ‘Baan’. I didn’t ask the Thai lady if it was Baan or Baal. I said something like this – Is it Baa ”n” or “l”? And the guy was sitting in the same room listening to us. The conversation from then on went as follows:

Him: They can’t perceive how you are saying. You shouldn’t ask like this.

Me: Why? They do have alphabets right?

Him: But still they won’t get it. Theirs is a different language and they just can’t understand like that.

Me: But ‘क’ (reads as ‘cu’ as in ‘cut’ in Hindi) will remain that only, right? It will be in English also, Hindi also and Thai as well

Him: But still

Me: Arey? Ok, tell me this. If a Japanese person comes to you and say ‘か’ (read as ‘ka’ in ‘kappa’ in Hiragana), you’ll think ‘ka’ (as in k+a in English) only right?

Him: That’s because I know English, they don’t.

Me (Still desperately trying): Then they’ll think in Thai alphabets..…

Him: They don’t have alphabets like that.

Me: How do you know? Do you know the alphabets?

Him: Because they can’t perceive it.

Me: Your thinking na, I don’t know what to do with it. (Was it a little harsh to say?)

Me to lady: Tell me, is it Baa ‘n’ or ‘l’?

Lady: Baan

Me to him: See? They got it.

Him: I wasn’t saying that.

Me: But I was saying this only. I don’t know what you were……

Him: Don’t argue on everything……….

……. And the door slams.

It was our time to go home and Thai people start saying “go home, go home” almost half an hour before the prescribed time. I still don’t know his side of story and I’m not asking you to judge the guy. Just that the fact that a language was being underestimated for not having some trivial capability infuriated me. Have you gone to their mind and see how they think? Come on!

Ok, I’ll admit. I did feel pretty bad afterwards thinking if it was mistake on my part. May be. May be I was wrong. While thinking of the things over again, I found out why I did that. The languages are the only passion I have in my life. Language learning is like my first love. I surely, don’t give that much time to actual learning but I get pretty excited on the thought of another language or culture (and Indian people here, my friends, get pretty amused on seeing my face suddenly light up when they talk to send me to South Korea and Japan, even when I know that they are joking).

 

Another such encounter happened sometime back. Thai has same thing for ‘r’ and ‘l’ as happens in Japanese and Korean. They have only one alphabet which lies in between “r” and “l”. Now, they sometimes use proper “r” sound and sometimes proper “l” sound as and when they feel comfortable. That’s how they have been living and using it. I was asking the meaning of word “aloy” (meaning delicious in Thai) from my mentor when another person (not the same one as above) says “It’s alright in pronunciation but it is wrong otherwise. The spellings are “a” “r” “o” “y” and hence should be pronounced like that.”

FACEPALM.

Tomorrow you’ll say since in English, “g” is pronounced both as “g” in “got” and “g” in “rage” and Hindi has two different alphabets for the two different pronunciations – ‘ग’ for first one and ‘ज’ for second one, hence, the English language is wrong.

I just don’t understand, how can someone be so ignorant and rude to consider the whole language itself to be wrong or inadequate. People, that is their problem and their easiness, how they understand things. It is enough to communicate. Please, don’t disregard others’ language. They are one of the most important part of the culture and at least I can’t bear this behaviour. But I’m helpless too. I can’t do much in that regard can I, besides defending? But that may be difficult too, especially when they are my seniors. But such things, I can’t take out of my mind. I don’t know what to do anymore……

Side Story 1 – Right now, I just don’t want to do anything besides learning languages. I want to immerse myself in that. I did do pretty good last week. But as my internship is nearing its end, I am getting a little more load and little more stress of going back and appearing for interviews. But, even still I want to just learn my languages and do nothing else.

Side Story 2 – I wanted to write a post about the place I got to visit on Wednesday, but I’m still waiting for the photos. And it was such a surprise thing. I had no plan for that holiday. Suddenly my friend called at 8 am and asked me if I could get ready by 8:30. It was such a hassle but we did get to go. But, guess I’ll have to postpone it a little. Even this post is a little late. I was preparing another manga review when the second story happened and I just felt the need to write it out.

I’ll listen to this song again and calm down – 

A thank you note for spammers

A thank you note for spammers

Dear spammer,

I used to get very frustrated whenever I used to see new comment in my spam and it wasn’t related to the post at all (mainly ads for their products) while I used to jump in joy seeing one more spam comment in my stats. But now I’ve come to realize the importance of such things. They do two things for me –

1. At least you visited my blog and took pain to comment on my post, even if it was mere a copy paste from somewhere. I’m very thankful for that.

2. Since most of the comments are in Japanese and I’m lacking material to make my kana reading stronger, I sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for providing me the opportunity to help me in that field. Although I cannot read Kanji (yet) but I’m sure, they will help me with that too, in future.

Just Another Spam Comment

Now coming to the person who has been commenting for SEO every alternate day, I cannot install a plugin since I’m on WordPress.com and not WordPress.org. I want more views to my blog too. But I can’t help you with that. But since you’re visiting my blog every other day, I take this opportunity to thank you for worrying about your plugin my viewership more than me.

That being said, for once I decided that I would let the spam comments of above two types on this post show up. But now I’m thinking if I should do that or not. I’m still confused, so I’ll postpone my decision. But I’ll once again thank you.

Regards,

EastAsianLover

Time to be serious

Time to be serious

October has started and I didn’t realize that. Now it’s time to get serious about studies for placement. I don’t have much time left and have a lot of coursework to do. Added to that is learning swimming, serious Thai lessons and much more…… I have to prepare gifts for everyone too. And I will possibly be giving English lessons to daughter of one of the workers.

So I’ve decided upon some things. I’ll write posts twice a week only – one on Wednesdays or Thursdays and one on Saturdays or Sundays. I’ll keep sharing other things as I find them but they would probably be quick posts. This does give my heart a rest. Now my writing schedule will become regular too.

I do have a lot of things to talk about. A lot of places to write about and a lot of manga, anime and dramas names stacked up in my list. But I seriously need to balance everything, now that the time is drawing near.

That reminds me, in the final presentation by the assessors providing summary of their thoughts about the company, the starting went by like this – “One should give importance to his/her strengths and try to strengthen them even more because that does 90% work for you. One should not forget about his/her weaknesses but working on strengths can be more fruitful.” So I’ve decided to make languages my strengths. Not that I’m forgetting about my Chemical Engineering studies but languages will certainly give an edge to me. So I’m taking them seriously now, even learning Thai. Strangest thing is I was so afraid of tones, on the top of that Thai has 5 tones! But one of my seniors, who is Thailand born Indian said, “So what? Hindi has two tones. What’s the problem with 5 tones?” And I was like, “How could I forget that?” I became so oblivious to my native language that I forgot even we start with tones! This new perspective has made learning Thai easier. Today I discovered, they have same sounds as in our language. If only, I had realized that earlier! Sigh!

Anyways, I can put new and more efforts now.

In the end, today’s song – 

Finally….

Finally….

Finally, the audit has ended. And I got a compensatory leave today because I had been working hard and even spent last sunday at office as I told in this post. So, I’m enjoying and I’ve slept for whole day till now.

In India, a 10 day festival called ‘Navratri’ has started. During this time, people worship different ‘avatars’ of Goddess Durga and young girls in real life. The diet becomes strict too – no onions, garlic etc. Many people keep fast ranging from one day to all nine days. The tenth day is celebrated as Dussehra.

But since I’m in Thailand, leave food for fast, I can’t have onionless food too. And thus I learn of one more compromising situation. Well I should be thankful that I’m at least getting Indian veg food.

But I’m happy that I can start with my studies now.

Today’s song –

After one of the workers at company told me she went to Big Bang’s concert yesterday, only this song is coming to my mind. I’m not a big Big Bang fan. I have never liked their songs but both the recent singles by GD and Seungri were catchy. Added them to my playlist.

50 Ways To Kindness At Work | Jackie Yun

50 Ways To Kindness At Work | Jackie Yun

50 Ways To Kindness At Work | Jackie Yun.

Ah! Such fun and easy ways to give back and receive happiness. Couldn’t let this one go……