Prepare for your finals – A new perspective

Want to really study for finals but struggling to part ways with your computer? Want to make your parents proud but finding it impossible to stop daydreaming about your special one? Well, here are a few pointers that’ll get you started ~

• Forget it, don’t study ( just kidding ) 😛
  
• Make peace with the fact that you’ll really have to study and there is no way around. Mediate on it. Something like this takes serious contemplation for comprehension.
• Reflect on how amazing the words “contemplation” and “comprehension” are when used in succession.
• Gather all materials you’ll need to study. This includes but is not limited to: textbooks, workbooks, novels, dictionaries, perhaps a Bible, all past notes, quizzes, tests, projects, essays, reports, handouts, reading guides, cross references – basically everything in your locker, everything in your backpack, and everything except for that one piece of paper with the single piece of information that will inevitably compose 75% of your exam but you just don’t know it yet.
• Situate yourself in a quiet place that’s free of distractions.
• Open your textbook.
• Turn off the TV and all the distractions that inexplicably appeared in the room you’ve chosen.
• Flip to the first chapter you covered in the semester.
• Turn the TV back on – it’s Dancing with the Stars night and you never miss this.
• Read the first page of indicated chapter.
• Reread that page because let’s face it. You weren’t paying attention to a single word.
• Busy yourself by highlighting the entire page. This is definitely the important part.
• Take a well-deserved break and raid your pantry, cupboard, and refrigerator. Come back in half an hour.
• Tell yourself that you really have to study now.
• Turn off the TV once a commercial comes on so you aren’t tempted.
• Read over your first page of notes. Underline the words that look important. Open your textbook again.
• Stare at the page for a little bit. This will transfer the information waves from the surface of the book directly to your brain, obviously. 😛
• Experiment with various positions on the couch. Decide on the one that is definitely the least comfortable.
• Wiggle around in that position until you’ve been studying for thirty minutes and learned absolutely nothing. Open your notebook again.
• Discover what an incredible talent you suddenly have for art, and express your creativity all over that page.
• Erase, erase, erase before someone glances at your notes and realizes you’ve been screwing around.
• Now open and read the second chapter.
• Stop after reading a page. Acknowledge that you understood nothing, again. Face the fact that while you were busy not studying, the test has come upon you’re a lot faster than you realized. In fact, it’s tomorrow.
• Reread the first chapter for the four hundredth time, because that’s as far as you get every night and some things just don’t change.
• Scan your notes for anything that looks easy to remember.
• Text six people and post three Facebook statuses about how much studying stresses you out.
• Read the next chapter all while thinking, “how much of this could he possibly put on the test?”
• Absorb the font, degree of boldness and Italicism, and quality of photographs.
• Highlight the words with the most letters.
• Eat dinner. Eat dessert. Shower. Wash your hair. Rinse and repeat and repeat and repeat. Brush your teeth really well. Make your bed and unmake it. Clean your room for the first time in six months. Discover new items and tinker with them.
• Take a twenty minute power nap until your mom enters your pitch black room and suspects the worst. Become defensive when a parent asks why you’re not studying. Remind them that you’ve been going at this for four hours. Assure them that yes, you really have been learning and you’ve gotten everything under control.
• Close the door behind said parent as he/she leaves.
• Proceed to panic. Stare the living mess out of that second chapter.
• Relieve your headache by turning on the TV and breaking open a bag of chips. Your textbook is still open, so it’s okay.
• Become fed up with the system, everything on TV and everything you’re supposed to be studying.
• Decide that you need a change of scenery. Surround yourself with books on your bedroom floor.
• Snatch up your cat/dog/bunny/fish and develop a new found fascination with your pet. Establish a relationship. Come up with new nicknames. Search for fleas.
• Abandon said pet once it’s three AM and all hope is officially lost.
• Take a step back. Admit defeat. Accept that your fate is failure.
• Cry yourself to sleep.

Tell me what you think about it. Share your views in the comments section.
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Of Words & Distortions

I don’t know what’s wrong with the teens these days but they seem to believe in a strange ideology. If being cool is the name of the game, then distorting random English words play down to be the rule. Here’s a list of words I wish to press the delete button on (*smirks*) :

Like : What was meant to signify comparison between two things – “It looked like an original copy” – or “I really like his work” – is now being used as a noun, preposition, punctuation, adjective, verb, adverb, conjunction, article and everything else. The lack of a strong vocabulary has given people to use ‘like’ to signify everything that ever existed on the face of this planet.

Example?  “So I was like, ‘what do you mean’, and he was like, ‘don’t say like that, like its a crime or something’ “. Now handle that!

Awesome : A word used to describe something overtly impressive lost all its glory when it started being used to describe your lunch, dinner, girlfriend, mood, dog and even your poop. It has been used and reused and then used some more so much that it’s brothers and sisters ( read : synonyms ) like magnificent and beautiful feel left out. And added to it are the spelling distortions.

Example?  “Oh this is so awesome/awwweessoommee/awezzummm”

Baby : Meant to identify an infant, human or otherwise, it no longer retains its original meaning. Now it can be used to describe your girlfriend, your best friend, your boyfriend and pretty much everyone who you have remotely positive feelings for. Then comes the spelling permutations and combinations.

Example?  “Hey baby/babes/behbey/bby/bebe/babezz” and the list goes on. Yeah this word should rest in peace now.

Cool : A word used to denote a relatively low temperature has now it’s meaning manifolds. It now can be used to substitute a mere yes or even something that can send temperatures soaring ( *winks* ). And if only it had stopped at that! The spellings are not only catastrophic but kinda makes me lose hope in human race.

Example?  “The party is so cool/cul/kewl”

Aww : Anything remotely cute or pretty is aww-worthy nowadays. Just a form of expression, the over-usage of which is slowing driving people to brain-death these days. Have a pretty baby or a puppy in your profile picture? Be ready to be drowned in the “Awwwwww” river now. Two ‘w’s are still acceptable but when the damned word takes more than a five-second timeframe, the numbness sets in. Said in a particular tone, ‘aww’s can be fatal! ( Yes it’s your cue to stay away )

Example? “Awwwwwwwwwwww look at that cutie pie! ”

Peace : “The state prevailing during the absence of war” is taken a little too literally by the youth of today. Every conversation can now be ended with “peace”, sometimes coupled with a V sign. Not only is it pointless but also becomes unbearable when people end up saying, “piss” instead of “peace”.

Example? “Okay then bye. Piss ( peace ) out man.”  Now that wouldn’t really be a pretty sight, would it?

Yeah I’m done but now its your turn. Have a different opinion? Got words that makes you a momentary mean murderer? Take a moment and write me below!

WRITER’S BLOCK. I’m Gonna Be Dead Now!

You sit in with a mindset to write something great. You have the laptop open in front of you with a steaming cup of coffee by your side, some soft rock or indie-pop playing in low volume, a perfect setting to write down the next masterpiece. But you forget His presence. And especially of the fact that He’s in his jovial best.

You calm your mind, murmur some silent prayers and get ready to begin when

….HAHAHAHAHA…..

your ears burst with a riotous laughter in the background with your mind subsequently going as blank as a white sheet. You are confused at the melodramatic turn of events but gather yourself in quick time. Fending off any sign of incompetence, you try to focus again when voila! The damned thing happens again!

Now you are seriously miffed. You make an irritating face and gulp down some coffee. The caffeine spurs you into momentary enthusiasm and in a desperate attempt, you try to indite again, stringing together beads of a new masterpiece. But by this time, the earlier failures take a toll on you. Whatever you write seems incompetent of your standards. Having so under performed, you are now awfully pissed off, gulping down all the coffee at one go, before opening Google Chrome to check your Facebook notifications.

-x-

Wondering why I told you the story?

Writer’s Block, in itself, is a very amusing thing. You seem to know everything but your brain kinda gets lost with words and construction. And the worst part is, there’s no particular solution to the problem.

As the saying goes, “If a problem stops you from writing, write the problem instead”, here’s my jibe at something that’d troubled authors ( and me ) for ages : The Writer’s Block.

Troubled for the past many days, this is an attempt at overcoming the wretched thing, and with the way the words have arranged themselves, I’m seeing light at the other end!

New Look

I have always maintained that the theme is the soul of a blog. Put on a monotonous theme and no matter how good the content is, nobody’s got time to read it through; now put on something colorful and festive, and everyone suddenly sits up and takes notice!

It’s a simple psychological state of mind, you know, that when we see something colorful and vivid, we automatically presume it to be good content while at the same breath, when we see something a bit off-color, we presume it as unlikable and boring.

Guys who’ve been in my blog before would know, I previously had this theme called Forever. A beautiful theme with a white background, it was any blogger’s delight. But, my friend, there is no word called perfect in this transient world. It posed a severe problem. The font size was extraordinarily small ( some microscopic level ) and there was no way I could customize it. I even had some of my readers write to me complaining about their difficulty to read my articles because of the small font size. Also, I felt, it was kinda monotonous to some extent – everything in white and grey. So I felt I should change it. And here it is!

I found this one randomly and the color so caught my eyes that I immediately decided upon it being my theme for the time being. Though I realize Christmas is far away, I kinda enjoy the festive mood the theme brings to the table. Told ‘ya, being colorful always draws more attention!

A ‘novel’ Idea!

How hard do you think it is to write a novel?

Pretty hard, I’d say.

Frankly, I’ve been conceiving this idea of writing a novel for quite some time now but every one of the attempts had dissapoined. Now before you make that I-know-it-all face and think its because of probable lack of  imagination or experience, let me say that I’ve been writing since I was 4. Now don’t look at me like that, it’s true!

So let’s tell you what happened. I am settled comfortably on my couch, my laptop sitting authoritatively on my lap with a MS-Word document open, the plot racing vividly at the back of my mind and the brain knowing exactly what to do. I’m excited and I reach out to type the first letter when

KABOOM!

I’m completely blank.

It has always been a major concern, right from the school days. I’ve always worried about the beginnings, I don’t know why. I have the whole plot up and running in my head but I fumble with the keys wasting hours, only to construct a mediocre beginning. Or maybe it’s my obsession with fantastic beginnings that make ’em feel worthless. I hardly manage two pages and I lose interest. And that is definitely not how I’d like my novel to be written.

I once asked a teacher of mine, a very authoritative man on creative writing, about the problem. He smiled and answered, ” Begin when you have something to say, and finish when you have nothing more. ” Though it sounded pretty mundane at that time and I had a bad time finding sense in those words, a few while in history, everything became crystal.

It’s simple, you see. You don’t have to try and craft out a wonderful piece when you know you’re struggling with it. Just keep it aside and write what flows through the nib. Just because you want the start to be impressive doesn’t mean you have to write it in the beginning itself. You can always come back later.

Sometimes we writers kinda have these bad days when things don’t quite go our way, but what the heck? It’s your book, you can always amend!

I Loved You

Time stopped when we met,
We both in whites and blue
We looked into each other
And I’d fallen, I knew.
 
The rest is history, they say,
Day by day I grew
Growing to like you, growing to love you,
Growing to be one from two.
 
But I feared to tell ye the truth
That I hath fallen for thee
Fear or losing friendship ceased me
If ye don’t feel for me.
 
When I braved mastering my mind
It was too late I guess,
You were already someone else’s
Love shone on your face.
 
I blame you not for choosing someone
Other than me as your guy,
Only I’m to be blamed for my fate
A truth I cannot deny.
 
Your last blink, your last touch, your hand waving goodbye
I cherish the feeling all alone, I smile and I cry.
I loved you, I love you still
‘cause love is never gone
I live my life, I’m still alive
Rugged, ruffled and forlorn.