How The Cookie Crumbles…

"Smile like there's nothing wrong, talk like everything is perfect, act like its all a dream, and pretend its not hurting you."

 

Once upon a time in a land not so far away lived a boy and a girl who have quite a history. The boy and girl grew closer from the onset of their second meeting.

They would chat and talk to each other almost everyday or every other day for hours on end without awkward silences. It was beautiful to watch if I say so myself.

The Girl thought they were going somewhere with it until she woke up one morning to find the boy had listed himself in a relationship with some hussy and it wasn’t her! As expected, the girl was quite distraught. She mulled it over; left, right and center trying to find a reason why? Why with someone else and not her? Could she have read it all wrong? Was it because of the fight they had had? But fights are supposed to make you stronger not to weaken the bond. As she recalled, they had successfully mended fences after the fight and everything was back to normal. Why this and Why now? All the signs had pointed to getting together even if they never actually had “the talk”.

She put everything that had happened down to reading too much into the signs when clearly it was all in her head. A consultation with her best friends told her otherwise. He was into her just as she was judging by prior actions. Actions speak louder than words sometimes but when it comes to matters of the heart, the talk needs to be had.

The girl felt like confronting the boy upon finding him listed but thought otherwise. You do not confront someone on something you have never talked about. She then contemplated telling him how she felt but it was a little too late. Doing so would put the two of them in an extremely awkward situation therefore killing the friendship. How do you survive something like that? She decided to keep it to herself and went on being the ‘good friend’ she is. Besides, her brother had once told her that for boys, there is safety in numbers. He can say the same things to three different girls later settling with the one who gave in first. The not so best woman won in this insistence.

Even if it kills her a times, she holds onto who she is. Fine, she misses the endless talking on the phone. The texts and well…the thought that she is talking to him and no one else. But hey, the cookie had to crumble at some point, right?

The boy and the girl occasionally talk though not as frequently. At the back of their minds, they both know it will never be right as rain like before not until the boy talks about the elephant in the room. The girl, however much she wants to bring it up can’t dare to. No! It is his business and therefore he has to be the one to bring it up.

THE END!

I Promise Myself...

The Secret Quotes on twitter shared this letter of Promise and I identified with some of the promises written unknowingly. I have tried to remain true to myself amongst other things. The only thing I would add is try not to be so much of a slacker? 

Quotes- Eat, Pray, Love.

A few months back like maybe six, I made the decision to read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I was more curious about the book itself than the movie which to date I have never watched. It is about her journey to spiritual fulfillment basically. It is a good read and very relatable when it comes to religion and divinity. We all have those moments where we doubt our religions, the need to find the spirit and have an unwavering belief in God’s existence and go back to the straight and narrow. It is all that.

I needed to make a quotes post and I didn’t have to look further than the book. Good thing is I had highlighted all that I found interesting courtesy of being on Adobe Reader X! As always, I hope some of these speak to you and find them relatable. I tend to remember a quote in some situations and it ends up being an Aha! moment.

• Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.
• The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are congratulated.
• When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if
  someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.
• Beauty attracts Beauty.
• Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.
• Speak the way you eat. Italian saying.
• “It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.” – Bhagavad Gita
• “The wise man is always similar to himself.” –Sextus (Ancient Pythagorian philosopher)
• “All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.”-Kabir
• Flexibility is just as essential for divinity as is discipline.
• God responds to the sacred prayers and efforts of human beings in any way whatsoever that mortals choose to worship-just so long as those prayers are sincere.
• “People follow different paths, straight or crooked, according to their temperament, depending on which they consider best, or most appropriate-and all reach You, just as rivers enter the ocean.” – Upanishads
• God takes what belongs to God-the gesture-while man takes what belongs to man-the food.
• To meditate, only you must smile.Smile with face, smile with mind and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy.
• Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.
• All the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people.
• Even in the worst tragedies and crisis, there is no reason to add to everyone’s misery by looking miserable yourself.
• Only the young and stupid are confident about sex and romance.
• Sometimes intense emotion can cause us to respond to cataclysmic news in exactly the opposite manner logic might dictate.
• To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.
• “All the pain of a human life is caused by words, as is all the joy. We create words to define our experience and those words bring attendant emotions that jerk us around like dogs on a leash.” – Yogic saying
• It is the oak tree that creates the very acorn from which it was born.

4000 Words…Anyone?

I had the painful pleasure of writing a personal statement for a university application. I say painful cause it was a daunting undertaking. The last time I did something of this sort was during university for my final year. And since then, aside from job application letters, I never thought I would write a statement that requires you to get the old wheel turning academically. I definitely had to make research which in itself was a task.

When you make research and come across information like…a good personal statement is made up of 4000 words and six paragraphs…has to be relevant to what course you are applying for…look at prospectuses and sample personal statements…the language you use and the way it is laid out will be judged…

Do you not feel daunted and very deflated? The start to writing one was scary and at a certain point, I thought I could not do it. The information on the internet is so vast- the decision on what to use is solely yours. If you are not a sure person-doubtful of yourself, you’ll fail to put one together. And it is hard to read information on the internet while typing out what you find relevant in lieu of making notes.

What I know about myself is; give me a few hours to think and ruminate on it, make research and I’ll find a course of action. After gathering the relevant information: how to write a personal statement, structure and examples/samples, I knew how to proceed.

Typing notes out before making a skeleton was not the way to go. I got back to pen and paper and wrote all the salient points necessary for a skeleton. I don’t know if it is just me cause I find it better to make notes with pen and paper (despite the fact that I am slowly losing my handwriting since we type or tap nowadays)! With pen and paper; your thoughts are transferred to paper in a cohesive flow.

My awesomely poor handwriting

 Armed with all the information that will go into giving the six paragraphs body, I begun writing out a skeleton. I first typed out the notes I’d written on paper as bullet points for easy reference and of course, to have a soft copy in case I lost the sheet of paper. My first draft was so irrelevant I didn’t need to be told.

Going by my notes and samples, I put my thinking cap on, inspiration and genius struck whilst I got into the zone and let my fingers fly over my notebook’s keys (keyboard). Keeping in the zone was not easy! I wondered how I was going to come up with 4000 words and the questions, ‘how can a sane person talk about themselves in so many words? Who came up with these things anyway?’ kept popping up in my head with each sentence I typed. And some of my friends decided to interrupt my ‘in the zone’ moment!

Peter wanted to use my laptop not once, twice but four times yet he could blatantly see that I was busy. He wanted to check his email, chat on facebook, scan his memory stick then finally watch two music videos. Another friend of mine was feeling down and doubting his life’s choices. I had to get myself out of the zone, talk to said friend and let Peter use my laptop too.

When helping my friends out was done, I dragged myself to the zone long enough to finish the personal statement. Out of the 4000 words, I had less than 1000 in the six paragraphs. I think it is easier to add into when you have something to go on, plus, I remembered how all the how-to guides I read said, ‘…it is better to write a personal statement that is short and sweet rather than one which is long and irrelevant.’

Those are the words giving me comfort and the fact that I am damn proud of myself for what I came up with. YES!