Masking reality

(ok so the post started out whiny... I didn't want that. I had planned a funny post. You know how things are, one minute you have a good idea, then you watch something depressing on TV and your mood changes...somehow few paras before ending, I got back to the post I wanted to write in the first place. Sooo...just persevere and read ahead)



Everyone wears a mask. Admit it, everyone does...even you my precious readers.
I am not talking about the ones you get in shops, oh no no...this is a different kind of mask...it changes your persona completely.

For instance, lately when I go to college, I have a look of constant stress and tiredness. This isn't only during mondays nor is it only during nights where I am constantly awake. Assignment ideas keep hovering over my mind.
Or another mask, where I am talking with my family and friends and ramble endlessly having fun, cracking silly jokes.

See... the problem begins when you don't realize if you are concealing yourself behind a mask or not. Which one is real? Stressed or happy? Can't be both.


I am slowly sinking back into the pool of indifference. My work has reached a point where its no longer entertaining. It was bound to happen given all the dull projects I keep getting assigned.
Lets see...


Gotta make 3 flash games, even though the professor clearly said he won't teach everything and we should just get the source code from a tutorial or a file and modify the graphics.
Have to make a movie title sequence, which, once again..have to get tutorials or files and just modify for the same reasons.

Yet another character modeling for maya, so wonderful when nearly half the class does pathetic baby cartoon models while the other half "borrows" the models online and then work backwards, demodeling the final version so they can show the professor the "steps" they used to "create" the model from scratch. And that works.

I have no clue what's going on in programming, and I don't even care. It just isn't inspiring when your professor tells you how exciting programming is and how you can make so much money, when the professor himself, who works as a programmer, has to teach part time to earn cash.

And lastly, there is report writing. Quite frankly, the dullest lecture I can ever sit in. It outranks other subjects by dullness simply because we are not allowed to use our laptops in class. At least with our laptops I could ramble on facebook or look at tutorials and stuff.
I will say this...the one thing I like about report writing...it brings out the words I learned from GRE. I get so thrilled when the guy next to me asks, "hey, whats the meaning of authoritative"

Its a confidence booster knowing that you are surrounded by morons. Of course, the confidence is short lived because you suddenly realize, that you are surrounded by morons.

I mean come on...take a fricking clue.. authoritative... what does it sound like? Something related to authority perhaps? And what is authority? Honestly if you don't know that much then I would be very surprised how that guy managed to come so far.

...

God that gave me a headache again.

My mind is currently annoyed. It is throwing tantrums like you won't believe. It wants some excitement. For godsakes, give me a challenge at least. I hate doing assignments which I can simply rip off from the internet and modify them and submit. Yea yea I know what you are saying, "then why do it?". Simple answer...because I can...because it makes no difference at all...because it works...

Frankly, the last thing I remember doing on my own was...ages ago. And I mean completely on my own. From scratch. No tutorials, no external codes...nothing. Just a blank document which I filled up with beautiful typography.

Rest of the times...bah. Take a couple of pictures, cut them out like a collage, grab the flash code given by the professor, modify it and viola, linkin park cd application. Oh oh...take a couple of cartoons of Indian gods, take the same code from the previous project, modify it a bit. Add indian colors, intricate backgrounds, viola, interactive website on Indian gods.

I will try to upload them soon... I definitely want to show them here. Specially the indian one. Its hilarious. I just have to change my blog template for that. Size won't fit here.

I took a break from college today. Bunked it. The repercussions will be awful but was it worth it?
Welll...I bunked because I have to make a presentation tomorrow on a topic, "what efforts were taken by the singapore government to solve the declining fertility rate in the country". That's not all. My "reliable" hard drive crashed, and along with it, went 200 gb worth of movies, 90 gb worth of college related files, 10gb of music, and 20gb of miscellaneous things that I can't even recall. Also, I found these great links which have readymade aftereffects files... some are just random effects, some are stock video clips, and some are...*evil laugh* complete title intros.

So I took a break. What did it accomplish? Well... since my hard drive refuses to get recognized and every time I plug it in all it asks is if I want to format, I downloaded a data recovery software and spent the last 20 hours trying to salvage my info, 20 and counting...
So far I have gotten back around...40gb worth of college files. This is painfully slow.

Downloaded lots of aftereffects files, but haven't yet checked to see if they are working or not.

And far as my presentation is concerned...well here I am sitting in my room for the past 20 hours and I am still stuck on the first line. "population growth is a worldwide crisis"
The fact that I am beginning to enjoy Desperate Housewives is nerve wracking.


See I have a solution to my problems, a simple way to make it crystal clear that the mask I wear shows stress and the happiness I show is real. I need a girl.
Oh not just any girl.
I need my girl.

The girl who would ruffle my hair when I am just sitting on my bed, or who would argue with me and tell me to work, and when I reply with a whiny "I don't wanna" she would pull my ear hard and say in a stern tone, "you better"
See I know I have to work. It just makes it easier when there is a purpose. Getting good grades, avoiding the chance of failing...pfft... not purposeful enough. But a girl says "you do it because I tell you to"...seems to have so much more meaning.

My little man brain says, "Oh..she wants me to do it. I better do it or I will upset her. And if I upset her I don't get to play. And I like to play. Every man on the planet likes to play."

See man brains are different from woman brains. They really are.
I'll give you an example.

Lets say its a beautiful warm sunny day. A woman will go out all happy and cheery and when she meets someone, she will say, "Its a nice day, isn't it?" See. That's how women are. They will frame the sentence in a way that the other person responds and then she says something and they continue chatting. Women love to chat.

Same scenario for a guy...he will say, "its a nice day". Period. That's it. He knows its a nice day, thus he says it matter-of-factly.

Men are more informative. All our conversations are usually informative. This is how guys talk...
"How does that girl look?"
"Oh she looks hot."
" What about that girl?"
"Oh her...she's nice."
" Isn't this class the worst?"
" Oh yea, definitely. Horrible. Flies are more interesting than this class"
" What are we having for lunch?"
" Sandwiches I guess"
" Lets go for burgers"
" Yea sure, thats cool too"

See, there is no major 'emotional' attachment. Its plainly informative. We just do the absolute minimum that is required. We don't even think. You see random guys sitting quietly on a bench in the park. Women think they are thinking something, we aren't. We are just sitting in the park, looking at stuff, probably looking at women. If a woman walks by, that will stir up some brain cells and we will pop out a thought or two, mostly evaluating her looks and checking our ego to see if we can get a woman like her or not.
We have the wonderful ability to go without thinking for extended periods of time. I once sat in my chair in the balcony, and thought nothing for 20 minutes until a bird flew into the neighbor's antenna....then I quickly rushed to get my camera but I was too late.

Basically, when women ask, what are you thinking...it sends our poor brains into a frenzy. We were just lying on the sofa comfortably watching the fish swimming in the little fishbowl. Suddenly we have to activate all our braincells and figure out an answer that will satisfy you. An experienced man will tell you that whatever answer you pick, make sure its related to something pleasant about her. Because eventually, women just want to know that you were thinking of her.

Honestly though girls, when we think of you, we tell you. We will call you up, chat with you as much as we can, hold you, kiss your cheek...you know where I am going with this.

Men are informative, its how we are and how we will always be.

Women aren't. Women are emotional. Women use and study body posture. They look at the facial expressions and listen to the tone of the voice. That's why they usually know when men are lying. Men listen to content. Women, tone. Remember this when the next time you couples out there fight. The poor man is waiting for you to tell him what's wrong, while the woman is sobbing uncontrollably and yelling that why can't he figure out for himself.
Our poor brains aren't programmed for that. We can't figure out the problem from the tone of your voice or from your body language. We are waiting for you to tell us what we did so we can fix it.

We aren't being insensitive. We just need to be told. Its how life is supposed to be.
They just have to compromise eventually. A woman has to understand that things have to be spelled out for her man most of the time, and the man has to learn to listen to the tone she speaks in to find some hidden emotion. Considering the hundreds of emotions that she has, at least learn to identify 10 of them.

So in a nutshell...life would be a lot easier if I had a girl I can pamper...a girl who would just tell me what to do so it makes sense to do it... a girl who would listen to me whine about the projects, knowing that most of the times I am not looking for help...I just want to let the whining out so I can start thinking. See that's another thing...our memory storage capacity isn't too much. We basically store stuff for a while and the shift it to an external storage and give it to you. So when you remember a "special" day that we forgot...its only because you have that memory and we are waiting for you to give it to us.

Again, like I said...compromise... man will remember the birthday, and two anniversaries...pick any two. Marriage, first kiss, first time in bed, first time you fed each other, first time you danced...the list goes on and on and on. There are many many anniversaries.
We will remember the top three. If you want gifts and to have a special moment on other anniversaries, inform the man at least three days in advance. Just because the poor guy forgot the date doesn't mean he forgot the moment.


Ooook...I am tired of this now. Its high time I start on my report. I really don't want to...but it seems I don't have a choice. Not because a girl told me to...but because I will fail if I don't...and while that isn't really important... the $1000 fee for retaking a subject does matter a lot.

Just have to bear it out. November has already started. Just 44 days more till this semester ends...and finally I will have some peace. And after that, ha ha...no college. Internship...finally some excitement.


But for now, I am going to put my "stressed" mask on and get back to work.