Video Post No.2 - A Baby and Dinner Out

So I'm doing 2 things tonight that I haven't done in a while :
1) Go out with a friend - Upcoming exams and/or the fear of upcoming exams have kept me locked up at home. The state of my social life is so incredibly pathetic right now.
2) Put up videos - Aaah we all like these don't we. However due to reason no.1, I haven't had any real motivation to put videos, but now I do!

The Stork Comes A-Visiting (not to me)


Yup it's true! Just g0t the news last night that one of my very oldest and dearest friend is expecting. Friend, if you're reading this, please don't read the previous post.
You have been warned!
:)

Right, so Mink and I went out for dinner tonight at the Indian eatery nearby. This is a place we've visited many many times before and it always cracks us up mainly coz the waiters NEVER fail to either a) forget my order or b) screw up the bill..anyway view on, dear viewer/reader-

Alright. Let's talk about 'Decor'

The constant shifty look to my left is because the waiters are ALWAYS around, dammit!
Anyway the aforementioned screens always have semi naked women dancing to bastardized old hindi classics. It's INCREDIBLY distracting.
Is it any surprise my brother loves eating here? Or more specifically, is it any surprise that he always chooses the table with the best view?

Let's get Down and Dirty. Let's talk 'Food'

I could've sworn once that the packet of ready-made paneer makhani tasted EXACTLY like the one I order here everytime.
*Shrugs* But I'm not expert......or am I?

Ah Waiters. Them again.

*small voice* Waiters bring back bad memories.
"....we're scared they might......."
I know a couple of people who wouldn't mind completing that sentence. :P
Like I mentioned..they were EVERYWHERE and my food hadn't arrived yet. I didn't want to risk nuffin'.

Of Conclusions and Cleavage

I was to go into this deep, serious talk about how frustrating it is when the waiters ALWAYS mess up my order and then....Mink, what is WITH you? Every 5 seconds I would spy the camera going a tad lower than it should.
Oh stop rewinding the video.
Pervs.
Anyhoo, surprisingly they didn't botch up anything tonight. They were ultra attentive to our every needs too. No repeating of orders, no waving frantically to get a waiters attention, hell they even lowered the tvs volume for us.
Your guess is as good as mine. Heh.


So yes..thats a night out for me and Mink.

On an unrelated note, I've noticed NO ONE IS BUYING MY ART.
Mahima is displeased.
Hmpf.

School Stories- Part 2- Crazy Mrs. T

I spent a long time looking at myself in the mirror today (yes, even longer than usual).
Specifically at my nose.
Yes, The Nose.
Always with The Nose.

I frowned at the mark that Kelso's vicious little teeth had left on my already slightly-disfigured nose.
You see, I love sneaking up on him, and then incessantly sniffing at his face.
He hates it. With an exasperated yelp he turns to shoo me away- in the process knocking his canine against my nose (hence the mark) and slightly stunning me with his his high pitched yelp (you know like how fish get stunned by high pitched squeaks emitted by whales?).

Gingerly touching my nose, I found myself wondering if my own kids would cause me this much bodily harm.
And then thinking about kids made me recall what a teacher told me about having babies.

Let's go for a walk down memory lane, shall we?
.
.
.
.
The year was 2000 and I was in 9th grade.
My English teacher- Mrs T, jauntily walks into the room, throws her stuff on her table, proceeds to stand in front of classroom, puts her hand on her hips and says :
"Okay so my husband and I had sex and now I'm pregnant."

-Cue stunned silence-
40 girls stunned into silence. Do you know how rare that is?

"Yep. I'm pregnant. And yes I still have sex at my age."

-Cue slow, hesitant, cautious clapping-

You see we here at uptighty, prudish Singapore convents didn't always have 40-something year old teachers bombarding us with this sorta info. It was new. We needed time to digest what we had just heard.
"That's great Mrs T!"
"Congrats, Mrs T!"
"Oh my goddd I LOVE babies!" Squealed Arpu.

Mrs T slowly turned towards Arpu and suddenly took on a very sinister glint in her eyes.
"You like babies, huh? You think it's fun when you're pregnant and your back hurts all the time? You think it's fun when you're trying to squeeze your baby out and along with that you end up shitting too? You think its fun when your breastfeeding your baby and your nipples are too sore and bleeding and cracked and painful? You think its fun when your boobs grow so huge and saggy that you have to virtually flip them over when you're washing yourself? Oh Yes, my dear, that's SO. MUCH. FUN."
(At the last bit all of us looked down at our chests. The slightly less endowed of the lot beamed with delight. The slightly more endowed of us looked uneasy.)

Arpu sat there, open-mouthed, looking she wanted to cry after that traumatising tirade. I could imagine her shakily taking off her rose-tinted glasses, packing them into a neat little box and the burying that box forever. Poor Arpu.
I was just shell-shocked at the possibility that you might poop while giving birth.
"You can SHIT while giving birth!?!"
"Yes Mahima."
Well, there go my rose-tinted glasses.

So as you can tell, Mrs T was quite a character.
When girls would talk during her class, she'd turn around and with the skill of superbly trained ninja, she would throw perfectly-aimed pieces of chalk at you.
They hurt like a bitch.

I once got back a badly graded essay from her.
"Mahima R! (surname witheld coz I just watched an episode of the Tyra Bank's Show where internet creeps stalked girls. Moral of the story is don't give away too much info. Well I guess I'll just have to delete my entire blog then hahaha. Uh..those of you who know my surname, please don't put it up. I don't want my future in-laws landing on this blog after Googling me. I like saving the rude surprises for later.) How on EARTH could you hand in this crap? You're Indian! Indians are supposed to be good at English! I had a professor at university also with the same surname as you! How do you think he would feel about you handing in this rubbish??"
"Uh..contrary to popular belief, Mrs T, not all R's are related so I doubt he'd feel anything and not all Indians are good at English."
(And then I pointed at Arpu and Roohi.
Hahahahaah KIDDDING...
I am SO dead.)
"Whatever, Mahima, WHAT-EV-ER."

She used to call me "The Rahamah."
Don't ask. Seriously. Don't.
Coz I still have no idea where she pulled that one out of.


Fastforward to 2004.

I went back to my old school to do a relief (substitute) teaching stint there, coz I had too much time to kill before uni started and the pay for relief teaching ROCKS.
(Plus you don't exactly have to be a rocket scientist to relief teach *wink wink nudge nudge*)

I sat in my cubicle pretending like I had work to do when Mrs T popped her head in.
"MAH-HEE-MAAAH."
"Heeey Mrs T! How are you?"
"I'm good I'm good. Listen, was I ever mean to you in class?"
"Yep. All the time."
"Oh okay...did you severly despise me?"
"Oh not at all. I loved having you make fun of me all the time! It was very entertaining."
"Okay great so that means I can ask you to help me grade some essays. I have too much bloody work to do and since you actually liked me, I won't feel bad about asking you to help me with this nonsense."
"Haha sure Mrs T."
"Oh and later, if you're free you can join me with my class. We have CME period."

CME period.
'Civics and Moral Education' period.
This was basically 40 minutes of reading out of book that told you that stealing was wrong and helping an old lady across the road was right (in so many words).
It was a glorified free period.

"Sure!"

I went up to her class where she introduced me as Miss R.
"She used to be a student of mine and she used to sit in that very corner there."
Wow. She actually remembered where I sat. This was sweet!
"She used to have the WORST bushy hair, terrible acne-fied skin and she thought she was such a smartass..."
"Thank you Mrs T. That bought a tear to my eye. You've touched my heart."
"...and now look at her. If someone like THAT could clean up so nicely, then there's hope for all you losers."
"Aww you love me. You REALLY love me."
"Oh shut UP."



Ahh I love that woman.
She was smart, rude, inspiring and funny all at the same time.


So you see..we started off talking about Kelso's teeth which made me think of kids which made me think of Mrs T which is now making me wonder if all teachers start going a bit batty after a few years of teaching.

*Shrugs*

As Mrs T once said : "You're a very disturbing girl, Mahima. Very Disturbing."

:D



***
Addendum: Okay so I listened to Chitgo's idea about putting up my art up for sale, and I'm a member of Imagekind now.
So yes people, all those times you've ooh-ed and aaah-ed over my art - well now you can BUY it. Moahaha!

No, seriously..buy it. Pleeease? Share and care, baby! When I'm famous 10 years down the road, YOU can tell people "Hey! I made her famous. Yea baby, yea!" (Or something like that.)

If you're interested, you can click on the Imagekind button below my profile and check out the prints for sale. Yea they're prints..if you want to buy an original then that's a whole different ball game :)
(I was totally kidding about the 'bitches' part, I promise. You know I love you guys. Well most of you anyway :P)

Kisses in advance for the buyers! :D

I just called...to say...no wait. I didn't call.

I was having a chat with a friend a few days back and we came to the topic of talking on the phone.
It got me thinking about things.

I can't tell if this is a good or bad thing.
I'm the sort of person who'll hear her phone beeping when its battery is dying, shrug and let it die.
I'm completely comfortable with leaving it there, dead, battery discharged, for days.

I used to get into tiffs with friends who would complain because they'd think I was purposely avoiding calls, but here's the truth : My cell phone is almost always on silent mode. Lying in the corner somewhere. I don't pick up calls coz (surprise)...I don't hear the phone buzzing.

Now about making calls. I've been accused of not caring enough to call. I almost never make calls..why? Not because I'm a snob..but simply because the thought doesn't cross my mind.
Yep, it IS as simple as that.

Lord knows I've been accused of being a lazy bum, and lord knows what I do with those 24 hours every day but making calls almost always isn't on the top of my list of priorities.

Does that mean I love my friends any less?
This is just my opinion but I doubt it. I've known people who talk to each other every other day, but take absolutely nothing away at the end of the conversation. I've been one of those people.
I've talked to long lost friends after MONTHS and felt so incredibly fulfilled and content at the end of the conversation.
I'm from the 'too-much-of-a-good-thing...' and 'less-is-more' school of thought (haha SOMETIMES.)

I was told that perhaps I'm a bit scared?
But of what?
To get close to people?
I'd like to think that I get as close to people as I want to, or as far as I have to.
I'd like to think that a phone call doesn't really tell you didley about how close you are to a person.
And I'd like to think that if you're meant to know someone, it'll happen in its own time.


On another vein-
Words are exactly just that- words, at the end of the day. They are thrown around a lot but mean nothing without context.

But that's just me.
What do you guys reckon?
A little food for thought.


In the mean time..a piece I've just finished..I still need to touch it up quite a bit.

Addendum - I was contemplating naming this one 'Knowledge' and then I read the adorable Lil Bohemia's comment (budding artist and daughter of the yummy Miz Bohemia, as you might have guessed). She said "Wow! I like your painting. It looks like she wants to kiss the sky!"

How apt! :)

'Knowledge' it is then.

Waiter, there's spit in my soup!

Okay this has been nagging at me since the past few weeks.

I don't get something - What is with people who are RUDE to waiters/waitresses/cabdriver/ generally anyone in the service industry, for no damn good reason?
Is it that hard to be nice? I don't think so. I'm pretty nice to these people and I've been known to be quite the grouch (only when I'm PMS-ing, people.)

Okay what sparked this rant off were a couple of events:

I met up with someone, let's call him X, for coffee.
Just a nice friendly, platonic coffee, as opposed to those sexually- loaded, electricity-crackling-in-the-air typa coffees.
Now we ordered crepes and as most people would know, crepes contain eggs. X is a vegetarian. No problem, right?

Wrong.

X is one of those vegetarians who doesn't eat egg.
Okay I'm not being judgemental or anything, but how do you guys survive? There's egg in pasta, innocent looking biscuits..them eggs are EVERYWHERE! Every meal must be a battle.
Moving on.

We got the crepes, he sniffed them, frowned at the waitress and asked (shrieked?) "Does this have EGG in it!?"
"Yes, sir!" The waitress cheerfully replied.
"GOOD! GREAT! I'M VEGETARIAN YOU KNOW!" He threw his hands up in exasperation.
The waitress and I exchanged looks.
What? Was she supposed to be psychic? Was she supposed to be super smart to assume that eggs aren't vegetarian? You'd be surprised at the number of people here who are shocked to find out that fish is normally not considered vegetarian fare.
I said "....aaand..."
"I don't eat eggs! Eggs aren't vegetarian! Take this back." He did this snappy finger thing, which completely, totally, utterly cheesed me off.

Needless to say, I was taken aback (not coz he doesn't eat eggs, but because of his shrieky outburst) and I said "It's okay..leave them here, I'll have it." and I smiled at the waitress who looked relieved.

Next up, he wanted a drink which contained A. Waitress apologetically said "I'm sorry, sir, we've run out of ingredient A."
"What NONSENSE is this? I AM NEVER coming here again. I'll have this other drink instead." He did the snappy finger thing again and dismissed her. He actually threw a hissy fit!
I smiled and shrugged apologetically to her.
After she left, I turned to him and said "That was mean."
"No, you watch, the next time I come here they'll be fully stocked with ingredient A."

Uhhhuh. Right. How could I forget? You've got them quaking in their boots coz you're single-handedly responsible for their revenue because of your copious consumption of ingredient A.

He smiled and said "Anyway, you must try this other drink I ordered, its very nice!"
"I'm not trying anything she brings you now. Someone in the kitchen has probably spat in your stuff by now."
"No, no they won't do that."
Wanna bet, wiseass? I've got friends working in this eatery and I've heard what happens to bad, bad customers when they get too big for their booties.

But, of course I didn't tell him that :)

What gives? Is it that hard to be civil? Is it that hard to imagine that you're capable of making the same mistakes that they make? Is it that hard for you to remember that you've screwed up before?

It's pretty damn easy to be nice and smarmy and kiss-ass when you're dealing with people who are on your level or of a higher status (in any and every sense) but when you've got people who aren't quite as privileged as you, it becomes so convenient to become a dickhead.

I firmly believe in the fact that you can suss out a person's character by watching how he interacts with people on a lower level than him (that and the state of his bathroom too).
That and you can't trust someone who's mean to animals.

I know, I know I have too many beliefs. Hey, what can ya do?

I'm not nice coz I'm obligated to, or because I'm petrified that they'll spit in my food ("Moahaha, now you know what that secret ingredient was, you bitch!")
I'm nice coz why on earth would I want to be anything else? It takes a lot of hardwork and coldness to be mean to someone (unless you're mean to me first, then being mean to you is pretty enjoyable)

I know people who ignore cabbies when they talk to you. I know people who look like it would KILL them to say "Hi" back to the lady serving them their coffee.


All I'm gonna say is : Get your head out of your ass already. Be nice to people on your way up, coz you'll definitely meet them on your way down

Fame meet Mahima, Mahima meet Fame (sorta)

It would seem my video post is getting positive reviews! In the light of this, keep your eyes peeled coz more videos are definitely on their way :D I was actually worried about anonymity issues before I put it up and then I remembered that I've put more pictures and descriptions of me, my friends, my family and my LIFE, than I can remember. Oh well any remanents left of my anonymity definitely flew out the window with the last post!

ANYWAY
The COOLEST thing happened this morning!

I was at uni for an 8 am class, which SUCKS for two reasons because-1) getting up early at 630 am is inhumane and 2) flexing you're brain trying to figure out the mechanisms of the brain at the ungodly hour of 8 am is also inhumane.
However these two problems are usually remedied by A lovely mocha from the cafe at my uni : The Grinning Gecko (If anyone from the Gecko is reading this - Please sponsor my mochas. It's the least you can do in return for the free publicity.)

Anyway onto the good stuff!
So I walked towards my class and a few girls were walking towards me, one of them stared. So I looked and gave her a small "Yes, yes I know that you know that I know you're staring, so let's not get hostile and all so just smile back, 'kay?" smile.
She was Indian, and I'm sure every single Indian will testify to this - Indians love to stare at other Indians. It's like they've NEVER laid eyes on another Indian before!

OKAY, so I smiled..she gave me a small smile back.
I went into class, put my bag down, and went back out to visit the little ladies room. Upon entering I saw the same girl talking animatedly to her friends..and they fell quiet when I entered
Okaaaaaay...
I was clipping up my hair when suddenly I heard her say something with the word 'blog' in it.
Hair half-clipped I slowly turned and said cautiously "What?"
She hesitantly took a step forward and said "Do you....have a blog?"
Pause "Um......Yeees......."
"Are you......Mahima?"
We both stared at each other with the full weight of the absurdity of the situation hitting us.
I stared open-mouthed (Yes I am not even HALF as quick witted in real life than I am on this blog), finally grinned and said "Yes!"

Turns out she was an exhange student from Canada who had landed at my blog via Rohan's blog.
I was overjoyed and I asked her "Oh! Do you know him personally?"
"No, I don't I was just reading through his posts and I was looking at his blogroll and I just decided to click on your link. I saw that you were in NUS and I thought it would be so cool if I happened to meet you on my exchange here!"
"Well there you go!"
Alas, I had to rush back to class coz I spied my tutor making her way there. We shook hands and I said "It was great meeting you!" and she replied "Same! If you see a comment from Shruti, you'll know who it is."


Hey Shruti! Here's a big "Hellloooooooo fellow uni-mate-and-blog-reader!" to you! You totally made my day babe. :)

And speaking of making days, check out the first video at Miz Bohemia.
Gracias, my gorgeous-yogic-kind hearted-curly haired friend! :D Besos, baby!

Moahaha
Today.... Fickle Fame decides to show Mahi some love.
Tomorrow.....World Domination!
*Cue theme song from 'Pinky and the Brain'*

Teehee!

Belated Diwali Wishes, A Warning and my MY VERY FIRST VIDEO POST!

Okay this post should have actually been done ages ago but a rather unfortunate incident took place, which delayed its posting..anyway..things are back to normal and so you get to see this post!

This was taken at Roohi's place, about 2 weeks back I think, when Mink and I had gone to her place for Diwali.
I thought 'Hey! Let me do a Miz B. ..should be interesting enough' and out came the camera.

**It's come to my attention that some of you can't view the video, so I've tweaked my youtube settings a bit and hopefully if you can't view it on the blog, you should be able to see it on youtube!

Yes..I am indeed holding a star...for better lighting..you shouldn't be surprised really.
(And yes...I notice I say '..and umm' a lot. This is because I actually get a bit nervous when I'm filmed...go figure!)
Thank you Miz Bohemia for the inspiration!
(Alternatively, please send all hate mail to Miz Bohemia for the inspiration :D)

Speaking of lighting...a rather unfortunate tale is to be told of too much light.

Now as you all might know, Diwali is the festival of lights and most people believe in the custom of keeping a lamp lit for 3 nights during this festival period (or rather the festival period that just passed).

This is NOT a good idea.

A friend of mine had her house almost burnt down because a lamp fell over, which then proceeded to set her kitchen, prayer room and living room ablaze. I'm not talking about a little fire that could be put out with a bucket of water. I'm talking fire engines, hospitalization due to smoke inhalation and loss of property worth a lot of money.

Thank God no one was hurt.


It's none of my business telling people how to run their religious affairs but I'm going to anyway.
God is NOT going to get pissed off at you for not keeping a lamp lit for 3 nights. I know coz he told me. Okay kidding, but come one...let common sense prevail. The same goes for Christmas lights, birthday candles and anything else thats fire-related.

God helps those who help themselves. He also helps the smart ones.
So for pete's sake...don't leave stuff burning or otherwise lit up overnight.