Carry on Wayward [Daughter]

All of senior year, it seemed as if every teacher had only one thing in common to say: “Prepare yourselves now, because everything changes in college.” I distinctly remember hearing any variation of these words come out of every single teacher’s mouth, whether I had their class or not. I recall looking over at my friend and rolling my eyes, not understanding what they were talking about. We all thought the same thing. We had AP classes, right? Weren’t those just college courses taught in high school? What did they all mean, we would have more homework? It was unfathomable at that point that anyone could ever assign more homework than we were given in our classes. How could friendships change drastically enough to be eradicated? Was it really possible to miss being at home enough to actually want to go home every weekend? These were the amassing questions, the list growing in every direction as more and more people piled information and advice on us. Who knew that quite a few of them would be answered within the first two weeks after classes started?


Many things about coming to college have been turning out to be just as amazing and liberating as were imagined. I spent the entire summer after graduating from high school in eager anticipation of what was to come. I would be moving out of the house and living in a dorm where I would not only have to share a room, but said room would also be much smaller than the one I was accustomed to having all to myself. On top of this, there would be no parents around to watch your every move as you make it. If you didn’t want to tell them something, it was perfectly acceptable not to. Most everyone would be adults and relatively in charge of their own lives. We would get to choose when to go to dinner, with whom to go to dinner, and what to eat for dinner. There would be no reprimanding for coming back to the room past midnight on a school night when the next day held an 8 A.M. class.


I feel that college life so far has been extremely paradoxical. Not only are all the aforementioned things blessings, but they have also been proven to be curses. Unlike high school, the schedule here isn’t nearly as structured. We do not have to sit through six different classes every single day for one hour each. We are also provided a control over which courses we want to take in the semester and can choose the timing according to our own preferences. One of the hardest things about high school had been the ungodly hour at which classes had started. By nature, I am a night owl, preferring to do most of my work during the afternoon and evening hours. Tech allowed me to select classes that were better suited to my time preferences, allowing me to have most of my mornings free to leisurely get ready for classes and finish up any remaining homework. Another amazing thing about college is most definitely the fact that every one lives so close by. Last week, I had some difficulty understanding what I needed to do for my Chemistry homework due the next day. Had I still been in high school, I would have had to call someone up, try to get them to help me over the phone, or actually drive over to their house to get the help. However, the only thing I had to do that day was to walk over to the study/lounge area on my floor and ask if anyone had the same Chemistry class as me. Immediately, three girls shouted ‘yes’ and asked if I needed any help.


Unfortunately, there have also been many very difficulties in adjusting to college life. One of the hardest things (and one I am still struggling with) is how much we have to walk every single day. Back home all that needed to be done was to hop in a car and drive over to the school. Living on a campus that is not only huge but also in the middle of the city has definitely proven to be a challenge. It was hard to wrap my mind around the idea that I wouldn’t be able to just go on a late might walk if I wanted to. Unlike my neighborhood at home, the area surrounding the Tech campus is not very safe at all. And I never thought I would miss my family as much as I do. It may have been very annoying when my mother would keep tabs on me at all times during high school, but now I understand why she had done that. It is truly not a good idea to come home past midnight on a weekday, something I figured out the hard way just this week.


As a whole, I believe most freshmen go through these same exact situations and realizations. Everyone gets feeling of nostalgia as they are sitting in the dining hall looking down at the shady looking burger and fries on their plate. Most, if not all, have to work on their time management, because college is not at all as easy as high school. Naturally, there are always some differences. Unlike students who have come to this school from another state—or even another country—I already have a network set up among my peers. Not only do I know many students in the freshman class, but I am also acquainted with upperclassmen, be they from my high school or friends of the family. This already set web of support definitely makes the transition a much smoother one.


Have all the questions that had arisen during the span of senior year been answered? Of course not. However, many are on their way to being answered while others are just being proven to be ridiculous notions. While these first two weeks have been hectic and jam packed with new information and adjustments, it is only the beginning.

What can Brown do for you?

I have just started to realize exactly how naive I still am. I experienced a majorly deflated ego for the first time in the last few days. Sure, I had been knocked down a couple pegs by grades or fights with friends or even just by my mother. Never before had I felt this badly over a break-up. Not that we were even really in a relationship! Which, you know, just makes it that much worse that I'm taking it to heart like this.

I think maybe the worst part about this whole thing is that it wasn't really he who broke it off with me. It was a lot more mutual than that. In fact, I could even say I might have been the one to start losing interest first. The thing is, just because you don't really like someone anymore, doesn't mean it won't hurt when they move on so quickly. It makes you really question yourself. "Are other girls really that much better than me?" and "Am I really that easy to just forget?" None of these are questions a person should ever have to ask themselves. Too bad reality has a mind of its own.

But then, I think I'm also being quite unfair to myself by having these thoughts. I'm a rational enough person to know and understand that things like this happen. People grow apart and sometimes, they find someone else very very soon. It doesn't mean there was or is anything wrong with me per say. Just that we weren't compatible. But really. Try making my heart understand that. Try making it not hurt just a little every time I think about it. Human emotions are the craziest things ever, I swear.

Somehow though... All of this made me seek solace in reading blogs... And I started reading a particular blog of a woman who sews. And really, it wasn't that different of a blog. It had a cute template, some funny stories. What it was mainly about was showing to the world all the things she had been creating over the last few years. And that kind of struck home with me. It made me think back to those days when I was just a wee bitty fifth grader, and how much I wanted to learn how to sew.

Sadly, mom doesn't know a thing about sewing, except for how to mend rips and attach buttons. So, that little interest just kind of went down the drain. But reading this blog... Seeing all the amazing things that were done on it, and how cute everything was... Well, it made me think that maybe just because I wasn't able to learn something when I was little, doesn't mean I can't try to do it now. Will I actually learn how to sew? Who knows. But what I do know is this...

It made me decide that I wasn't going to let myself shove my desires and interests to the side and onto the back burner anymore. If I want to learn or experience something new, I'm going to go for it. Because if I don't, I'm truly going to regret it later on in life.

And all of that, I think is kind of helping me through what I think I'd like to consider my first real break up (because this was one in which I was very much emotionally tied up in, even if I would pretend I wasn't at times). Because the thing is, I don't regret anything I've done. I don't think anything that happened these past few months was a mistake. And yeah, I'll be smarting over it for a while longer. But hey... It's only natural.

What's the good word?

Answer: "TO HELL WITH GEORGIA!"

Orientation in my mind has always meant the gain of knowledge about general campus life and expectations. We would get a few maps, meet a bunch of people, sign up for a couple of classes, and go on home. Who knew I would be learning this phrase and several others that would soon become a part of my daily vocabulary? Auburn says "Wareagle", Tech disses UGA. What could be better? But of course, we did do all those other things as well. So, with no further ado... (drum roll please)...

Fall 2009 Schedule

1310 General Chemistry MWF 1-2 p.m.
Lab T 7-10 p.m.
Recitation Th 6-7 p.m.
1502 Calculus II MWF 9-10 a.m.
Recitation TTh 9-10 a.m.
1101 English Composition MWF 12-1 p.m.
1000 Intro to Biomedical Engineering W 8-9 a.m.
1000 GT T 4-5 p.m.

Now, that schedule up there? Yeah, that took some major work on this (that would be me) undergraduate biomedical engineer student's part. Those FASET leaders that were supposed to be there for help? Yeah, what crap. OK, that's a lie. My leader was pretty awesome if I do admit. I don't think anyone else could have answered all of the questions about how to get around the legal drinking age ;) No, but for real, she was cool. Super bubbly and super awesome. Sadly, we got some random other person when registering, and I have no idea what this dude's name was, but he turned out to be a serious disappointment. I mean, I guess I should be fair, he did teach me how to actually sign up for classes. But yes, tons of tinkering was done and hours on the phone with Joey were spent.

And really, I think all of that has produced a fairly balanced schedule. The downtime between classes seems fairly reasonable, although I do need to figure out how to change the MWF Chemistry class from 1-2 p.m. to 2-3 p.m. In all though, looks to me like a nice course load. Tuesday used to be completely barren, but I managed to switch Chem lab from Wednesday to Tuesday. 3 hour night lab. Whoopee... Then again, being a nocturnal person, this should be my prime awake time. OK, I'm rambling, moving on.

Talk about friends galore! I don't think I met this many new and awesome people on the first day of GHP, let alone any other time in life! Countless poets have described and many a girl has had dreams of "love at first sight". I, Devi, seem to have been lucky enough to experience something even better... "friendship after first conversation". Maybe, just maybe, I am coming out of that awful shy and reclusive shell that always surrounded me. Sure, with all the trials and tribulations of high school, this shell has cracked in many a place and has had pieces fallen off in small increments. But I don't think I have ever managed to come out of it. Even now, though I felt a lot more confident and was able to make friends and chat up with random people all on my own, I think it's still more of a "me sticking my head out of one of the larger holes in the shell" type of situation. But hey. It's a start.

Two campus maps, 13 hours of credit, tons of friends, a horrible experience with the showers, a few rounds of the strangest icebreaker games, a wealth of information about how to get around rules, and a boat load of free shirts and misc. items later, I have concluded that orientation was pretty good. As well as my actual stay at Sumi's house and hanging with friends of course. But that is a story for another time.

Frustrations and realizations and confusions! Oh my!

Recently, I have been more frustrated than usual. In a way, I think it's mainly caused by me being cooped up here in L.A. not really being able to do anything other than hang out with my family. Maybe writing about some of this stuff here will help me feel better and get over it...

First of all, I'm just all around frustrated with my body. I know that I'm by no means fat or obese or any of those things. But I'm still not as healthy as I'd like to be. And I get up everyday and go jogging and eat super healthy all the time and go to the gym for at least an hour every single evening with my mom and dad. And I know I've barely done this like this for maybe three weeks now, but I've always eaten super healthy. If I've been doing all of this, shouldn't I be seeing some results by now? We always hear these awesome success stories about how people lose pounds upon pounds after only a month of doing something like this, and I see absolutely no change in myself at all. I've almost started giving up hope, but I won't, because I understand that this is still making me a lot healthier than I was before, because I'm working out my heart and all other important parts of my body. But this realization doesn't seem to make me feel any better about it.

Lately, I've also started feeling really guilty with what type of person I have turned out to be. Sure, I seem like I'm pretty great, but am I really? The other day, I realized that I was going to be home for the first time ever when something Harry Potter is released. I realized that I could go see the sixth movie with all of my friends and just have a blast, something I've never been able to do before. As I exclaim in the car and tell my parents this, all they can say is "Wow, her priorities really are in different places than ours..." And that made me feel worse than I have ever felt about anything before. Because I realized, maybe for the first time fully saw, that I have totally different priorities than my parents. My mother didn't move out of the house until her early twenties, and even that was to move somewhere where she had family really close by. Never when she was young did she prefer to go to a movie with her friends. She would always be satisfied and happy with going with her parents. She cooked and cleaned and was just all around the perfect daughter.

I'm not like that. I'm the farthest from that I could ever be. I don't have any idea how to cook most of the stuff we make, I have to drag myself to even clean my room, forget the rest of the house, and I will always prefer to go out on a girls night or to a movie with some friends than spend my evenings doing nothing but hanging around with my family. In a way, I fell like I've become the worst daughter ever imaginable, and it's too late for me to change anything, because I'm going away to college, and mom won't even be in the same state anymore. And now, I'm just starting to wonder if I've turned into a bad person because all of this. Because shouldn't I want to spend a lot of time with my family? Shouldn't I be satisfied and really happy to be here in California for more than two months hanging out with no one but my parents and grandparents? Doesn't the fact that I keep wishing I was home so I could go out with my friends make me the worst daughter ever? I don't even know what to think of myself anymore...

And I've been really confused about guys. Well... One particular guy I guess. My mind keeps sending me mixed signals, and I don't know what to do about any of it anymore... I guess I'd much rather not go into detail here, but it's still one of those things that's got me really twisted up in knots. Today, I almost thought I knew exactly what to do about it. But then, I found out more things, and I think I'm more confused than I've ever been about it before now. I'm just not sure in anything my mind tells me anymore, because it keeps giving me tons and tons of pros and cons, and none of them seem to outweigh the other.

I really just don't even know anymore. I know most of these frustrations are nothing but silly fears, spurred on by my overactive imagination, late nights, and lack of proper timed sleep. But that doesn't stop them from eating away at me, bit by bit. I'm afraid if I'm here like this for much longer, I'm going to be completely rotted through by the time I go home for school.

Redefining Religion

*WARNING: Religion is about to be discussed in the coming post. If you are offended or have no interest in reading about my sudden revelations, please, skip this post. Thank you.*


Today, I became a Hindu. I know what you're thinking: "But Devi! I thought you already were a Hindu!" Ahh, very true my friend, I have been calling myself a Hindu my entire life. It's what I grew up with, what my parents practiced, there were signs of it all around my house, right down to the mini shrine in our house for our most revered God. What other religion would I have belonged to, which other religion could I have followed?

But that is exactly why I was never truly a Hindu. It was a blind faith, an acceptance of what was supposedly normal for me, an ignorant worship of something I didn't ever really understand. I am happy to say that this has begun to be rectified. So, this is how the story goes...

Today, my entire family took a trip to the outlet mall to do some nice summer clothes shopping. (Yes, I bought some gorgeous tops and awesome shorts and four pairs of shoes. Now, back to the topic at hand) Grandfather sat on some bench outside, too bored to even come into the shop, while mom and grandma spent hours upon hours in each store. So what do father and darling Devi do? They discuss things, of course. Topics ranged all the way from college to politics, eventually coming to a rest on religion. And then... Devi's entire perspective changed...

I realized for the first time, that Hinduism is not a religion. There are no conversion procedures, not a single holy scripture places any importance on the act of praying or going to the Temple, and none of them actually talk about God. Ok, the last one isn't quite true, of course they talk about God... But it's all mainly about how as long as you believe in a divine being, any divine being, and do good deeds, you're going to be alright.

No, Hinduism is no religion. It is a way of life. The holiest of scriptures, the very first records of Hinduism to be found, written in the most obscure fashion are the Vedas. All the books were written by a community of men and women, all of them containing nothing but different ways to keep good karma and be an individual with morals and integrity. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Sounds so simple, doesn't it? That right there, is the only thing it all boils down to. There were no prophets or whispers from God on how to become closer to him/her/it. There was only the belief that by living an honest life, the soul would be saved in the afterlife.

Do I understand everything about my religion now? Of course not. There is so much still to read, so much to ask my father or my grandmother. But I am happy to say that it became much clearer today. It doesn't matter how many times a day I pray, or how many days a week I fast, or how many times I go to the Temple in a month. As long as I am honest in everything I do and believe in my heart that I am a good person, I'm pretty sure I'll be alright. This may be my first life, or my last. It doesn't even matter.




P.S.- I'm so sorry about this guys... I had to get it out there... I promise, I'm not ragging on any other religion, I love religions! I'm sure Christianity or Islam or Buddhism are just as amazing and cool as I think Hinduism is at this point. I really do hope I haven't offended anyone with my random 2 A.M. ramblings about things I've been thinking of all day. Please forgive me if I have =)

Random Ramblings

I have recently realized that most everything Mr. Petmecky preached to us in Econ class last year was pretty much true, especially the very definition of economics: "The balance between scare resources and unlimited wants." It's true that this definition can be used to define basically everything in life. For example, yesterday afternoon, I was almost crying due to the boredom I was suffering. But in all actuality, this boredom was completely uncalled for, considering my internet had gotten set up only the day before and I had three different books beside my bed just waiting for me to open up. Not only that, I could have helped with household chores, like sweeping the porch for my mother or helping with some cooking. But did I do any of these things? No I did not, instead I chose to sit around, surfing the web trying to find something to do.

And now I wonder... Why are we this way? Why do we always search for something newer, something better to keep us occupied? What happened to the old fashioned past times, like spending time with the family or just going out into the backyard and laying in the grass? All of a sudden, I don't like where I have ended up in the past couple years. I don't like that the usual Facebook or Gmail chats couldn't keep me occupied. In the end, I don't want to be the type of person who can't enjoy the little things in life, the person who doesn't see the beauty in a day spent under a sunny, cloudless sky.

Something else that has been on my mind lately... college. Yeah, I'm stoked to be going to Georgia Tech next year, but all of a sudden, it just hit me. Next year, things are going to change. And yeah, I should have known this from the start, considering that's just about the only thing every single teacher has been telling us and the only thing anyone can even talk about this year.

"Oh man, college is going to be so awesome! No parents to tell me what to do!"

So, it's silly that this is just hitting me now, but it is. I just realized today, as I was working out in the gym, that next year, I'm not going to be with my friends. Sure, I'll be with some friends, but it's never going to be the same. Ann won't come over to my house at 10 p.m. just because she wanted to talk to someone or couldn't figure out the Econ test corrections. Karen and I won't be walking/driving home to her house after school just to eat almost an entire tub of ice cream (her eating 75% of course) and then crash on her bed with the laptop, some music, and her dog. Impromptu girls nights with Karen, Ann, Whitney, Katelyn, and me won't be possible.

Emily, Courtney, and I won't be randomly going to movies, or to the gym, or to the park in the middle of the night. I won't be eating Hope's amazing from-the-box-but-with-Hope-Magic-added cookies. Sumi and I will never have seventh period Bio in which to aggravate Mr. Kuninsky with our incessant gossip and whining and chatter.

I just realized that my entire life is going to change next year. School is going to be the toughest it has ever been, daily life will take a lot of adjusting to since I've only gone six weeks of my life away from home (GHP last summer), and friend groups are going to be completely redefined. And I don't think I've ever been more scared and excited at the same time. Because in the end, Katelyn, Pranav, Timmy, Dipesh, and all the other guys will still be there if things get too tough. And I could never forget all of my GHP friends, like my brother Joey, and Meha and Kshama.

It really is exactly as my dad says, "The most constant thing about life is that it changes." I think we should all go out there next year, and just live it up. Lets study hard, make lots of new friends, and make sure to keep up with all of our most important old ties. College years are supposed to be our best ones. Lets make them that way. =)

Start of Something New

So. I'm going to put it out there from the very start: this is most certainly not something I do very often, this blog thing. I remember when I used to update Xanga every single day, but those were middle school and freshman year days =) Eventually, there was no one reading it anymore, school kept getting in the way, life got too busy, and it was just plain old boring. So why am I doing this now?

See, I'm actually doing this for many reasons, the main one being that I need some sort of outlet to let my words and thoughts float away and out of my head. Plus, is there a better way to make sure everyone stays connected? Ok, so maybe only I'll be broadcasting my life and thoughts to the world, but that's fine with me. I figure with everyone going off to college, we need something constant in our lives, a reprieve from the real world, each finding it in their own way. Some may lose themselves in the physical challenges climbing rocks with a loved one provides, some may chose to throw themselves into the party world and live life on the edge as they are finally free of household constraints, and others may decide to exert all their effort into maintaining that ever elusive 4.0 GPA. Me? I've decided to write.

I don't know who is going to be reading this, but if you know me from somewhere, please, leave me a comment. I'd like to know you're out there, listening =) But in the end, this is for me and some of my very close friends who chose to follow me. Let me say this now: I'm very sorry for anyone I offend with anything I write here over the years. Or, hopefully years, since I don't even know how long I'll keep this up for. =D Thank you for reading my first introductory, very random post. Let the lamenting over trials and tribulations of life begin...