I do! I do!

So....More people are getting married and again close to home. Let's start with the distanter ones - the boy I used to hang around with constantly in A is getting married to the girl he started seeing at the same time that I was there. In fact, I was there when he made the transition from 'just good friends' to ' more than'. And the next one is a relationship that I broke to the world - again in A, before it was obvious and before I left, I told everybody that this is a relationship and I was dismissed and lo and behold they got engaged 3 weeks ago!!

It's less that I want to be married and more that I dont want other people to be!! It's selfish I know but I've observed that married people seem to have lots less time [much like people who have just entered relationships: reference me!!] but I don't know with the sacrament of matrimony, family and those necessary lines seem to acquire importance relegating the rest of life to a lower rung. Also married people seem to have domestic woes - single people live with family or just don't care!! and even if they do, it never seems to reach that level of discussion as with the married ones.

My close friends who are married don't live in the country so when they come here, they are not in the domestic space - but with everybody else, conversation seems to dwindle. Another feature of marriage is that they come out as a couple mostly - it's nver just girl time or guy time - it's always lets do stuff together. Quite strange!

Anyhoo, I just think, it's much harder to be single, when everyone who used to share your life with has a partner! Maybe it won't be true for my friends, but it's just a scary thought!!

To be or not to be?

Today on my way to watch 'Juno' [ a film about teenage pregnancy and adoption], I picked up the Reader's Digest which had an article about a woman who had undergone invitro fertilisation and had 11 embryos frozen. She produced 31 eggs with the medication instead of the usual 15-20 that other people in the program do which is significantly higher than the one a month u are supposed to create. The thing is she had 2 children using the embryos - 4 each time before one took but she still has 11 frozen - now her dilemma is....what does she do with these embryos?? The options being donate them to research - donate them to other people in the same predicament as she was - or have them destroyed? I find this decision heart breaking.....and so morally gray, I would crumble with the burden of choice
I am anti abortion..on the grounds that you are killing a life - and have been since I was subjected to the video of a gruesome video of one in school. I agree that maybe it may not be be life as soon as you create it but by the time most people discover, a heart beat has started and that to me is life! and in the case of a teenager like Juno - if you were responsible enough to be 'Sexually active' - you have to live with the repurcussions - this is a very easy argument, I know but the alternative is very devastating - an abortion is mind numbing for most people - because at the end of the day you are destroying something that is growing within you! but in a case like this, what do you do?
This is why in some cases, science has progressed too fast for mankind - maybe the difficulty many people are having conceiving is a natural progression of nature to control the population etc etc. and there is always adoption - there have always been millions of children that are born to wrong parents and are just waiting for a chance at a half decent life. I know the question of is it mine? etc will always haunt some people but...the option of wasting 11 embryos is traumatising me. I feel for that woman - how do you make a decision like that? Destroy, research or have your offspring traipsing half way around the globe with no idea that you exist?

In 'Juno', she cannot go through with an abortion and decides to give the child up for adoption. This is the kind of film that I like where the message is good - own up to your mistakes and the world will right itself - I hope....

A place called here

I finished reading P.S. I love you yesterday - I started reading it yesterday also and finally finished at 4 a.m. I actually also bought the book yesterday after reading an article in the March issue of India Vogue on Cecilia Ahern, the author. She is the daughter of the current Irish Prime minister and get this, she is only 25 with 4 novels under her belt. This first one apparently was written at age 21 while she was completing her degree!! and when you read it, you don't think it's written by a 21 year old - I don't think at 21, I would have able to write about grief and surviving - I'm certain I could not do it now but then hey! I've dumbed down over the years. I'm a firm believer in the t-shirt slogan ' I was intelligent and education ruined me' except mine would read ' I am intelligent, work ruined me'. Working does not give u time for yourself - to read, to think or anything. We, at least I, end up obsessed about the way my life is going, what I am not doing without having the time or the inclination to do anything I really want. Most people have to struggle to find time for their hobbies, others have given up on them. How do some people know to the exclusion of all else that this is what they want to do and have the drive to achieve it? I'm thinking of applying to yet another job in the same space when I know I will be unhappy coz eventually this is not what I like doing. but my bigger issue will I like my new calling either?

The title of this post is one of her latest novels - by the by she also produces and writes a TV show, short stories, screenplays etc etc. and I think what I'm trying to get out of it is that there is no place like now - If I want to do something different, It has to be immediate!

To bring me back to the point, is a lot of people I know like to write and like to write creatively [unlike me, I suck at creative, I can only only write real life] but nobody I know has published their first novel by age 23! Apparently the publisher picked it up after reading the first 10 chapters - I might have picked it up after hearing the thought behind it but then I'm a sucker for the 'Great' love story about soul mates etc etc!

and you know what I've discovered? I like to read more than I like to write so maybe I should be like a reader for all then novels a publishing house gets - u know the person who approves or disapproves of it - hee hee!

Another thing this book brings home is that noone has a perfect life - everyone has their own issues and trials and I think most of us should just be glad that the one we face trials with are still here with us and we are not facing it alone - even if it's against a person - it is not alone!

Time wasting techniques

The week before, the most popular social networking sites were banned in office - you were not allowed to access them - facebook and orkut and for some reason , gmail!! The next step apparently is to ban chat - no gtalk, no messenger, no yahoo talk!
I just don't comprehend why the necessity to do this? One of the reasons given - not through official sources - is that uploading of photos etc on to these sites - takes up bandwidth for the internet slowing down other critical processes. This point I cede but the ridiculous notion that this distracts people from work, I find ridiculous. If you don't want to work, nothing is going to make you and If you want to, nothing is going to stop you. This is like living in a police state and not trying to find out the solution but just implementing short term solutions for what is seen as the problem. Personally, I think that if people are not working, then there is a deeper issue - firstly with the management, then the profile, and lastly if nothing else is working then the person's work ethic. and I certainly don't think banning sites is addressing any of these issues.

Also a point to note, I don't think that facebook is the only thing that people can do on the net - all I know is since the facebook ban - I have discovered more interesting blogs and the time to really dig deep into the blogs I already read. I have also rediscovered tickle but it no longer holds the fascination it did. Zapak is a good gaming site and after bubble shooter I have discovered arctic quest - a version of bejeweled and jigsaw puzzle.

And if all these don't work, Dude, I have a phone! All those calls you never seem to get around to making, nows the time!