Campaigning DOs And DON'Ts (Mostly DON'Ts)

Greetings boys and gals and non-binary pals!

I am currently sitting in my room which is in desperate need for a vacuum, but the vacuum cleaner is all the way across the hall, and since I went for a gym class today we can all agree I have completed my work out quota for the day. What is semi-interesting about my gym class is that it was a dance class, and the interesting (debatable) part about that is that I usually go for that class with my friend, who is an excellent dancer and can actually follow the instructor, whereas my coordination skills are not the best in the region, so seeing us dance together isn't exactly the most motivating part of my day. My dance moves include an awkward shoulder bobbing and also some head nodding if I'm feeling extra adventurous. Also the last time I actually danced at a club was also when I hit a random boy on the head with a giant beach ball. No context. Context doesn't even make it better, frankly. Clubs in Glasgow can get wild. Can't really comment on the whole clubbing scene though, seeing how the only place I usually go to on Friday nights is the pub right next to my house, and it is to eat curly fries. Yesterday, I went there all alone after my morning Psych lecture, and treated myself to curly fries at 11 am, which just goes to show giving me a credit card was a big mistake.

I really want to stop talking about curly fries now and move on but I can't think of a subtle way to do this.

*can you do me a solid and pretend this sentence was the transition okie tnx xoxo* 

I can't believe I've been back at uni for more than a month now. So much exciting stuff (Fresher's week, a capella society, stats lectures) has happened, and so has a lot of not very exciting stuff (climbing 75 flights of stairs to get to my new flat, dieting and eating 'healthy', did not sign up for this good lifestyle thing, ew). The most exciting and recent event in my monotonous life was probably last night, when I was deemed elected as a board member for one of the uni's student unions (the best one, in my unbiased opinion). I had spent the entire week campaigning around campus, surviving solely on oatmeal for some reason, and not really sleeping, but to be fair that is not something I do anyway, and who doesn't love oatmeal, so I'm not complaining really just counting my blessings. Wow, that got super wholesome, super fast. I need a second.

The campaigning was exhausting and also amazing. I still can't believe I won, my entire campaign revolved mostly around self deprecating jokes, pictures of food, and my obsession with one of our uni's buildings. I would like to think I have gathered expertise beyond my age in the field of what to do, but more importantly what not to do to get votes.

(Hey I wrote something similar once hahaha what a great time to be alive check it out Interviews - DOs and DON'Ts (Mostly DON'Ts)

 Let us commence:

PRIORITISE: 

- I walked around with a cardboard sign around my neck, with my campaign slogan written on it. This took (I kid you not) three hours to make. For my degree examination in Econ last year, I forgot my ruler and drew the graphs that had to be very precise with my student card, that was bent in the middle. However, whilst writing on a cardboard with a sharpie, I made sure I used the best ruler money could buy.

ATTRACT PEOPLE: 

- Sometimes you see someone with a face that is rather nice. I don't know why this sentence turned out this way, but I'm keeping it. Anyway, I was climbing the Hill of Death from the main gate to the library, when I saw a young attractive male looking in my general direction. The exact moment when we made eye contact, my cardboard sign (which was around my neck) hit me on my face, spreading my purple lipstick to my chin(s). Scotland is a great place, but the wind can be unfortunate sometimes. I kept a scorecard between my sign and me, and so far it is 75-0. I have been defeated by half of an amazon box. The apocalypse is now.

BE SUBTLE:

- Some of my friends helped out a lot with my campaign. They distributed cupcakes with me, they gave out my flyers, they shared their thoughts and opinions, but most importantly, they listened to me talk about it c o n s t a n t l y for 7+ days. Thankfully, I am very skilled in the art of subtlety, so I could ask them for favours and help with the campaign, without sounding too desperate/needy/unprofessional/all around psychotic.

Incidentally, I think I also sent friend requests to every single person who has breathed the same air as me in uni.

DO NOT THREATEN:

- University students love food. Do you know what else they love? Not spending money. I gave out lots of free muffins and cakes and doughnuts with my flyers stuck on them to tempt people into voting for me. I am an extremely hyper active person, and my friends can be just as enthusiastic as me. Whenever anyone would pass us, my friend would immediately run up to them with the tray of food inches away from their mouth and ask breathlessly "HEYDOYOUWANTSOMEFREEFOODITSFREENOMONEYVOTEFORANOUSHKA"which was very nice and worked mostly, but it made me question the method somewhat.


DON'T MAKE EYE CONTACT THAT IS REALLY WEIRD I AM SERIOUS:

- The free food concept ended up working really well, but there were lots of times when my friends and I just stood with the trays of food waiting for someone to take something. During this time, whenever anyone would even glance at the tray, I would immediately look into their eyes, then smile really slowly and creepily. I think a few times I even yelled "Come and get it, I know you want it." at complete strangers, and I have since been informed I am not allowed to do that.

This entire blog post was just an excuse to issue a formal apology for my extremely inappropriate behaviour.

I was high on sharpie fumes.

I cannot be held accountable.

Washing Clothes Is Unnecessary And Life Threatening (Ish)

You know the exact moment you feel your life spiralling out of control, like when you want to make stuffed chicken at night because except for the chicken that expires tomorrow you ate everything else in the fridge (instead of going to the gym, or like... not eating constantly) so okay, you go to Tesco to pick up some sun dried tomatoes but you can't find them and you've already asked the Tesco guy where the cheese is you can't possibly ask him another question no one in the history of the world has asked someone two questions so your face becomes hot and you remember you forgot your inhaler at home ineedamomenttobreathe 

It's just all still so fresh...

Going through a downward spiral is pretty easy, and once it starts it can be hard to snap out of it. I am, for most of the part, very happy with my life in Glasgow, but only because I am a simple (albeit lovable) and slow little fool. I am easily distracted, so as long as I am in my onesie and watching Modern Family I forget most of my worries, but as soon as I remember one, they all come crashing down. I was telling my friend earlier today how my recent econ lecture was a little hard to understand, and I hadn't worried about it before, but now that I was thinking about it we had a test coming up in only like 27 days which is not a lot of time to un-foolify yourself, and pretty soon I was breathlessly also stating how I have seven unwashed dishes under my bed, how I had 'forgotten' to go to the gym every day since like 10 months and also that I hadn't taken out the trash for five hundred and a half days. She sympathised with me and said she needed to do some chores too, like her laundry, which reminded me I needed to my damn laundry as well and everyone knows how triggered I am by my laundry.

It all started roughly a year ago.

I was a fresher (ah, youth) at a foreign university, and since I knew how high the expenses were, I was dead set on saving as much money as I could. I tried to not skimp too much on essentials like food™ and Stuff From Primark That I Absolutely Did Not Need At All Under Any Circumstances, but I had a very clever plan - or so I thought. We had our own washing machines and dryers in the halls, which were outrageously expensive, so I had the extremely bright idea of washing my own clothes by hand in the sink and then just using the dryer - I'd be saving a whole 2.40 pounds on the washing machine (WHO CHARGES A KID THAT MUCH FOR CLEAN CLOTHES) and I honestly didn't understand why everyone else was not in on this hot deal. So I washed my clothes by hand, embarrassingly excited by all the money I was going to save. Having lived a privileged chores-free (ish) life, I didn't know just how wet clothes were supposed to be post washing machine adventures, so I didn't think it odd loading absolutely dripping wet clothes into a dryer. But hey, think of all the money I was saving, just spending a pound on the dryer.

Except that I didn't. After the first cycle in the dryer, my clothes were almost the same as before, so I put them in for another cycle. After all, second time's the charm?

But after 3 cycles in the goddamn dryer my clothes were still wet. After spending maybe 7 pounds trying to dry my clothes (which means 7 cycles in the dryer, yes I study math), I bundled them all up and hung them up in my room instead, much to the delight of my new roommate (but we now share a flat together, so things worked out, spoiler alert). I had towels hanging from my cupboard door, and socks hanging out from my window, which is literally the Most Indian To Ever Have Indianed. I don't what our strange urge is, I guess you can take an Indian out of India but you can never prevent them from drying clothes outside windows (please never quote me on that).

Also, it never hit me that perhaps attempting to dry wet socks at a window sill in the city where it rained 25 hours a day was not one of my better plans. But at that time I still thought I had saved money by not using a washing machine for 2.40 and instead using a dryer for 7 pounds, so we can all agree I was a naïve idiot and nothing but.

The next morning my clothes were still a little damp, and I had to sit down with my face in my hands for a little while and attempt to understand why the universe was personally victimising me. My newly made friends had a little heart-to-heart with me, which felt mostly like an intervention, and explained how maybe I didn't need to own 8 towels and wash them all together and how maybe, just maybe, I could not be a stingy little moron and use the washing machine instead of spending all the money I had ever owned and ever will own on the dryer.

Things are a little different in my new flat, because we have a washing machine but not a dryer, so I use a drying rack now.

It takes nearly 48+ hours for my clothes to dry but it beats seven cycles in a dryer and endless emotional trauma. I count my blessings every day. 

Father Vs Mother (Youngest Daughter Makes Special Appearance)

On the List of Things I Think I Have But Haven't Technically Been Diagnosed with, insomnia is also included. It's currently 5.08 am, and after seeing countless episodes of Oswald (the lovable but idiotic octopus), the theme song of which always makes me sleepy, I am still awake, so the obvious solution is to give up sleeping altogether and make myself  a cup of coffee. If I sleep at 6 am again tonight (today?) and wake up at 4 pm tomorrow my mother will actually stab me. Quite possibly unnecessarily and repeatedly. 

My best friend, who has been staying at my place for the past three days, is fast asleep beside me. She is a fashion major, currently working on her portfolio, and yesterday she fell asleep with her right hand in the position of holding a needle. It was rather adorable, which makes what I almost did to her poor, unsuspecting sleeping stance even meaner. But you will soon see, my mother is to blame. Not I. 

Not I…not me? I don’t know how to English.

Anyway, do you know who snores? Papa. My father is a precious cinnamon roll, but man does he snore. His pattern is not even the same throughout; it keeps changing as the night progresses. And how do I know this? Okay. Hold up (OHHHH….HOLD UP!!!! Was High School Musical 2 even a real movie?). 

What you’re probably thinking right now is, wow, Kapoorni, I love you, you devilish beauty!, which is cute but a little irrelevant I am afraid. What you should be thinking is, Er do you still sleep with your parents you gigantic oaf the answer to which is sometimes when I remember the time I read the story of ‘The Human Centipede’  even though I knew it would freak the hell out of me. Whatever, it’s not like I am an almost 19 year old, about to go into second year of University, who is still afraid of the dark.

And clowns. 

My point is, man does my dad snore! My mother is probably used to this by now, and has devised a rather sound but a little questionable system for this. The second my father starts to snore (albeit soft at first) my mother’s sharp ears catch it even if she is in a deep sleep herself. It is rather remarkable (and somewhat frightening) how quickly she reacts; swiftly her hand flies to his face and she lightly smacks him. Round 1, Mother emerges victorious. All is peaceful. Father shifts a little in his sleep. The signs, they are evident again. Round 2 is not far away. Ah, it beings. Father commences a different pattern of making sounds. What will Mother do? All wait with baited breath for the opponent to strike again. Not missing a heartbeat, Mother chooses a different weapon of choice this time, and lightly prods Father in the back, while perhaps letting out an angry growl to drown out the enemy’s sound. Father is thick skinned when it comes to Snore Battles, and (although now silenced) registers no knowledge of the physical abuse he is suffering at the hands of the mother of his children. Round 3 begins with Father snoring in an extremely rare and a little concerning manner. Mother, now tired, thinks about letting her Substitute Candidate play a few. The Sub doesn’t need to be told twice; or even once, for that matter. As soon as Round 3 begins, the Sub is on it. Father undergoes sudden attack by youngest daughter. She neatly elbows him in the stomach, sometimes accompanied by battlecries of “Papaaaa yaar shhh pleaseeeee”. The game continues, neither opponent gives up. Next Morning: Mother and Father wake up with no recollection of nightly battle. Meanwhile, daughter learns that assaulting someone if they snore is what social convention dictates. 

(Too Long; Didn’t Read - Family normalises abuse, then wonders where youngest born gets violent tendencies from.)

Recollections Of The Times I Had Very Little Or No Chill At All

If you asked me exactly when I realised I blow things out of proportion, I wouldn't be able to answer you. I think it occurred to me around the time when my sister was playing Sims when she knew it was my turn, and I pulled her hair and maybe also punched her shoulder, that I might have some sort of an issue (I still maintain she fell down from the chair on her own; I cannot help but be muscular and magnificently strong). I think that is when it dawned on me that perhaps I responded to some life events in a...somewhat different (for lack of a better word) manner.

It all began when I was a young, young child on the cusp of girlhood. Wait, what? No. I remember I was like four, and I had this obsession with blood. I craved it like the goat craves that mineral.

I blame my parents, who are doctors, and who have no sense of private space. Often times folders marked as 'Images' on our computer were filled with photographs from gory surgeries. Imagine a four year old stumbling onto these (not that I still don't, thanks guys), and the sheer trauma faced therein. So I had this newfound fascination with blood (which is pretty ironic, because I gave up studying biology in 11th grade because the sight of blood made me queasy by then) and I didn't know what to do with it. Until one day it burst forth with gay abandon. Several times, actually. I remember whenever somebody was hurt, or someone even talked about someone being hurt, I always had one question on my lips:

"But did it...bleed?" I would ask quietly, in a breathless gasp, standing on my tiptoes to sneak a peak of the delicious bloody wound. It was actually much creepier when I did it in my mother tongue ("Khoon...khoon aya kya?"). To be fair, it's pretty darn creepy any way you put it, I am sure I looked like a sick, twisted kid fresh out of a horror movie. I completely forgot about these incidents, until a few years ago when my sister gently asked me why I used to be a maniacal sociopath as a child, for which I had no answer.

In case you're wondering, this serious condition has no official name yet, nor have I been given the medical attention I require urgently, which is why I am unable to stop these urges, even during University. To this day, I continue to have very little, or almost no chill at all. I recently tutored someone who wanted to learn Hindi. I was teaching her how to ask for directions, like how to say "Where can I find ____?". The sentence I chose to illustrate this point was Where can I find the hospital? which, to me, seemed pretty normal - don't get me wrong, I've had my share of scary hospital visits, like the time I had a soft tissue injury in my right elbow (unsuccessfully tried using labrador as horse, got thrown to the ground and stepped on by own doggo) or when I got high on laughing gas (got earring stuck in ear - true story). To be fair, the day I got high on laughing gas as an eight year old was easily one of the best days of my life, though I creeped the ~hell~ out of my parents. My point remains, inspite of these lovely and numerous trips to the hospital, I still view it as the nice friendly place where I get to drink coke in the sunny courtyard whilst my mother tends to her patients, but I forget that most people don't; hence how I freaked my student out a little by suggesting the holy palace of blood a.k.a. my favourite place should be the first thing she should learn  how to say.

The most recent incident of M.H.A.N.C.A.A. (Me Having Almost No Chill At All) was last December. During my psychology 1A degree examination, we had to answer a question on conditioning techniques. I was writing about operant conditioning, and needed an example for positive punishment (in simple terms, decreasing undesired behaviour by presentation of aversive stimulus). I wrote the very first example that came to my mind, which I realised (only after submitting my answer sheet) was slightly, if not completely, questionable : Positive punishment, example: spanking an infant while potty training him or her. First of all, not only did I write the word 'potty' in my degree examination, the implications I linked with it were somewhat debatable. It is a wonder I have managed to pass Psychology at all, and now that we are on the topic of Wonder Woman, here is what I have to say about it:

1. it is an excellent movie
2. I may or may not have seen it several times already
3. it is an EXCELLENT movie
4. Bill Wurtz is a God

The 4th point wasn't related to the movie but I felt like pointing out that Bill Wurtz is indeed a God.

Why I Do Not Swim In Glasgow - A Survivor's Tale

Hello, mischievous children.

It took me seven tries to type 'mischievous'. On an unrelated note, I am pretty sure I am dyslexic, after all Google diagnosed it for me and the internet is never wrong (Side note: if you accidentally say "tex in a saxi" instead of "sex in a taxi" in a conversation to your flatmates and then try to pass it off as mouth dyslexia they will most certainly not believe you, and instead ask you to go stand in a corner).

But we digress. As we have all established by now, my life is one full of never ending pain and suffering and so on, and recent incidents have further confirmed that belief.

Hold on, my dog is barking in his sleep. He's probably having a nightmare, so I have to wake him up. I wish someone would wake me up when I have nightmares. Why, just last night my frendos, I dreamt that I was in a swimming pool with Lynette from Desperate Housewives. It was rather frightening. You will soon see this story is actually related to the one I am about to tell you. Keep up, keep up. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

As everyone who is interested in my life and is keeping up with the kapoorni (i.e. no one) knows, I am studying in Glasgow and am currently home for the summer. I was telling my mom this story (not the one about me studying in Glasgow, she pays for that, she knows that, the story I am about to tell you, cheeky minxes!!) and my mom was all like

"Hey, that's funny, I think you should blog about this, also why are you a fool LMAO stop embarrassing the fam." (That is more or less of the gist of what she said)

And then I thought

"hmm, okay". 

Oh wait, I don't have to be irrelevant here, I don't need to extend the word count, it's not like it's my Psych1B Essay OHHHHHH SHOTZ FIRED DAYUM SON!!!

Moving on, back to the swimming nightmare I had yesterday. I am pretty sure I know why I had that nightmare. It's because of the hellish experience I had (that one time) when I went swimming in Glasgow. I know what all of you are thinking. "But aren't you a good swimmer? Didn't you bag second place among like four people in a race like six years ago?" I can no longer deny the rumours, yes that is true. And thus, like the naïve yet somewhat lovable fool that I am known widely for being, I went swimming in Glasgow. Now, I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm brown (This joke is much funnier with my white friends. Wait, can I say white friends? Can I call myself brown? What are the rules?). That means nothing really, but sometimes I'm...let's say conspicuous.

Q1. HEY! Do you know what's also somewhatishkinda conspicuous?
A1. The colour (bright) purple.

Q2. WHAT'S SUPER CONSPICUOUS OMG GUESS????
A2. A brown person in a bright purple costume!!!

There I was, looking satisfied in my bright purple costume, until I saw that every other girl there was
a. in a bikini
b. a goddess

Another thing that made me panic was that swimming caps weren't compulsory. Back home, all girls are expected to wear swimming caps* (*this compulsion does not extend to men because men and women are not equal, I'm sitting in the kitchen typing this because that is where women belong haha the 21st century sure is great) which is awesome because I happen to look like a rather large potato in a swimming cap, but it's okay because so does everyone else (to quote my roommate: #communalsuffering). In Glasgow, I was clutching onto my black super shiny hat, but no one else was wearing one, so I decided to pull my long, thick hair into a sexy bun on the top of my head and casually seduce some unsuspecting men.

Not.

I scraped my ear-length hair into a tiny onion-like ball on my head, which made me look like an oompa loompa, according to my kind friends.

So here I was, in my purple costume, looking like a sad oompa loompa, but hey - that's not too bad right? WRONG.

Back in sixth grade, life decided that wearing braces wasn't enough for me, I also needed thick glasses. The braces came off, but the glasses stayed. Thankfully my kind mother had mercy on me and agreed to have contact lenses made for me, especially because I played badminton and swam, and so lenses were much easier to handle. The thing about wearing lenses and swimming is, you can't open your eyes under water because the thing about chlorine is, well, to make a long story short it's not the best thing to expose lenses to. So whenever I swam, I had to wear swimming goggles as well, to protect my ironically poorly sighted eyes. Now the thing about my head is that, well, it's not very big. Which means I have to tighten my swimming goggles as much as I possibly can, which means that the straps stick up at the ends, which in turn means I look like I have horns growing out of my ears. Which, in my humblest of opinions, is not a great look. To sum up, this is what I looked like in a pool fool of gorgeous, beautifully chiseled, and non-purple-clothing wearing people:

It is no mystery why I never returned to that wretched place.