UP - Ellie and Carl's Life Montage

Cristo Redentor (Rio de Janeiro)

Beginning the month of Christ with one of my favourite pictures :

Life has bigger plans for you than you can possibly ever know, so trust
that wherever you are at any given time is exactly where you were meant to
be

~ Anonymous

All-American Girl

Top Five Reasons why Samantha Madison’s life isn’t a bowful of cherries:

#5 : Sam lives in Washington DC, a hop-skip-and-jump away from the White House (ergo, perennial traffic jams caused by the never-ending presidential motorcades)

#4 : Sam is the middle-child, stuck between the perky-cheerleading elder sister Lucy and girl-genius-going-to-special-school younger sister Rebecca (ergo, she is the source of constant disappointment to her parents, teachers and the rest of her school-mates)

#3 : Sam’s one great talent is that she can draw. Drawing is the one thing in her under-achieving world that she is confident of (ergo, her mum promptly enrols her into the renowned Susan Boone’s Art Class and the renowned Susan Boone promptly redresses Sam’s high-falutin’ opinion of her artistic abilities.)

#2 : Sam is considered to be a freak of humungous proportions thanks to her decision to dye all her clothes black for the new school year (ergo, a non-existent social life)

#1 : Sam has never had a significant other, mostly because the significant other she desires is her sister Lucy’s boyfriend, Jake. Jake is the epitome of the sensitive artist and Sam is convinced that he is her soulmate (ergo, she moons from afar and eats her heart out on the kitchen table)

So there you go : Samantha Maddison, a typical American teen with her typical baggage of teenage angst . But one fine day while slacking off from art class, she saves the American President from being assassinated by a trigger-happy psycho. Overnight, Sam is a national hero. Everyone wants to know her and congratulate her. Reporters routinely fling themselves on the family-car just to get a candid shot. She’s having dinner at the White House. She gets appointed as the United States Teen Ambassador to the UN. AND she is hobnobbing with the president’s son, David (who is quite easy on the eye).

All-American Girl is one of Meg Cabot’s finer teen reads. The characters are a blend of the predictable and the unexpected. The plot is fresh and handled with the characteristic wit of Ms.Cabot. Homilies are effectively stitched in and you come away with a little smile playing on your lips.

...a moron and her oxymorons (....yep, real original)

~ Business Ethics
~ Microsoft Works
~Non-Stick Glue
~Diet Ice-Cream
~Rap Music
~Adult Male
~American Intelligence
~Peacekeeper Missile
~Silent Female

Buffy the Vampire Slayer : The Evil that Men Do

Word of Caution: Not recommended to be read as a meal-time accompaniment (believe me, I tried)

A hitherto popular Grade A student goes on a vicious killing spree. The town of Sunnydale deals with the shock by turning into a lynch mob; attacking each other, spreading havoc and letting their inner nastiness run rampant. Sadly, the slayer-brigade is not immune and their anger bursts forth in all it’s vitriolic glory.

Adding that essential degree of creepiness is the return of an ancient and extremely powerful vampire, Helen and her equally sadistic lover, Julian. Helen was known for her violent murders of slayers over the centuries and Buffy is next on her fang-list. The couple also intend raising the goddess of destruction, Meter and for the resurrection, the Slayer has a crucial (unbeknownst to her) role to play.

I am not big on blood and gore…creatures of the night…or Horror as a genre, per se. But with so many people salivating over the Twilight Series (which I personally feel would make any self-respecting vamp want to stake himself), I needed to revisit the magic of a truly wicked and original show: Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

The television series was truly iconic. Buffy’s perky-cheerleader-who-can-kick-dead-butt act; Xander’s sarcasm; Giles’ oddly comforting presence; Willow’s supreme Wiccan perfection and Angel’s brooding portrayal of a vampire-with-a-soul...all are permanently etched in popular culture.

While the book cannot effectively recreate the splendid action sequences, the author does a slick job with the dialogue-delivery, quips and lightening fast repartee. Nancy Holder has dutifully followed the series and recreated Sunnydale’s human ( and demonic) residents to perfection.

...I'll never be a Cleopatra

I love kohl…a swish of dark, sooty kohl and you’re transformed from the girl-next-door to an exotic, mysterious, alluring woman. Well.....that’s what happens to OTHER fortunate ladies. Me??? I wear kohl and look like any of the following:

#1: a panda that partied into the wee hours

#2: The Queen of The Night People

#3: Amitabh Bachchan in Agneepath

#4: Morticia Addams' baby-sister

Try as I might, my kohl never stays put…it wanders and meanders and wants to say Hello! to my cheekbones. It scares small children and innocent animals (Well okay, I exaggerate), but seriously….it’s kind of pathetic that I am still struggling with something so basic.

Maybe it’s a sign….something along the lines of “thou-shalt-continue-your-reign-as-Betty-Cooper”and as a footnote “thou-shalt-never-be-mistaken-for Egyptian-queen-who-bathed –in-asses'-milk".

...my new favourite show

MMK revisited...

“I learned three important
things in college – to use a library, to memorize quickly and visually, to drop
asleep at any time given a horizontal surface and fifteen minutes.”

~Agnes DeMille

College was golden…it encapsulated the best moments of my yen-ggg life. I was nervous, sparky, petrified, sarcastic and yet, surprisingly sane with all these emotions running riot within me. Reason: I had a great group of friends…we bonded...we cracked dreadful PJs...we fought…we sulked…we made up…we had crushes…we mooned…our hearts broke at regular intervals..and we swore we would never love again. But come Monday, and history would repeat itself.

And why am I waxing lyrical about college?........Yesterday, a fraction of the ol’college crowd met up….we travelled back-in-time, revisited our stomping grounds, grew misty-eyed (well, almost) on seeing our secluded l'il classroom where isolation made us knit ever-so-closely. I remembered the crazy jam sessions where we danced to some seriously questionable music and got our poor toes squashed on by the yesteryear two left feet-ers. We cackled evilly, recalling our poor professors who were burdened with the creatures from hell-mouth (read: our saintly group). Finally, we wound up the nostalgic trip with a good ol’Jai Sandwich..perfectly grilled, slathered with butter and accompanied by the I-will-burn-your-every-orifice green chutney.

Clichés sometimes are the only route to go...so here goes....they truly were the best years of my life...

...listening to The Beatles today