Blog Topic #23 - My Mother is On Facebook

The post title is a bit of a lie; I’m not going to talk about my mother being on Facebook. I mean, she is on Facebook, but I haven’t friended her there because that’s going a little too far IMHO. But! She is one of my tweeps on Twitter, so: amendment.

Blog Post #23 – My Mother Is On Facebook Twitter

And let me tell you, no one is as hilarious on Twitter as my mother! She spits realness in the most hilarious ways. Some examples...

Disney buys Lucas Films...Is that why they were saying world is going to end in 2012!!

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) October 30, 2012

If I were in this debate i would either walk out or punch my opponent #debate2012

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) October 23, 2012

Trump should join a circus team!

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) October 24, 2012

Can you believe??Power went out At Superbowl.Epic fail #superbowl2013

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) February 4, 2013

When you listen to Obama talking about immigration reform you realize there's no one cooler than him on this planet!!

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) January 29, 2013

Some of Indian Politicians have truly lost all their brain cells!! #stupidityofIndianpoliticians

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) January 4, 2013

Poor Romney's website doesn't work. How can he become a President?

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) October 23, 2012

LMAO she has a block of angry Romney related tweets last October that are just killing me right now. She also conversationally tweets a lot of celebrities and politicians. She tends to livetweet popular sporting events, award shows, and political debates.

Blog Topic #29 - If I Were a Television Producer

My show would be the shit, I can tell you that much. ;P

Back when I was far more fannish and obsessed with my TV shows (a mere 3-4 years ago), I used to have the most vivid and fantastical dreams that were basically episodes of House, CSI, Bones, or Lost. I shared a few of them with friends and the reaction was generally "omg, I’d watch that!"

My TV show would centre around some sort of supernatural or mystical element in our current world, because as much as I love my scientific procedurals, nothing beats the kind of mindfuck you get from messing with the natural order. And while I love futuristic space-timey shows, world-building is not my forté. The cast would be a variety of ages, genders, races, and orientations. Cinematography would be a big deal, as would the attention to detail on any props. I would be very picky about choosing a composer to do the show’s score and theme song.

It would be an intelligent show. I wouldn’t underestimate the potential of my audience. The dialogue would be succinct but clever, the characters complex and misunderstood, the backdrops epic and intimate at the same time. Aaaand it would be cancelled before the season is over. Isn’t that the way of the world? :P

Blog Topic #84 - Downtime (What I Do Offline to Recharge)

I spend a lot of time online. More than I probably should. And I think it’s gotten worse since I got a smartphone. :P Thankfully, I have a number of offline pursuits to distract me from the shiny lure of the internets. So what do I do in my downtime?

1. I crochet – nothing completely clears my mind like crochet does! Your eyes and brain are completed focused on the yarn and stitches, and you have to watch what you’re doing (unlike knitting). And there’s nothing like watching a pattern come to life and take shape. The only downfall is that if you continue crocheting for too long, your shoulders and neck will not be pleased with you. :P My mom taught me the basics and the rest is I picked up from YouTube.


2. I scrapbook – I really had no intention of getting into scrapbooking because I know how involved and expensive it can be, but I got one of those Mambi kits as a gift and it all took off from there. It’s basically the real life equivalent of making your own desktop wallpaper in Photoshop, which is another pastime of mine coincidently. So I took to it quite well. I love all the fun stickers, picking out photos and laying them out with borders and matting . It’s nice to spend time documenting memories and the people in your life!


3. I watch TV – the offline pastime of kings and queens! I used to be the kind of person who was religiously dedicated to prime time dramas such as Lost, House, Bones, CSI, etc. but I find that I don’t have the patience for such things anymore. I prefer unplugging my brain with a lot of HGTV or something with Gail Vaz-Oxlade on Slice. It's not like there's a plot line to keep track of, plus it's usually educational!


4. I journal – like, in an actual journal, omg. It might not be as quick as typing (and sometimes my hand cramps up, hah) but every now and then it’s nice to meander with your thoughts and document things low-tech style. Old habits die hard; I've been journalling since I was probably 12 years old. Besides, I like the way my handwriting looks! Plus, journalling is extra fun if you're doing it in one of those fancy gilded leather dealies from Indigo. ;)


5. I paint my nails - I've become somewhat obsessed with nail polish over the last couple years and have amassed quite the embarrassing collection (embarrassing only because HOLY CRAP that's a lot of money spent on what is essentially crap haha). It's a great way to kill a couple hours and be creative at the same time. They may be tiny, but even a tiny canvas has limitless potential!


6. I dance - nothing like cranking up the tunes and grooving around the apartment when no one's watching, it's the ultimate stress release. It's fun, it burns calories, it lets me practice my pipes... what's not to like?? :D

What about you guys? When you're not staring at a screen, how do you spend your time?

Blog Topic #10 - Somebody Has To Say It

The best way to enjoy life, to truly see it for the beauty it holds, is to live in the present.

When we live in the past, we’re focused on what has already happened and cannot be changed. We fixate on mistakes made, words we wish we could take back, ways we were wronged. Living in the past will keep you depressed and angry.

When we live in the future, we become focused on the unknown. Life isn’t easily predicted or controlled, there are no simple outcomes, and fate likes to throw us curveballs too. Living in the future will keep you anxious and unsatisfied.

But when we live in the present, when we stop and contemplate the moments passing us by at this very second, the small grandeurs of the universe are revealed to us. We have weathered tempests and arrived. We are exactly where we are supposed to be.

So for today, if only for today, don’t dwell on what has passed and don’t fret about what is yet to come. Today is a gift, enjoy it. :)

Blog Topic #25 - Books I Want to Write

I have so many ideas for this topic because apparently one of my favourite past-times is starting novels I have no intention of finishing, lolsob.

1. This one is the shining jewel of my ideas. So you know the story of Rani Padmini and the sacking of Chitoor? What if there was one young noble-woman who couldn’t go through with the mass immolation and escapes instead? And she seeks asylum at a brahmin’s ashram, where she learns that he is secretly training a new generation of Rajput soldiers to fight against the invading Mughals. She starts to fall for one of the dashing young soldiers and ends up taking on the role of spy and infiltrating the Shah’s court by being his Begum’s maid. And then her she sneaks her paramour in to help him murder the Shah but they’re both CAUGHT and EXECUTED, THE END. God I love this story haha. Too bad I’m bogged down by historical accuracy, or lack thereof.
2. My second favourite idea is this epic eastern-fantasy type novel. It’s the story of a man who’s cursed to slowly turn into a demon, but really it’s about a girl who used to be the court dancer of the gods and was cursed to live in the body of a hawk. Together, they traverse the kingdom searching for a cure, all the while outsmarting suckers, battling with their inner darkness, and possibly falling in love as well. But just as their quest comes to an end, the girl turns evil and tries to usurp the power of the gods, but the man stops her, but it’s too late, they’re both thrown into an inter-dimensional wormhole. They pop out on the other side and end up in OUR WORLD, and then have to struggle with their new reality and FIND EACH OTHER. Another really awesome story that got bogged down by logistics, because I started thinking things like “is this racist against Persians?!” Sigh.
3. Oooh, this one's pretty cool. So imagine an alternate universe, medieval-esque Spain where magic and potions and sorcery are an everyday occurrence. There's this poor orphan girl who's going to magic school but she's kind of weak sauce power-wise but very creative and a good problem solver. One day her and a friend are fooling around with a book they find and cast a spell that somehow creates a portal. They walk through it and on the other side they find... a frazzled university physicist (in OUR world) who at the same time just happened to be smashing atomic particles. Didn't really know where the story went from there aside from the government and politicians and dastardly villains trying to take over the other universe in a grab for power, and it's up for the plucky main characters to stop them!
4. This one started out as fanfic and morphed into something else completely. Again in a fantasy world, a young warrior is out hunting when he comes across a woman passed out by the river. She doesn't look anything like his tribes-people but he takes her back to his primitive village and nurses her back to health. She doesn't know anything about their world and has lost her own memory as well, but long story short they bond and fall in love. Years pass and she's basically one of them until one day she's like "EVERYONE FLEE NOW *UNINTELLIGIBLE LANGUAGE*" and then giant mecha spiders descend upon the village and kidnap a bunch of people and it's up to our young strapping warrior to rescue his woman and find out what the ever loving hell is going on. (Hint: advanced secretive society that likes to build giant mechanized spiders and wants to take over the rest of the primitive world.)
5. At some point I conceived a stream-of-consciousness type novel that was loosely based on my own life but mostly inspired by JPod by Douglas Coupland. Think young woman working at a terrible tech support firm with the best bunch of pot-smoking, car-stealing, shenanigan-having friends a mid-twenties woman could ever have. But I'm not even a fan of books with no plot, so writing it was more an exercise in narcissism than anything else. ;)
   

Product Review Time!

I’m the kind of person that companies love, in the sense that when it comes to brand loyalty I’m the ideal customer. Once I find a product I like, I will buy it over and over again without much reconsideration. I may even end up filling my life with an assortment of products from a specific company just because I like what they do. I’m a creature of habit, ultimately. Which is why it’s surprising that I decided to branch out and try a couple new things from my local drugstore.

1. Perfect example of my brand loyalty: when I was 18 I got a free sample of Glycomed hand lotion and loved it so much that I used nothing else for the next 14 years! But for some reason when my last bottle ran out I decided I was done with Glycomed, it wasn’t giving me the results I wanted and I didn’t care for the smell anymore. I did some research online and read some reviews and ended up buying Jergens Ultra Care moisturizing body lotion.
   Diagnosis – wow, I am seriously impressed! Within a couple days my skin was already feeling smoother and softer than it had been in a long time, and now that it’s been about a week the appearance of my skin is less cracked and dry-looking as well. It even feels warm on my skin when I first put it on. Smell is nice, no complaints there.
   Overall rating: 9/10 (it’s so good I recommended it to my mother!)
2. My hair has been fairly oily for as long as I can remember, which meant as a teenager I couldn’t stand going a single day without shampooing my hair. But I’ve come to realize how terrible that actually is for my hair and I’ve switched to rinsing (and not shampooing) my hair every other day. But my hair hasn’t gotten quite used to this change yet, so on the second day it looks fairly oily. I’ve been thinking about getting a dry shampoo to alleviate this problem but I’ve got black hair and most dry shampoos are white powders. Then one day I saw Mark Anthony’s Clear Dry Shampoo on sale and thought I’d give it a shot, despite the lack of reviews.
   Diagnosis – uhh, it doesn’t do a thing! I shake it up and spray it on and nothing happens, my hair is just as flat and oily as before. Even the nice smell of the dry shampoo wears off within a few minutes. Clearly I should have gone with Klorane like the internet advised me. Maybe next time.
   Overall rating: 3/10 (at least it doesn’t make my hair look worse?)

Masterlist: Blog Project

I was taking a look at this blog recently and noticed there has been a precipitous drop in how frequently I've posted in the last couple years. I went from around fifty posts in 2010 to approximately twenty posts in 2011 to a measly six posts in 2012! I know the reason for this (I blogged so much because I was bored and spent most of my free time at the computer... not the case anymore) but at the same time I want to rectify the situation somewhat and find a happy medium.

Therefore, I am going to schedule a bunch of posts (selected topics courtesy of 100 Blog Topics I Hope YOU Write) and hopefully that will get the creative juices going. I need more creativity back in my life!

Niche Dance Videos: A YouTube Compilation

It's no secret that I am a big fan of dance music. Not to be hipster about it, but I was into David Guetta before he was collaborating with rap stars and such. ;) Anyway, I've noticed that there are a number of dance videos out there with a common theme of "young woman throws off the shackles of her day job and parties instead". Makes sense, because let's face it, dance music makes us want to party! So I thought it would be nice to start a running playlist on YouTube. Presenting: "Work Sucks, Dance Instead", for your viewing enjoyment. Be warned, most of the videos are NSFW. Dance music might be awesome on the ears but for the eyes... well, there's a lot of T&A to contend with. :P