Revival

After months of feeling like a shitty untalented prick of a person, endless tea cups and crying snivelling phone conversations with Ze Boyfriend, I'm typing this as a graduate!

*cue awkward dancing in a saree*

I cannot put into words the complete LACK OF STRESS in my body and mind. Can you imagine college being over? It feels surreal. No more late night texts to sleeping housemates asking them to wake me up the next day; no more end-of-the-month-broke-people-food like bread and butter; no more woefully staring at the Nutella jars on the supermarket shelf, wondering when you're going home next where Nutella is boundless.

Of course being at home has disadvantages too, like how much these 4 years are going to shape the way I think and how much I'll miss them, all the goddamn time. Not to mention the people.

Oh man.

Anyway I don't want to go down that road right now because where I am right now is the best feeling in the world, with these graduate idiots I call my friends.

This is just to say hi, Chaos, and to tell you I'm back, Professional Diploma in Visual Communication Design and all.

Love,
Kanika

This should be fun

I've been taking very long baths.

Since I'm not at home currently (and it feels so weird to be back in that college time hobo living phase) baths take longer because I must

- wash clothes
- clean bathroom before I bathe
- wipe bathroom floor after I bathe
- carry my toiletries into the bathroom and back into the suitcase
- carry sogging clothes out to the balcony in a heavy ass bucket

But none of this^ can bring down the joy of finding that sweet spot between Antarctica Freezing and Hot as Hell, standing under that strong force of warm water and somehow feeling all your shitty responsibilities clear off your skin, not to mention all the time you get to wallow in your mistakes and find ways to feel invigorated again.

If only.

Haha, anyhow. My final life-determining jury presentation is tomorrow. The amount of stress is my body is making me sick, and it's making me think back to my 12th standard boards. Of course I know now what I didn't know then: the 12th standard boards aren't stressful at all compared to what life throws at you later. But suddenly the still 16 year old side of me began to sulk at her one biggest worry being trivialised. Come to think of it, the stress never really goes away, rather manifests itself in whatever you need to be worried about at that age.

I need to sleep before I pass the point of waking up on time. And Jesus, I sound like a rambling drunk person.

I'll come back to you with jury results, Chaos. Keep the alcohol ready.

because I'm doing exactly what I should be doing at this point: watching Grey's Anatomy and forgetting what day it is.

Love,
Kanika

p.s. follow me on instagram! I'm way more active than a normal human being should be.

Hashtag Sad Face

"And at once I knew, I was not magnificent."

If you want to know someone, really know someone, listen to the songs they talk to you about. Watch them listen to these songs and notice their faces and their bodies change with the music. People might go really quiet and close their eyes and just sway. Or get on top of the nearest table and sing into a hairbrush. Watch them. You'll learn a part of them they wouldn't be able to outrightly display. People come to terms with themselves through their favourite music. Whether it's Carly Rae Jepsen or Sufjan Stevens, they find something in the melody, or in the words, or in the memory it provokes. Don't disregard their love for a song you can't stand; it made them feel something they probably can't even really explain to you.

Which is why I fucking hate music. (saying this only for dramatic effect)

Recently, Bon Iver made me stay up till 6 am and cry for reasons I'm entirely unsure of. How the hell are you supposed to go about with your day when you hear a sound that makes you sit up for a second and notice the goosebumps running down your back? And how is it that the new Coldplay song, in one play, had got stuck into the very recesses of my brain and refused to leave for the entire week? I'm humming it all the time. A screen capture from the video is my desktop wallpaper. You don't get it. It's a disease.

Hey Chaos, stay around.

Love,
Kanika

Reasons why I'm a fail

I'm disappointed to say this (because I feel like I've done it too many times before) but I can't keep up with Astonishing August.

There are 80000000 things that contribute to my having to say this. They are all important and must figure higher on my list of priorities than blogging everyday, and I feel terrible about that. Half of these reasons are to do with my diploma project, and my failure to keep up with so many things at once. As Ze Boyfriend put it when I complained about AA, "You take on more in an attempt to prove you aren't procrastinating, but you are." And he's right. In those moments of immediate and intense inspiration, I don't focus it on the small things but rather create a multitude of other commitments I must share my mindspace for. And it's not a good idea.

Of course my diploma project needs to be the attention whore in my life for the next 2 months, and it's safe to say that concentrating is not my strong suit. I keep trying to think back to how in hell I was able to sit for hours on end doing integration and differentiation back in 12th standard: the answer is I did not have a goddamn laptop of my own, I did not have a phone that could access wifi, I don't think the internet at home was even wi-fi enabled at the time. And now it's all just "yeah lemme just quickly check pinterest and tumblr and twitter and 9gag" and when I feel I'm procrastinating it's "lemme just check some design blogs and get lost in the brilliance that is graphic design so much so that I feel demotivated."

Apart from that, being sick for almost 2 and a half weeks is by far the most tiring thing. Can you imagine coughing so hard that you get dizzy and need to sit down for a minute? That's been happening to me too many times in a day. And it's all just a common cold/flu. It shouldn't have taken it so long, it's almost kinda settled in my chest and every morning my throat is burning in all kinds of different ways. How fucking sad is that. I should be able to handle myself better, because this is very scary actually. And I need to focus on this too, because it's coming in the way of everything else.

The third giant chunk is being at home, which was necessary for a variety of reasons, mainly that I have working parents and my grandparents are almost too old to be able to handle household stuff on their own. It's tons of responsibility and I'm super glad to be there, but it takes a huge amount of time and to balance this on top of everything else is becoming a chore of its own.

I'm really really sorry to everyone who wanted to participate, and a special sorry to Akanksha because she was participating nearly every single day and now I'm a dick to cut this short in between. I don't think I should start this kinda thing up again until I'm absolutely sure I have the time to devote to it (since this is the third time I'm cutting this venture short). However I'll be blogging still, once I'm over being ashamed.

Love in embarrassment,
Kanika

p.s. I've reverted all the AA posts to drafts, so they're not deleted. Maybe in a while when I don't hate myself so much I'll put them back up. :(

Trial

Yo, anyone up for *insertadjectivehere* August? Lemme know in the comments! QUICK!

Also, if you say yes, please be a nice helpful person and email inspiration (photographs, quotes, youtube links, whatever you fancy - but please also send in the source/artist so I can credit them) to me at kanika.kaul22@gmail.com.

Also, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, click on this.

Please let me know as soon as possible so I can begin gearing up! I really need something to focus on other than work and sniffing into a handkerchief for days.

Love love,
Kanika 

Midnight Teenage Angst

Midnight rain is the most beautiful peaceful thing in the world; everyone in the world is asleep and it's dark and I can hear the rain on the balcony roof and it sounds amazing.

It's been a bad day with stress and disappointment and being tired for no reason, and I haven't felt this way in so long. I immediately felt 13 years old again (looking back at the things I got mad about today). Honestly, I tried my hardest to fight it, but then fuck it they're my feelings, why should I deny them at all.

And then the anger and hate threw me into a vigor of inspiration. They drove me. For a second I hesitated, wondering whether anger is a good enough reason. But then I thought why not, as long as it's making me productive, what's the harm.

Log Blog

It's begun, the diploma project that's gonna make or break my career, three months of stress and panic attacks and maybe some work in between.

Hahaha, I kid, I kid. The diploma project that I'm gonna force myself to not freak out about has begun today, and I've spent the first few hours on tumblr. Hashtag sorrynotsorry.

So I've made this diploma project blog thingy, where I'll be posting progress and rants and such, so in case anyone wants the link let me know.

Love,
Kanika