The (almost) Raw Thoughts of Indu Shanmugam

2012-01-19T21:59:00.000-08:00

A Very Short Excerpt of my Current Work-in-Progress

Enjoy. Please keep in mind that this is the first draft.

Considering Father’s origins of a backwards village, only by a narrow opportunistic chance my father entered college, where he met Ma. Her parents frowned on the courtship. His low caste and borderline illiterate in-laws would never be a match for Ma—educated in the best private schools to be a successful, modern daughter. Grandma doubted him as the type preying on successful women—expecting a glorified mother-type rather than wife. Would he ask for a large dowry? He dare not or they’d have him killed instantly— as swatting a pesky mosquito. Paying a bribe for a gunman was not that hard.

Grandma’s suspicions dispelled when she heard about Dad landing a position in a prestigious company. After hearing many more favorable words about him she agreed. Both Grandma and Grandpa blessed their marriage. In no time, he reached the top of the company, and then gets a chance to settle in the suburb of Bellevue.

Growing up, Father always bragged about his working his way up to success, despite his village background. “You girls have no idea about poverty.”

I listened while painting my nails a Plumeria shade.

“You don’t understand the small chance... Aye, why is this tea not strong enough?” Reaching for another tea bag, he continued to emphasize the difficulties of admission to a college in India. Every time I heard similar tales from older people it seemed as though a camel passing through a needle. The more stories I heard it was not just that. It was like catching a last boat if you miss it you are stranded and staring off to the sea of future, only imagining what could happen. If he couldn’t pass college, he couldn’t get an impressive career to impress Ma’s parents.

His words resonated, “My parents would have set me up with some girl from a nearby village. We would never be here. Understand?” He wanted to continue to holding me from flying out of America by myself. Ideally, at least right after college he prefered that I stayed within the borders.

Ma remarked, “You nuh, people from around the world come to America for opportunities, while you can’t wait to jump on a plane to the East. What are you looking for, anyway?”

“There’s nothing exciting here. I want an adventure.”

“Nothing exciting. Aye, what nonsense!” Dad shakes his head. “Why can’t you settle here? There are good schools here where you can get a good salary, tenure and benefits.”

A week later, Ma casually mentioned marriage, which should come right after graduation and a career. “You must also start thinking about marriage. You’re at the right age. It’s good for a woman to be choosy but you don’t even seem interested at all. You turn everyone down. How else will you find your suitable boy?”

I cringed and took another sip of tea. “I haven’t clicked with anyone.”

“Others asked about you, at Anita’s engagement party. You nuh...Arranged marriage. We’re not strict on tradition, you nuh. I’m fully fine with you dating... Are you taking time off relationships?”

I nodded. Career success was always like second skin. I never understood love. I always described love as a contraption like a tight dress about two sizes smaller that wraps the body possessively, restricting movement and badly-fitting for my type.

I ended up departing from the US mostly because of Emily from Trenton. She connected me to her old friend, a guidance counselor of that prestigious Singaporean boarding school. Good pay and reputation was hard to come by. It would be absurd to not take hold of opportunity’s hand extended towards me.

2012-01-10T22:49:00.000-08:00

Grace

One drop.

is all it takes

To awaken death —

Of a forbidden bite.

Listen.

That still voice is a healing song.

Take it, receive it

Freedom.

2012-01-10T22:43:00.000-08:00

Poison

Venom once injected,

At unknown time

Soul rapidly saturated.

Blood stained black,

Bitter passions flame,

Hate dominates.

If I ever nurse,

I will

kill

my poem that appeared at The Promethean, Spring 2009

2012-01-09T01:47:00.000-08:00

Shrimp Tacos - That's what's for Dinner

My favorite. I made it with my own taco seasoning, with lettuce, chopped onions and homemade ranch dressing on whole wheat tacos.

The taco seasoning was a paste that blended garlic powder, cumin, chili, pepper and chili flakes with some oil and water. With this seasoning, I sauteed shrimp.

The ranch dressing was made by whisking mayonaise, sour cream, chives, dill, buttermilk, onion powder, pepper and salt to taste. I swear I do not want to buy store bought ranch dressing again. Time is the only agent that stands in the way of my homemade ranch creation.

While grocery shopping, I picked up Mission Artisan-style Multigrain tortillas. It is proof that healthy doesn't mean sacrificing taste.

2012-01-05T21:26:00.000-08:00

2012 Writing Goals

I am excited to have Saturday off. I quit my seasonal part-time job at the clothing store (that I took to get employee discounts while earning extra bucks). When you work retail your weekends and evenings are taken.

I am thrilled to have Saturdays off. The day is mine and free from classes or obligations. I am not required to go anywhere. The day is mine to seize. I may catch up on extra sleep, clean and organize my place, do the laundry, do my homework, attend a dance workshop, see a movie, or volunteer for a cause, host a party with my friends. I may go out or be in my pajamas inside all day.

I am designating Saturday morning as my writing time right after breakfast. I am scheduling a window of time strictly for writing. I won't respond to email, answer the phone, or heaven forbid browse the internet. The internet can be a distraction. I may go online and google one topic or to JSTOR for fact checking one topic. It then becomes a gateway to wandering through BBC, Arts and Letters online articles, Athletes.com articles, twitter, blogs, youtube or screw you autocorrect. Turning off my wifi is not a bad idea. At this time, I don't want to be disturbed. Saturday is designated to be my main writing day. I will also write on Wednesday morning.

It's a good idea to pencil in a time block in your schedule for writing and treat it like it's an appointment or a date. However, please do not write while you are at work. That is unethical and unfair to your employer. Plus, you won't have other things on your mind.

During my pen times, I will have all the freedom to write away, play with words, experiment and it's really my time.

I tried NanoWriMo and didn't have 50,000 pages of verbal vomit (otherwise known as first draft). I didn't have the time. But, I don't regret it, because it helped me get something. It was also fun to meet other participants and have a good time. I met others and encouraged to keep going. "Failure" in this sense is only going to keep me going more than anything. Plus, this time I have accountability partners with another writer friend, who'd help me in my writing journey. It's such a blessing.

For the first quarter: I have 2 food articles that I will be pitching. I will revise and compose pitch letters and keep going. These two articles are my priority. In fact, I may make Wednesday the time to work on articles or other shorter writing like article, short story, poetry and short pieces. And if there isn't anything, I'll write my novel in-progress.

I gained ample insights from my Magazine Writing class. I am thinking of having a goal of writing at least one article every 6 months or two per year. It may not sound like a lot, but it is if you are a graduate student involved in university activities and employed. This sounds reasonable to me. It's for my own sake.

And of course, I also have my novel in progress. I don't put goals for how many pages or chapters to be done at a certain time. To me it's simple, set aside time and write. Even if it's a few paragraphs, that's at least better than nothing. Or there may be days, I can't stop and end up with 3 chapters. Whatever the case, let it be!

These are more for myself. Having this thought out gets me going.

Other things I have done is take up another creative form: painting, baking, dancing, because creativity encourages creativity. Or I may hike in the wilderness, which isn't exactly creative, but it gets the creative flow going.

Other than that when I reflect on the previous year, I have learned to be bold in exploring new terrain and difficult topics. I learned how to sprinkle grace and what is the best approach to present that difficult topic to my intended readers.

HAPPY WRITING to all of you!

2011-12-31T09:50:00.000-08:00

New Year

Here's a look at the good things and blessings that happened this year as well as the parts that I'd like to forget and hope for a better future.

I'll start with random 2011 memories that I remember at this moment.

Ambition of seeking healthy brownies: Brownies are easy and good to bake when I want a sweet treat. Plus, they make my home smell delightful. I heard about substituting avocado for butter and browsed several blogs that mention the brownies tasting better more moist, better texture with the avocado. I was convinced and gave it a try. I pulled out the brownies from the oven and it looked great. When I bit into it, it was absolutely DISGUSTING. It was this weird rubbery, tasteless thing. Later, I tried again with yogurt and applesauce. It didn't work out either. I may have done something wrong. By this time, I gave up and going to stick to brownies the traditional way with butter and sugar. Healthy brownies are an oxymoron.

Susan Reese's Writing to Heal Journal - Often I wished I could take a look at myself from the outside, especially my inner mind, thoughts, personality, and the unseen. This class helped me. One of the course requirements were to make a scrapbook/journal of myself — my views, journeys, experiences. Throughout the term, I make this journal. Each page is varied in mood, tone, thoughts, experiences. I was recalling things that I took for granted and revisited old experiences and memories. Looking at the finished product, I could really take a good look at myself. I believe our God is the author and finisher of our faith. I can see how He brought me into existence and writing my life.

Talking about my Writing - I am glad to be plugged in with the writing community. I enjoy the monthly writer group meeting where we end up discussing ideas, readings, and the many opportunities to talk to like-minded people about writing. I took classes that had me talk about myself as a writer. It sharpened my vision and helped me write.

Overload of work, grad school, social life, and everything else - I decided to graduate this year and took a heavy load of courses. I'm a full-time grad student, have 3 part-time jobs that total to 35 hours (so basically it's like having one full-time job), and involved on campus. I still made time to workout, socialize, go to church and of course sleep. I got straight As all the way. It was hard! I honestly don't know how I did it. I didn't burn out because I scheduled time to relax and socialize or else I would lose my mind! I could manage this till I graduate this year. But this is not what I want for longer time. I'm a very active person, yet I acknowledge my limitations.

Relationships - In the journey of life, there are fellow travellers. Some stay with you the entire course while others are there for a short term. There are reasons for that. Some people should never be in your life. This year, I had people come in and leave. I see a purpose why it happens and different people of completely opposite backgrounds and experiences are coming into my life to make it a blessing. Acquaintances have their place. Professional connections have their place. However, I do not want my friends to be perpetual acquaintances. I'm the kind of person who prefers having a small group of people who I can trust my life rather than being in a crowd of acquaintances that are apparently my friends.

So I run into you in a supermarket after 2 years and you say "Oh I've been thinking about you...blah blah...I've been praying for you....Let's meet up." And this is the funniest part. You had my contact info all this time. Why didn't you bother to take a minute to chat? It isn't that difficult. I take their words with a grain of salt and don't take them seriously until they actually call me or take at least one minute of their precious time to really get to know me. Please buzz off. I'd rather have you say nothing than insincere, empty fluff.

I had someone tell me, "You're one straight up, no BS type of girl." That's true. I may greet a person when I see them and polite. But, I never say "let's hang out" or act interested when I am not. If I'm not interested in a person I just say nothing and stay out of the way. That's the way I roll.

I am glad for the people in my life. I am also understanding of some people who I need to cut off. Ideally, I don't want to, but sometimes that is how it goes. It can be very difficult. I decided it's better to not focus on them, but rather people who are genuinely interested in me, involved and who I continually spend time with. There are people like that. I am glad for those who took the time to speak into my life, rebuke me when I do something dumb, encourage me during tough situations, and hang out with.

Dating - So you knew this was coming. I don't like to gossip the juicy details about my relational life on an open internet blog out of respect. I don't like to share about my relationship details openly. I only discuss with my best friends and close family members. If you want drama, juicy gossip and voyeur into someone's personal life, there are countless reality TV shows. Go watch them instead.

With this, I chose this year. I spent New Years Eve having dinner with my family and then going to a party with my friends. I'm glad to be in a fun, safe party with people I care about, love, and trust. We had a great time.

Things I look forward to in 2012

Graduation from PSU. I will have my Master's degree in Writing: Publishing. Now please don't ask me what I'm going to do with that degree or what I want to do with my life.

Life after Graduation. I am working on having a job lined up and hopefully like several other people, I'm hoping for it. I'm going to see what happens.

Self eye-brow threading. My sister discovered how to self thread eyebrows. I was surprised to find out how easy it was. I got it right away and I only need a piece of ordinary thread. No more visits to the salon. I can do it myself!

Writing. I'm still working on Exile and still going. I will have more to write. I'm thankful for my writers group for their support.

My Gym Life. I somewhat backslid on my gym workouts. It's the holidays and it's okay to take a break. In 2011, I was very consistent. I found physical activities I enjoy like dancing, tennis, swimming, and weightlifting. I like variety in my workouts. I will continue this year, but will crank up the intensity and focusing on dieting. I don't mean dieting as in starving or those temporary fad diets. I mean dieting as a lifestyle for life. I am planning to avoid processed foods as much as possible, quality protein, good fats, and balance. I have to get better at planning and making meals that are healthy.

Personal Finance. Sadly, many young women (my generation) do not understand finance. Budgeting, debt, mortgage, investing. I think that's unfortunate. I studied personal finance through Suze Orman, Brass magazine (a money magazine for young adults), and Dave Ramsey. I took Dave Ramsey course through my church, Imago Dei Community, because I was intrigued when another guy I know told me that he paid off a 45K student loan in 14 months after taking that course. That sure sounds good to me. I look forward to learning to be better disciplined about my finances, repenting when I messed up, and being financially knowledgeable and healthy.

Saturdays Off. Last term, I did not have one day a week off. I was either in school or working. I wanted at least one day where I don't have to go a class or scheduled to work. This is where I can sleep in, clean my apartment, get organized, homework and read for leisure, write or pursue other creative endeavors, and relax!

So here's to a new year!

2011-12-19T23:57:00.000-08:00

Child Characters in Fiction

One of the challenges I'm facing is portraying children in my novel from toddlers to teenagers. There will be a few scenes of my heroine as a 10-year-old and later as a teenager. There will be her relatives and other children portrayed.

When having child characters, it is important to characterize them appropriately and consistently. You don't want a 7-year-old characters who seems to be too mature for her age at one chapter and in another chapter acting like a toddler.

One of the books I admire is Arudhati Roy's God of Small Things. I admire her skill in writing through sophisticated language, sentence structures and adult vocabulary, yet beautifully portrays the mindset of a young person.

When I was working on my Bachelor's in Education, one of the classes I took was Developmental Psychology that talked about psychological development of a person from birth through old age. It talked about the biological, physical, mental, emotional, and social aspects. I wished that I kept my textbook for that class. I can't even recall it. It was straightforward, but not too dry and technical. That class helped me characterize children. I could create a character and imagine what that character will say and do according to his or her personality. If not for the class, a basic college textbook on developmental psychology would be a resource or parenting books. This is for us singles who never had children.

I thought that parent and grandparent writers are at an advantage for having firsthand experience. It is true, but that doesn't mean single writers can't have insights.

According to Flannery O' Connor, "anyone who survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life."

Can I recall childhood? Well, if I can't my mother is always more than happy to share stories about my childhood. Even as an adult, I remember distinct memories and remember exactly from my young perspective.

Here's a writing exercise I have done to draw out experiences. Make a three column list, one young child, 10 years old, and teenager. Take 10 minutes the most to list out memories in each column.

As a freewrite, pick only one from the column of your choice. Free write that particular memory either in first or third person point of view as though it is happening at the moment.

I wrote about the time when I was 10-years-old and my 10th birthday party. As I was freewriting I recalled details that I would have normally taken for granted.

Then, on the other hand, what if you are not writing about yourself but a fictional character in a novel. This is where spending time with children, whether family members, kids you volunteer with or kids in general are helpful. Plus, studying psychology helped me put myself in the character's shoes and think about what he or she would most likely say or do at that given age?

Good writing is always rewritten. If you want to get better in portraying child characters, spend more time writing, reading, and giving to the craft.

For my flashback and beginning chapters, I have used a combination of my own memories and creating a scene based on what I know about children that age from psychology class and working with kids.

To top it up, a sound edit or having a critical reader will help keep the characterization consistent.

2011-12-01T20:46:00.000-08:00

Thoughts of a Grad Student

It's my final year. It goes so fast. What next? That's the scary part.

It'd be job hunting. I'm casting the net and seeing where life takes me. I believe I'm on a path. Job hunting, resumes, applications, and CVs feel like a full-time job in itself. It can become overwhelming.

I'm finished with my finals and on winter break. I decided to take up a part-time job at a clothing store as they needed extra help and employee discounts and some extra bucks is not a bad idea.

The rest of the time I'll be getting a start on my graduate portfolio, job hunting, maybe writing.

I will write my novel.

Yet, bake a lot—whether it be cookies, brownies, cake, biscotti.

Take the time to spend with my family and friends. I like to go out.

The final year of your program is like a marathon. Keep focused, steady pacing, yet also take the time to enjoy the scenery, sights, and things experienced while at it.

With that said, MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR

2011-09-09T00:48:00.000-07:00

Discovering European Sponge Cake

Growing up in India and Dubai, the only cake I’ve always had was genoise or sponge cake — definitely an imperial influence on our eating habits. I grew up with the simplicity of the cake's taste that brought
back many memories. I remembered my mom whisking those eggs over boiling water while I waited impatiently for the cake to be out of the oven.

Only when I arrived in America, I discovered another variation of cake—butter cake. Even to this day, I could not adapt to its heavy feeling. I cannot adapt to the sugary taste. I simply cannot get over the light taste of a good ol' sponge cake. Nostalgia caught up to me. My new ambition is to discover European-style sponge cakes.

Why make cakes like most people in this part of the world (United States)? European-style Sponge cakes are great with coffee and tea. The layered genoise cakes are the ones I'd seen in a cafe. There are many variations such as the simplicity of putting jam in the middle to frosting it and conjuring up other intricacies. A simple cake would be a plain sponge cake with fruit jam, that Queen Victoria of England loved with her tea. Or you can layer the cake with frosting, decorations and get creative. This could have also been the cake Alice, Lewis Carroll's heroine most likely had. Another variation is a roulade, a rolled cake that my six-year old tongue called "the roly poly cake." I may have gotten that from a nursery rhyme.

First Attempt: Genoise with Raspberry filling and Chocolate Ganache

Even though a newbie at baking cake from scratch, I thought why not make two 9-inch round cakes, layer with fresh raspberry filling, and top it with some chocolate ganache? I always loved raspberry and chocolate together. I will also confess that I am not really a fan of American frosting either. Ganache seemed like the answer, as I could use left over ganache for making truffles.

For the sponge cake, the first thing I did was whisk eggs and egg yolks and sugar in a bowl over hot water till the temperature was lukewarm. Then, I continued beating till it the mixture was fluffy and tripled. This is where patience would be beneficial. This is where I’d mix in vanilla, lemon juice, and some lemon grind. I decided to add some freshly ground cardamom to give it a kick. Then, I added the dry ingredients of cake flour with some corn starch till it was blended. As an insurance against the cake resulting to be very dry. Who wants dry cake? I added little butter, but not too much. The cakes almost came out the way I wanted it to be. The first task has been accomplished.

The filling was simple and made from raspberry jam and fresh raspberries.

The ganache topping was simple, I poured hot heavy cream over bittersweet chocolate pieces in a bowl. After letting it melt for a minute, I mixed it till it was creamy and then let it thicken. First, I used a spatula to smooth ganache over the rough edges of the cake. I could now pour ganache over the cake, and used some raspberries and mint leaves to garnish the cake.

The only thing was that I left the cake in the oven too long. You need to do a toothpick test as soon as you can smell the cake and take it out as soon as it's done. The cake ended up losing some of it's fluffy, light texture.

Overall, I thought this recipe was odd. It called for more egg yolks. I asked my mom and she said she never remembered that.

Regardless, I felt accomplished after putting the finishing touches. My quest continued to attempt another creation, maybe the next one will be light and fruity and a summer cake, to honor the warm weather Portland has for the time being.

Second Try: Strawberries n Cream Sponge Cake

I wanted something light, tasty, and fruity. I got my answer. This recipe was better than the last one. I made sponge cake as before, but this time didn't need more yolks than egg whites. I learned that I should whisk the eggs when they are room temperature, otherwise they wouldn't whisk properly.

For the frosting and fillling, I simply whisked heavy cream, with vanilla, and a little fat-free cream cheese. The cream cheese helped keep the frosting become thicker and retain it's shape when out for long time in room temperature. I frosted a layer in between the cakes and put a layer of strawberries. This time the cake turned out better than my first. The cake was a hit among my coworkers for a potluck. This cake pairs well with tea, coffee, or chai.

Third Try: Date-Nut Roulade and Chocolate-Hazelnut Roulade

A church home community potluck provided the next opportunity to experiment. Every two weeks, we have a person sharing their life story with food and the potluck theme is picked by them. That week it was Middle Eastern/North African food.

Sponge cake has it's influence all over the world, as it is the base cake for Latin American Tres Leche cake and Japanese Kastella cake among many other variations. For the event, I thought about a roulade that has regional influence. I thought of dates and traditional Arabic sweets.

My idea was homemade date jam with chopped pistachios and topping the cake with honey and nuts. My magnificent creation is pictured on the left. On the right, that's a chocolate roulade double-layered with nutella and almond-flavored cream and topped with hazelnuts.

To Make the Date filling: You need red wine, 2 tbsp butter, half cup sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg. Melt the butter, sugar in a saucepan, add wine and bring them to a boil before adding the dates, spices. Simmer for about 30 minutes till it becomes thick.

I made the roulade on a cookie sheet. Here's a tip for easy rolling. Line the pan with parchment paper as it helps with easy removal. Take another piece of parchment paper and sprinkle with confectioner's powdered sugar. Invert the cake on the parchment paper. Slowly and carefully peel off the parchment paper off the cake. If the cake is warm you may want to fill it right away. I then spread date jam on the cake and then sprinkled a layer of chopped pistachios. Then, with a serrated knife I cut the edges of the cake to make it look smooth and even. Finally, I slowly rolled the cake. As the finishing touch, I spread some honey on top of the cake and topped the cake with nut topping.

From my experience, I learned that practice makes perfect. I am more intrigued by sponge cakes. One recommended reading is Barbara Maher's Ultimate Cake. DK books are great for their pictures, illustrations, layout and plenty of mouth-watering recipes and tips. There are also several internet websites Joy of Baking.

Here are pointers from my experience:

More egg yolks are not necessary. I didn't see much difference from the first recipe that called for more yolks from the latter recipes that used equal whites and yolks
Do separate the eggs. It helps make the mixture fluffier and resulting is softer cakes
Use cake flour if you can, but if all-purpose flour will do. Sift the flour.
Use lemon juice and rind to neutalize the egg smell, otherwise when you pull the cake out of the oven, it'll smell like scrambled eggs. I add vanilla too, but lemon does the neutralization.
Fold in ingredients very gently, or else the airy texture falls flat and the cake won't be as fluffy

I should also toss in a quick recipe on chai. It is said that only Indian parents would make their tea in a saucepan. The tea we drink is chai. For heaven's sake, don't call it chai tea, as chai translates to tea. This is how to do it. On a saucepan boil black tea, milk, ginger rinds, cardamom together. Pour it through a strainer and add sugar to your liking. Chai would go well with any of these cakes.

I would like to hear your experiences with European Sponge Cake. Please do share your tips, ideas, and thoughts. By the way, the recipes are in the comments section.

2011-08-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

Summer Vacation

I have about 4 weeks left before the school year starts and I'm once again subbing this year, but applied for a few part-time teaching jobs. I like subbing. After all that craziness of summer classes, that ended with Willamette Writer's Conference, I can now relax. This week has been great. I still work part-time at the clothing store.

My summer plans are simple. I'm used to having a tight, structured schedule during the school year and when I'm free—I just want to have no tight schedules, relax, do things that I want to do.

Sleeping in — One of life's pleasures. I rarely get time to sleep in. It's like being a kid again. And hanging out in my pajamas.

Reading — Sometimes, I want to do nothing but read all day. I made chicken spinach lasagna yesterday and have mint chocolate brownie icecream waiting for me while I read.

On my current reading list: The Help by Kathryn Stockett, The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair, People' s History of the World by Chris Harman. I'm halfway through The Help, which I hope to finish today and can't wait to see the movie.

I'm also reading up articles from The English Journal, and Best Practices in Teaching.

Writing — Now that I'm free, what's my excuse? I'm setting aside time and just doing it. My mantra is: don't edit while writing. Just write. Edit later. Why do I violate this often? Again at the Willamette Writer's Conference, I was reminded by C.C. Humphrey through his workshop that the first draft is not to be shared. It's only for me. Thus, a writer has all the freedom to experiment, try new things, play with words, and have complete freedom. Drafting will take care of all the flaws. So here I go.

Shoe Shopping — How many shoes is a girl allowed to have? Some of my shoes are wearing out. I still have my leather boots that I got from Argentina, which I'm holding on to. The heel needs to be replaced. Since I started teaching, I don't wear as much heels as I used to. I remember an old high school Spanish teacher wearing high heels and I wondered how she did that. There are some shoes I've been looking at. Mostly flats or low wedges that I can wear when teaching and that'd coordinate with dress pants, skirts. Then, there's a pair of pink heels that I want to get. And I usually never go for pink heels or bold colored shoes. I own too much black heels, black flats and black everything, so that it'd easily coordinate with everything else I wear, which is fine, but can get boring. And above all—the shoes have to be on SALE and I can use my employee discount at the store I work to get clothes.

Full Skirts? I noticed that full skirts, A-line or dresses with fuller skirts are coming back. I saw The Limited had full skirts. I always liked pencil skirts. Do I dare give full skirts a try? A coworker convinced me to try them and it'd flatter me well. I got another coupon from The Limited. So, I go try one on.

Summer Weddings — Many people I know are getting married. It's exciting and weddings make me happy. Congrats to all who are getting married this summer. I hope you all enjoy your life together.

Hanging Out with Friends — People are important. We are not meant to be islands. I have more time to host parties, hang outs, go out and check out movies, concerts, and what else goes on.

Salsa Dancing — I love to dance. I'm going to do it more often.

2011-07-27T17:43:00.000-07:00

Why do Girls go for Jerks?

A few guy friends commented on this. One guy told me that when he was a nice guy, no girl seemed interested. But, when he started acting like a jerk, he was getting attention from the girls. I've heard this before.

This is what I have to say from a female point of view. Women are generally attracted to confident men. I also tend to be attracted to confident, emotionally and physically strong men who make me feel safe, protected, and accepting of me. It could be instinctive, since we naturally expect men to be protectors. Confidence is the first thing women notice in a guy next to his good looks.

Yet, some women do not know how to discern confidence. Girls, especially the naive, inexperienced, foolish ones tend to mistake confidence for jerk behavior.

There is a difference between confident, masculine, strong versus being a self-centered douchebag. There's a difference in being nice, respectful, kind versus being naive, wimpy, or beta.

Secondly, people tend to think in extremes. For women, either she's either an immoral slut or the very naive Snow White type; she's either a passive doormat or extremely aggressive, bitchy type.

Likewise, for guys, you are either the passive wimp or the douchebag, alpha type. Why does it not occur to people that a woman can be strong, intelligent, confident, assertive yet kind, considerate, lady-like, feminine? Likewise, a man can be confident, strong, masculine, lead without being a jerk.

Jeff, a friend of mine, told me that there aren't many good role models for men. The men are either players like James Bond, the players who gets all the chicks (and probably STDs with it) or the dorky, wimpy quiet guy. That is true.

Yet, on the flip side, women too don't have good role models either. I'm tired of self-absorbed, whiny bimbos being in the spotlight while real women who are actually contributing to society are overlooked.

And, our culture tends to have a message towards women that standing up for herself, being choosy about her mates is wrong. I get funny looks from both men and women when I'm choosy about men and refuse to throw myself at every penis interested in me. A woman (and man) has every right to choose whoever she (or he) wants. Believe it or not, I ran into girls who feel guilty about politely turning a guy down. This makes me want to hit my head against the wall. What has the world come to?

There are women out there with self-esteem issues, emotional immaturity, or just dumb. I've known girls who can't stand to be alone and would just settle for any guy, even if he treats her like dirt. Women with low self-esteem would settle and have no standards. Some women gravitate towards jerks or bad relationships, because they tend to thrive on relationship drama, for the sole reason of wanting to draw attention to themselves, want some sort of excitement, because they have nothing else going on in their lame, pathetic lives. These are the kind of girls who have no hobbies, interests, opinions, and their whole self-esteem and identity is from the "relationship." Then, you have girls who always agree with everything you say and some guys are egotistic and stupid enough to go for that, because they want validation for their insecurity, weakness. Um, I'd say be watchful, because she could be passive-aggressive (which means drama). Common sense would tell you that no one can be a doormat for that long and eventually she'd explode—and it's the apocalypse and all over.

I tell my guy friends: stay away from these type of girls. Avoid these women like the plague. I can't stress this enough.

It makes a world of a difference going for a mature woman and likewise being with a mature guy. The best ex-boyfriend I had was a guy who I could be honest with, no games, theatrics and we both were the "straight up, no BS" types. We had some unreconcilable differences and I felt we won't be best for each other in the long run. Being honest, up front was not easy at all. I wish I did a better job at communicating. But, we were able to talk things over and break up like mature adults with minimal drama. We are ADULTS — and want to date and approach relationships like mature adults. There was some bickering, but we broke up in a civilized way, and in fact we still keep in touch occasionally. I still think he's a good guy and will some day make another girl happy. I still respect him, because he is a good guy, mature, respectful, considerate towards others. He's the man!

I also want to say another thing to some guys: so you are intimidated, afraid to be with a mature, intelligent, classy, respectful woman, and would instead go for a clingy doormat or drama queen, because a clingy girl makes you feel more "manly" and like a savior . . . well, then, don't later complain about not meeting quality women. It's your own fault for not being wise, discerning enough to choose. Quit blaming everyone else and the circumstances like a coward, and take charge of your own life like a real man. Likewise, girls do the same thing by choosing losers instead of mature, real men and then complain about not finding quality men.

Secondly, like attracts alike. If you act trashy and like an immature dumbass, don't expect a classy woman in your arms. Have some standards and don't be a man-whore either. I know society has double-standards, but c'mon.

On the side for the girls, you cannot expect a man or anyone else to respect you, if you do not respect yourself. See yourself as valuable, wonderfully made and understand who you are, and value yourself first.

So, here's my take on this:

If I see a jerk, I am repelled. I do not find him attractive at all. I have enough maturity, self-respect and flat out refuse to deal with his BS. In the past, I've been naive and stupid, but I learned my lessons and now wiser. We all make our mistakes, but it's important to get past them, learn, grow and become a better person.

I find alpha males, the guys trying to put on this mask of supposed "manliness" very annoying. Secondly, I have no respect for guys who are conceited, insecure and feel emasculated too easily. I'd interpret this as immaturity and him trying to overcompensate for a lack of it (that is figuratively and otherwise speaking).

All I can say to all my guy friends is simply be your best self and be the best man you can be—for yourself. And, if a girl has an issue with that and wants to settle for less, then she is not worth your time or effort.

I want a guy who I can respect and look at him and think, "What an amazing guy, I'm blessed to have an awesome guy in my life." I do not respect jerks or immature losers. I have respect for a man who is mature, truly confident, knows who he is, intelligent, fun, yet respectful, accepting towards others and good, strong character and intentions. To be realistic, we all have our insecurities, flaws, but the real question is how honest is he about himself and what is he doing to overcome that or improve. That's humility, which is rare these days. And, if I were to meet a guy like that, he'd just have me instantly. I'd be dreaming about him like a hormone-driven thirteen-year-old.

2011-01-21T22:45:00.000-08:00

Setting: A Sense of Place and Time

Here is a challenge to every writer. How do you draw your readers into your fictional world that you created?

As I'm writing away, I'm approaching the creation of my fictional piece as though making biriyani. The art of preparing biriyani requires a fine balance. I always liked its scent; the distinctive scent lays in the fine balance of all the spices mingled together with lamb or chicken. It's a pleasure to experience all these scents dancing together to please those olfactory nerves.

If one of the spices is missing, it seems to throw everything off balance.

Likewise, when it comes to writing there needs to be a balance of characterization, plot structure, and exposition. There are also sub-categories that address specific concerns.

Most writers spend a lot of their time, energy and effort into plot and character. Setting tends to take a back seat. The spice of any memorable fiction is establishing a deep sense of place. Some places have a special meaning. Or maybe setting helps advance the story. Please don't neglect this piece. A mediocre setting does not work.

So far, I think the worst offender was William P. Young's The Shack. When it comes to creating a sense of place, I felt that his exposition was forced and bombarded with many unnecessary details. You do not need to describe each and everything. Sometimes overt descriptions without a purpose make me impatient and distract. I think he should carefully choose details. I heard him speak at a writer's conference and read his book. The first two chapters failed to catch my interest for lacking a true sense of place.

I'm now reading Loretta Stinson's Little Green, and the beginning chapters are set in the seventies. In the beginning, I didn't really feel that I was placed in that time period and place. I got a little taste. When I pick up a book, I want to be completely immerse the world right away. Only in the middle of Little Green, I felt that I was placed in their world and truly felt placed.

I remember reading Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart as a high school junior. I remember really getting into his world. I could imagine the scorching African sun, the huts, the drums, the characters, the clothing women wore and what happens when two cultures meet. The setting made the novel memorable and fascinating to me.

Then there was Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, where I felt completely transported to Kerala and into the character's worlds.

Then I remember one of my favorite childhood books -- Enid Blyton's The Magic Faraway Tree. I felt taken away into her magical world of goblins, brownies, fairies, magical places and London in the 1940s or 1950s.

I'm sure there are other literary art pieces with memorable settings but on top of my head I remember these books. It's been a while since I read these books. There is a reason why I remember these books after several years. I pay attention to characters and places. I want to be transported to a memorable place or time when I'm buried in a book. If I don't feel that I'm in the same place as the character I identity with, I gradually lose interest.

As a writer, how do you create a sense of time and place? I'm going to share my thoughts that are actually a distillation of reading good examples over the years, lectures from my professors, and my own successes and failures in writing many unpublished stories.

Diction - Word Choice makes a big difference. I try to be careful with words and how I place them together. Diction evokes the mood, setting and reveals a lot of the unspoken. For example, if the story was set in Colonial India in the early 20th century diction would reflect that versus a setting in modern day Portland's Hawthorne district. When a disconnect exists between diction and setting, there is a disruption in bringing the reader into the place.

Words should be logical and carefully chosen and flows intuitively.

In the beginning paragraph of The Shack, the weather is described as abnormal. Abnormal? My intuition tells me that the words "abnormal" and "weather" don't seem right together. I don't associate abnormal with weather. I think "unusual" sounds better.

Icons and References - What was popular culture like? This includes songs, entertainment, celebrities, politicians and historic events. Suppose if two people from that time era got together what would their daily conversations be about? This requires research on your part. Readers love references especially if it's something they identify with. With that in mind, make sure it is not forced.

The most important thing an author can do when telling a story is to invoke intrigue in the reader in such a way that leads to a sense of attachment to the story's setting. It's true that since I love big cities, I love to read stories set in New York. But if an author gives me a reason to be intrigued in a story taking place in rural Montana, I will be interested. It can be exciting to simply imagine being a cowgirl, even though I have no experience in that type of culture and never been to Montana.

Please do not overlook this ingredient. And other writers, please comment and share your suggestions, ideas and advice.

2011-01-13T21:10:00.000-08:00

Personal Vision Statements for 2011

Our home community did this activity on January 4th. We were to meditate, search within ourselves, seek God and write personal vision statements for the year. This was to be different from the typical New Year's Resolutions. Resolutions tend to be short-term and most people never follow through. For instance, my gym is crowded with people who made resolutions to lose weight and exercise but in almost no time they drop out. Then, things go back to normal.

Vision statements are meant to be broader and something we continuosly work on but trust His grace, hold on to faith, hope for the better, and deny our selves to seek the deeper spiritual things.

PERSONAL VISION STATEMENTS FOR 2011

BOLDNESS - Be bold. Take reasonable risks. Try out new things, experiment and venture out. Do not be a chicken when I should be a confident, soaring eagle. Do not look back at my past mistakes, tragedies, situations, failures with resentment and fear. The past is a part of my life and a reality that I can never get around. However, I should look at my past as a leap of victory and realizing that only through grace I am a true overcomer. I picture myself as a warrior princess in perfect peace, harmony, trust of the high commander and in charge of my life. I kick ass and don't let bad circumstances take over.

Boldness also means not being afraid to pursue dreams, desires and ambitions. There is a reason that it exists in my heart. I desire boldness to pursue:

University involvement - it's intimidating to take a leadership position or step out when I'm surrounded by intellectual, talented people. Even thought it can be intimidating, I count it as a blessing because it's a journey to learn from them, let them be agents in my own intellectual growth. I will ask for advice, evaluate myself and just go for it. So far, I am enjoying being involved in Ooligan Press. There's no much to learn and I feel lost sometimes but my classmates, professors have been great.

Relationships and ties - I always enjoy being with different types of people. I'm proud of the fact that my friends have completely different political views, faiths, and backgrounds and experiences. Differences help us grow together. Yet, some people can be scary. I like to expand my circles and go out and get to know different types of people. The more varied - the better! I definitely need boldness, patience and humility to get out of my comfort zone and go out and meet different people.

I will esteem and value ties in my life. There are wonderful people in my life and I am thankful for genuine fellowship. I want to let them know how much they mean to me. I need boldness to also learn to be open, less guarded, and let the important people in my life know that they are valued and loved by me.

Break up with toxic people - What a paradox! Sometimes I learned that it is better to cut off ties with toxic people. Mutual respect is a necessity in any relationship. Without that a healthy, genuine relationship cannot exist. I do not like to disappoint or hurt people. Let's face it, breaking up is never pleasant - whether a boyfriend, friend or family member. But sometimes it is necessary. I need boldness to set healthy boundaries and break off harmful ties. I need boldness to understand that I should sometimes not feel guilty for having to cut off ties with toxic people.

Boldness to "step out" in my novel - I feel that there is a real purpose and reason why I was impressed to write the topic and characters. There are difficult things and some situations that challenge me to examine myself, my perspectives, views and experiences. When I'm writing I'm wrestling with myself and pondering some thoughts that wouldn't make pleasant dinner party conversations. I want to step out and I will. It'll serve as an opportunity to grow as a writer (and in the mind).

CONTINUE TO SEEK OUT THE GENUINE - I always found the fake, pretentious things of life to be repulsive. I cannot stand fake, pretentious places, situations and especially a fake, pretentious faith! Maybe this is reflective of my generation's culture to hate the fake. I can spot insincerity instantly. I will continue to value and seek out the genuine. I will continue to not be what I hate. (I realize that I may have had some pretentious moments in my life too). I desire the genuine and true meaning.

DISCIPLINED/ORGANIZED - No need to explain but it is a necessity in managing life and keeping your sanity. I have a hectic, busy life. I work full-time and a grad student. I am also involved in volunteer activities, hobbies and passions. And I want to exercise regularly, make time for friends and have time to relax. Then there's my finances. Last year, I was somewhat sloppy and needed improvement in organization. I have a plan to organize time, which will be consistently followed. I also have an existing system that I use to manage my finances but I will improve on it and come with a realistic budget. Enough said!

CREATIVITY - I will spend at least a few hours on a Saturday writing, scrapbooking, painting or doing something creative. Coming up with ideas is never an issue. I always have them. The tricky part is taking the time to sit down and do it. I am thankful to have weekends off. Saturdays afternoons are my designated time for creativity. I will also use other times. Sometimes I actually write in my planner the time I will spend for my creative endeavors. I have several on-going projects:

My First Novel - I am working on it piece by piece. I worked on it during the winter holiday.

Argentina Trip Scrapbook - This will be a relaxing thing to do when I don't want something that takes a lot of mental focus. I have a really cool photo printer and the pictures come out great.

Paintings - I felt impressed on me to paint self-portrait and maybe paintings about my growing up and life.

Dancing - I'm already a salsa dancing fanatic. I also tried swing dancing. I want to continue to take dance classes but want to focus on salsa. I will continue to go out dancing and have a great time.

Of course, several others will come up. I am taking writing classes at PSU and these take priority over everything else. The projects are always going to be there and I attend to them when there's time and when I feel the itch to do it.

UNWIND/RELAX - With all that I do, I still make time to relax, unwind and recharge. I will try things like baths, sipping chamomile tea, listening to relaxing music, doing my nails and take quiet, reflective, meditative moments to unplug from everything. It's for the sake of my sanity and an escape from the world that is fast-paced, busy, full of noise and troubles. In this quiet space, I have a renewed mind. I enjoy relaxing. This makes me realize that I'm not super-woman and need to understand that even though I have strengths I am also weak in some areas. Thus, I acknowledge grace.

These seem simple, straightforward but all of these have a higher purpose. I certainly know what they are.

2010-12-28T00:07:00.000-08:00

30-30-30 Challenge

"Write out 30 things you want to do, 30 things you want to have, 30 things you want to be before you die" - Jack Canfield's The Success Principle"

This is harder than you think. This is my list. Enjoy.

30 Things I want to do

learn to make pot pie but I'm going to make a lobster pot pie instead!
give tango dancing a try
improve my salsa dancing
make a scrapbook of my Argentina adventures
finish my series of self-portrait paintings
finish writing Exile
visit Italy
visit Paris and the Provence
visit Germany
live for a short time in England
teach abroad in Singapore
visit Brazil
go on a hiking trip one of these days
take Writing to Heal class by Susan Reese at PSU
learn the art of wine making
get a spa package where you spend a whole day getting a massage, facial, pedicure/manicure
do something about the human trafficking social evil
give more to charity
continue to keep in touch with relatives back in India
try speed dating just for the experience of it
talk to that attractive guy I've been checking out for the last 3 months
play tennis
run a marathon
be positive
make some creme brulee
avoid fake, superficial, toxic, negative and co-dependent people
have courage to write risque and controversial topics (with a purpose not for sensationalism)
after finishing Exile, start on my second novel
support my friend Beni and other social workers going to places to bless and help people
visit Goa

30 Things You Want to Have

a waist measurement of 26 inches
ability to do pull-ups
muscle tone/definition
improved physical strength
art supplies
a better, faster laptop
a scrapbook for my Argentina adventures
financial security
all my debts paid off
a Pizzicato pizza (but that only means motivation to hit the gym harder)
better skin condition (those darn breakouts!)
physical health
my Master's degree
a real designer purse (NOT Coach or LV! I like Longchamp)
new ballroom dance shoes (my old one broke)
friendships with genuine, sincere people; I always love to meet new people
a papasan chair
several books, mostly literary fiction
Rosetta Stone in Spanish and Hindi
a kindle
a pair of Bia Brazil workout pants - I heard they were good and a cute style
a BBQ chicken pizza
an easel
the discipline to write my novel
a vacation
a salsa and ballroom dancing partner who'd go dancing and take classes with me
jeans
a desk
a husband
children

30 Things I Want To Be Before I Die

a wonderful, amazing and best wife I can be
the best mother I can be to my future kids
a loyal, trustworthy, true, friend to all my friends
a sincere, honest, mature believer of Christ (not some lame cliche church lady who conforms to the church's culture. There is a big difference between confoming to church culture and following Christ).
wise
humble
simply amazing
the best person I can be
fabulous
satisfied
classy
a motivator
the fittest I can be
a successful teacher
an editor
a published writer
a painter (at least at the amateur level)
a fiction writing instructor
a travel writer
a community college professor
a "regular" at an establishment. I want to be the one customer who says "I'll have the usual" and all the servers know exactly what I want
a fluent speaker of 5 languages
an experienced cook
an experienced salsa dancer
an owner of a trendy, slightly upscale without the ostentatious vibe Indian restaurant/bar (I'll do this sometime close to retirement)
winner of a prize for my fiction (hopefully)
hmm... a celebrity. Just kidding, I'd rather not!
a world traveller
the strongest I can be
creative writing instructor at a therapeutic setting

2010-09-02T16:52:00.000-07:00

Writing my First Novel

The idea for my novel was conceived about one and a half years ago. Prior to that, I took Creative Writing class and the professor sometimes chose students to come up with writing exercises. It was Shawn's turn and his idea was to write about a tarot card with a picture of a toppling tower and to write about what it could mean. I came with the idea that a toppling tower signifies drastic change. I picture a drastic change as something that is sudden, unpleasant, or a blow and which can change a life path or destiny.

Then for a class assignment, I wrote a short story about a character going through a drastic change in her relationship and identity. She travels abroad with her husband and encounters several events that change the relationship.

Sharing a story in a class takes courage and I felt reserved at first because you feel that you are exposing yourself in a way - even though the writing has nothing to do with you. At the same time I really wanted feedback. Otherwise, how else do I improve my writing. Through writing that short story and receiving encouraging feedback, I discovered my "writing voice" and style. Every writer in the class has their own unique writing voice. My voice came out to be sophisticated, dark, exotic and intriguing and the settings are always in distant, exotic places.

The story was successful and it was published in my university literary journal, which encouraged me to further pursue the story. One thing led to another and I thought of using the same characters, settings, themes and expanding the short story into a novel.

The novel follows the life of the main character, an Indian girl who immigrated to the USA with her cosmopolitan, urbanite family from Bangalore. It starts out as a story about being stuck in two worlds - American and Indian. But the main focus of the novel is her college and young adult years. The story is about an Indian-American promiscuous college girl finding wholeness and healing in relational areas and in her spirit and soul. This story will discuss cultural values pertaining to relationships, marriage and sexuality. Even though there are serious issues surrounding the topic, there are satirical elements mocking our cultural attitudes towards love.

Love is a beautiful, magnificent thing but fallen human nature is too stupid to understand the sacred nature of love. It is because the human soul is born evil, carnal, dark, and devoid of all meaning until an outside source ignites and fills the dark soul with light. And in order to experience wholeness in love and sexuality, something drastic needs to happen. The first step would be to deny yourself and seek out truth and meaning.

I like to set my characters in urban big cities. Growing up in Dubai, I have always been a city girl at heart.

My stories always have protagonists who are angry, young Indian woman in her 20s. She is usually a fallen, Byronic hero type and a tragic-comedy. She's headed towards destruction and tragic ending, unless something happens.

I have lots of interesting ideas for the novel but the most difficult part is portraying it clearly through my words. Some ideas are very hard to express. It's going to be a journey but we'll see what happens.

Secondly, the hard part is becoming disciplined, finding uninterrupted time and balancing time in-between work, college classes and other things. If I'm writing, I need a long stretch of time to dream, ponder and pour the thoughts on paper. That can get challenging because writing takes a lot of mental focus. This is why I've been working on this piece for a long time. Setting deadlines works well for me.

I realized that only I can write the way I do. Each person has their own unique writing style and writing voice that is hard to imitate. There may be similarities but no writers ever sound alike like carbon copies. Even if you assign a group of writers the same characters, ideas and plot no one can ever write the exact same story. This gives me encouragement. I hold on to that thought as I decide to pen down that novel.

At the moment, I have 4 completed chapters but I am not happy with how 2 of them turned out and editing them.

2010-07-19T02:21:00.001-07:00

Salsa Dancing Workshop

Last Saturday, Ty and I went to a Salsa Quickstart Workshop at Viscount Studios. About 2 years ago, I became intrigued with dancing. Maybe it was because I saw movies like Shall We Dance?, Strictly Ballroom, and I wondered what the ballroom dance scene would be like in real life. From Shall We Dance? I could relate to Richard Gere's character, who was looking for something new and gave dancing a try. Then, I met friends who took me out and I discovered salsa dancing. I also tried swing dancing too. I wanted to go out on the weekends with my friends and try something new. Once I started, I got hooked. I've been going out to the salsa clubs inconsistently for the last 2 years.

A few weeks ago, I took Ty to Aztec Willies for salsa dancing. We both enjoyed and wanted to take classes. A friend of mine recommended this place and I always wanted to take a class. On the weekends, Viscount has Quickstart beginner level workshops for different styles of dancing, which is about 4 hours long but after that workshop, you can take beginning level 2 of that class.

Ty had no experience in salsa dancing apart from the two times I took him out. As for myself, I never took a class but went to the salsa clubs and learned from dancing. Most places usually have a short beginner lesson but it's the very basics. If you're a beginner follow, it is easier to learn. And some guys love to impress by teaching you what they know, so it helped me. I want to take a class to learn the technique and work on details so that my moves look better and more polished.

The studio is on East Burnside and 7th and under the Bossa Nova Ballroom. It isn't hard to find and there's parking on the street.

It's a good idea to show up at least 10 -15 minutes before the workshop to register and pay for the workshop. It's a good idea to register online and it's $40 and $50 without registering and if you're a student, it's $35. Why not?

Sarah, our instructor started off with introductions to break the ice. We received name tags and I could tell she tried to make the class fun, relaxed for everyone. Even if you had absolutely no experience dancing or feel that you have left feet, you will definitely not feel out of place here. I'm sure there are others who feel the same way too. It's a beginner class. She made it sound so much fun and enjoyable and that it's okay to make mistakes. She was laidback, fun and very much in tune with people. She's one of the best dance instructors I had. If you are total newbie, there is nothing to fear.

Taking up a new activity, especially ballroom dancing, can be intimidating to many newcomers. I know people who always wanted to try salsa or swing dancing but never go out. I remember a while ago, two friends of mine talked me into going salsa dancing at Aztec Willies. At first I had no idea what to expect. I saw it as an adventure and chance to experience something new.

And please, the dance scene isn't always like the dance movies. We always see cliquishness and a snotty, strict, uptight dance teacher and fellow dancers ready to point out your mistakes in public and embarass you. When it comes to social dancing, I have never experienced this and this maybe more with competitive dancing. As for cliquishness, many of the experienced dancers and regulars tend to stick together because they take classes together, dance frequently and naturally know each other. This is just normal part of life. Don't let this intimidate you from trying something new. If you always wanted to try dancing because you saw the movies or have a friend who does it all the time and intrigued, I say do it! There's plenty of places in Portland to try dancing.

In the workshop, she started off with introduction to salsa, salsa rhythm, and basic steps. Then we moved on to basic variations and turns. We ended with cross body lead. After taking this workshop, you learn all the basics you need for a night of salsa dancing. Towards the end, she played music and let us practice the moves on our own for 5 minutes.

Ty said to me after this workshop, "Let's take salsa 2." He definitely enjoyed it.

I would really recommend this workshop for anyone who always wanted to take salsa dancing. They also offer swing and tango workshops and other dance classes. The instructor, Sarah Riddle was awesome and created a fun atmosphere. And you walk out feeling excited. After taking this workshop, you have the basics down and enough to go out and dance at the club. You are excited for more.

Classes are great but you learn more from dancing regularly. In the past, I spent the weekend nights at Aztec Willies, Mambo lounge, and Andrea's Cha-Cha Club for salsa dancing.

2010-07-08T23:14:00.000-07:00

Exploring Indian Literature

Kids always love good stories. My mom tried to encourage reading since I was very young. I loved making up stories before I could start writing and as a child told my stories to other kids in the playground and my classmates loved to hear them and would always ask for one. I got into Nancy Drew, Enid Blyton and several others. During middle school, I enjoyed Jane Eyre and Little Women. As a young child, the imaginative worlds of the stories I read provided an escape from family problems. I had a dysfunctional family. It was the only place where I could be a kid. Then when I stepped into adolescence, it was a way to express thoughts, feelings, emotions and means for self-discovery and figuring out the world.

Only during my undergraduate studies, I started taking an interest in Indian literature and mostly Indian-American voices in literature like Jhumpa Lahiri. When I was in secondary school, we didn't have Indian-American stories in our required readings. I was not at all interested in them anyway. I was interested in World Literature and enjoyed Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart in a World Literature class I took during my junior year of high school. As a teenager, I was interested in world culture and different perspectives, except Indian culture and literature.

Keep in mind that I was a teenager and more concerned about fitting-in. Appreciating my heritage and background was not at all a priority. I could care less. I remember my parents dragging me into Indian functions and I was reluctant to go. I did not want to be constantly reminded that I am "different" from my classmates. I went to a mostly white school and I was often the only brown girl there. Most of high school and college, I always felt stuck in-between two worlds. This is common among any immigrant or first-generation American. But when you are younger you tend to think no one else can possibly understand your predictament and you're the only one going through this.

Now, as a 26-year-old woman, my perspectives have refined and matured. I enjoy my dual-identity of being both Indian and American and not fully fitting-in in either cultures. That's what makes me unique and why be like everyone else?

I haven't read much of Indian literature while growing up, apart from Panchatantra stories in my school textbooks and those Tinkle Digest comics for kids. Anyone remember them? This isn't Indian literature but India is portrayed there from an outsider's point of view: Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days and E.M. Forster's Passage to India.

I am now curious about my own heritage. To be honest, I cannot imagine moving back to India. I love visiting. But reverse culture is worse than culture shock itself. Reading Indian literature is a window to my own homeland. I read Indian-American fiction of Jhumpa Lahiri, Bharathi Mukherjee, and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. I got through Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth and now enjoying Interpreter of Maladies.Their novels are about Indians living abroad and something I can relate to. I like realism. I also read Salman Rushdie and V.S. Naipaul.

After reading all these good books, I am also inspired to pen my own thoughts down and write my own novel. This is something I dreamed about since I was ten-years-old. I have my own unique (writing) voice, imagination and a story to tell. As I write, I feel challenged by the question, "what is my identity?" Having a dual-identity and being in-between two worlds has its own uniqueness, flavor and scent but has its complexities too.

I want to read some South Asian Cultural Studies books. A friend recommended that I readPavan K. Varma's Being Indian.I'm going to check it out.

While I am venturing into South Asian Cultural Studies, I'm also thinking about my own writing. At the moment, I'm trying to pen down a novel. This idea has been on my mind during the last year of my college. Now that I graduated from college, I do not have an excuse for being busy. And so I am working on it. It makes me think how I would portray my characters and situations. The protagonist of my story is an Indian-American woman. I'm exploring the idea of dual-identity and the idea of being a foreigner to self and others around. This should be interesting. I cannot wait to see how the plot and characters turn out when I am done.

2010-06-20T23:49:00.000-07:00

Summer Time

It's summer time. Here are my plans apart from the typical working part-time, relaxing and hanging out with my wonderful friends and family. This time I am not traveling overseas. I wish I could travel to some exotic place. I would love to visit Brazil.

I plan to read. This is my reading list at the moment:

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

And the theme is Women Writers. I started Rebecca and I'm right away drawn into it. I already read Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth and I admire her writing style. As for Virginia Woolf, she intrigues me and this essay of hers is the pioneer of feminist criticism.

Tennis - I picked up the racket again after so many years.

Salsa Dancing - I'm still dancing. I love the salsa and latin music. It's beautiful and full of passion.

Part-time work at retail. I am still the perky, friendly chatty sales lady at the store.

The weather is beautiful. I want to sip a smoothie and think how wonderful life is.

2010-02-19T01:44:00.001-08:00

Chill Out Ice Lounge - Dubai, U.A.E

When visiting Dubai, Surya and I visited this place called Chill Out Ice Lounge. It's one of those things you have to visit when in Dubai. It's part of a mall. The way it works is you pay 60 dirhams to get in and they give you shoes, coat, gloves and a cup of hot chocolate. There is a room where you can go to get used to the temperature of the lounge.

And then you step inside the lounge. It's awesome. The tables (with a glass table top), chairs (with a padding), sculptures and even the plates are made entirely out of ice. The other exception is the menu.

This is the menu. We ordered the International Cheese Plate just to see what it comes in and yep, the food also comes in a plate of ice. It is really weird to think of an Ice Lounge in the middle of the desert. But if you're in Dubai, check this place out. We listened to Russian house music and hung out. Most people cannot stay for more than an hour. It gets cold. An hour or so is enough to enjoy the place.

2009-11-25T19:40:00.000-08:00

Jhumpa Lahiri

Now that student teaching is almost over and that I finished my work sample. I have time to indulge in a book. I want to read both The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies. I've seen the movie The Namesake, and that's what intrigued me to read the book.

I'm excited to finally get time to curl up and indulge in a book uninterrupted for at least an hour or more.

After reading these two books, I'll post my thoughts...

2009-10-19T00:29:00.000-07:00

Grace

One drop. is all it takes

To awaken death --

Of a forbidden bite.

Listen.

That still Voice is a healing song.

Take it, receive it

Freedom.

2009-10-06T17:45:00.000-07:00

Rest

I'm now understanding the value of quiet time. Usually, I love to go out, party and be around people and my friends. Now-a-days, I need "my" time. I may enjoy soaking in the jacuzzi, giving myself a manicure or pedicure, sipping hot chocolate while watching TV or indulging in a good book. There are numerous ways to unwind.

Unplugging does not come easy if you are a typical type A personality. I've tasted quiet time and it's needed for recharging and for my sanity.

2009-09-09T15:16:00.000-07:00

My Favorite Things

Teavana - I discovered that Washington Square Mall has a store. I love their teas. They have pretty tea pots and cups. I want their Gourmet Tea Maker, looks like a coffee maker but makes tea.

Moonstruck Cafe - I love chocolates and their chocolate drinks.

Lancome Dual Finish Powder Foundation - Once I tried this I don't think I'm going to switch foundations for a while. It comes with a sponge and if you wear it with a wet sponge it gives more coverage. You can also wear it as a powder if you use a powder puff. For foundations, I always splurge a bit and I have to try it on first before buying it. I'm starting to see mainstream cosmetic companies have make-up in more shades for us brown girls but finding the right shade it can still be a challenge. I was glad that Lancome had a shade that fit me.

Mahogany Beauty on the Go - It's a store at Lloyd center that sells cosmetics for women of color or for us brown girls. The store carries Flori Roberts, Patti Labelle and Interface cosmetics and other brands. They have the right colors and makeup that fits us brown girls.

Sushi - I love sushi. My favorite sushi place is Dragonfish cafe and Todai because it's a sushi buffet.

Oil of Olay Beauty Fluid - My favorite face moisturizer. I can never go wrong with it.

The Limited store - I love their clothing. I love shopping there and I can always find good deals. Their jackets fit me. I love their trendy, sophisticated style and their sales. They have lots of sales and I've always found good deals. Why do you every have to pay $70 or more for a pair of pants when you can get it for $20 or less at a sale?

Salsa Dancing - I'm still doing it. It's a lot of fun. My favorite salsa places are the Mambo lounge, Aztec Willies and Andreas Cha-cha club.

Hair Bumpits by Big Happie Hair - Forget shopping directly through the company. I bought mine from ebay for $4. It takes a while to get used to it but it's been good and I got the 1960s style bump and no one can tell there's something under my hair.

LA Fitness Gym Membership - I checked out other gyms but I love LA fitness because they have evening group exercise classes that go on till 8 pm. I prefer working out in the evenings. The gym also has a pool, sauna and hot tub. I went in during a summer offer. My favorite classes are kickboxing, yoga, cycling. I also love weighlifting.

Saucony Shoes - I just bought a pair of shoes to work out in. They are so comfortable and I heard they last longer than Nikes. My mom had a pair that lasted her years.

My DayPlanner/Calendar - Helps me stay organized and has a lot of space for the day. Ever felt that your dayplanner was your brain? How else can I keep track of everything?

2009-09-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

A Human Being Died That Night

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela

This book is better the second time I'm reading it. This book was first originally assigned to me in a Dr. Hill class about two years ago. I wanted to read it again.

I asked myself, how the Christian concept of forgiveness actually works in real life and in the worst situations. Here's my answer.

I've been interested in the legacy of colonization and how it affected history, culture and life. In that class, we were studying South African history and culture. And you cannot get away from apartheid. We read Nadine Gordimer and had some insight and understanding of institutionalized racism. It's an invisible giant that we'd rather ignore.

In the book, she first discusses apartheid and the stomach churning details of what the perpetrators did to people during the apartheid. She then interviews Eugene de Kock, a colonel of the South African police during apartheid. He killed dozens of anti-apartheid activists He's now sentenced 212 years in prison for crimes against humanity.

She interviews him. What causes an average person to become a killer is discussed. Pumla is a psychologist and shares her insights and experiences in that field. Psychology majors and those interested in psychology would find this fascinating.

She also discusses her experience with Truth and Reconcilliation Commission, which she served in. TRC was a court like assembly that formed after apartheid where families of the victims of horrific violations would come forward share their stories and even perpetrators would come forward and share and request amnesty from both civil and criminal persecution. I saw the videos of this and it was simply intense.

In the video, Pumla talked about the importance of forgiveness and how that is important. Forgiveness is not at all an oversimplified "forget it and get over it" concept. That would be unrealistic and not how forgiveness works. Neither is forgiveness a cover-up or pretending everything's okay when it's not at all as portrayed in many of the typical evangelical Christian self-help books. I really hate reading most of the Christian books on this topic because I'd typically find sugar-coating, full of pollyanna-like idealism and works only in la la land. And did I mention that I hate all the nonsense Christianese lingo?

Pumla's book put a lot of things in perspective. Forgiveness and reconciliation is a tough topic.

Forgiveness means facing the extremely uncomfortable, difficult and harsh realities. If you want to understand the Christian concept of forgiveness works, this would be a good read because it gets to the psychological and historical realities.

2009-08-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

Writing about Race

This is one of the hardest topics to portray in fiction. The experience of race is tied to culture, history and other things. Also, this isn't exactly a dinner party conversation. It makes people uncomfortable. We'd rather act like it didn't exist.

Most of the books that portrayed this topic are usually considered controversial. From a historical perspective, only recently there are writings coming out from ethnic minorities that are being studied in literature classes. Even in my classes, it wasn't always easy discusssing certain topics.

For me, portraying race and culture is a bit awkward. I don't know if it's my experience of living abroad and coming from a liberal Indian family. Our ideas were different. Then again, we need to realize that culture is never static and will never be. Culture evolves and adapts with time and changes. In a country like India, there is a large diversity of ideas, groups and people.

I can only seem to write about anything related to being Indian from an expat's perspective. I'm realizing that being Indian-American or being stuck-in-between-two-worlds is actually an unique perspective and identity. That's my background and what I know.

There are certain topics pertaining to race that I'm not comfortable writing and it doesn't come out right. Maybe with time and somewhere later in the process with more experience in writing and life, I'll be able to.

2009-08-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

You Call This Love - It's Stupidity

A satire of love. How about that?

I'm the kind of person that hates the typical, sugar-coated, romanticized, cute chick-flicks and romance stories. Most of them are not love but selfishness and being stuck in this childish fantasy world. Faith has nothing to do with being naive and idealistic.

I prefer a story that is raw, realistic and passionate.

Instead of Hollywood chick-flicks with attractive people in ideal situations, I prefer an independent film with ordinary looking people living ordinary lives.

The satire is mocking the human perceptions and how we as humans handle love. I think we humans are sometimes too stupid and we're pigs that chomp and tread on valuable things. Therefore, when a very valuable, precious thing called love comes our way - we react to it, behave inappropriately, pervert it, ruin it and ultimately destroy ourselves. All because we're too stupid to understand love.

I sound very anti-humanity now, don't I? It's true though. The attitudes that people hold towards relationships and love is revolting.

Take the hook-up culture. Pathetic. What the hell is that? Makes no sense. It reveals the ultimate stupidity of humanity when it comes to love. It's a very extreme example.

Don't mistake my rants for being pious. I made stupid mistakes. Several of them. I cannot let myself bury in regrets but you can't act as though nothing happens.

"Do not awaken love until it so desires." We never think that we'd take that for granted. If love is woken up too early, she becomes agitated and her wrath is hard to contain and put back. And you have to deal with it. It's like Pandora's box of troubles.

Many people see love from the carnal, filthy, marred perspective. And thus we continue to sink in our pathetic, miserable state. There is a way out of this. I almost sound like an existentialist but this is beyond existentialist philosophy. Existentialism is our pathetic attempt to try figure something out. Remembering my college classes, there is something called "leap of faith" but that is also another attempt from our human perspective.

There-is-something-bigger-than-ourselves. We need to encounter and understand our true source, origins, purpose and who we are.

Only then we can experience love, respect and value it.

2009-03-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

My Pen Life

Writing has always been in me. As a college student about to graduate, finding the time and discipline is tough. The desire has been in me for a long time. I discovered my writing voice in Professor Knutsen's Creative Writing class, during a writing exercise. As I started gathering ideas, one good short story was born, the favorite of all my short stories I've ever written.

Creativity tends to bounce off other creative people. I like to spend time with other writers, artists and creative people. It's nice to be a part of writers critique group and be on editorial staff of my college literary journal. I enjoy the community of writers. Art work from artists inspire writing ideas. Painting is sometimes my secondary medium because when I'm having the occasional writer's block, painting forces me to get a visual depiction.

Now, I have an idea for developing my short story into series or a novel. I try to devote a short amount of time on it - even 10 minutes or longer if I'm truly inspired or have time. Plenty of time is needed to finish my manuscript and then edit the story. I know that I'll do it and have a finished manuscript. I have strong characters, a plot, and unique characteristics to this piece.

Previously, I had an idea for something but had to abort that project because it wasn't coming out the way I visioned. I lost the plot somewhere and felt that I was not being myself. Instead of saying what I felt and wanted to portray through the words, I was portraying what I wanted a particular audience to say. Eventually, I lost interest and ended up neglecting and abandoning my characters.

Forget that. I'm now embracing this new project.

For me, writing has always been in me. I always made up stories as a kid. One of my writing professors used my class assignment as an example to show future classes. I felt great about this. My other professor commented that my strength as a writer is my descriptive voice. I have an exotic and sensual style that is intriguing. "There is a sophistication in your writing voice: it's cultured and observant."

I'm very encouraged to hear this, but I feel that I need to improve in dialogue and getting some of the themes across. The themes always seems obsecure and doesn't come across as strong.

Looks like things are coming together. I'm patting myself on the back for finding my own unique writing voice and a good unique story to tell.

Then there's this irrational unexplainable fear or shyness about being open and going public with my writing such as sharing it in a class, a writer's group or pitching the idea to an editor. For sometime, I felt that something was wrong with me. Recently, I heard one of the artists, Swoon say in the movie City of Dreams, "Going public with your art is a paradox. You feel that you don't have what it takes." I'm wondering if that is true with me as a literary artist going public. Those feelings seem normal for artists.

It's all about baby steps. One paragraph, one page or chapter at a time. As the words develop on the pages, I'll craft those words into what I vision: an awesome manuscript.

We'll see what happens.

2009-03-14T22:45:00.000-07:00

Our City Dreams

I was in the mood to watch an artsy film. I went to the Hollywood Theatre and watched Chira Clemente's Our City Dreams. This particular film caught my eye. As a writer, I like to look at art and appreciate the creative process. The similar elements of a vision, themes, details, tone and mood work are put together in the similar process a visual artists undergoes while creating her work. I'm encouraged by artists.

Our City Dreams features five female artists in New York City, who were Swoon, Ghada Amer, Kiki Smith, Marina Abramovic, Nancy Spero. Swoon's canvas was the streets of New York where she painted murals.

Ghada Amer is an interesting person. I would like to have coffee with her and just sit across her and listen to her talk. She seems like person full of stories. She embroiders her art work. Most of her art portrays female sexuality. I cracked up when her parents were being interviewed and her mother said, "From a distance, the art looks beautiful but up close I can't look at them." The artist mentioned her mom saying, "You're drawing bad girls."

Kiki Smith had some interesting art. Her artwork intrigued me and I wanted to hear from her. I could see her vision and themes and how she portrayed it in her art.

Marina Abramovic pioneered the performance art in the 70's where she is the canvas. Her movements and art stir up certain emotions.

Then, we have Nancy Spero, in her eighties and still going strong and living through life gracefully and taking all life has to offer. The best artwork comes when you have life experience. With life experience, a person has a lot to say.

The entire film was centered in New York city and the theme was about the city as a place for artists. The themes didn't right away come across. In the beginning, it's easy to think that the movie was unorganized and random. I wonder if that was done on purpose, to show a variety and various walks of life merging together in one city.

2009-03-09T19:35:00.000-07:00

Jai Ho - Slumdog Millionaire

10 Oscars. I thought I'd never live to see A.R. Rahman at the Oscars.

With that said, I can't believe that I haven't seen this film yet. I will soon.

2009-03-02T01:24:00.000-08:00

William P. Young speaks at OCW Winter Conference

On Saturday, a few of us went to a writer's conference and William P. Young, author of "The Shack" was the keynote speaker. This book has been on the New York Times bestseller for 40 weeks in a row, being translated in 30 languages (already translated into 10 languages) and the #1 selling book in Brazil, South Africa and other countries. I've heard people praise and criticize the book for it's theology.

I just started reading his book, and when I'm finished I'll post my thoughts on the book. Since I just heard him speak I'm going to share my thoughts. I believe most literary works are often made in the image of the author. Not all fiction is necessarily something out of the author's life, but rather the literary style, language, tone and themes are related to the author as a person.

Overall, I noticed a down-to-earth, lowly, humble, gentle, joyful attitude from him. He never raised his voice and didn't need to in order to grab and hold a crowd's attention. There was something about him. He's a regular guy. He had many things to say. Here are a few snippets:

The shack is supposed to represent the condition of the human soul. "On the outside we try to facade ourselves to an audience but the inside is a shack."

He said, "pleasing God is about your performance, Trusting him is about your character." Love is the opposite of fear. If fear shows up in your life, it is a gift that shows insight into where we trust.

As for criticism, he said he's thankful and glad for the thoughts. That caught me off-guard. I was inspired by his peace, humility, stillness and faith when being criticized. I want some of that because most of us would tend to be defensive during criticism.

I've heard the negative criticism about his theology, but I can't comment on it till I finish reading. He said that he inserted scriptures throughout the book but it is only seen through one paradigm and many people who criticize cannot seem unable to see beyond that one paradigm.

It's one thing to disagree with someone. Heck, that happens all the time in the faith community. For instance, I had polite disagreements over tongues and other charismatic things, but I always respect their views and have no problems attending or visiting a charismatic church event. It's acceptable to speak, discuss about differences while listening to each other. Discussions should not be stopped or viewed negatively. However, viewing another person as a "lesser" Christian or degrading them for their standing on tongues (or anything else) is inappropriate.

It is another thing to judge a person's Christian spirtuality, faith and standing in front of God. I wonder if many of the blatant critics of The Shack actually took the time to listen to the author, learn about him and try to understand where he is coming from or actually read the book for themselves. I've heard a prominent megachurch pastor speak harshly about him and say that pagan beliefs and eastern mysticism are portrayed in the book and "warning" Christians about this book. It sounded patronizing and sensationalized. So it seems, as another believer, I seem to lack the ability to read for myself and identify these things?

If he has an opinion, of course, he has every right to express it. I'd definitely welcome anyone to tell me why they hated the book but please don't tell me not to read it. I'm an adult, and not a child incapable of thinking for myself.

One critic said that "since there are no scriptures, it's hard for people to discern..." So according to him, only a select few know how to pick up a concordance, study scriptures, pray, seek God's guidance or think critically?

In the same manner, anybody could criticize C.S. Lewis and Tolken or any other Christian writer. It's highly likely that John Bunyan's A Pilgrim's Progress, could have also been criticized by other groups, back in the day.

The author said that he got letters from people who said they realized about God's love and gave their lives to Christ after reading his book. My thoughts are, well then, why are some Christians upset about that?

To the artists and writers, he encouraged trust and allowing God to heal them. He said, "We're made in the image of God who is creative, imaginative, wise and who is good. It is nothing without love..."

He said something radical that touched me, "There is a healing in the artisitic community. More artists will care about Jesus rather than platform, and will write about healing and who God is not as a business endeavour but about healing. Writing is not about doing a great thing for God... He heals us because he loves us and we are invited to join in..."

There was no "man of God" image, cliches, hype, charisma or emotionalism. He shared sincerely and openly. He definitely follows God's guidance and is led by the Spirit. I was glad to hear from him and encouraged in my own faith as a writer who is only on the beginning journey.

From listening to the author, I'm now excited to read "The Shack." I will write about it later.

2009-02-26T01:50:00.000-08:00

Claudia Emerson's Late Wife

This won her the 2006 Pulitzer prize for Poetry.

Without a doubt Emerson has great poetic skills. I loved her rhythm, imagery, use of white space and themes. I was really drawn into the theme of lost love. It is about a woman who is exploring her disappearance from one life to another, and from one husband to another. The first part was about her marriage to her first husband and even though she seemed unhappy, she lamented the time they shared. Then, there is a period of solitude, recovery and searching. The final part are sonnets about her speaking to her new husband.

Very beautiful.

On the other hand...

I've never been married, but I can relate to lost love. In the past, I was in an awkward relationship. For a while, I didn't know what to make of it. We were never meant to be together, yet there was a sense of loss. Mutual respect, trust, sacrifical selfless love that goes both ways is absolutely necessary in a relationship.

Genuine friendship is the most romantic thing a man can offer me. How come I did not realize this all along? Through a certain process, a person learns about love and receive ability to accept and cherish love from someone else.

I always want to be fully available to the person I'm sharing my life with. I want to feel fully connected and able to speak to him openly, freely and living in unity.

His one arm is around me while his other hand holds my chin. I'm speaking to him...

2009-02-24T16:32:00.000-08:00

The Shack
William P. Young

Since I'm on a budget, I'm trying to borrow this book from the public library but it's always checked out or on hold. I'll eventually grab a copy.

I wanted to read this book for a long time but didn't get the chance since I'm trying to finish my papers and other reading.

This weekend, I'm going to a one-day writer's conference and the author of the Shack will be one of the speakers. I'm interested to know what he has to say.

I'll share my thoughts after reading this book.