OMG. I still refuse to believe I’m graduating, but here are last minute deadlines before I get so indifferent I forget and fail.
Human Rights – Final 20 page paper due 12/14/2012 (Friday) at 5:00 pm.
My topic – Something to do with genocide. Wait to receive Professor’s response and formulate a more focused prompt
More for my own referance than anything else.
I NEVER remember when I am supposed to do what đ So maybe this will help me keep track! So far, the right side of my face has improved drastically and is nearly clear but the left side…disgusting. I break out only on that side ALL the time especially in the chin/jaw area. And then there’s darker spots from acne scarring too and the whole side just looks a hot mess.
Â
Daily Day Routine –
Night Routine –Â
That’s the system I just started (I replaced the earlier system that just wasn’t strong enough for me but I looove the Ole Henrikson moisturizer that I bought last year so I just purchased a replacement tub of that since I ran out. It’s heavenly, especially in the winter!
Okay so I’m on this acne complex system at least 3 months. Why? You start seeing results after one month, but my acne is largely hormonal and this kit is meant to last 3ish months anyway.
Okay I’m off to do my night routine and sleep now! Good niiight
I’m sorry…I’m dealing with a really disappointing and depressing LSAT grade and trying to re-evaluate where to go with my life from here.
I’m in a real funk right now đŚ I haven’t felt like studying and have done nothing except mope about the house and cause my parents even greater distress. The disappointment on their faces when I got my grade back was just so crushing.
Like I’m already beating myself up over it and then they look at me all sad and pitiful but I know they think I could have done better, that I could have studied harder, and that I’m wasting all my time having fun and doing extracurriculars and working instead of just focusing on my studies.
I get their POV, I do.
But I know I gave this exam my all.
So now I don’t know what I want to do. Maybe I will start applying for Paralegal positions and postpone law school for a while. A year, two? I don’t know.
My graduation ceremony is coming up December 3 and all I feel is this big LETDOWN afterwards. I’m not in the least bit excited to graduate, although I guess that’s because I’m graduating a semester early?
I don’t know what to say. I want to write but this story is just not coming.Â
A quick note! The “—” breaks in the story symbolize separate blog entries. When the story is in its final format with dates/times, it’ll read much more easily but for now, I am lumping everything together into one manuscript so I can keep track of word count and post how much I write daily đ
—
Getting to know Jay has been even weirder than all of the mandatory icebreaker games Iâve played in the beginning of every semester at college.
The events of the past two weeks are swirling around in my head and everytime I try to write them down, I end up rambling. Like Iâm doing right now.
My parents have been asking me to âfind a nice Indian boyâ since I graduated college. For two years, I put them off and romanced Dan. Loved him. Physically, mentally, and emotionally, I rebelled in every single way I could think of. I used my job as an excuse and went on dates with him. Movies, dinners, and âbusiness tripsâ on weekends â I did what I could to steal away and live with him in our own little fantasy world.
Then it all just came crashing down so fast and one night when my parents were asking me, as usual, when I would find them a nice Indian guy, I just snapped.
He broke up with me. I cried and cried until all I had left was no willpower or desire. I told them to introduce me to one themselves if they were in such a hurry.
Clearly, they wasted no time and I found myself at Starbucks awkwardly drinking iced coffee with Jay that same week.
Damn, Indian parents move fast. Itâs as if theyâve already planned shit out for you and just need you to trigger them so they can put their plan into motion. I was safe when my heart was enamored with Dan. I was strong and resisted and happy with my independence.
Then, I broke my own heart and gave them the push they were waiting for. I practically pranced right into this situation.
Iâve got nobody to blame but myself.
—
Iâm coming to this blog now because if I donât pen my thoughts I am probably going to spontaneously combust in rage. Suffocate in my own trapped fumes of anger. I donât even know where to begin and what words to use that could possibly convey how I am shaking with rage as I write.
I have just walked away from overhearing my father discuss Jay and I as though we were a business distraction. Just fuckin great.
What an age-old story come to life. Jayâs father and mine planned our meeting for the future good of our families. Marriage is just some TOOL to them. What about our hearts? They donât even give a shit about that.
âMarriage is compromise and adjustment. Look at your father and I. Itâs been 25 years and weâre still together. These white people think they know all about love, until they get divorced. On top of that, theyâre so besharam that they just go and get married again. What kind of love is that?â
I suppose if thatâs how my mom rationalized it to herself all those years ago and it worked for her, sheâs about as happy as she could be.
But I, for one, canât imagine a life where we live together for so long without loving each other passionately, rather than just reproduction by copulation…
BUT ANYWAY back to why I am so angry â itâs nothing as drastic and ridiculous as dowry, because thankfully, our parentsâ views have liberalized enough to the point of finding that idea antiquated.
I heard my dad ask somebody how soon we could expect to see the business merge. Then I hear him laugh about how âof course theyâll stay together and have kids, weâre giving them time to get to know each other right?â and guessed at who was on the other side.
THEN, they have the audacity to look me in the eyes like nothing is wrong and they arenât ripping my heart apart and laugh as if I have told a very funny joke when I snap and yell that they might as well sell me off to the highest bidder.
I want to call Dan so badly and rant to him, but he will probably just shake his head sadly and wonder why I donât have the strength to just say no.
I wonder all the time why I am talking to Jay at all but I remember how I can never be with Dan because in the end, my love for my family is tying me down to this arranged marriage.
See, if I say no to Jay, their family will play it off like there is something wrong with me. My father will be shamed and of course, as my mom constantly reminds me, âwhat will society think?â
Indian parents are all about that. What will society think?
What about your daughterâs heart?
—-
Itâs been 4 weeks (and one day) since Dan broke up with me.
Itâs been 3 weeks (and two days) since I first met Jay. After our first meeting at Starbucks, he took me out to dinner. It was something fancier and his sister tagged along, almost like a chaperone.
I complained to my mother and all she told me was, âPeople talk. You get married, then do whatever you want.â
So we endure the supervised dating for a little longer. Iâm falling behind in blogging about all of this, so itâs time to play a little catch up.
I met Jay for coffee, and the conversation started out awkward. Then, like I just said, we took his sister out to dinner but after dropping her off at home, he asked me if I would like to go watch a movie the next day. I said yes but only because the way he suggested it was so cute â he told me to make up an excuse and meet him at the theater around noon.
It brought me back to the days when Dan and I used to do the same exact thing, and for some reason, the fact that he did the same thing as Dan had done, and that I had loved Dan just resonated with me. I donât know if likening Dan and Jay or comparing them is the right thing to do, but I canât help it. I wanted Dan. I wanted to marry him.
So if Jay is like him in these small little things, maybe thatâll make life a little more bearable?
—
3 weeks and 3 days since I met Jay now. Our parents are getting antsy. We have been talking to each other more and more. I donât know whether it is from necessity or because he is genuinely interested in me.
He hasnât rejected me yet. My father came up to my room last night, sat down at the edge of my bed, and just sighed.
Like he is disappointed or maybe even sad?
He asked me â âIs there somebody else, beta? You can tell us everything.â
But thatâs always been the problem. I cannot tell them anything. I canât tell them I have tasted alcohol, I have had a boyfriend, and I have lost my virginity. I cannot tell him that I have loved a man. And, because I donât want to be ostracized, I definitely canât tell him that the man I love is not Indian.
And you know what makes me cry isnât that I canât talk to him. It is that the reason I canât tell him any of my reality is because I still love him and I know that telling him all of that would just break his heart. How can I tell my dad everything if I know he will forever feel that I have shamed him.
No matter how much they love me, Indian âsocietyâ is cruel. They judge and gossip and if I tell him anything, he will never hold his head up high like he should. It is ingrained in their minds that what I have done is shameful. So I canât tell him anything.
There is never a choice. In anything. In their eyes, I have lived by the book, and thatâs how it has to stay.
—
I caved. I gave in. I canât hurt my parents so Iâll just hurt my dreams instead. No, Iâll just try to build new ones around my new reality.
I donât know what I will do. My words from last night are still resonating in my head.
âOkay ma, Iâll do it.â
Jay is the reason I tipped over the edge. Last night he called me and I think you guys need to hear this. Maybe I just need to write it out so I can process. Explain myself to my readers.
âHey, how are you?â he said as I called him last night. âItâs late, are you okay?â
It was only 11 at night, but I guess thatâs the latest Iâve called him so far.
âYeah, just wanted to talk to you.â
âUh oh, you gonna break up with me? Over the phone? Ow.â
âUhh no, not exactly. You would have had to ask me out first for that.â
A pause. âWhatâs wrong?â
âWhy are you still talking to me Jay? Itâs a setup. You and I both know that we arenât the arranged marriage type but here we are. Itâs been almost a month and neither of us have said no. Weâre still talking. Why?â
Another pause. âYouâre not crazy.â
âExcuse me?â
âYouâre not crazy. I think weâve got the same reasons. You love your family?â
âYeah.â
âMe too.â
âIs it that simple? We barely know each other.â
He laughed at that before saying âWell thatâs why itâs called an arranged marriage.â
Another pause. I briefly frowned at how long this guy took to get his thoughts out before he added âBesides, youâre the least crazy girl my parents have introduced me to yet.â
I hung up at that, annoyed that he hadnât told me that heâd been introduced to other girls before.
A few things hit me that night. Aside from the fact that he was right, he wasnât crazy, he didnât get on my nerves yet, and I was jealous he had met other girls.
Itâs like everything is accelerated because we are forced into a situation where we know where the end result isnât just a boyfriend or girlfriend, itâs a life partner.
I thought I needed a lot more time to overcome my feelings for my ex-boyfriend. I guess that maybe if I talk to Jay about it, we can overcome that obstacle together?
So Iâve said yes. AHH. What am I getting myself into?
—
I donât know where else to turn, so I will rely on the anonymity of the internet and the chance of gaining an online support group of readers who will help me soldier through this really weird period of my life. You donât really need to know me â only that Iâm 23 and about to make the craziest decision of my life.
No, Iâm not about to quit my job and backpack through Europe or streak around the block…twice.
What Iâm doing is probably much crazier. Iâm about to accept an arranged marriage. Iâm about to marry Jay, the man my parents picked out for me, and Iâm about to convince myself that somehow, we will find love at the end of all of this.
Arranged marriage is a weird concept and very scary as a girl who was born and raised in the United States. As somebody who went to a very liberal university in New York City, I still cannot believe that I am going to allow my parents to make the biggest decision in my life thus far rather than try to blunder about until I find my man by myself.
Part of me is excited by the challenge of an arranged marriage, and part of me is revolted that I am feeling this excitement at all.
Mostly, I am just trying to reason through why I am saying yes, and explain myself to my friends and family. I donât want to become bitter and resentful before I even give marriage a chance, although I admit that I feel as though I am giving up on love by saying yes to Jay.
I donât think thereâs anything wrong with him â thatâs not the problem. The problem is just that we donât love each other, and I donât know if marrying a man I donât love will ever work out.
I wish that I could live out our possible futures in a dream and then pick the best possible path to happiness. I think Sabrina was lucky enough to have that chance in one episode of Sabrina The Teenage Witch. I think I am rambling.
The first time I met Jay was sufficiently awkward enough to convince me that I was right in despising arranged marriage. I think I was skeptical because I have kept so much of my life hidden from my parents that I donât expect them to know what kind of man I can see myself with. Theyâre sheltered, you see, and what they donât know wonât really hurt them. I donât kiss and tell. (Except on this blog, and Iâm going to enjoy the anonymity and blog away)
—-
Iâm going to try to remember as much of our first conversation as I can.
âHey, itâs nice to meet you,â I said to the guy as he slid into the seat across from me. We were at a Starbucks in the city located geographically in between my office and his.
âIâm Jay.â
âYeah, I know. Hi, whatâs up?â
I could already tell it would be awkward. Weâd spoken on the phone once before when setting up this meeting and then texted earlier today already to make sure we were going to the right Starbucks. Clearly, he was Jay.
âTrust me, this is weird for me too,â I said to him.
âOh. Yeah, I donât often meet prospective wives either. Talk about pressureâ
âSo you mean youâve met other prospectives before? Should I be flattered Iâm getting a chance?â
He smiled a little and then the silence stretched on uncomfortably.
âSo what do you want to drink?â
âIâll take an iced coffee. Love the smell, canât stand the taste. Of hot coffee, I meanâ
âIâm basically addicted to coffee so as long as you donât mind the smell, weâre cool.â
Then we settled into another silence as we contemplated what it could possibly mean that our first conversation was about whether we liked the smell of coffee or not.
A minute later, he got up to go order our coffees and I sat there mentally running through my checklist. The fact that he didnât have an Indian accent was the most relieving part of my day.
âIâm sorry, this is really weird for me,â he says to me when he returns with our coffees. I made a face and shrugged. It was a weird situation, period. We just had to make the most of it.
âSo pretend that this is our first date then. We met at a party last week and exchanged numbers. And now here we are.â
Thatâs what broke the ice â it was something we could both relate to because weâd both grown up here and it was a more comfortable introduction than a contrived meeting to discuss if we were compatible for marriage.
I wonât bore you with all of the details, but I think the beginning of that conversation was worth blogging about. Something to look back on and laugh at? Maybe despair over. Not sure yet.
So yeah, coffee. He loves drinking it, and I love smelling it. So far, so good.
—
I have this list of questions I wrote in High School when my parents threatened to marry me off to a guy from India if I didnât get into a good college. It had been a joke, but I wanted to be prepared.
1. How many kids do you want?
2. Do you smoke?
3. Whatâs your opinion on women who drink?
4. Are you a virgin? (Probably NOT a good idea to ask this one at our first meeting unless I really want to scare him away)
5. Do you like to dance?
6. Are you a morning person!?
7. Favorite food? Cuisine?
8. Whatâs the craziest thing youâve ever done?
9. Do you like to travel? (He had better answer yes to this one)
10. Pets?
11. Have you ever had a girlfriend?
12. Ass or titties? (Okay this one was mostly just for fun. Maybe a good test of his sense of humor?)
13. How religious are you
14. Do you like long drives?
15. How athletic or into sports are you?
When I was younger, I thought that list was a good rundown of the basics. The simple questions that I didnât want to come later as a surprise, and the small things that I know I wanted in the perfect life partner that I fantasized about.
Itâs strange because I made this list right after I went with my cousin to meet a girl our parents had picked out for him. âShe comes from a good family, beta,â they told us both over and over. I was skeptical and Iâm sure it showed on my face when I first met her. They had exchanged pictures before and were meeting in person for the first time today. With the whole family in tow.
I am so thankful that my first time meeting Jay wasnât my first time meeting his whole family as well. Iâd have blown it for sure.
See, I write things like that and wonder why I am trying to please them all. My parents, his parents, and him. Why should I care? Why didnât part of me choose to rebel and dress in really repellant clothing and eat a lot of garlic before meeting him?
âIâm American,â I tell myself over and over. Growing up, that is how I have justified all of my unique thoughts. So now, when I could have easily worked myself out of an arranged marriage, why am I even contemplating marrying this man?
—-
I have thought some more about what I wrote earlier and tried to figure out why I am okay with arranged marriage.
I think it is time to introduce my readers to Dan. Dan is the ex-boyfriend. The first serious relationship I had with a man.
We broke up when I realized I loved him.
—
In a word, Dan was perfect. How can I go from loving perfection to loving anything else? He is my first everything, and no matter what happens, I cannot imagine a plane of existence where I will not be powerfully attracted to him.
But we broke up because heâs not Indian, and I realized that as fun and amazing and spectacular as our relationship was, I could never let it deepen into anything more because my parents didnât even know he existed.
If you are wondering how one can possibly hide a five year relationship, just ask a brown girl.
There is no Hindi word for âboyfriendâ or âgirlfriend.â For too long, Indian society has gone on pretending that itâs still alright for the community to play matchmaker, and honestly, I am sick of it.
I used to wonder what reasons there could possibly exist that would allow an educated Indian girl in todayâs society to accept that age-old destiny and enter an arranged marriage.
Whenever Dan and I spoke about it, I would tell him I would never be one of those dumb girls without any ambition or desires of their own.
I still donât think I am one of those girls, but I have found a reason nonetheless. Thatâs why Iâm here in this predicament, blogging about how I might possibly be marrying a guy I donât know. Clearly.
The reason is family. Itâs an extremely unfair reason, but if I had to show you how compelling it was, Iâd say envision all of the emotional blackmail, peer pressure, guilt, persuasive arguments, and bribes you have ever seen, and add them all up. Then throw in a really cute puppy for good measure.
My family is something that I have grown into and am inseparable from. I have a large family with many cousins, nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts, and elders. They have been there to give me life, love, advice, friendship, gifts, and wisdom.
If marrying an Indian man is the only way to sustain that family, then that is a small sacrifice to pay. Who am I to be so picky and declare that I wonât marry an Indian man.
I think that when I began dating Dan, it was to rebel against them and try to declare my independence in some contrived way. My own personal secret. But our relationship didnât just end in a few months, and now trying to imagine a life without him is really, really hard too.
The problem is that I canât just forget him. He didnât cheat on me, and we didnât have a really big argument that brought out any irreconcilable differences.
I am the problem. My ethnicity and the family that raised me is the problem. I love them, and thatâs a problem.
Because the way I see it, I can never tell them about him. I canât keep my love at the expense of breaking all of their hearts. So I broke off my relationship with him before we would get hurt anymore and now I will weep and grieve and mend in time.
This is the last post that you will read in the voice of “Pryanka”, owner of Controlled Derangement, for the month of November!
Want to know why? You’re going to find out right under this line of text so I mean, just stop reading now if you don’t care haha.
~Yep. I am attempting NaNoWriMo 2012~
Novel November is what I always called it until I realized that this was a really super organized event that thousands of authors and wannabes like myself participate in, and that’s REALLY cool! I hope I’ll find a support group I can stress with and rant to and maybe even participate in a write-in with! I’m really excited to begin the whole affair actually.
I’ve scheduled this post to go live at 8AM and it will be followed thereafter by my story.
So here’s the “novel map” I envision in my head
It is based on the fact that many of my creative writing classmates felt that my story read like a blog post
You guys will let me know if you think this is going nowhere right? I can always rewrite it more traditionally if you guys think it could benefit from that!
Thank you guyss, I hope you stick around to the end. I am sure that it’ll be tough going but I am determined to get there. 50,000 words by the end of the month. I got this.
At the end of the month, if I am able to complete the challenge and the story, I will make all of the edits I want and then publish this on its own blog  one post at a time (aka schedule them all) so that you guys can all just “live” through the story whenever you want to. I don’t want to actually publish this but letting it live out its own online life through the interwebz will be cool. I just have this awesome experimental idea in my head of this becoming some sort of viral online phenomenon sparking other writers to attempt this style of novelistic writing. Yeahhh, I know it sounds crazy. Blame it on the oodles of coffee I’ve had today.
Cheers to what this month will bring! I hope to keep everybody happily engaged with my story though, so your comments and wishes will really keep me going đ
xoxo
Pryanka
Freshman year, I was convinced that I had a very limited range of age requirements for the kind of boys I would let myself like/date. I was absolutely CERTAIN that he couldn’t be younger than me, and I wanted him to be studying at NYU with me too. I couldn’t even fathom dating somebody I couldn’t see all the time especially since my first relationship was long-distance, we never met, and we broke up because it felt like it was a pointless and fruitless quest for romance if we could never meet in person.
Then in Sophomore year, when I met my first “real” boyfriend (As in, one that I could touch and hug and kiss as much as I wanted to), it wasn’t all that I expected. He was my age and went to my school. We even lived in the same dorm building and that definitely made it easy to hang out with him. BUT he was Vietnamese. That definitely wasn’t in my “plan” and well…three months later, THAT relationship fell apart because we both realized that we couldn’t really let our feelings deepen if I couldn’t envision any possible future with him.
Junior year I was in the slumps and just sort of partied around and hooked up a little bit. One night stands? Yay. Every time I got close to a guy, I ran away. None were Indian.
Until early this year. Technically still a Junior, I was a Senior by credit this spring semester. And that’s when I met a guy who was much older than me. (Okay fine, 5 years older) and Indian. He’s like the first Indian I’ve ever been that powerfully attracted to too, so I was eager to see where this would lead. I even dressed to impress LOL. But I don’t really see that one going anywhere though we still talk now and then.
But as a Senior, I feel now that I am much more attracted to older guys. Guys that have got at least 3+ years on me. I think that they’re a lot more mature and are looking for more serious relationships rather than one night stands, which seems to be the norm for NYU. What’s also scary is that I am trying once more to restrict myself to only seeing Indian guys because I don’t want to enter another relationship that will fail because the guy will realize that I can never show him to my parents or let them find out we are dating. It’s just so much easier if the guy is Indian. I’m sort of tired of sneaking around all the time. Also, I’m commuting.
Just found it interesting how my relationship preferences have sort of changed and grown and maybe even matured over the years. Also, let’s not kid ourselves…I am totally procrastinating working on my novel.
Le sigh, I will miss blogging in my own voice. Clearly, it is a bajillion times easier haha.
Hi everybody!! The East Coast has been battling Hurricane Sandy (But mostly its aftereffects) this week, and my suburban New Hyde Park, NY is no exception! The MTA shut down Sunday evening in preparation for the storm and my own home lost power Monday just after noon (I think it was between 1 and 2 PM)! With that loss of power, unfortunately, there was also the loss of heat and hot water as our new water heater requires some power to function đŚ
As if that wasn’t bad enough, a rather large tree fell across the street in my neighbor’s front yard…while my brother and I were there! (We’re close friends with the family there) In fact, my friend and my brother had been contemplating a quick CVS run to stock up on candy and other noms and were about to step off the front porch when they saw the tree fall and quickly ran backwards JUST in time to avoid being injured!
The tree brought down a lamppost and a lot of power lines, including the ones that run across the street to our house. I know my block still has no power but even if they do restore power to my area, there are a LOT of fallen trees and tangled power lines that need to be fixed before we can have power.
I’m not sure if it was because of that tree or the 2-3 others that fell along my street, but our cable/internet/phone lines seem to have gone down as well so at the moment, my house is in a pretty bad deadzone as far as technology goes. (Oh right, haven’t mentioned yet, but no AT&T coverage in my area right now as well. It’s usually spotty but atm it’s just gone)
Let’s recap – No power, heat, hot water, internet, cable, phone, cell phone, OR LIFE. Argh!
I’m at my Uncle’s home tonight because I wanted to check my LSAT score (They were supposed to release earlier this week, by Wednesday) but got online only to discover that the release has been delayed to tomorrow. Boooo.
But I am taking advantage of the power and internet access to charge my laptop, write blog posts (You’ll see another one up in a few hours, scheduled to be posted in the morning), check my email, and download hw files for next week.
And also email Professors and inquire what’s going on with our syllabus and what exactly is due next week.
Because ahora, yo no se nada!
Controlled Derangement 