Current location:	Home
Current mood:	awake
Entry tags:	meme

Because it is exam time...
... it shall also be meme time! Courtesy of  queencallipygos
The idea here is that someone tags you with a letter, and you have to come up with 10 words that start with that letter that mean something to you. ….And, because this is a meme, if you want to play let me know and I’ll give you a letter next. 

I got tagged with 'R'. So here goes:

1. Rain: I dislike it, very much. I know it's supposed to be romantic and it's nurturing to the flora and mother earth and all of that, and while I can see it, I still dislike it. Singapore is an equatorial country, so it rains almost constantly there. I feel like being there for as long as I was left me wanting nothing more than a desert-like arid climate, totally devoid of rain. I love cloudy weather, I think it's enormously sensuous and intense and romantic, but the minute the clouds bear fruit, that romance evapourates.

2. Romance: You knew this was coming, didntcha! This is a concept I have been pondering on a lot lately. I always thought I was a romantic fool, that I was sentimental and sweet and all of the rest of it. Apparently I'm not, according to someone. I disagree. There are a myriad of ways to be romantic, and I got too used to one way and was stuck in that run. While that may speak volumes about my adaptability, it does my very-existent sense of romance no justice. I am indeed a very romantic person. When I see a garden in bloom in the dead of winter (like I did in Williamsburg, VA), I am literally overwhelmed by an inexplicable wave of emotion, and I want to encapture that oft-vague-yet-overpowering emotion in order to then share it with the significant people in my life. I may not be poetic and I may be guilty of hammering out an armour so thick in order to protect my vulnerabilities, but I am decidedly a romantic. And that is very important to me,... to who I am, and to who I want to be.

3. Rationality (and reason): I value rationality highly. I don't believe that one has to snuff out the heart in order to have a head. As with everything else, it's a balance, and while it is essential to our species to have heart and to have compassion, it is equally important to not let emotion sap us dry. I like logic and I sometimes make decisions based solely on logic. I try to rationale (and analyse)  situations in order to strike that balance between what works for me emotionally and what makes sense to me rationally. It is important to be that I understand the decisions I take, so that I am at peace with myself even if I have made a mistake in some of those decisions. I believe that in order to achieve that, I need reason to aid me and my emotions.

4. Reading: I am and always will be, a true-blue reader. I grew up escaping into the fantasy world deftly and creatively spun by my childhood hero Enid Blyton. She taught me, along with a host of other authors, how to make the most of my imagination. She opened up my eyes to new ways of looking at a tree (the magic faraway tree still remains one of my favourite Blyton tales), a group of children, at grown ups. With her around, Adventure was everywhere! As I grew older, my reading habits became more "sophisticated", but I still read primarily to escape from reality, to explore the horizons of Fantasy. I learned a lot from my reading habit and it is in huge part to that habit that my self-sufficience (what there is of it) is due. If I were to be stranded on a deserted island, I'd want to be stuck with a novelist who can churn out books as fast as I can finish them.

5. Red: One of my fave colours. It is bold, beautiful, passionate, intense, romantic. What's not to like? Not to mention, the right hue looks good on me.

6. Religion: I have no place for it in my life. Religion, to me, is nothing but a way of living one's life. That it has come to be abused is extremely sad but inevitable. For religion is nothing but a tool of asserting power over another. Sometimes the power can be well-intentioned and meant to guide and be beneficial, but it is my belief that religion simply lends itself more easily to abuse. I can be and am a good person without being a good Hindu/Muslim/Christian/Buddhist/Jain/et al.

7. Relaxation: Very important to me. I can't be the best I can without it. Enough said.

8. Reflection: It makes me a better person and internal reflection always helps me understand myself and my actions better. I think reflection sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom and is what assures us of a special place in evolution.

9. Roaches: Speaking of evolution, this creature has probably beaten that game to death! It is one of the yuckiest creatures in existence and the very thought of one makes me want to barf...uugggghhhh.

10. Rights: As a law student, it is funny how I never thought of rights until the very end! Or perhaps, it is precisely why it took me so long to come up with it... I study it to death, in order to keep it alive. Rights are important, but I think some societies cary it too far. They get so wrapped up in preserving rights that they do not reflect enough on the other side of the coin - responsibility. Sometimes I think that this is a natural pendulum swing... that puritanical society sprung up because its predecessors were too right-oriented and puritans (and other extremely rigid and conservative cultures) came into existence to get the pendulum to swing back. I'm thinking of Rome and the bacchanalian orgies it had, and also the story of Dashavatar, in particular, of Kalki. In a nutshell, the age of kaliyuga is said to be characterised by an utter lack of discipline, selfishness, excesses of every kind, and a loss of all morals. To save mankind from such a society, God will step in to save the day, so to speak.