revitalized.

This week for me has been a rollercoaster.
I feel like I've been going through cycles of tiredness and stress and then SOMETHING moves both in me and around me-- and that something is the power of the gods. but not once: over and over.

It started with the my hectic monday morning, and the prayer couch relivening me and helping me to remember the bigger goals and reasons why i'm here. I was practically sent here to USC by the gods. it's not a random act of chance that I would end up here instead of where the whole world expected me to be. And the prayer couch helped me to remember that--put things into perspective.

Tuesday was a little better, but in a sense that Tuesday is apathy... sadly. I should be more dutiful and do something of meaning on Tuesday morning [omg. michelle branch song... :) ] ...but instead i vegetate and watch tv shows... : (
tuesday nights are interfaith council and ultimate though, and then catching up with my southside tcf-ers (if they're still around at that time...)
interfaith, so far, has been reallllllly disappointing. i thought it would be more about getting to know one another's faiths. truly understand each other and work to achieve that pluralistic dream (see pluralism post somewhere below) but instead it's always impersonal, clunky topics that are hard to relate to except on a personal basis. i would much rather see everyone's personal views on things, or an in depth look at cultural customs and similarities of religions than focus on these GIANT topics that no one will ever bear answers to.

ultimate has been more of a journey than i thought, too. I thought I would naturally just play and there would be this magic thing where I was amazingly good at it from the start. but, like all things, playing ultimate well comes with time, commitment, and effort and practice. which i will definitely make time for. i love the people, and once we get to know each other better-- i am sure things will be much more awesome and i'll feel more at home on that field.

wednesday. is always a journey.
i didn't really finish my lab report til late again.
I didn't go to krylov's office hour.
I did make it out of lab 2 hours early!
I did most probably do well on my midterm for core 102!
I managed to make it through relatively unscathed.
And I even went to the HSO meeting and aarthi!
I love meeting with them because brown people meetings just make me feel more at home here as I did back in Burlington. We have an unbreakable connection.

Thursday.
I woke up at 11, when the health and safety check people knocked on my door.
I went to parkside post-shower and had an amazing lunch.
then out of the blue, i saw emily! I see her everywhere all of a sudden and it's wonderful because she's just a burst of sunshine. : ) we walked to cardinal gardens and had a nice chat. that's what I love about my TCF friends: they are genuine. They don't just simply say "Hi!" and wave and go on. We have conversations. We care. We pray. After my chat with her, I went to the UV, bought some stuff I needed, and then went to Starbucks to spend some of the many dollars worth of Starbucks giftcards my mother had given me prior to coming to SC: iced lemon pound cake + black raspberry izze= yum.

Then off to chemistry SI, the only place where chemistry becomes crystal clear. and then, on my way to the bookstore to buy notebooks that I desperately need to study chem properly, i see none other than the interceeders praying on the bookstore steps! I joined them, got a cookie from the environmentalist, and had a good time talking with my awesome friends before going to chemistry review aka the review that almost wasn't, which me and richard almost ditched for parking structures after boarding in circles around sgm 101. review, sadly, did not help too much-- same goes for my conversation with krylov after. she basically told me the same things I have kept hearing: do the problems, go to SI, etc. And I am. I bought notebooks, and I studied chemistry today. I read some of chapter 9 and did more than half of the first homework... drudging my way slowly through it all. I had another one of those stressed/overwhelmed moments after Chem review though. I came back to my room and like a high speed train, the repercussions of my bad performance in chemistry hit me--but my mother helped me through it. we skyped and I said Hanuman Chalisa over skype to her, with MS Subbhalakshmi singing on youtube in the background. We were both crying, but she said she would pray at the temple for me, and more importantly, she reminded me that she loves me no matter what. I sometimes forget that because of this almost robotic tendency I gained through grade school to high school of nonchalantly doing well, expecting nothing in return but some untold respect from my loving parents. Now that school is actually hard, it's hard to remember that family is unconditionally loving. especially when there's a lot on the line, money wise. but it's good to remember that and that even gods love unconditionally and that everything will be okay in the end, and if it's not okay: it's not the end. After that, I mustered my strength, and trudged on through "pressure and temperature relationships in gases" and "solution based chemistry". I toiled through what is the source of my unhappiness and low performance here, and I felt better for it.
The gods even rewarded me: I'm dancing in place of Nimisha on Saturday!
of course, her situation in unfortunate, and my heart goes out to her family and I'm sure everything will be okay with her grandfather, but I always feel as though when Shiva wants me to dance, I end up finding my way to the stage. It happened that random day in October when auntie asked me to dance at the temple with Shiva homam, and I have that same feeling now. He knows that I have been aching to dance for him since I've been here, and I am ready to take to the stage. He's giving me that opportunity to be his mouthpiece/his instrument--and I couldn't be happier about it. I practiced Bhoomanjali probably over 10 to 15 times today, and I am of course, rusty--but I can feel a confidence and a strength when I dance and a power that I know is his. Finding that power was the point of Arangetram for me, and now--harnessing it is bringing joy and that enlightenment to others. I can't wait to dance at the banquet...

Oh and Overflow, the stories I heard of the prayer couch just showed me that like amma used to say when I was young, the gods are watching you. the gods are within you. the gods are everywhere [more specifically, when i was scared of going to bed by myself at night, she'd tell me that hanuman was there by my pillow and that nothing bad could happen because he would protect me. that feeling still helps me in whatever I do today. I know that Hanuman is always with me.] God spoke to the people on the couch, no matter if they were praying or prayed for. And he spoke because he is within each of us, working, waiting to be seen in glimpses and glimmers. I can't believe how much Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol applies here. That book is the essence of all that I have been thinking for this whole month of October. since fall con. the ideas of this ultimate belief and god within you and truth within the spiritual word is all i've been trying to articulate for days. and he does it within the context of a great thriller that is part of a series. phenomenal. god's speaking through that book as well. I know I'm going to reread some of what Peter Solomon says within it for days to come.
That book sparked me to go out and try to understand the Bhagavad Gita. I feel like every religion has its book, and even though Hinduism has many--it shouldn't impede me from the motivation to read and learn from them. I'm going to read some Gita every day--online for now, until I can get a nice version somewhere. And then move on to Perival's books. And so on, hopefully learning and understanding along the way.

These cycles of revitalization are just the gods' way of saying "don't worry. I'm there for you. it'll be alright". It's reassurance at its best.

xoxo,
maithreyi : )
[say it right, and you win at life!]