losing sight of what's good. and what's true.

some guidelines i should follow... maybe they'll give me more focus.

"Ten Commandments of Paramacharya

1. One of our duties as human beings is to avail ourselves of every opportunity to do good to others. The poor can serve others by their loyal work to the country and the rich by their wealth to help the poor. Those who are influential can use their influence to better the condition of the lowly. That way we can keep alive in our hearts a sense of social service.
2. Man by himself cannot create even a blade of grass. We will be guilty of gross ingratitude if we do not offer first to God what we eat or wear – only the best and choicest should be offered to Him.
3. Life without love is a waste. Everyone should cultivate “Prema” or love towards all human beings, bird and beast.
4. Wealth amassed by a person whose heart is closed to charity, is generally dissipated by the inheritors: but the family of philanthropists will always be blessed with happiness.
5. A person who has done a meritorious deed will lose the resulting merit if he listens to the praise of others or himself boasts of his deeds.
6. It will do no good to grieve over what has happened. If we learn to discriminate between good and evil, that will guard us from falling into the evil again.
7. We should utilize to good purpose, the days of our life-time. We should engage ourselves in acts, which will contribute to the welfare of others rather than to our selfish desires.
8. We should perform duties that have been prescribed for our daily life and also be filled with devotion to God.
9. One attains one’s goal by performance of one’s duties.
10. Jnana is the only solvent of our troubles and sufferings.

I need to find purpose and strength in the things I do. I need to understand that some things I just need to complete, and not look back on--and it's hard for me because I like thinking that things have purpose. I don't want to do the things that don't contribute to my goals. It's hard to motivate myself to do these things...but i I just did them instead of thinking about doing them, maybe I would be better of. I keep thinking about why I came to California. Why SC? I feel like at the time, and even now, there's some PURPOSE in my being here that I haven't yet discovered. This is in the plan that God has for me, but I don't know how. I had othesr goals, but I felt this push to come here. Somehow, it will make sense. but I need to work. I don't know how to work in the ways that this school wants, but I must. I feel like college has killed that spirit in me. that ambition to succeed because i feel like I personally know where my story ends, and I know that I will achieve that because, i mean, what else have these last 3 years been about? This doubt in myself that is forming. the ideas that i'm not thriving like I expected I would and therefore I am less of myself take over. and i'm not proud that I seep to that emotion. I am not proud that when I call my father he can hear the doubt and frustration and anger and sadness in my voice, even though I did feel re-inspired after meeting him and my family. This place has turned from paradise in those first days where I was discovering people who were so receptive to me and ideas that I loved into things that I know don't contribute to my future goals and no REAL true close friends to turn to. other people have carved niches. people who they can call in case of a true need or emergency. I have none here. I have no family here. I have no people who care about me here. All my negativity springs from these voids of merit and voids of personal contact. I have no friends to plan sleepovers with. I have no friends to give me purpose, even fleeting, from one day to the next.

And I don't know if it's just a me thing, but this lack of motivation, this feeling that -- What's the point? keeps getting to me. I KNOW i just have to trudge on... and if I do, the grades may follow, but trudging on is hard when you've lost the will to do so. college grades do not really depict one's knowledge or understanding or ability. they depict how you play the game. The winners are often not necessarily the smartest, but the ones who know how to play the system better than the others. Know how to answer the right questions, not the wrong ones.

I feel like half my posts lately have been about this lack of motivation i've been feeling.
and that bothers me.
and it's pervading my existence.

i feel like it's because i judged myself so long on what i am to become: a neuroscientist.
I have known this fate of mine, and to now have that questioned as " are you really a neuroscientist, maithreyi? how come you aren't doing well? " throws me.
maybe i'm NOT a neuroscientist.


but I want to be one.
& that should be what matters.


AND I AM GOING TO GET THERE! I AM GOING TO DO WELL! I AM GOING TO LEARN BIOLOGY AND DO WELL ON MY FINAL! AND MY PAPERS WILL BE WRITTEN!
but it's a process.
like dad says, it's a marathon, not a sprint.


a definite future neuroscientist in some form,
maithreyi

mata pita guru devum. <3

praying to hanuman + listening to one's parents = things work out for the best.

... it's no secret the last 3 weeks have been me at my homesick worst. i can practically not function because i feel like i haven't found my people here and i can't go home to where I belong.

it makes it hard to do work because though that's the only thing left, it's lonely. it feels purposeless even when i KNOW it has purpose in my life goals.

i did pedal it out and study lots from when i was sick and catalina onward, but evidently, i still need to work harder. college is hard. i have come to accept that. college is far from home-- also a fact i must come to accept. college is filled with new faces. college is trying. college is growth. college is thought laughter and more thought. college is not about making friends; it's about learning more than one thinks is possible.

but going home will help ease all that tension. yes, I have lots of work for the trip. but it's easier to do knowing that my family's there for me. if i could hold on to that feeling, that inner peace that those thoughts give me, i would be fine. my parents are my best friends, truly, because no one else could ever know me better. they know the look on my face when i'm genuinely happy and when i'm faking it--even over skype. they know when i'm in pain, they know when i need them. and them helping me through this transition by realizing I truly need them is all i could have prayed for. I need their help. for one of the first times since my childhood, i need their help with schoolwork. it shouldn't be so hard to admit. i need them to ease me and help me work through it all. I can't wait to make them proud next semester. I know I can achieve all that I think that I am capable of. I know I can. It may take time, but I am not unskilled. I know I can achieve these lofty goals that I have set for myself. I know I can.

xoxo,
maithreyi. my mom will see me in like, a day and 6 hours + or - a few hoursss.
woooooooo!!!!
I CANNOT WAIT TO BE HOMEEE. <3

gaining perspective & vlogbrothers/nerdfighting awesomeness

I put it into perspective.

I'm in this life with a purpose: and while I don't KNOW the purpose, I can live my life purposefully and do my dharma, or duty, properly. right now, that dharma consists of surviving 4 years of college, learning college material, and obtaining both my high school diploma and my college bachelor's degree & minor certificate while helping and bringing light to the lives I see along the way. I think the organizations I have chosen to be part of and the things I had done in high school towards human rights reflect that I'm a very "big-picture" person. If things are trivial, what's the point? I'm one for saving the world, and making myself see that writing a mundane lab report about bacteria was a step along the way to achieving my goals and dreams was hard, but helped me get through it.

There truly ISN'T great value in a college degree education in society anymore. It's now just another stepping stone. Another rite of passage one must attain in order to enter rightfully into adulthood and job-hunting or professional schools or graduate school! MY FUTURE! where you go for that stepping stone degree, i now know, only reflects wants and needs and means. I am at USC now because the type of education is suited to my personality: I like learning about lots of things deeply. I like deep neuroscientific research that ultimately helps others, and I also like directly helping others. I struggle daily with "why should I write a paper about "Othello"?" but, then I realize that writing that paper about "Othello" will help me learn to think deeply about things, and thinking deeply about what people are trying to convey, even Shakespeare from so long ago, helps one to use those skills in present day empathy and communication. It would have a role in my analysis of scientific papers in that I could look beyond the facts on the page, and see the scientist behind that writing... Still, doesn't make it any easier to write. And another reason I'm at USC instead of a more professional school like that of which my friends are pondering is because I like to think. I am an academic. I am not well-suited to clocking in and what I deem a purposeless existence. I'm like my mother in many ways, but I am not like her in that I can be content to bring an optimistic spirit to a job that I only moderately enjoy. I envy the way she took on banking and made it something that she enjoys doing everyday. Making it more about connecting with people and trying to help them even when times are tough and she has to push accounts in the worst financial crisis this country has seen in a long time. When people don't have that money to put in an account. I feel like I need to learn from her, and I am. I don't necessarily love every aspect of college: the vast crowds of people who don't know your name, the stress and emphasis placed on grades that won't matter once you go on in life: life is based on living-- not values like A, B, C, D, & F!, the general masses that drink and smoke and be immoral on weekends just because they can be, the feeling that nobody cares--because that's true for the majority. people are very self-involved. empathy is hard to come by. opening my heart to others and helping others even when they are using you or are not true to you is not in my beliefs. I am friendly to everyone, and I don't mean to be judgemental, but I am totally that way. It's not something I can help: I just analyze people. The way they act towards others and how they value their self reflects so much in ways of how as a friend I would be valued by them. Making friends here is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I mean, initially, everyone was new and a "friend", but then assessing who is actually a "friend" and who is just another run of the mill noncarer is much harder than one thinks. I was really feeling like I had shed that facade that I had in high school-- that block that keeps me from interacting with others that I KNOW are different than myself. Now I can break that wall, and I can interact closely with others --but that difference doesn't go away. You can't fake reality and true friendship. If people don't mix, they just don't mix. It's like me and "Groups". I had a good "group" back in middle and early high school that I thought that I knew was mine and that I belonged. I knew that some of the values and things that I held dear were so foreign to these so-called friends of mine, but I didn't share and accept and discuss. I was young. I was scared to scare them or that they'd think I was weird. I felt the need to be like every other kid in that group. I wore things I wouldn't normally wear. I said things I wouldn't normally say. I watched things I wouldn't normally watch. I was part of things that I enjoyed, but that didn't feel like they fit with me. I mean, everyone must do that once or twice in their lives. Get that good yet scary feeling of trying something new, testing the waters, but if you're sure that it isn't you--don't do it. The values that I did appreciate in my old "group" were that of loyalty, straight-edgeness, and fun before stress. Looking back, I definitely would have-been part of that group. It helped define me in that I wasn't following what all the Indian girls were doing. I was different. I liked different. I liked that this group appreciated what I appreciated, but at the end of the day, really deep things NEVER were brought out. I hid the things that made me different from the others in this group instead of spotlighting them and helping my friends to understand me more. I didn't explain my faith to them. I didn't share my dance with them more than just performing. I didn't help them to understand what ties me to my homeland and my family and WHY my family was so close. I didn't share my secrets. I made up some secrets. I didn't want to admit that I felt weird talking about liking boys because I didn't really think about them like that yet because of my familial values. I didn't show pride in my family's closeness and spending time together in public though now that I look back, I realize we had something that not many families do anymore. I didn't stick steadfastly behind my morals and I grew from that, but I also now have learned better. I have learned my lessons. I know that I want to share my deeper feelings with my friends. I want them to know how I think, why, and what makes me who I am. I feel like some of my friends never got it. I feel like some of them never did.

I want to make a difference in this world. I want to affect change in some meaningful way that shows that I had a stake in helping improve humanity in some form while I was here. I want the world to have shifted in SOME FORM since I came onto this planet and remember my name. Not physically, or like being in history books or something, no no. I want something simpler. I want those who I have met to at least have a smile on their face when they think about me and what I have done. As my first semester of college winds down, this question of PURPOSE and WHY and WHAT NEXT? have been just taunting me in my head. I know my plan: phd neuroscience, post-doc, etc onward and onward til I achieve that professorship and lab under my name, but how does that benefit humanity and human rights? how does my working on neuroscientific matters affect those who cannot voice themselves as I am doing or those in poverty or homeless or hungry or in NEED of some help and support and smiles and hugs. I know I want to work in diseases and disorders. I know that I want to help people become better versions of themselves, but is this really done just through research? I love the field of neuroscience, and I urge all scientific people to go into that field, and I am definitely mostly getting my degree in those studies still, but my minor, I am clear, must reflect some action. I want to do the non-profits minor now because it seems to be with purpose built in. The people who take the minor most likely want to work in non-profit organizations. I feel like these organizations do so much for the world. ASPIRE is one of them, and in many ways so is Amnesty International and the UN and its multiple organizations. The 84 is a non-profit too, I think but by way of the government. (?) I feel like academically learning about nonprofits and volunteering from the perspective of 'how-to' in some fashion would help me to form this purposes I want in my life. I want to affect change in a large manner. I want it to be lasting. I don't know how yet, but Hanuman is guiding my path. I will make a difference.


xoxo,
maithreyi

complacency: it's getting me.

yay, more prewritten blog posts! :)
i've been thinking more deeply since i've taken a break from longboarding since I need to do maintenance and have been walking around campus today...
here it goes:
---
I feel like ever sine I dropped chemistry last week, in my effort to study MORE, I've fallen into complacency and a feeling of endless time. The fact is I have hours of time that used to be chemistry and now they are biology, writing, and "fear of diversity", but I feel like there's more I could be doing. There's always so much more!

I think since I miss neuro so much, I'll pull out my binder and my ol' textbooks, and just go to town. Treat it like another class: read the literature, and get prepared for sending out my CV to the neuro dept and keck for SOME legitimate neuroscience research experience next semester. I owe it to my starving brain! I owe it to my family! I owe it to myself: I came here to get started, not to be a lowly freshman with nothing to her name.

I've been praying more regularly too, the ritualistic routine ones. I'm more stable spiritually, but though I have BOUGHT a barebone, cheap translation of the Gita, I have yet to take that leap and read and interpret. I'm reluctant to do so because all my life, my mom and Ranjani Auntie have majorly determined how I see things spiritually. I have never dictated my own faith, really. And I think I'm scared to see where that takes me, but I also WANT that voice of guidance and understanding. I want someone to tell me what it means, what I should get from it, with authority. I don't know if what I will get from reading it will be the "right" things...but I probably should give it a shot, like anything else.

I just listened to my dad's speech at my Arangetram, it popped up on my iPod's shuffle songs. I feel like shuffle songs just knows what I'm thinking: this morning, I was just singing "Blister in the Sun" and then later, when I turned on shuffle, that was the very first song... but I digress. My dad. he was talking about why Indian parents, like him, make their daughters go to dance class: 'to keep hem connected to Indian culture and ethos.' And that's so true. I feel like in comparison to other Northies who put together Bhangra and Bollywood routines, I am filled and immersed with cultural understanding through my dance that I would not otherwise have a passion or interest for. I owe it to dance that I understand my myths and know how to tell these practically lost stories.

The NORTH indian dance styles that persist in today's India are so much more prone to fusion and lack traditional thought. Anjaane tried to put in some traditional dancing, and they should be commended for that fact, but the execution of the steps by those girls was cringeworthy! The effort that was present throughout the rest of their piece was lacking in this segment, and that was due to lack of effort and knowledge to understand Bharatanatyam steps. The idea to do some classical and incorporate it was wonderful, but it would have been more wonderful if it was executed in a professional manner, i.e. So You Think You Can Dance's Bollywood number a year ago. I have done some of those fusion elements (more classical, less non) before...many have. It's something you have to adjust to and do as a dancer, but professionally and with some understanding. that just irked me during their performance because every other hip hop or classic Bollywood move was picture perfect, but the classical interlude was so baaad. : (

This just told me that I missed being on stage. I love to perform. and I loved "Shiv Tandav Stotram" because I helped choreograph. I was a key part of that coming to fruition, and it felt so good. I want to come back to campus after break with that in mind. I want to find dancers who are passionate and NEED it as much as I do, or at the very least have an interest to learn how to dance/hone their craft. I am going to bring my practice saris. I will have more dances in my arsenal. I will coordinate a performance by next year!

So, recap of strategies to prevent complacency:
- MORE studying & reading & understanding & writing

- start Bhagavad Gita. read commentaries to enrich and get guidance through it.

- read more NEUROOOO. get prepared for getting into a legitimate neuroscience lab next semester on a volunteer basis.

-DANCE MORE. take choreo notes on youtube like Ranjani Auntie.

-Relax a little! It's freshman year! No need to win the Nobel Prize just yet. :)

xoxo,
maithreyi--THAT's my name. don't wear it out.

friends

i feel like i'm weird when it comes to friends.
I don't have that go-to group.
I have a bunch of people that I meet and connect with.
And then I'm part of these organizations and teams where it feels as though I'm friends with everyone in that group, but not really. Ultimate feels like that. I feel like people know me and I know them, but it's very polite--and that may be my own fault. I'm not very open in the way that they are. I talk openly, I make new friends, sure. but i'm ...less in-your-face. I am so much more interested in PLAYING than the side-stuff. I want us to win. I want to be good at playing the sport. The parties and stuff don't seem to be my type of scene. I just wish I had gone to the tourney because then I'd feel included without these outsider-ish feelings.

Friend wise- I like the two main groups I have to count on, my HSO board<3 and then my TCF crew. I feel like HSO has become just a group of cool Indian kids that happen to run this Hindu organization together. I feel like we all get along so well and it's so fun to hang with them. And they have good advice :] cuz they are all SO old! haha. but I really feel like I can ask them for help and to hang out and talk to them cuz we're friends now.

TCF kids are just my friends. we're better friends though because we can connect spiritually. I can understand how that is important to them and what they do and why. It makes our friendship deeper in a way than any other friendships because I have seen them all pray and think about God while I do as well. I have a greater appreciation for them than other non-Christians, I guess. I love how moral and grounded and caring they are, out of the greatness within them. It's not fake, and I love that.

So if I never develop a friendgroup, I feel like I'll be alright.
: ]
xoxo,
maithreyi
[yay for indians&(non-indians)who can call me it properlyyy !]