New series documenting my pompous teenage beliefs and how I’ve mostly grown out of them.

So my teenage self was wrong…there is a kind of wisdom that comes with age. Understandably it has taken me a while to understand that. Yes, I’m saying I grew wiser with age. So I’ve decided to start a new series of blogs. Yet again. This one actually has much more definition to its concept.

I’m going to write about things I was sure of (or unsure of) during my teenage years and concerning which my views have undergone anything from a merely radical change to a complete change. The first one is probably going to be about my views on religion or transgender issues.

New approach to Norwegian

OK, I’m going to try to write more and more in Norwegian using words and expressions  I come across in papers and stuff. It will probably be awkward for a native speaker to read how I’m misusing and misconstruing things but it’s the best possible way I have of remembering them and actually getting something out of the exercise of reading Norwegian.

I’ll start in the very next post today itself.

Writing about why it’s difficult for me to write

I’ve always had some talent in writing, since the early days of school, but I never could venture in to the field of blogging. It should have been impossible to resist, and in a way it was; I created an account as soon as I was able to. But I’ve never written much anywhere, on any of my several blog accounts which I create every time accompanied by a pledge that I will write something, anything, long or short everyday. I’ve never done it. Why? For one I could never figure out what to write about. I don’t have any special life experiences, I don’t have any professional or personal skills that I can teach others. All I have are my thoughts and I’m well aware that there are likely to be very few people, if there would be any, who’d be interested in my thoughts. And this feeds into the other thing that keeps me from writing in public. That which I’ve always known but I’m putting in words today. Fear.

Fear of mockery and dismissal. Disapproval is great in comparison. I could handle and even be intellectually nourished by the knowledge that someone out there didn’t like (or better yet, vehemently disagreed with) what I wrote. But the knowledge or just the fear of being scoffed at or brushed away as something inconsequential would hurt terribly.

At least it would have, unless I had not just decided that it won’t. And that’s it. There is likely to be more of me on the internet now. Not that anyone cares except for me, and that’s fine.

Might have missed one but don’t want to check

Hope I haven’t. But I can’t change the past anyway so it doesn’t matter.

I didn’t feel up to learning Norwegian today. I tried the exercises but I kept making silly, random mistakes. Not that random, though; most of them were a result of my not reading or thinking properly.

More importantly, I went to the therapist’s office today to sit for a mock exam. I did just as I did last year, which is to say, not that well. But I’ll change that. I’ll do better. I have a splitting headache right now so I’ll do it better later.

A post in English for today

I already wrote a short bit in Norwegian but that doesn’t fulfil the word requirement I have set for myself, so here’s another post to make up for it.

I had started a post a few hours back but it had quickly entered into the dangerous, depressing territory of global events and how they depress me. I’m already depressed today so I don’t need any more of that. What I’m going to do now is to fix it by writing about happy, positive things that are surely going to come into my life. And if I’m up to it, I can also pen down (type down) some of the more exotic thoughts I have, that all people have and think of as something special that should be shared with others but can’t be because no one else could possible understand them. And that’s true in a way. No one else feels exactly how you feel and emotions strongly tint our interpretations of thoughts.

But coming back to the positive and happy thoughts. Yesterday was Engineer’s Day in India. My dad’s an engineer, and I’ve been trying (reluctantly, recalcitrantly, unsuccessfully) to become one for five years now. I think that Engineer’s Day bit is what depressed me today more than anything else I can think of, because I can’t really think of anything else. Why? Because I’ve never identified as an engineer for some reason. I’ve always been decent (dare I say good?) at maths and science and I even like them a bit. I can’t say for sure what turned me off the whole thing but the reason that strikes me as being the most relevant is the competition. India has a lot of competition for engineering studies. In my personal opinion, it gets really ugly. It was in my school, at least. Kids would sit at the back of the class solving questions to prepare for the entrance examinations. Some of them even did it during the recess. I could never do that. I didn’t even do it at home, when I was supposed to.

Alright, enough of that. Yeah, I didn’t do what I was supposed to and it doesn’t matter who or what was to blame for it. I am here now, I have the same brain and I have the understanding, however meagre and coloured with anger, of what went wrong before. I am going to use all this that I have to become something better for the future. I am going to give the exams for my 7th semester and then the GATE. I will not feel miserable and depressed and yes, I may not have direct control over how I feel but I have some indirect means of influencing myself. That meditation course I did has made me realise this. Already as I write this I’m feeling a little better. I may not start studying immediately after I’m done with this blog but I will try.

Until tomorrow, then.
(And I’m still going to keep learning Norwegian so tomorrow I might post two blogs again, one in English and one in Norwegian.)

I norsk

Jeg prøver å skrive i norsk i dag. Jeg trenger hjelp med det ofte men jeg tenker jeg kan gjøre det. Jeg vet hvis jeg øver å skrive og å snakke og å lytte hver dag, jeg vil lære den språken snart.

Tusen takk for å lese dette. Vær så snill, fortell meg om feilene mine.

Almost missed it today

But here I am. I know I’m writing for myself. This blog is like a Twitter account that only I’m reading. A lot like my actual Twitter account, really.

So. I had a moment, or several moments, of crisis today when I couldn’t make myself sit down and study. I kept wanting to do something that would feel more…productive. And you know you’re not studying well if you don’t think you’re being productive while doing it. So what did I do? Not much. Just kind of inwardly moped and lay around. But after lunch I did try again and it worked for a while. And then my mom went to the gym which meant I had some time to myself that I could spend without being silently judged on it. And then I did do something that was a little productive. I completed the daily streak requirements on Duolingo.

Yeah, I’m learning Norwegian. I wrote that before. Jeg kan nå skrive i norsk.

Hah. Not nearly there yet. I’m barely fluent in writing and not at all fluent in listening and speaking. Reading’s a little easier, of course. You can get what the sentence is trying to say even if you only know half of the words in it, from context. But I’ll get there someday. I read something slightly disheartening today (ironically while trying to find something heartening to read); that native fluency in adults is achievable but it takes “years and years”. I don’t want to spend years and years but I know it will take somewhat that long. But the good thing about this is that at the end of the arduous march I will be a full-fledged trilingual! That’s something not many people can boast of. Sure, there are a lot, a lot of trilinguals in the world but they’re still a minority. And I will be one of them.

I found a great new resource to help me with the language immersion (which is the best way by far to learn a new language): NRK TV. They’ve got subtitles in norsk, which is what I really wanted. The other TV show I had was subtitled in English. How does that help me to learn norsk? It doesn’t. Oh, by the way, norsk is what they call Norwegian in Norwegian.

So for the n-th time, I make a pledge to write a blog a day

I know it probably won’t work, but it’s the intention that counts, right? Right?!

No. It’s not. It’s the actions that count for more. And sadly I’m all out of will for action. Well, not entirely. I’m still doing this, aren’t I? But it is true that I’m all out of imagination and any kind of creative process that could help me to come up with something fresh and interesting to write about. So I have to resort to writing about how I’m unable to write. But this is not just an exercise in resignation and hopelessness; quite the opposite. I’m doing this in the precise hope that this will get my creative juices flowing (I hate that expression, by the way) and allow to write something much more engrossing sometime in the near future. Till then, I stick with this. I stick with this the best I can. Because I can do it. I know I can.

Oh, another thing. I’ve been learning Norwegian for a little over a week now. It’s much easier than the other two European languages I’ve had some experience with so far (French and German). I’ve gone all out for this one, though, which I didn’t for the other two. I’ve changed the language settings on all my devices to Norwegian and I’ve got a couple of Norwegian books and TV shows for practice in colloquialisms and fluency. My primary source of lessons and practice is Duolingo, which has its issues but is still the best thing of its kind right now. I think I’m making decent progress. Maybe I can even try to write some bits in the language now, though it’s irritating to type it with the laptop keyboard. It’s much easier on the phone but then, writing anything on the phone is not as convenient as it is on a laptop. Maybe if I become good enough in the language one day and I happen to travel to Scandinavia, I’ll get a wireless keyboard or something suited to writing in Scandinavian.

Right. So this is good enough for now and should fulfil the requirement for a daily blog that I’ve set for myself. If I get the itch again I might write a bit more later today. Fingers crossed.

I think I’m gonna start blogging from today. On a strict schedule. And I still don’t know whether titles should have periods at the end or not.

What will I blog about? My life’s no fun so I’m not gonna blog about that. I could blog about world affairs and culture and stuff but these days reading the news gets me down. Writing about this stuff would bring up strong emotions in me. I don’t wanna deal with all that.

People do blog fiction, right? Fiction is nicer than reality but reality shapes fiction so I’m not sure that will help.

I could just blog about positive, happy stuff. Like traveling. I have traveled a little though almost always with my family. No off-the-road, hip, backpacking stuff for me. Well, I never wanted to do that till now. A recent experience has changed me in some ways which I now realise is interesting enough to blog about. Maybe tomorrow. Gah. Blogging is stressful.