The Cycle

An intern's life is simply AWESOME!!!

I have been an intern during my University years, and that life was mainly about performing super well, proving my skills and learning a lot about my major studies in practice. That life has been super cool because of exceptional mentors I had who shared with me the beauties of a teacher's role as well as the university students made my 4-6 weeks of practice unbelievably amazing and challenging!

9 months I have been an intern in one of the leading Indian IT companies. Have travelled around India, visited beautiful Sri Lanka, dreamt about touring around South (East) Asia, met so many great great people and some parts of me are in hands of international friends in their home countries... Incredible!

Yesterday I celebrated my engagement with India. I was sitting in a rickshaw, going today for a German friend's farewell and thinking about my 9 months' life. What has been and has not, where I have been and have not yet, what I have gone through and what is still there awaiting for me, what kind of person I have become... So many events happened for the past 9 months... I cannot measure them, I cannot describe them piece by piece, sometimes I cannot bear all happiness at one and the same moment.

One thing that I would like to share is that I became such a proactive learner at my internship in India. I have definitely learnt some invaluable lessons of life in my previous experiences. But somehow Indianness stands out of the crowd so far. Today I have heard a lot of negative thoughts, emotions and simply bitching from a few people and it got me thinking. What can this person do? What action shall he take? If he asks for a help, shall I help? How?

It is always easy to complain, I used to think. I used to think that I prefer to be a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem. I feel I still tend to think in this way. So today I was thinking whether to leave the person dealing with his problems who tends to be a part of the problem, or to help him by at least listening and help him grow.

Another moment that closed my day was friend's farewell. This is intern's lifestyle: people come, people leave. You easily or through pains connect with new homo sapiens, they enter your life, they shape you and your tastes, they are a part of your Indianness, they are a part of your learning and maturity, they are a part of you... You are them, they are you. And then they leave. And you cannot do anything but hope you will meet one day in this beautiful world. Next future moments will always be different, but it does not mean they will be bad. On the contrary, actually.

... One more close friend's farewell is in a few days... The person who has been here always for me - all these 9 months and a few more days...

Unbelievable intern's life in India... Unbelievably cool people do live on this planet. They are called the children of the sun.

Confusions in my head

These days I am totally random. Even now. Why am I writing about this? Why am I thinking about this? Just for the sake to think of something? ... Again, a very random phrase...

Saying "this" I mean ...hm, what do I mean?

Ok, there are so many confusing thoughts in my head these weeks.

Firstly, I really really worry about my country now. Due to rapid snow melt and heavy rains in the west and in the east of Kazakhstan many people have lost their houses; the floods caused deaths of some people ( I do not know how many ); infrastructure built during the Soviet times has been destroyed... And nobody knows when it is over. On the contrary, the new government is being formed now after presidential elections happened on April 3rd, and all media attention is focused on whose seat will be shifted and who is gonna remain from the past. I wonder why Kazakhstan hesitates and is not asking for international aid? The country is not able to manage the currents. The water is increasing, the dams are already destroyed, the number of homeless people is skyrocketing... This video or this article do not bring any serenity.

Another confusion is ...ugh, it is India as always. This time it is not about cultural shocks or whatsoever. It is about how much of India I find in myself and am willing to leave the country now. The next day I am exploring more and I am saying, ' No, I do not want to leave the Holy land now. Later.' But eventually it will happen one day, and I want to be ready for it. Emotionally. Yes, yes, emotionally. It drives me crazy but exactly by living in India I get very emotional. I have not experienced so many high and low emotions at the same time before.

Yesterday I had quite gloomy Sunday. At 3pm we had a blackout (it happens every day) and while I was waiting for the power to be on, I fell asleep. Woken up around 8pm I was in panic. I had a nightmare ( it does not happen to me at all ) and I realised that we still had no electricity at home. My flatmates were out and I tried to calm myself down. Walked around the dark flat, finished the watermelon, and went downstairs to ask the security to help me get the lights back. Ten minutes later I was online searching for friends to talk. I was quite stressed, sweating and my hands were shaking. This is nooooot a typical case with me. Usually, I know how to control emotions. But yesterday I was just not able. My mind was occupied by the nightmare. Well, somebody had heard me and I was caught up in a few skype chats and calls with friends from Europe and Sri Lanka. A few hours later, I was relaxed. Thank you.

Today I had a very cool productive Monday. It does not happen often here with me these weeks since the heat is increasing in Chennai, and walking to the office at 8am is killing me. I feel as if the sun is at its peak and it burns everything around. We used to have a few ponds in our neighbourhood with beautiful white birds and lotus flowers. From January to March every morning I would enjoy watching little white flowers on the way to the main road, in the evening I would follow the birds' and somehow catch myself imagining I was a bird too. Now the ponds are dry, the birds are flying around to find a drop of water, and lotus flowers remain in neighbours' memories.

But also today and yesterday and the day before yesterday and all previous week I was confused. Quite much. Confused about my current state in India now and a desire to move next somewhere else. Confused about big desire to stay in India, discover it more. At some point I find myself quite aculturised here -cultural shocks do not happen anymore, many things do not need an explanation, I behave similarly with the locals (south indians to be correct), frown if food is not spicy, shake my head not realising it, dance Panjabi dances and enjoy Tamil music, smile when children smile at me and want to come and touch but are afraid of foreigners... I gradually accept Chennai and Tamil Nadu as my home state though it is extremely different from cozy Hyderabad.

I incredibly miss Hyderabad, Almaty, Riga, St Petersburg, Moscow, Brugge, Colombo, Kharkiv, Ust Kamenogorsk, Sibiu, Astana...

I understand I cannot spend entire life with the same people in the same place. I will just go mad when it happens. Maybe that is why I prefer to move from a place to place like a bee, you know - from a flower to another flower, marking every plant with my presence and my taste, creating a small world there and leaving it unexpectedly...

Emotions... It is easy to control them. But sometimes I just do not want to control anything. I do not need to probably...

Random world which I created myself.

Tomorrow everything will be fine: the sun shines, the kids play cricket, and I smi)e. Everything will be OK in the end. If it is not OK, then it is not the end.

Only Girl (In The World)

Oh yeah :)

Disorder

Life is funny. The ones you desperately want to be with are not yours. On the other side of a coin, there are those who want to be with you but you do not want them. To add more, there are those who say they will go with you anywhere... anywhere... as long as you are close... and it leaves you confused... as you do not know what to believe in...

Wherever you will go... Hm... I am not yours and it is OK. It will be OK.

THE Marathon

If you want to win something, run the 100 metres.

If you want to learn something about life, run the marathon.

- Emil Zatopek

16.04.2011

A simple truth of life

I don't need all the money in the world to be happy.

I need something more... Deeper... I have understood what it is... And I am creating it when I really want to be happy or when I want to make somebody happy... You do not need to ask for it...

PS Loving my life every day. No matter how far away we are all from each other.