What I've been at since going AWOL
Jan. 12th, 2007 12:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladymirthI’m Back.
On hindsight, I keep using those words on my blog so much that I’m starting to sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger with anterograde amnesia.
Yes, I have decided life is worth living after all, having sufficiently completed my convalescence from the drama of the past few months. Not that it was all bad, mind you, just so…tiring at the end. I got so tired, after a while. Tired of planning and failing and thinking and traveling and introspection and life in general. Maybe one day I’ll dreg up the energy and emotional investment required to tell you about them. Right now, I’m just glad I’m not living in a Disney reproduction of Beverly Hills 90210 anymore.
The last few months on recap:
July:
After furious contention with snobbish embassies, uncooperative banks, absent-minded uncles and a scandalous amount of shopping, I was able to get visa to attend two International Junior Achievement Conferences in the US and Canada. I was a part of two Sri Lankan delegations; in fact, one of the only two people who were to be a part of both delegations our local charter was sending. Flurry of preparations and presentations and kow-towing to various people, despite the fact that all the dough would needs be put up by mine own parental unit. Plus, Mum was on a month-long visit home, after having been shipped off to Scotland for six months on her medical scholarship. Initial gladness at having her back soon converted into incessant quarreling, eternal nagging sessions, an unjust confiscation of my ATM card and ultimately the epiphany that I have finally, definitely outgrown my mother.
Also layered my hair. And, after nineteen years of private school administrative suppression, discovered – make up!
August:
A week in West Palm Beach, Florida, attending the International FedEx Junior Achievement Conference. Three very important first-times for me. The first time I:
a) Had ever been on a plane.
b) Ever set foot in a foreign country.
c) Ever spent a night apart from my parents.
Honestly, my family takes the concept of coddling to entirely new levels. Was scared shitless and hysterically excited at the same time. I will never get tired of planes. NEVER!
During the course of the conference, I managed to seriously fall for one of my fellow delegates, get rejected by said delegate, take a hand in match-making two other delegates, humiliate myself in front of the former delegate, unwittingly convince everybody at the conference that I was some kind of hot-shot genius sociologist, make loads of new friends, including one who looks remarkably like Keiko Agena, one who looks like Anne Hathaway, and another who looks like Bill Crosby in another life.
I also discovered that Florida is disappointingly similar to Sri Lanka, with less traffic and humidity. Also, that the beaches there can’t hold a candle to the ones in Sri Lanka (Florida has no waves whatsoever!). Also that baseball is quite as boring as cricket. Also sugar cane.
Yes, sugar cane. Thirty-six hours of crossing over Asia and the Pacific and we get taken to visit a sugar factory over Disneyland. The guides were kind enough to give us some sugar cane samples and taught us how to suck on the stalks. We politely refrained from revealing to them that sugar cane routinely grows in our grandparents’ back yards, and that some of us have been sucking on the stalks before we were old enough to start teething. But I suppose it was a new experience for the other delegates. Still, they could have taken us to Disneyland too!
At the end of the week, Kaushalya and I bid a painful adieu to the rest of the crew, and wended our lonely way to my uncle’s in Toronto. Mind you, I had seen my father’s brother exactly three times in my life, before this visit. Kaushalya and he hit it off from the start, somewhat to my consternation, and I soon found that he was every bit as irritating and lovable as Thatti (Dad). Since he was divorced, and his daughter had eloped a few months before, we had the run of his apartment.
We went to see Niagara Falls with the family of one of my Dad’s friends. We went on the boat. It is the most incredible experience in my life so far. I will leave it at that, until I have time to compose an entry long enough to do justice to it. We went to see the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) the day after, and got into a huge row with Kaushalya that effectively ended our friendship, although I didn’t know that till three weeks later. Stayed away from CN towers.
Also visited Wonderland. That’s the Canadian equivalent of Disneyland, only with Paramount Pictures. My first ever ride on a roller coaster. Because I’m a confirmed agoraphobic, see?
Stayed the last week with a family friend of Kaushalya’s, in Ottowa. Ottowa is officially the most picturesque place I’ve ever seen in my short life, so far. One day, I will live there. Our host, Professor Dharmawardhana, turned out to be an illustrious sort of dude, who had been VC of Kelaniya University back in 1975. He’s lectured at the Sorbonne, and is buddies with the legendary Sri Lankan maestro Amaradeva. Apparently S.B Dissanayake, one of the most notorious MPs in Sri Lanka whose name is currently synonymous with Ferdinand Marcos in terms of excess and corruption, used to be his Student Council President back in the day, and a vehement JVP supporter (a left-wing Marxist group who later turned terrorist in the 80s). And our current President, Mr. Mahinda Rajapakshe, had been his assistant librarian! Ironies never cease.
The last week was spent at Carleton University, at CANJAC, about which there are too many things which can’t comfortably fit into this post. Shall let you know one day.
High romantic drama: fell in love with a friend and got rejected, a friend professed to be in love with me and was rejected. All this while I already had a guy waiting for me back home! I never thought this kind of stuff happened to people outside of soaps. Actively angled to play match-maker between Kaushalya and fellow FedEx delegate Roshan.
September:
Arrived home. ATM privileges were reinvoked by Thatthi. Also found that he figures if I was able to get halfway across the world on my own without getting lost, he’s not gonna drive me around anymore. He will henceforth expect me to hop on the nearest bus. A novel experience in my cosseted existence for all of three days. After that, I got sick of buses. It is one thing to navigate the subways and bus services of a developed North American community, and another entirely to figure out the complexities and tedium of the local infrastructurally challenged transport services.
Started university. Feel like a fish out of water there. Most people are either bored, bimbonic or sartorially outlandish. Lots of French kissing in unsuspecting corners. I was brought up in a conservative all-girls private school. Definitely not my crowd.
Beginning of a DVD craze. Becomes a movie buff overnight.
Landed with the responsibility of organizing an all-island three day leadership training program with 500 participants, by Young Entrepreneurs of Sri Lanka. Well, me and the rest of the conference delegates. The training programme is to be based on the content of FedEx and CANJAC. However, since Kaushalya and I were the only ones who attended both conferences, we were automatically cast into an unofficial joint leadership role. Since Kaushalya and I hated each other at a molecular level at this moment in time, and not making much of a secret of the fact, we could only say, one and all….oh, boy!
And did I mention we had only six weeks to put it together, from scratch?!
A month of near-fatal clashes, near nervous breakdowns, board room politics, and lots of yelling and frustration. Also a stellar out- and- out catfight between me and Kaushalya right in the middle of a board meeting.
October:
Kaushalya and Roshan made it official. They were going out. I was in squealing throes of happiness for them. Six days later, Kaushalya and Roshan made it official. They’d broken up. Roshan cried on my shoulder and I could have wrung Kaushalya’s neck.
Finished up the leadership training programme, or STEPS as it was eventually christened. Started off with a bang, but was ruined by the last minute revamping of the programme by our bean-brained YESL CEO Mr. Weliwita, a.k.a Walla. He insisted we have the final presentations of the competing participants, and the YESL awards selections at the same time, which plan didn’t need a crystal ball to predict that it wouldn’t work. We, the organizers and trainers, ended up looking like a bloody frickking joke. We collectively decided we weren’t ever going to become embroiled in any of YESL’s schemes again, and summarily informed Walla that the next time he wanted us to keep the students occupied while he finished his own awards selections, just say so and we’d be glad to come and do a Punch and Judy number in a party hat on the day, instead of spending all our free time, blood, sweat and tears for six weeks organizing a fake leadership training program.
I wonder whether there was one among us who didn’t go home and cry into their pillow.
November:
Honestly don’t remember. Was sick most of the time. Raging epidemic of chicken gunya ( a type of fever) in Colombo. Apparently, to date 90% of Colombo has contracted it. It’s carried and spread solely by mosquitoes and is thankfully non-fatal. Well, maybe not so thankfully, because, as I can personally testify, it feels like a week-long torture where a mack truck is slowly running over your bones, and you are starving to death but your tongue feels like it’s been coated in sewer excretion. You wish you could die. And the after effects stay on for the longest time. My ankle swelled and I couldn’t get out of bed for a solid week. And no sooner had I got better than the rest of the family came down with it.
Oh. And my Dad had a stroke. He did! He’s alright now. Long story for a later time.
Discovered the obsession that is PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN!!! BOTH movies!!
Johnny Depp! Bill Nighy! Elizabeth Bennet meets Legolas!
Best. Bloody. Movie. Ever. Made. Savvy?
December:
Christmas bonuses and clothes shopping! Also a fever of furniture rearranging.
And that, babes and babettes, sums up the latter part of 2006 for me. More or less. Definitely less. There’s too much juicy drama I still need to tell about, but when one has been living in a soap opera for six months one cannot rush these posts. All will be revealed in due time.
Until then….
Happy 2007, Folks!
PS: Coming up: why 2007 is God’s gift to movie buffs.
On hindsight, I keep using those words on my blog so much that I’m starting to sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger with anterograde amnesia.
Yes, I have decided life is worth living after all, having sufficiently completed my convalescence from the drama of the past few months. Not that it was all bad, mind you, just so…tiring at the end. I got so tired, after a while. Tired of planning and failing and thinking and traveling and introspection and life in general. Maybe one day I’ll dreg up the energy and emotional investment required to tell you about them. Right now, I’m just glad I’m not living in a Disney reproduction of Beverly Hills 90210 anymore.
The last few months on recap:
July:
After furious contention with snobbish embassies, uncooperative banks, absent-minded uncles and a scandalous amount of shopping, I was able to get visa to attend two International Junior Achievement Conferences in the US and Canada. I was a part of two Sri Lankan delegations; in fact, one of the only two people who were to be a part of both delegations our local charter was sending. Flurry of preparations and presentations and kow-towing to various people, despite the fact that all the dough would needs be put up by mine own parental unit. Plus, Mum was on a month-long visit home, after having been shipped off to Scotland for six months on her medical scholarship. Initial gladness at having her back soon converted into incessant quarreling, eternal nagging sessions, an unjust confiscation of my ATM card and ultimately the epiphany that I have finally, definitely outgrown my mother.
Also layered my hair. And, after nineteen years of private school administrative suppression, discovered – make up!
August:
A week in West Palm Beach, Florida, attending the International FedEx Junior Achievement Conference. Three very important first-times for me. The first time I:
a) Had ever been on a plane.
b) Ever set foot in a foreign country.
c) Ever spent a night apart from my parents.
Honestly, my family takes the concept of coddling to entirely new levels. Was scared shitless and hysterically excited at the same time. I will never get tired of planes. NEVER!
During the course of the conference, I managed to seriously fall for one of my fellow delegates, get rejected by said delegate, take a hand in match-making two other delegates, humiliate myself in front of the former delegate, unwittingly convince everybody at the conference that I was some kind of hot-shot genius sociologist, make loads of new friends, including one who looks remarkably like Keiko Agena, one who looks like Anne Hathaway, and another who looks like Bill Crosby in another life.
I also discovered that Florida is disappointingly similar to Sri Lanka, with less traffic and humidity. Also, that the beaches there can’t hold a candle to the ones in Sri Lanka (Florida has no waves whatsoever!). Also that baseball is quite as boring as cricket. Also sugar cane.
Yes, sugar cane. Thirty-six hours of crossing over Asia and the Pacific and we get taken to visit a sugar factory over Disneyland. The guides were kind enough to give us some sugar cane samples and taught us how to suck on the stalks. We politely refrained from revealing to them that sugar cane routinely grows in our grandparents’ back yards, and that some of us have been sucking on the stalks before we were old enough to start teething. But I suppose it was a new experience for the other delegates. Still, they could have taken us to Disneyland too!
At the end of the week, Kaushalya and I bid a painful adieu to the rest of the crew, and wended our lonely way to my uncle’s in Toronto. Mind you, I had seen my father’s brother exactly three times in my life, before this visit. Kaushalya and he hit it off from the start, somewhat to my consternation, and I soon found that he was every bit as irritating and lovable as Thatti (Dad). Since he was divorced, and his daughter had eloped a few months before, we had the run of his apartment.
We went to see Niagara Falls with the family of one of my Dad’s friends. We went on the boat. It is the most incredible experience in my life so far. I will leave it at that, until I have time to compose an entry long enough to do justice to it. We went to see the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) the day after, and got into a huge row with Kaushalya that effectively ended our friendship, although I didn’t know that till three weeks later. Stayed away from CN towers.
Also visited Wonderland. That’s the Canadian equivalent of Disneyland, only with Paramount Pictures. My first ever ride on a roller coaster. Because I’m a confirmed agoraphobic, see?
Stayed the last week with a family friend of Kaushalya’s, in Ottowa. Ottowa is officially the most picturesque place I’ve ever seen in my short life, so far. One day, I will live there. Our host, Professor Dharmawardhana, turned out to be an illustrious sort of dude, who had been VC of Kelaniya University back in 1975. He’s lectured at the Sorbonne, and is buddies with the legendary Sri Lankan maestro Amaradeva. Apparently S.B Dissanayake, one of the most notorious MPs in Sri Lanka whose name is currently synonymous with Ferdinand Marcos in terms of excess and corruption, used to be his Student Council President back in the day, and a vehement JVP supporter (a left-wing Marxist group who later turned terrorist in the 80s). And our current President, Mr. Mahinda Rajapakshe, had been his assistant librarian! Ironies never cease.
The last week was spent at Carleton University, at CANJAC, about which there are too many things which can’t comfortably fit into this post. Shall let you know one day.
High romantic drama: fell in love with a friend and got rejected, a friend professed to be in love with me and was rejected. All this while I already had a guy waiting for me back home! I never thought this kind of stuff happened to people outside of soaps. Actively angled to play match-maker between Kaushalya and fellow FedEx delegate Roshan.
September:
Arrived home. ATM privileges were reinvoked by Thatthi. Also found that he figures if I was able to get halfway across the world on my own without getting lost, he’s not gonna drive me around anymore. He will henceforth expect me to hop on the nearest bus. A novel experience in my cosseted existence for all of three days. After that, I got sick of buses. It is one thing to navigate the subways and bus services of a developed North American community, and another entirely to figure out the complexities and tedium of the local infrastructurally challenged transport services.
Started university. Feel like a fish out of water there. Most people are either bored, bimbonic or sartorially outlandish. Lots of French kissing in unsuspecting corners. I was brought up in a conservative all-girls private school. Definitely not my crowd.
Beginning of a DVD craze. Becomes a movie buff overnight.
Landed with the responsibility of organizing an all-island three day leadership training program with 500 participants, by Young Entrepreneurs of Sri Lanka. Well, me and the rest of the conference delegates. The training programme is to be based on the content of FedEx and CANJAC. However, since Kaushalya and I were the only ones who attended both conferences, we were automatically cast into an unofficial joint leadership role. Since Kaushalya and I hated each other at a molecular level at this moment in time, and not making much of a secret of the fact, we could only say, one and all….oh, boy!
And did I mention we had only six weeks to put it together, from scratch?!
A month of near-fatal clashes, near nervous breakdowns, board room politics, and lots of yelling and frustration. Also a stellar out- and- out catfight between me and Kaushalya right in the middle of a board meeting.
October:
Kaushalya and Roshan made it official. They were going out. I was in squealing throes of happiness for them. Six days later, Kaushalya and Roshan made it official. They’d broken up. Roshan cried on my shoulder and I could have wrung Kaushalya’s neck.
Finished up the leadership training programme, or STEPS as it was eventually christened. Started off with a bang, but was ruined by the last minute revamping of the programme by our bean-brained YESL CEO Mr. Weliwita, a.k.a Walla. He insisted we have the final presentations of the competing participants, and the YESL awards selections at the same time, which plan didn’t need a crystal ball to predict that it wouldn’t work. We, the organizers and trainers, ended up looking like a bloody frickking joke. We collectively decided we weren’t ever going to become embroiled in any of YESL’s schemes again, and summarily informed Walla that the next time he wanted us to keep the students occupied while he finished his own awards selections, just say so and we’d be glad to come and do a Punch and Judy number in a party hat on the day, instead of spending all our free time, blood, sweat and tears for six weeks organizing a fake leadership training program.
I wonder whether there was one among us who didn’t go home and cry into their pillow.
November:
Honestly don’t remember. Was sick most of the time. Raging epidemic of chicken gunya ( a type of fever) in Colombo. Apparently, to date 90% of Colombo has contracted it. It’s carried and spread solely by mosquitoes and is thankfully non-fatal. Well, maybe not so thankfully, because, as I can personally testify, it feels like a week-long torture where a mack truck is slowly running over your bones, and you are starving to death but your tongue feels like it’s been coated in sewer excretion. You wish you could die. And the after effects stay on for the longest time. My ankle swelled and I couldn’t get out of bed for a solid week. And no sooner had I got better than the rest of the family came down with it.
Oh. And my Dad had a stroke. He did! He’s alright now. Long story for a later time.
Discovered the obsession that is PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN!!! BOTH movies!!
Johnny Depp! Bill Nighy! Elizabeth Bennet meets Legolas!
Best. Bloody. Movie. Ever. Made. Savvy?
December:
Christmas bonuses and clothes shopping! Also a fever of furniture rearranging.
And that, babes and babettes, sums up the latter part of 2006 for me. More or less. Definitely less. There’s too much juicy drama I still need to tell about, but when one has been living in a soap opera for six months one cannot rush these posts. All will be revealed in due time.
Until then….
Happy 2007, Folks!
PS: Coming up: why 2007 is God’s gift to movie buffs.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-11 09:03 pm (UTC)Teehee. XD
Interesting hearing about your life... hope the soap opera will have a happy end! :)
See ya,
Anna.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-12 03:46 am (UTC)Soaps never have a happy ending. Or even a sad one. They have non-conclusive endings that make the series sort of fizzle out when the network realizes the audiences would really rather watch Seinfield. Much like in real life.
Orlando and Keira are my favourite screen couple ever, next to Teri and Dean. I first saw Keira Knightley in P&P on the flight coming home. Now, P&P is one of my all-time books and Lizzie Bennet one of my favourite heroines. I thought the movie sucked like a Hoover, rave reviews notwithstanding, but Keira was stunning! She WAS Elizabeth. By the time I landed in colombo, Keira Knightley had become my favourite actress.
Coupled with my five-year long crush on Bloom, it was like Pirates was a movie somebody had made especially for me.
Hear from you later, Anna!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-12 02:29 am (UTC)Anyways, I love planes too. I went on my first ride when I was 14, and I haven't been since, but it was lovely. It's exhilerating, looking out over the landscape. My favorite is flying above a cloudy landscape, because all you can see is white and the sun is shining, and everything is just GORGEOUS!
I'm glad that your papa is all right, and that you are too. You had an adventure, my darling!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-12 03:38 am (UTC)You're back! *glomps and huggles*
Last I heard, you had left LJ to "devote your life to high school". NOT my words. I was so disappointed, since we had barely gotten to know each other. Thank goodness you came back!
Of course I remember you, silly gal! I haven't mentioned anything in the above entry about having hit my head very hard on anything, have I? =D
Glad to know there's others amongst us who don't take the great inventions of man for granted. I was so enthralled and excited, that I wound up coming home with a bushel of random aeriel shots. I captured the dawn above the clouds, chicago looking like a series of microchips, the Causican Mountains (hope I got the name right) and a volcano in Japan. And all my better-travelled friends could do was roll their eyes patronizingly!
It is gorgeous, isn't it?
I am turning 20 this year. That seems too frightfully old for me! As I told Holly, I'm not ready to be older than Nancy Drew! Where's Peter Pan when you need him?
I think you're turning 16 or 17, right?
Anyway, Stevie, don't you dare disappear again, and I'll promise I won't!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-12 04:33 am (UTC)Hah, when you wrote Causican Mountains, I got Caucasian Mountains. I was like, "What? Huh? Caucasian?" Funny!
I'm turning 17 this year. Yeah, I need Peter Pan. Desperately. Like, tonight. Peter! Come for me!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-13 12:58 am (UTC)Wonderland is love. And that boat ride on Niagara Falls? Best bloody boat ride everrrrr!!!! XD
I hope your dad is feeling better - strokes are a horrible thing.
And I'm unbelievably happy that you've become a PotC obsessive!!!! I tell you, that movie reigns above all others! XD
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-13 04:08 am (UTC)Can there ever be any doubt about it? *glares around, daring the democratic masses to differ*
You know you're a manic-obsessive POTC ennthusiast when...
Oh, hold on. I'll just make another post about that. Feel free to contribute.
You can say that again! Talk about surreal! That was the first time I've ever seen a blue waterfall! I'm gonna make a separate post about that. And that rainbow! I have a spectacular shot of the full rainbow arcing over the Canadian flag. When did you go to Niagara? Did you also go to the border town, Buffalo? I dearly wanted to, since the shopping was supposed to be great (tax free!) but our companions didn't have American visa.