Yes, I'm an International student!!!

I'm so through with people making me feel guilty about spending so much money as an international student! Tonight was the last straw. I was just getting off from work when this Indian dude starts talking about me and He asks,
"so did your family move here just for your studies?"
And I said, "No."
Then he goes into this super shocked expression
"so you're paying International fees?"

"yes..."

"That is 12 thousand dollars a year! Then you'll do animation for how long 3 years?"

"no, its a four year program"

"And how much is the fees for that?"

"I guess its around 20 thousand dollars per year"

"So by the time you graduate, you'd have spent around 100 thousand dollars!!!"

"umm... yeah I suppose so..."

And now I'm feeling really low. My day was going just great until this dude decides to screw around with me. So he said/implied I'm being a dick and paying/having my parents pay so much for my education unlike all others fortunate enough to be 'residents' of this country. - It might seem like too small a thing to be so pissed about, but its not! Think about it, there are so many people from all parts of the world doing that. I'm not the only one in the country!.. No, that's not a convincing statement. I'd like to correct my words - I'm not the only one in my FAMILY studying here as an International student. But while they had scholarships, and their program was not as long as mine would be,...

But the feeling - 'I am lucky enough that my parents can and do bear the burden of providing me such a good education'- would usually succeed in soothing the burning guilt of me being responsible for them spending such a lot. Wheres today, nothing seems to work. I was hoping that by the end of this post, I would have calmed down, but its only infuriating me more. Maybe watching some movie will do the trick

Wish they were here.

I really wished they were all here. All my friends. Everybody I ever spent a wonderful time with. Everyone I like to hang out with. Its such a nice weather outside, really cool breeze and the sun shining. Though I know its about to rain soon. I was sitting outside on the porch and I thought to myself 'how many times have I really experienced such a weather in India?' I tried to remember when was the last time I was just sitting outside enjoying the fresh air instead of being glued to the computer screen or something else. Was I ever so happy in India while still being all by myself instead of being my lonely and gloomy self?

So even though I was happy, I would have loved to be among those with whom I could really do something FUN! Maybe me and harsh and suraj could just fool around like we used to during those summers in seoni... Or me and sujata could go on a bike ride. Or Pranav and I could go cycling. Maybe I could take a walk with abhinav to the lake behind my college. Maybe me and monu didi could play cricket or dabba resh or any of those games we used to play when she was still in school and I was in the 5th or sixth grade... But times change, Suraj and harsh have grown too, Monu didi is married and lives in Durg... So even though wishing I could play with her is futile, I can still just write to them or call them up and let them know I was thinking about them. So I ran upstairs to my dark lair, my room and logged on to gmail to write an email to everybody. But started to write this blog instead. LOL. I even tried calling monu didi up, but she didn't pick up the phone.

Well, the winds just got really strong and somewhat chilly, the blinds are making a lot of noise and its drizzling. I can smell the wet soil and it really reminds me of India. I can't go outside again for a while now, so I'm stuck to the laptop for some more time, but I REALLY want to go play basketball later. Even if it is for a few minutes. I've been feeling like it since yesterday, but just didn't know how to go ask brandon or anybody to come along... well, now that I'm alone in the house today, I have nobody else to worry about.

Heap full of paperwork

I applied to this job at the recruitment center in college Last week, and I was handed a bunch of forms to fill out! I took time out to go through it and fill them that day itself, but there was a lot of it that I didn't understand. I was hoping that the people in the office could help me out with it, but when I took it to her on Friday, even she wasn't totally sure what I needed to fill in. I was left to fend for myself. How the heck do you expect me to figure out all that financial mumbo jumbo by myself? I am a freakin art fundies student! I'm starting to think its just not worth it. But I don't have any other employment either so I guess I just gotta grab whatever I can.

The other big problem is the social Insurance number. also called SIN I think... I was told on Friday that I can't work without a SIN number! Now I have another chore at my hands, and that is to go get my social insurance number! its somewhere on sears road was all she could tell me. It was a good thing then that I decided to go to the International center and ask them about getting a social insurance number. The old lady there was the one who told me that I had to get a employment letter and show it to the ppl at the human resources center(where I would get my SIN) in order to get it. If it wasn't for that, I would have ended up at the damn place with nothing to support me! I think they could have made this whole process a lot more friendlier and little less pain in the ass(and legs) for us.

Sagar short and stubby?

I know mamiji likes sagar as a kid and would rather that he never grew up, but this would have really broken her heart. She would have been really sad just like she was in my dream. I have no freakin idea how my brain comes up with such situations. its totally whacked out. ready to get shocked? and probably rofl?

I dreamt that I was with suraj and sagar and yeah, the whole family too. But the house didn't resemble the nagpur or the seoni one. Guess it was just my mind's stylized version of nanaji's house in seoni. So one peculiar thing was that sagar was "short and stubby" I think this was a continuation from one of my previous dreams where it was just found out that sagar is a dwarf. But he was pretty tall in that one and he had shrunk down in this one. LOL. But he looked really cute now as opposed to the skinny taller him. At one point I forgot that he was a dwarf now and asked mamiji why he had gotten short and chubby recently and she shushed me and reminded me that he had been detected with dwarf genes..

Well, that's not really what it was all about. I just mentioned that because that's one other thing in the dream in which I was playing in the rain! *gasp*

I still remember those summer days where a sudden monsoon shower would bring relief from the scorching heat and give us kids a awesome time! I would love to be able to do that once again. and not just in a dream. ah, back to the dream...

I was playing with sagar, we ran outside in the balcony, and it started raining. when I felt the rain on me, I felt something I had lost come back to me. I just stood there for a moment and then started doing all those childish things kids do in the rain. Jumping, splashing around. My favourite thing to do was to come running from a distance and then just go down on my knees and slide all the way. It was one of the most fun activities ever! I got totally lost in myself. forgot all the worries of the world. That was kinda how I should have felt when I finished my assignment today, but no. I still had to pay the fees, get a job and get ready for tomorrow's class. which reminds me, I should be getting back to sleep. Oh those short moments of bliss.

Somebody save me!!!

Damn I hate talking to mom... its been almost 20 mins now, and I see no end. I will also post the duration by the time I'm done with this post. I have nothing to say to her but SHE has so many things to ask they just keep on going. All I say is yes or no. Why can't she take a hint from that- She's killing me inside by keeping me occupied here. I could go do so many amazing things in that much time! I have to work on mel's animation outlining. I have to do an animation for next wednesday's ideas and images class. I also got to work on the hand painting for next thursday. Now I'm thinking I would have gotten out of it all if only I had packed up my stuff and left for home a few minutes earlier, I would never have had to endure this.

Another thing that's worse is the noise these damn janitors are making with the stools here. This is the second time I'm seeing this. And now I'm really sure the janitors are seriously messed up in their heads! The authorities ought to get rid of these damn mexicans and if they need to, they could hire one of us to work here. We'd love to keep our hangout clean. Atleast we won't have to see their spanish faces around any more!

Now, finally mom has hung up! I get to go home! She's been talking to me for 45 minutes! God! what the heck! How can you keep up with me for so long like that? I guess that's what family's all about. They stick with you despite your shortcomings and stupidities and boringness...

Easter weekend was great!

I need to be more energetic and start being more expressive. Because I was so damn excited when kevin invited me over but still, talking to him, I was relatively calm which I don't think does justice to him. I wished I would have let him know at that point itself how much it meant to me. Case in point: Ruchi didi sounded really excited when I wished her happy birthday. I could hear the joy in her voice over the phone. Her enthusiasm made me feel so happy because I felt I made her really happy by wishing her right now. It was like I/me wishing her meant so much to her. And similarly, Kevin inviting me to a FAMILY dinner was one of the totally amazing things happened to me. And I feel I've hurt him by not showing enough gratitude. So if he's reading this by any chance, A big thanks goes out to him for inviting me and his sister's family for having me over and giving me such an amazing time.

I even wanted to tell this to pranav right away. But I figured that I didn't have enough time to make a phone call as I had to go get a shower right away. So I just messaged suju and asked her to tell pranav. Kevin came to me with the camera asking why the screen was all dark when he turned it on. I pointed out to him that the battery was dying. He confused the memory card indicator for the battery level. I was kinda upset that we won't be able to take the camera along and I will not get to take any pictures. We first went down to the mall to pick up a greeting card for sarah, her birthday was a few days ago so kevin and nicole were also discussing how much to give her as a gift. Then they tried recalling how much they gave for christmas and how much brandon and nicole got from grandmom...I then realized there were some similarities between them and our family too. ;)

The drive was long and boring... just a little. I did get to see and know lot of new things. Like the amusement park I now plan to go to sometime during summer... LOL. When we started getting into barrie, the snow deposited on the sides of the road started increasing. This place was considerably colder than oakville. Infact, Liam was shoveling the driveway when we got there. Their house was really nice. Even though I only got to see the ground floor and the basement, I think it was Beautiful. They even had a piano in the living room, I asked if someone actually played it(no, nobody did) They had a huge dog named quin(I guess that's how its spelled) and a cat(I don't know what her name was. The restroom was filled with graffiti. They said all the guests got to write a message somewhere on the wall. There was someone from south africa,(Could it be mickey?) And europe, Ohio, and now there will be one writing by a guy from India.

Tim talked to me about a lot of things. The food I used to have in India, my fav sports, food etc. What I am doing here, Animation, cartoons, etc. Well, everybody was really nice to me and wanted to know about some thing or the other. Even I got to know many new things about them and their house and food... OH, I have GOT to tell you this one, They can spot deers right behind their house! How cool is that?! Tim said he puts down food for the deers and then upto 15 deers collect behind his backyard to eat it. He had a binocular by the window behind the dining table for just that. I even showed them my animations and cartoons drawings on deviantart.com Liam and brandon and me went downstairs to play mini sticks before dinner. later me and Liam also played dodgeball. That didn't last really long tho. Sarah accidentally got hit(it was me) by the ball as she was sitting between us two. LOL

I really didn't want to sit with everybody at the dining table, as that puts me under a lot of pressure to be 'perfect'. I haven't usually eaten with forks and knives except for the few times I had steak with kevin and brandon. I didn't want everybody to see how awkward I was with the cutlery and make a fool out of myself... Therefore I sat with liam on the island to have dinner. There was a short gap after dinner for dessert, but it was well worth the wait. I had the trifle (hope that's how its spelled) with whipped cream and just typing about it is making my mouth water right now!(I AM a little hungry tho) It was amazing. I was so full after that I couldn't have had another bite, but I would have definitely loved some more.

Why don't we pee the same color liquid we drink?

I was just really eager to write this post so I don't give a damn that my previous post is only half done and that I have so many things to fill in on since 29th march. Yesterday was another really nice experience with Katie laura and Jake. I met them at tim hortons in college and we took the 24 from the college to 'Missisauga' I believe and we walked to loomis. It was the biggest art store I have ever seen! Even bigger than the currys at Dundas in Toronto. And venus traders in pune was a 'complete stationery store' so that F.C. road store doesn't count. I did see that the canvases there were obviously cheaper than in the college bookstore. I also noticed Jake had a membership card of the store so he'd get credits every time he shopped there. Pretty cool. We then walked to 'Famous Players' the multiplex where we were gonna watch 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'. There were self service ticket vending booths here too! Select the movie, then the show, it also gave option of snacks, (and I got the nachos and coke combo) then just swipe your credit card to make the payment! Cool huh?

Today I wasn't even thinking one bit about how much I was spending. I just went with the flow. I picked up my nachos with salsa(pranav you remember nachos don't ya?) and cheese. And I was totally stumped when I saw the size of the coke glass! Damn I didn't think large would actually be 'THAT' large! Well, nothing to do about it now, we can obviously finish it if we all pitch in. hehe. And there was still a lot of time to go for our movie to start, (did I forget to mention we thought the show was gonna start at 6 but it was actually at 6:50??) so we went into another screen where 'Premonition' was playing. We were there having nachos, tolerating that piece of crap jut for the sake of it. I could even write a review about that movie right now.. but never mind. We decided to sneak out of that screen in two groups and go to the restroom, come out and then casualy walk back into the theater where TMNT was supposed to play.

The plan worked flawlessly, and we were back together without any hiccups. I was kind of scared because I thought one of the cleaners saw me going into and coming out of the restroom. But even if he did, he didn't figure it out, or he just decided to ignore it. Thank god! The movie didn't start for quite some time, there were lots of previews which made me go watch more movies! I really want to go watch meet the robinsons in stereoscopic 3D AND shrek 3. (I had to mention stereoscopic 3D merely because of a dumb discussion with mickey this afternoon in class, where he thought that when I was saying 3d for Meet the Robinsons, I meant 3D animation as in classical/flash 2D vs 3D computer animation.) So I hope ya'll learnt a new word today - stereoscopy. So when the movie did start after all those adverts, I was a little distracted or just not in the zone to grasp all the information because most of the explanation of the portal and the brothers turning into stone and him becoming immortal flew over my head.

Well, I did manage to finish the drink by the end of the movie, after all, I am the king of coke! I can just keep guzzling down coke all day! But I did have to run to the loo then and that was just where I was thinking where did all the black color go? why isn't the urine the color of the liquids we drink? Well, there you go. that's my stupid thing of the day. Now lets move on, to chapters. We were gonna walk all the way to the japanese restraunt, but since it was raining, we decided to spend some time in the bookstore. It was totally amazing! Even better than crossword in Pune! And, it had loads of animation related books and at a cheaper price than that animation roadshow thing. Man, I feel so stupid! Well, what's done is done, but from now on, I'll be coming here for buying books! Not purchasing anything today because its raining! damn the wretched weather! Its gonna go as low as -9 again later this week!