Clips and goods and deeds

I had to appear for a very special and important interview this past week. I was prepping for it. My friends who were helping me asked me mock questions and one recurring question was, "What are your weaknesses?" (I might write about the interview later) One of my weaknesses right now is how I find myself distracted and doing different things than I started out with. I am mostly busy watching fb-shares by people regarding social good, videos of cute dogs/babies, ellen, websites etc. So, the weakness sometimes comes in handy and helps me gain positive information and inspiration. 

Here are my biggest finds of this week:

1. Nyayya Health (estbd. 2008) website has changed for the good. Their new name is Possible Health - "Making health care possible in world's impossible places".  I was studying their profile for my interview and I came across their website that follows the footsteps of the current bandwagon of non-profits owning ultra cool website layouts such as that of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. This comparison is only an assumption. (You web developers, please go easy on me!)  Their webpages have vibrant color and graphics showing the change they have brought to communities in Nepal and highlight their new model of health assistance.
Follow this link to know more about their awesome free-health deal in association with the Nepal government: http://possiblehealth.org/ 

2. This amazing clip by Punjita Pradhan on anti-molestation/ child sexual exploitation / Abuse whatever you call it: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKhJ5ABqYdM

3.  This video about this awesome Kathmandu ko thito who teaches in remote Dolpa half the year and half of it he spends raising funds to do that, collecting support from local donors in Kathmandu. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36vw7zaE-So

4.  This dog that was rescued by some men. He is absolutely grateful and if this video does not deserve to go viral then i don't know why the internet exists!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ol7ojcRU8

5.  Emma Watson's latest interview w/ Ellen. She is graduating from an excellent university, I wonder if she had to write an application essay!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmk6THwG5L0 
I like when Jason Bateman says, "My Junior High wasn't an attractive bunch of world leaders."
Also, Emma writes journals. That made me catch up with my diary entries!

6. On a good note, my Professor recommended to me a book that has helped him be more organized and overcome distractions! So yay! I am glad I utilized the office hours.

READ: Life after Life

(I chose this book to end my reader's block. It took a while to finish, only because I wanted to do it slow. I looked up bestselling books for 2013, checked if this one is in our school library, and then checked it out. I was traveling and had to squeeze this book in. I needed it to last my 21-days'  vacation. So, I was save-reading it, if you know what I mean. Warning: there are a few spoilers!)

This book is about a girl, Ursula who has a condition that, whenever she dies she goes back to the day she was born and is born again. Kate Atkinson accomplishes to portray multiple life stories of this girl and is equally successful at spinning off those circumstances that lead to her many deaths. Some of her deaths happen during the Blitzkreigs. Some happen as childhood accidents. Every time she dies, she tries to change the way things were in her family and her friends circle. For example, through her intuition she saves the life of a neighbor's kid, who had been raped to death during her previous life.

Ursula also lives one of her many lives as a young woman who marries for love, but later gets abused and beaten by the same man who she married. Then she lives another one where we see her as one of the rescue team members in the London bombings. It seems that although she was reborn and led different lives, the paths she took in each one is comparable to an individual's struggle in a single life - going from stages of childhood innocence, struggle as an adult, and later death of family members close to you as you age yourself.

I was really looking forward to the conclusive chapters that would provide an explanation for Ursula's special lives. However, what Kate gives us is nothing. The end is so inconclusive. May be it is just me who did not understand. But at least, there is a happier ending.The readers are left to interpret what must have happened or what happens to her. But that might not be the point of the novel. She did other things in a brilliantly satisfying manner. 

It is an interesting read and a great portrayal of Europe, especially England and some Germany, of the period from 1911 to 1950s.

Maybe someday.....somewhere.....

Why do I have to live ? Why does the world function like this. I want my redemption. I want love in every face. I want the beauty of life. I want to reach out to nature. I want to be free. I want to go away from this humdrum, from this city of zombies. Technology, roads, government, property...why do these matter so much? Why do ads sell technology like it is going to bring back the lost vitality of the earth.

There is this civilization that’s hard to escape. There is physicality and material pleasure. There is a price for everything. I wish there was a pleasure of solitude. I wish our whole lives, our whole world did not depend on us when we try to get out of this materiality.

He has traveled a lot. He has enjoyed the journey. But he has not enjoyed what he has done so far. He wants to be a writer. He wants to be free from the burden of what he has created. I wonder what intrigues him. I wonder if he ever thought like I did. His blood is in me. He is funny but he is stuck. With a life that is lost in the crowd. He wants to be lost in the breeze, in a cool lake somewhere. He wants to get out and rewind. Relive and not worry. I want to be with him. I want to get inside his head and follow his post journey. She can stay with her little one, while him and I sail away and bond like the way we should.

He is also stuck in the old dogma of safety, security, rules, society, and dignity. I wish he lived more. All this time he lived less for me and the little one. And her. She is kind. She lets me be. But she is also stuck. Somewhere in the traditionality the world has locked her into. She yearns but she is satisfied. She yearns more for me and I am thankful she does. I hope she lives with peace. I hope I give her something, if not everything, that will make her calm and spirited and tranquil.

When him and I sail away, will he be able to come back? He has done his part. I can keep staying with him. But will I be able to come back? Yes, I think...I will come back where it is better. I will go where the lake is still fresh, where the breeze says a jolly hello every morning. Where him and I can stay and help out a lost world by being lost in theirs. We will see our loved ones when time needs. I hope they don’t miss us too much. They could visit time and again and we will take them with open arms.

I wish we stayed like this. I wish I could be in his plan. I wish I spent part of my life like this. I will hear all his stories. I will save him from this burden of sickness and dusty air as I save myself for a while. 

After all, what’s there to life than nature and love?

Inspired by the movie 'Highway' by Imtiaz Ali.....