The Family Stone

I feel a lot like Meredith, but I’m not like Meredith and my boyfriend is nothing like her boyfriend and there is no family stone that I’m after or rather he’s going to make me wear.
Gulp, I hope!
See, I’m going to meet his family on the 3rd and one day on the 3rd the 3rd of October would dawn and I will have to show myself. I tried in vain to pull all sorts of little stunts. I told him that I might get violently ill (somehow my caring nerves preferred telling him NOW about my impending illness) or I might have something else that warrants my attention. But unfortunately he has seen through the obvious lies and hasn’t been merciful, so I guess I must show up this Saturday.
Like Meredith I don’t know what the appropriate outfit should be. The confidence that I seemed to have when I whined about the perfect outfit to meet the parents in a post I wrote aeons ago seems to be of little use. So, I’m sitting here, wide eyed mentally going through my wardrobe.
The pristine white shirt? Too formal and too Meredith.
The rock tee? Too disturbing and too me. It’s good I guess to let them take me in small doses, after all I wouldn’t like it much if they all decided to freak out and have a heart attack.
The cute spaghetti top? Too revealing.
His family is somewhat conservative and we Burghers have a reputation for being everything else other than conservative. I can’t be bothered with the clothes, I’ll just probably grab whatever I see on Saturday and stomp there. But one thing’s for certain though it won’t be a dress!!!

Now that the clothes are sorted I have bigger things to worry about. Meredith had a hard time trying to make conversation at the dinner table, in my case it would be a lunch table (doesn’t sound as good as a dinner table eh?). The thing is I’m one to talk but the language worries me considerably, they converse in Sinhala and I on a normal day can mutter some strange thing. The problem is when I get nervous I tend to freeze and when I eventually thaw, I’d most probably say something stupid. So yes I worry about things like that, wouldn’t you?
I guess I’d also have to behave. I can almost hear mum giving me a rulebook of 10 things to do and a 100 things not to…
# No screaming and running in the house.
# No laughing loud.
# No slurping and guzzling drinks.
# Always smile.
# Be polite and nod in acknowledgment.
I’ll probably follow her advice closely, because I also tend to daydream constantly and it won’t be much of a surprise if a conversation did go like this…
B.F mum: Would you like some chicken?
Me: Yes please
B.F mum: Would you like some rice?
Me: Yes please
B.F mum: would you like a sharp poke in the eye?
Me: Yes please
Oh dear! I guess I’d leave them with a great first impression, one that spells ‘unintelligent neurotic dyslexic all smiling freak’! Well I dunno, maybe it would be fun, maybe it would go horribly wrong. On the bright side if it does, I’ll have another story to write home about.

Slumdog Millionaire

One word – OVERRATED!!!

More words - Reality TV shows, quite the ‘IN’ thing these days so it was about time someone made a movie out of it. When I first heard about it from friends, raving about how great it was to articles about it and the obvious – awards, I couldn’t wait to watch it. Yes that meant days of trying to find a good copy and after finding one to find out that it didn’t work on MY DVD player. After severe bouts of anger and a kind friend later I settle down with a copy of the movie that works.

Verdict – It was good. Not great! Loved the way they brought the title on screen, Dev Patel with his disguised British accent was good. Not great. The music was all right; it definitely didn’t live up to the vibe I expected. Now on that musical note I must mention that MIA’s lyrics and music worked absolutely well at the beginning, such a shocking surprise for me, since I dislike (hate I’m told is a strong word) her music.

Yeah so Slumdog is overrated. Who the hell am I to be making such a statement!

When realization hits that ignorance isn’t bliss

How does it make you feel?

I’ll tell you how it made me feel. Then maybe you’d like to share. 

It was pretty much like a jolt. An embarrassing one, like when you turn a corner and a friend of yours jumps at you, and you scream making everyone turn. Then your cheeks get all red and you yell at your friend just to save face. People tend to think it’s funny. I do too but not when it happens to me. Well that’s pretty much how I felt when I watched the Kite Runner. Have you watched it? 

Have you watched Batman? I bet you have. I went around asking my friends the two questions I have just asked you. 9 out of 10 have watched Batman and have liked it so much that they’ve watched it twice over. 1 out of that 10 watched the Kite Runner, and that happens to be me. It strange don’t you think that people are so interested in comic books than what really happens in the world. I guess people need entertainment to keep sane than watching 9 o’clock news or wait maybe it’s just that ignorance is bliss. Is it? 

I knew there was a war in Afghanistan from flicking through the papers to read the gossip columns. I also heard a few things now and then while channel surfing, never letting my fingers linger too long on the news channel. Forget Afghanistan, my country, the war ravaged Sri Lanka. I flick, because my life hasn’t been in that kind of danger, yet. So I live life with a cursory glance at what’s really happening. Terrible isn’t it?

As strange as this may sound… I want to do something about it. Oh no I can’t stop the war nor can I make the whole world listen to me. That’s the very thing I don’t want to do. I could though show more empathy. Listen to people more carefully. Forgive often. Talk to everybody. Offer to help, anytime. Stop being selfish. 

It’s tough but its better to understand humanity that stay disconnected from it.