mixednut82 on Xanga

Weblog

Monday, 16 June 2008

Migration

I am no longer using Xanga. I have migrated to Blogspot. My new site is:
http://www.amandakar.blogspot.com

It's a nicer look and feel!

Monday, 26 May 2008

Photo Updates

Happy Anniversary! April 28th. One year old cake was still good.

Visiting the Mazumdar's in Texas. Good trip.

Aneesh (Tito)

Anirudh (Togo)

Saturday, 17 May 2008

India
Well, time again has come for the visit to India, and it's tentatively planned for mid-August this year. This trip will potentially be half family visit with 2 year overdue wedding reception, and half honeymoon venture. Including a tangent flight and train trip, we are planning our honeymoon for Agra, which is home to the beautiful and romantic Taj Mahal. I will probably fall to my knees upon seeing it.
I have to admit that trips to India are somewhat of a mental challenge for me, since I am just learning the language. This time I know very basically how the language works, and I can at least communicate something. (Probably.)
Since my last visit 2 years ago was my very first visit to the country, I've now been able to put together a list of reminders for when I travel there this time around:
- bring an umbrella - it's the monsoon season
- pack breakable things inside wads of clothing if you check those bags
- airport workers are ROUGH with your bags, so carry on fragile stuffs
- watch out when opening gel containers after landing - they'll become over-pressured!
- TAKE the toilet paper from the lady standing in the restroom corner at the Delhi airport - DON'T ignore her! or prepare for consequences
- touch elders' feet at greeting and say "Nomoshkar!"
- don't drink the water unless it's made in-home - and drink it from the bottle, not from the faucet
I find it funny that when you see white people in the Indian airports they are most often hippies, or hippie-looking in some way, with hemp sandals and tie-dyed long flowy skirts. Perhaps they find that holidays in India will be like The Darjeeling Limited, so they can find a place of solitude for prayer and meditation and being in nature-ness (if they can tune out the overstuffed traffic, pollution and yelling across streets). Or maybe they go in order to spread love and peace.
God love the hippies.

Sunday, 23 March 2008

Childlike - Godlike

I used to be defensive when people call me naive or childish. Actually I guess I still am defensive, but I'm trying to understand that I need to move out of defense, and find some sort of balance between being just the right amount of worldly-adultish, but still retain the beneficial ways of being childlike.

I believe that in God's perfect world, God would like us all to be like children: inquisitive, naive, and curious about God's simple and complex workings of nature. The things I believe God does not really want us exposed to (or fall trap to) is greed, money, untruth, arrogance, luxury, and lust. These things are standard adult dealings. It's so normal in everyday life to deal with money and jobs and considerations like that. Of course, it's easy to understand that most of the ways of society are not the ways God intends for us to live. God wants us to be God's innocent children.

This is why I think it's so crucial to understand kids, and in being in their presence, to become once again the child we once were. This is why I want to have kids. Children are God's reminder to us of how God wants us to be. And it's so wrong when Mattel comes out with toys that try to encourage kids to grow up more, or to enjoy 'stuff' obsession, glamour and materialism.

As an adult, I often feel confused and annoyed because I am one such person who has retained a lot of childlikeness, but it often doesn't fit into the expected role of an adult in today's society. I am amused by small and simple things. I like to dance around my living room. My mind wanders when talk of finance, jobs and politics come up. I like to look at things up close on the floor. I like to trace raindrops on windows with my fingers. My first thought on everything is an optimistic one, and that people will always be nice to you. ... Being an actual adult, I have to remind myself that everyone is out in this world for their own gain, either to get you or to leave you behind. Not everyone is nice to you, and you really can only trust a small group of people who truly understand you. I have to remind myself not to reveal certain things which untrusted people could use against me. This is a terrible and unGodlike phenomenon.

Although society would love to take advantage of me because of my naivety, I believe God smiles at me all the more. The best thing, however, is the balance... to be real and knowing about the workings of today's world without being arrogant, conniving, greedy or lustful, but to more so be innocent, curious, appreciative, and above all else, loving.

I think God wants us to be God's real children again. We've strayed so far from it.

Sunday, 24 February 2008

Lan Guage

I think learning a new language is one of the most productive things a person can do. Whether or not you are going to use the language on a daily basis, you learn vital things in the learning process. Most significantly, you learn to empathize with those of other ethnicities who make the effort to come to your homeland and try to make a living there.

Having learned basically 3 languages now (not fluent in any yet, but anyway...), I think about all the new words and phrases I've learned and try to create my own sentence structures and standard phrases to communicate. It is difficult. I want to communicate something, but before I can, I have to search my very small lexicon to say something which A.) makes sense, and B.) makes sense with my pronunciation of it. So I think twice. Once on what word to use, twice on how to correctly pronounce it, and not say something like "I cannot live anymore" when I mean to say "I cannot sit anymore". Terrible!

My newest endeavor in linguistics is to be able to communicate with my mother-in-law. She appears to me to be a very headstrong and interesting person to talk to, so I hope I can do this effectively in her lifetime. I have absolutely very little confidence communicating with her now, but I'm working on my basics currently, and at my own pace I should become somewhat of a sense-making speaker in her language.

I'm taking this entry as my memory practice sheet. Here is what Bengali I remember so far (no text book being used!). (Raj, please comment to correct any of my mistakes.)

Amar nam Mandy (My name is Mandy)
Tomar nam ki? (Your name is what?)
Ami ar boshbona (I will not sit any longer)
Ami ar bachbona (I will not live any longer)
Ami khabo (I shall eat)
Tomar am khub garom (Your mango is very hot (temperature))
Shunun! (Listen!)
Ora shobai, mongolbar gaelo (On Tuesday, they all went) (They all, on Tuesday went.)
Amar noukota khub shundor (My boat is very beautiful)
Ackta tebil, tinta am, tinta appel (One table, three mangoes, three apples)
Rajer nokh (Raj's fingernail)
Babar tupita nil (Dad's hat is blue)
O amar bon (She is my sister)
Ma khabena mangso shukrabar (Mom doesn't eat meat on Friday)
Amar angul lal (My finger is red)
E boikhana kar? (Whose books are these?)
Kaemon chholche? (How's it going?)
Ar kaoya-daoya, please (More food, please)
Amake bolbe abar (Tell me again)
Eta ki? (This is what?)
Mandir kaoya-daoyata garom (Mandy's food is hot)
Aro etuku (A little bit more)
Oi shob amar? (Is all of this mine?)

This is all I can piece together with my current memory, and that took me more than half an hour, which shows how slow I am. But I am learning, slow but sure

Thursday, 14 February 2008

Happy Valentine's Day!

I made strawberry scones for breakfast today.

We went out to dinner at Cafe Eau at the Chase Park Plaza. Fun times at fancy hotels.

I look cross-eyed, but no matter.

Raj is my man.

We frequently pose like someone candidly shot us during conversation.

I like this one. It looks like an album cover. Raj is jammin'.

This one is for free, because he has a cute smile.

Another thing for free...

Anyone remember when I was really bored at the computer lab on campus and came up with this mini series of kitty suicide comics which I drew? I'll re-share some with you:

Those are classic. Not related to Valentine's Day, but is related to cycling through old Xanga photos.

Tuesday, 22 January 2008

Major downfalls to American society
- according to Mandy
- Consumerism (i.e. need for 'stuff')
- Name brand clothing (I thought we all wanted to be unique individuals?)
- Fast food
- The fact that wasting resources doesn't bother us
- Cake (and its many avatars, i.e. donuts, muffins, 'cake cookies', etc.)
- High heels (heel type being pencil-circumference)
more to come as I think of them.

Friday, 11 January 2008

Check out my website, I've just started my own photography business!

http://www.amkarphoto.com

Thursday, 03 January 2008

Epiphany of Our Lord

Coming up this weekend is the Epiphany, the event from ancient history when three wise kings from the East came to know of the birth of the Saviour, and therefore set out to praise his coming and offer him gifts.

Yesterday, Beth and I sat in front of our plaster hand painted nativity scene (circa 1978), pondering the historical accuracy of the event, and how often it most likely is mis-portrayed in today's representations of manger scenes. Let's see what we found in ours:

Gaspar, chipped and torn after many play periods, presents the gift of tikki lamp...

Melchior, missing a nose, but still doin' alright, presents the Holy Grail (for later use)...

Balthasar, still in pretty good shape, presents cheddar cheese.

As we sat analyzing the scene, we mostly made note of the probability that these guys aren't so much historically inaccurate as they are just painted wrong. I felt the need to repaint them, but mom doesn't believe that the coating of 1978 should be lifted. We also decided that Jesus should not have blue eyes, should not look 4 years old for that matter, and that all of these characters need a more middle eastern look, easily fixable with black hair and darker skin. We also could not decide whether Gaspar's black beard and brown hair was a mistake or not. But then we just decided that dad thought it was hair, so he painted it brown, when it really looks more to have been a hat or crown like Balthasar's.

I love this nativity set. It's been around my whole life. To us as kids they were more like nativity action figures. That is why the camel's neck, the angel's wing, and Gaspar's head all have visible glue lines on them. I remember the episode where Jesus luged down the slope of the stable in his crib. It was funny today when Indie (the cat) gently pawed at Jesus' head like it was going to roll away with a jingly toy inside of it. Says Beth: "I don't think there was a giant cat at the manger scene."

However, I sure think Balthasar's cheese wheel idea was pretty good. I mean, cheese was hard to make back then. And all that time curdling in a sack hanging off a camel... pretty awesome.

Monday, 31 December 2007

2007 was stressful and trapping and loving and longing. I felt trapped in this city while my husband was having difficult times living away. He spent almost half the year living in motel rooms. I spent 90% of the year on the phone with him; 10% of it actually seeing him. I got married, which was happy, but the days surrounding it were full of government, immigration and job concerns. I went to Florida, I went to Colorado, and kept touching base in Missouri in between. I don't even want to know how much I spent on airfare this year. We rode the job roller coaster. I thought I was moving to Colorado... moved there... he got a job in St. Louis... moved back to Missouri. My sister moved to Tennessee. My other sister is moving back to St. Louis. I stuck out a job I hated for such a long time, quit it, then began the workings of putting together my own business which is still under construction. I'm really excited about it; I think it will work. I've liberated my creativity by quitting corporatude and embarking on what I really enjoy doing. I'm going to be settled and happy in 2008.

My husband is moving here to live with me, in just 4 days! It'll be the real beginning. We'll be really together. It feels intangible yet, almost. I'm still getting used to the novelty of living with my husband. I can't wait to pick him up from the airport, curl my arms around him, and know that his visit is no longer temporary. It's home.

For 2008 we will make a solid base.