I am back in Toronto, and it seems like I never left this place. I guess there is something to be said about home and the familiarity. I landed in Toronto with the flu, and this past week has been somewhat miserable, yet I probably couldn't have chosen a better time or place to fall sick :) Now, I'm feeling 90% better, and definitely looking forward to the rest of this year :D.
2008 has been a pretty amazing year for me, a lot of twists and turns, some highs I never thought I'd reach or aim for, and a few lows, nonetheless it's been a good year for me. This year has witnessed a lot of changes in my life and in the lives of people I know. Personally, I've made new friends, travelled to different places on my own, tried and failed at so many things, yet I've also succeeded at others, learnt a few hard lessons along the way, about myself and those around me. I finally got to see my beautiful niece and nephews in India, spent a long vacation with my grandmother without worrying about work or school, started grad school, made some lasting friendships, succeeded at cooking for more than 3 people simultaneously :).
As I look back at the past year, the most important thing seems to be my yen to look forward to the future. My experiences in 2008 have brought me to this point, where I have so much more to look forward to than I would if I just looked behind me.
Isn't it so fascinating, the way we emphasize our highs and lows based on the people we share it with? Be it our parents, sisters, brothers, cousins, family, friends, spouse/partner, or colleagues, the moments we remember, the memories we create, the emotions we feel, are all the stronger because of the people we associate with those moments, memories and emotions.
Here's to my last blog for the year, and hoping everyone has a fabulous 2009 with people you love and trust. Cheers!
Toronto...
tender flakes swirling by
melting as they touch my cheek
I feel the ice in my veins
even as I try to catch the drops on my tongue
I face the sun
with my eyes closed
and arms outstretched
yearning to reach the warmth
Snow storm all around me
Blinding white in its beauty
The sun shining bright
keeping the illusion of warmth nearby
People thunder by
snuggled warm, as they trudge to work
A snow storm is all in a day's work
for those around me today
A land of diverse natures
the first home I know
Snow storms, wind chill, bright and cold
Toronto, in all its different flavors...
By Angela Archana Vincent
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Saturday, December 15, 2007
People..idiocy..moods
My blogs typically contain a modified and rather edited version of my thoughts and opinions. Today, I wish to discuss people, their idiosyncrasies and the fluctuating moods.
Personally and professionally, I have interacted with many people, and as a species, we tend to let our emotions (moods and idiosyncrasies) rule our life - how we speak, what we say, who we talk to, our topics, friends, families, everyhting is dependent predominantly on our emotions. With that being said, it's a strange balance we maintain in our lives.
As a socio-cultural anthropology student, I've studied and discussed how culture affects our thoughts, actions, life structure and even our words. However, as a student of linguistic anthropology, I've always been fascinated with and impressed by how our language shapes our lives and choices. Earlier, I said that our emotions rule our life and various aspects of it. But language is a very intricate part of that balance, and without culture and language, we will be unable to express our emotions.
For example, let's imagine, a professor has an unruly student in his course, for purpose of maturity, let's assume this is a graduate course. In such a case, the unruliness would mean disruptiveness, questioning the instructor's knowledge/authority, and other such stupid actions. Now let's talk about how this instructor would phrase an order/request to the student about submitting his assignment on time - CASE 1, wherein the emotional distance between the speaker and the audience is great, and the 'request/act' is 'threatening' the audience's 'face'.
Now, let's look at another situation, let's imagine, a husband asks his wife to remind him about an upcoming friends birthday, and when the wife calls him at work to remind him, he doesn't answer her calls. Further, he tells her that he is chatting with friends, and can't talk to her. Now let's talk about how the wife would respond to her husband - CASE 2, wherein the emotional distance between the speaker and the audience is very small, but the 'request/act' is 'threatening' the speaker's 'face' and may also 'threaten' the audience's 'face'.
There are millions of other situations which can be imagined or real, where we encounter these items - emotional distance, threatening acts, and faces. These terms might be alien to most audiences, however a lingusitic athropologist/student, would immediately recognize what I am leading to - it's a very interesting and highly debated topic - Face Threatening Acts. To simplify, it tells us that people, use acts of politeness (a.k.a. be nice to other people) based on some criteria (distance, threatening acts and faces). The faces they refer to are not the physical form, rather the socio-cultural face we present to each other.
In our daily life, we use these FTAs quite often, without ever recognizing it. However, when you recognize them, you are now capable of deciding whether the FTA you originally intended to use was appropriate or not. Of course, every situation has multiple variables which tend to influence our acts, and any subject/text can never correctly reflect all these variations. For example, I find that one of the biggest variables that affect the FTA we perform, is the time factor. Based on the incidence time (when the situation occured) to the performance time (when the FTA will occur) and the reaction time (when the audience will react to the FTA), the actual FTA gets modified quite often.
In the above situations, it's very easy to imagine the instructor being quite stern with the student about the assignment submission (FTA), immediately after the unruliness. Similarly, in case 2, the wife may be quite vocal with her disapproval(FTA) immediately after the phone call. However, in both situations, if the FTA occurs after an elapsed period of time (2 hours to 2 days or even 2 weeks), then the level of FTA would be minor compared to it's original effect. Still, I should point out, that in each of those cases, whenever the FTA occurs, the level of FTA would never be the same in both the cases, because the distance between the audience and the speaker is different in each case.
Can you see why I love and am quite intrigued with exploring culture, society, language, words and most importantly, how they affect our behavior? Everything in our lives, from health care policies, hospital administration, university educational systems, politics, families and patriotism, is underlined by this interacting and quite complicated system of words and behaviour.
Personally and professionally, I have interacted with many people, and as a species, we tend to let our emotions (moods and idiosyncrasies) rule our life - how we speak, what we say, who we talk to, our topics, friends, families, everyhting is dependent predominantly on our emotions. With that being said, it's a strange balance we maintain in our lives.
As a socio-cultural anthropology student, I've studied and discussed how culture affects our thoughts, actions, life structure and even our words. However, as a student of linguistic anthropology, I've always been fascinated with and impressed by how our language shapes our lives and choices. Earlier, I said that our emotions rule our life and various aspects of it. But language is a very intricate part of that balance, and without culture and language, we will be unable to express our emotions.
For example, let's imagine, a professor has an unruly student in his course, for purpose of maturity, let's assume this is a graduate course. In such a case, the unruliness would mean disruptiveness, questioning the instructor's knowledge/authority, and other such stupid actions. Now let's talk about how this instructor would phrase an order/request to the student about submitting his assignment on time - CASE 1, wherein the emotional distance between the speaker and the audience is great, and the 'request/act' is 'threatening' the audience's 'face'.
Now, let's look at another situation, let's imagine, a husband asks his wife to remind him about an upcoming friends birthday, and when the wife calls him at work to remind him, he doesn't answer her calls. Further, he tells her that he is chatting with friends, and can't talk to her. Now let's talk about how the wife would respond to her husband - CASE 2, wherein the emotional distance between the speaker and the audience is very small, but the 'request/act' is 'threatening' the speaker's 'face' and may also 'threaten' the audience's 'face'.
There are millions of other situations which can be imagined or real, where we encounter these items - emotional distance, threatening acts, and faces. These terms might be alien to most audiences, however a lingusitic athropologist/student, would immediately recognize what I am leading to - it's a very interesting and highly debated topic - Face Threatening Acts. To simplify, it tells us that people, use acts of politeness (a.k.a. be nice to other people) based on some criteria (distance, threatening acts and faces). The faces they refer to are not the physical form, rather the socio-cultural face we present to each other.
In our daily life, we use these FTAs quite often, without ever recognizing it. However, when you recognize them, you are now capable of deciding whether the FTA you originally intended to use was appropriate or not. Of course, every situation has multiple variables which tend to influence our acts, and any subject/text can never correctly reflect all these variations. For example, I find that one of the biggest variables that affect the FTA we perform, is the time factor. Based on the incidence time (when the situation occured) to the performance time (when the FTA will occur) and the reaction time (when the audience will react to the FTA), the actual FTA gets modified quite often.
In the above situations, it's very easy to imagine the instructor being quite stern with the student about the assignment submission (FTA), immediately after the unruliness. Similarly, in case 2, the wife may be quite vocal with her disapproval(FTA) immediately after the phone call. However, in both situations, if the FTA occurs after an elapsed period of time (2 hours to 2 days or even 2 weeks), then the level of FTA would be minor compared to it's original effect. Still, I should point out, that in each of those cases, whenever the FTA occurs, the level of FTA would never be the same in both the cases, because the distance between the audience and the speaker is different in each case.
Can you see why I love and am quite intrigued with exploring culture, society, language, words and most importantly, how they affect our behavior? Everything in our lives, from health care policies, hospital administration, university educational systems, politics, families and patriotism, is underlined by this interacting and quite complicated system of words and behaviour.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
First Snow of the Season
Yesterday night, at 2am I was staring out my window when I saw the season's first flakes hit the ground. I woke up today and saw a white carpet outside my window.
Everytime I see the ground carpeted with the season's first snow, I am fascinated.
I wish I was 5 years old, and I could run outside and make snow angels or have a snow fight with friends. We have a 2 year old in the house today and his excitement is contagious. Children have a way of making you forget everything except their instantaneous pleasures :)
As I write this, I am brooding over a lot of different things, but I hear his little feet thundering outside my door, and that brings a smile to my face. For little pleasures, I am thankful today.
Happy thanksgiving!
Everytime I see the ground carpeted with the season's first snow, I am fascinated.
I wish I was 5 years old, and I could run outside and make snow angels or have a snow fight with friends. We have a 2 year old in the house today and his excitement is contagious. Children have a way of making you forget everything except their instantaneous pleasures :)
As I write this, I am brooding over a lot of different things, but I hear his little feet thundering outside my door, and that brings a smile to my face. For little pleasures, I am thankful today.
Happy thanksgiving!
Monday, September 17, 2007
Being first..
In any relationship, I've always felt it is never a matter of who's first - who makes the first move, who puts in a greater effort or who makes amends. Today I realized that there are only so many times a person will attempt to be the 'first person' in a relationship. If the other person doesn't respond postively, we give up.
With my friends, I've never placed any importance on who called first, or how long they haven't responded to me. I think I am rather the type to give my trust and friendship slowly, but once given, it's for life. So, I've had instances when my friends would not talk to me for months on end, and when they suddenly remember something they need, they will call me up, and I'll help if I can. Am I being used? Maybe. Am I ignorant about that fact? No, but friends are there for each other, no matter what. There have been instances when I was younger, when I behaved exactly the same way, so I can't afford to be 'victimized' just because they are acting a little selfish now.
However, after being at the receiving end of such a relationship for a few times too many, you give up.
Today I gave up. Why, who, what, all of those points seem rather invalid at the moment. I only know that today, a very important part of me decided to give up. I will not try again. I refuse to be the person who has to make the effort at all times. In fact, I no longer even wish to continue with this line of thought. I am going to have dinner, study, watch a movie and go to sleep.
Maybe there's something to be said about living like Thoreau..the story I read in gr 6/7, now sounds so tempting!!!!
With my friends, I've never placed any importance on who called first, or how long they haven't responded to me. I think I am rather the type to give my trust and friendship slowly, but once given, it's for life. So, I've had instances when my friends would not talk to me for months on end, and when they suddenly remember something they need, they will call me up, and I'll help if I can. Am I being used? Maybe. Am I ignorant about that fact? No, but friends are there for each other, no matter what. There have been instances when I was younger, when I behaved exactly the same way, so I can't afford to be 'victimized' just because they are acting a little selfish now.
However, after being at the receiving end of such a relationship for a few times too many, you give up.
Today I gave up. Why, who, what, all of those points seem rather invalid at the moment. I only know that today, a very important part of me decided to give up. I will not try again. I refuse to be the person who has to make the effort at all times. In fact, I no longer even wish to continue with this line of thought. I am going to have dinner, study, watch a movie and go to sleep.
Maybe there's something to be said about living like Thoreau..the story I read in gr 6/7, now sounds so tempting!!!!
Monday, July 9, 2007
Apologies
Why are apologies so difficult? I am absolutely horrible at apologizing, and I'm talking deep-down-Im-sorry kinda apologies which I reserve for my family and very close friends. The daily humdrum Im sorry's spill out without a momentt's notice and it doesnt affect me at all. But when I do something really stupid, and my family knows what I'm talking about, I cannot apologise. I do not know how to apologise gracefully, when I'm the one trying to make the apology. I have a zillion ideas for a good apology, when someone else has to do it. When that person is moi, I draw a blank.
Anyway, the purpose of all that humdrum is to apologize - in public with all humility (kinda - don't overdo it though, this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing with me, so enjoy it while it lasts) - to my family whom I yell at, throw hissyfits, be moody, sullen, erratic (I think that's enough humility for one day) and so on, for brief moments before the clarity of my usual self regains prominence :):)..For all those moments, and many more which I will not mention, I..aah..umm..ahh......I'm sorry :)
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