Peeves. Pet Peeves

In case you’re wondering, yes, I are grumpy. Therefore I present to you:

Sheryll’s Mammoth(-ish) List of Pet Peeves/Hates

1. Automatic taps. For they do not obey me.

2. People who insist on pronouncing it 'arse' and correct me when I don't.

3. The word ‘economics’. Is it eh-co-NOH-mics or e-COH-no-mics or what?

4. People who say that love is blind. It’s not. If it were, gyms would go out of business.

5. Bathrooms with the door open.

6. Blond highlights on dark Indian chicks.

7. Guys who color their hair.

8. Fake accents.

9. People who move their hands too much. It’s so distracting. Although I’ll admit it. I do it too. Waddaya know? I’m my own pet peeve.

10. Auto drivers who try to race you.

11. Rainy days. Nothing good comes from rainy days except like, plants and trees and stuff.

12. People with 24/7 perfectly styled hair. It’s wrong and unnatural.

13. People who use big pretentious words like ‘juxtaposition’ or ‘plethora’. Who speaks like that anyways?

14. My insane pathetic need to make people think I’m smart. That juxtaposed (Heh heh) with my less than stellar memory for names, well… it sucks. Take the other day for instance. My boss and I were talking about management books, both network-wise and otherwise.
My Boss: So Walter Goralski’s written some really good books on management.
Me: You mean the guy who wrote ‘7 Habits for Highly Effective People’?
My Boss: (pause) No. I mean Walter from Documentation.
Fail.

15. People who fix their hair while looking at their reflection IN MY GLASSES. I want to take them outside and slap the road with their face.

16. When my jokes die.
All the conference rooms in my office are named after movies. The company’s spread over two buildings. So last Friday, my colleague and I were supposed to go to the other building for a meeting. It was in this conference room called Braveheart (I kid you not). We faithfully made our way there only to find out that they changed the venue to Finding Nemo (Still not kidding). In a strange twist of irony, no one knew when Finding Nemo was. The receptionists on the 3rd floor told us to go to the 4th floor. The folks on the 4th floor told us that it was in the 5th floor. The folks on the 5th floor told us to go to the 2nd floor. There is no 2nd floor. It’s occupied by another company. We finally found the conference room on the 1st floor only to be told that the venue was changed again. This time to a training room… which turned out to be right next to Braveheart (They may take our sanity, but they will never take OUR FREEDOM!!!). These two conference rooms literally shared a wall. Anyways, rants aside, we ended up arriving 20 minutes late.
Enter Sheryll and colleague (Big hug Preets!)
Me: Sorry we’re late. We couldn’t find Nemo.
Everyone else - *silence*

I hate everybody.

There's a Hole in My Bucket List, Dear Eliza, Dear Eliza.

I did not watch the Bucket List. So, in honor of that, I present to you-

“Sheryll’s Funky List of Things She Wants to Do/Learn… Eventually”

1. Learn to cook regular food… after all, man does not live on cookies alone.

2. Figure out how to wear a dupatta. My dupatta and I are like Oscar Wilde and the wallpaper in the room he died in– One of us has to go.

3. Learn all that I can about cars so that I’ll never get ripped off by another mechanic again! Right now, all I know is that the left wheel’s connected to the tail bone, and the battery’s connected to the femur. Wait. No. Huh?

4. Learn to play the guitar. Who knows? I might become the next Steve Vai, or the next Sid Vicious, or… Nancy.

5. Learn basic DIY skills and be able to fix things around the house… just to be able to say ‘Can I fix it? Yes I can!!’ (Bob the builder’s my hero.)

6. Learn to be competitive about things that matter, like my career and volleyball, instead of at things like charades and impromptu ‘walk-races’ with unsuspecting strangers.

7. Learn to not get monster annoyed when people call me ‘that girl’.

8. Learn to ride a bike. How awesomely bad-ass would I be then??

9. Learn to ride a bicycle. Yes. Yes. I am ashamed. But I was afraid of bicycles as a child. My brother tried to run me over with my tricycle when I was 4. I was so traumatized. OK, so it was just my toe. I’m sensitive ok? I’m a delicate lady and if you don’t agree with me, I’ll beat you to death with my pretty pink parasol.

10. Learn to walk like a girl. I’ve been told that I walk like a man. And not a very attractive one at that. Hmph. With family like this, who needs therapy? *slowly raises hand*

In other news, my darlingest baby sister, Shivonne, turned 21 this month. Ah Shivy, my voice of sartorial reason, I’d be running off to work in my jammies if it weren’t for you. At the risk of sounding totally Juno, you’re the cheese to my macaroni, the mavvadikaya to my pappu-korra (Hey, we’re Telugu. Get over it.) You’ve always been there for me even though I constantly embarrass you with my super-cool car dance moves. And after all this time, there’s only one question I want to ask you – What IS that strange ticking noise?

Memory Glands

I found my 10 year old slam book last night. In my defense, slambooks in Bangalore ’99 was like ‘ohmigod so totally the bomb and stuff’. Actually, no. Back then, I was your average religious yet free-spirited 12-year old – which meant that I loved sparkly lip gloss, Wrestle Mania, and Jesus. Hmmm… no wonder boys didn’t ask me out a lot. They didn’t know if I was going to perform the Inverted Indian Deathlock on them, or quote scripture.

That slambook reminded me of how things change. I discovered that way back in ’99, most of my now super-cool and devastatingly trendy friends absolutely adored Britney Spears. AND Celine Dion. I still think that they’re super cool and devastatingly trendy. But that’s probably because I’m fundamentally and tragically unhip. I too, am guilty of a Miss Spears fixation. I even watched Crossroads. Twice! (What can I say? I have a thing for punishment. Audio-visual style.)

That slambook also reminded me of how some things never do change. Like my horrific drawing skills. My version of the iconic Kuwait Towers looks like a ballpoint pen. My coloring skills were so outré, it looked like the leprechaun from Lucky Charms threw up a rainbow on the page.

That slambook got me all nostalgic for the time when my friends and I would fight over who gets to be Scary Spice. (I was always Ginger because I was not scary or sporty or posh or baby-like.) It reminded me of the time when we’d nickname ourselves after nail polish shades (Mystic Mahogany. Oh, how wrong you sound now.) I remember the time when we’d spend 45 minutes after every Friday Vesper service trying to color-coordinate our outfits for Sabbath the next day. Ah, the five of us. We were a force to be reckoned with. Force of Nature that is. (It’s an inside joke. Don’t pretend understanding.)

That slambook also got me thinking. About how we can never completely ‘know’ who we are. Not when we change so dramatically every five to ten years. Perhaps the best that we can aim for is to understand the phases we go through and still like ourselves… somewhat at least.

P.S. Funniest Thing I’ve Heard on T.V. in a Long Time:

Where – The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brian
When – A while ago.
What – “In the year 3000, babies will listen to dance music when Lady Gaga joins forces with the Goo Goo Dolls to form the super-group – Gaga Goo Goo”

Fell off the couch laughing? Check.
Milk through nose? Check.
Bu-bu-but… I wasn’t drinking any milk. Doom doom dooooooom.

-

If You're a Diva and You Know It, Clap Your Hands!

I’m not clapping.

I’m not a diva. Well, at least Facebook tells me I’m not. According to the Almighty FB, I’m not the beautiful Satine from Moulin Rouge. I’m not even Eliza Doolittle. Instead, it turns out that I am Mary “Spoonful of Sugar” Poppins. Great. Brilliant. I’m diva-stated. (Hyuk Hyuk)

Friends, Romans, countrymen, let me tell you one of life’s biggest truths- There’s nothing like a birthday to put you in one heck of a heavy duty philosophical blue funk. I turned 23 last Thursday and for the past whole week, I’ve obsessing over how little I’ve actually accomplished so far in my life. See, while the other 23-year olds are out changing the world one reality show at a time, the biggest challenge of my day is trying to figure out where Katy Perry fits on my Annoyometer. (Which, by the way, ranges from Level 1 - Slurred Vocals of Amy Winehouse i.e. surprisingly not, to Level 3 billion and 4 - Enrique’s sing/crying i.e. capable of inducing Chucky-like homicidal tendencies.) As of this very moment, she’s firmly entrenched in Level 4509 – Ross and Rachel’s story i.e. annoying… if I actually gave a crap.

Actually, truth be told, this past year hasn’t been completely uneventful. I discovered my inner prude this year. Now I can combat every one of my random friend’s “I got so wasted last night” story with an “Then I baked 5 dozen cookies and wrapped them in plastic wrap and apple green ribbons. It was just soo darling!” story. Great. I’m growing up to be Martha Stewart. Only less talented and/or street cred. Huh.

This year I also learned that while I do like to name drop jazz artists and listen to bands like The Beatles and Oasis on Imeem, it’s songs like Usher’s ‘Yeah!’ that make me want to shake my groove thang. (Did you wince at that 'groove thang' bit too? Groove thang, my foot - which, according to the Urban Dictionary, is not necessarily the same thing.)

You know how sometimes that pool of immobility (immobile-ness?) that your life languishes in becomes so overwhelming that you think that you’re either going to explode or implode with all the stationary-ness?

No? OK, guess it’s just me then.

Either way you know what happens then? When it gets to be more than you think you can bear? You'd think that suddenly outta nowhere something spectacular might happen, right? Some sort of epiphany at least, right?? Wrong. Nothing happens. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing is ever going to happen. Not unless we get up and do something about it. (I figure that if I say it enough, I might actually get up too.) But I have this hope. Yeah, yeah, the kind that burns within my heart. A hope that perhaps this year will be different. That this year I’ll finally find what I’m looking for. My erm... raison d'être I think it’s called. Truth is, I’d even settle for just finding out WHAT it is in the first place.

For those who HAVE found it, have you hugged your raison today?

P.S. A few people have asked me if all the events in my last post are true. OK fine. ONE person asked me that. But just to clear things up, yes, everything I mentioned in the last post is true. Down to the last, excruciatingly embarrassing detail. Well, except for the fact that I'm not delusional-ly optimistic. I'm not really a glass half full kinda person. Or a glass half empty one either actually. I'm more of a 'Drink up or Shut up' kinda person. So there.

I Like to Sing-a, About the Moon-a and the June-a and the Spring-a, I Like to Sing-a!

When I grow up, while I DO want to be famous, want to be a star, yada, yada, yada, there are some things I just cannot do.

Things I cannot be when I grow up
1. Rock goddess
2. Folk singer
3. Cast member of Cats
4. Maria von Trapp
5. A waitress

Here’s why.

Imagine a CSI meets L.A. Law inspired opening scene. (Tan TAN!)

Date: 31st May, 2009
Time: 6 P.M. (or it’s thereabouts)
Place: Sunshine Orphanage, Bangalore
Victims: Sheryll’s ego and everyone’s ear drums

But, How?

The Adventist Youth dept put up a program at Sunshine orphanage that fateful Saturday evening, and one of the scheduled ‘events’ was that we had to teach the kids a song. Well, Shivonne had to anyways. She couldn’t make it so I bravely stepped forward. I mean, how bad could it be, right?

Wrong.

It was bad. Really bad. So bad that one uncle later told me that he had never heard ONE song sung in so many different pitches. In his vote of thanks, the church pastor thanked me for the lovely songs I taught them. SongS?? It was ONE song! Guess not everyone understands the musical stylings of Sheryll ‘Norah Jones’ Sampson.

So there I was, singing ‘I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills, I love the… Baaaaah’

What the? A sheep? In the middle of campus?? How? When? Why??? And in all confusion, I blurted out (and loud) the first thing that came to my mind.

'It wasn’t me.'

Gah!

Turns out that one of the AY leaders was testing out the animal noises he’d downloaded for a Noah’s Ark skit which we were going to perform after my song.

But seriously Bean, sheep? What next? Elephant noises?

Yes. Yes indeed. I bravely smiled, joked with the audience, and continued singing ‘I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills, I love the… pppppppppphhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwww...’

This is getting old.

Thanks to my awesome powers of delusional optimism (aka glass half full… with nectar of the gods… and magically slimming Lindt chocolate-itis), I see at least two upsides to this sad and sordid story.
1. I’ve got new material for Chapter 4 of my autobiography – ‘How I Became the Crazy Cat Lady’ (working title. Also called ‘How to Die Alone’)
2. I was so bad that the kids forgot that I was supposed to teach them a song and thought I was part of the regular entertainment. It’s like George Burns once said “If I get big laughs, I'm a comedian. If I get little laughs, I'm a humorist. If I get no laughs, I'm a singer.”
I got big laughs, people (person?), BIG laughs. Conan O’Brian better watch his back or the dude’s job is so Bangalored, baby!

Huh.

And why not a waitress you ask? Coz I’m so heavy duty clumsy I make my momma cry, that’s why.

Sing it with me, people! Boom-di-ala, Boom-di-ala, Boom-di-ala, Boom-di-ala...

My Name is Wha?

I was this close to being named Maradona. After the Argentinean football legend. See, while I was still erm… in utero, everyone thought I was going to be a boy. And of all names in the world, my mom came up with Shawn (Sean?) Maradona. Well, if it makes things any clearer, yes, I was born in June 1986 and yes, my mother IS a Malayali Christian.

I believe that Sheryll Marion is definitely a marked improvement over Shawn Maradona. I like my name. I think it’s purty. However, I do know several people who would disagree. I also know several people who cannot pronounce or spell my name correctly. I’ve been called everything from Shreyal to Sherly to Simpson (it’s Sampson) to wait for it… Poison! That last one was what my Electronics Circuits Professor used to call me in college. Well… at least I think it was poison. It kinda also sounded like moison. Apparently getting your PHD means that while you do learn to write, you also forget how to read.

So it’s been a month since they changed my name on the office nameplate to a Poornima Goswami. At first I totally freaked. I mean what if this is the company’s passive aggressive way of saying 'Ciao'? Who's going to support my snacking addiction now?? Anyways, after ten very hyper-dramatic minutes, I found out that I wasn’t going anywhere. Phew! (Cue Sally Field’s ‘You like me! You really like me!’ speech.) Either way, it’s been a month and my name (according to my cabin door, at least) is still Poornima. On the plus side, I am growing accustomed to this particular name. Mainly because all the Poornimas I know are confident, smart, and tall, which aren’t lousy qualities to have. And the Goswami bit does make me feel just a little closer to my own latent Bengali roots (my mom’s dad was a Mukherjee). It got me thinking. What if my name was Poornima Goswami? Would I be an entirely different person? What if my name was, I don’t know, Matilda? Would I still be lousy at sports and therefore super competitive at Charades? What IS in a name anyways? Sure, Shakespeare was all ‘a rose by another name would still smell as sweet’. But what if it were named ALottaStinkyPoo? Would it still be considered the flower of ‘romance’? After all, nothing kills romance like a lotta stinky poo.

I read somewhere that in some cultures, people wait three or four years before naming their child. Apparently since a name is the ultimate expression of self, it’s prudent to wait till your kid’s personality actually ‘surfaces’ before you ‘label’ it with a well, a name. I guess those folks are just really paranoid about mistaking their Zac Efrons for Elmer Fudds. We can’t have that now, can we? It makes sense to me though. Like most Indian kids born between 1970 to 1990, I have two names – my ‘real’ name and my pet name. When I was younger, I used to think that I really was two different people. Sheryll was the calm(-er), mature(-er), and more hardworking one, while Chinky (Chinka, Chinkla, and other derivatives) was the nutty, noisy brat. Of course once I grew up, I put away all childish things (such as schizophrenia), and so Sheryll and Chinky became one massive nutty, noisy, guffawing entity.

I’m still not entirely sure what my man Shakespeare meant about names, but either way, I’ll think twice before I order a bouquet of ALottaStinkyPoo and baby’s breath.

Life, Love, and a Kettle of Fish

You know that ‘times are a-changing’ when instead of forcing you to read articles about higher education, your loved ones start handing you pamphlets on ‘How to get your Dream Guy’. Articles filled with golden nuggets of wisdom on attaining instant couple-y bliss.

Sample Nugget 1: Speak softly and always carry an attractive shade of lipstick. (Because you know, when it comes to finding your soul mate, nothing works better than Maybelline Moisture Whip in Wine Divine. Huh.)

Sample Nugget 2. Do not be a Know-It-All. Sure we’re annoying people, but if some random dude comes up to me and starts talking about Jane Austen, that firebrand Mexican author who wrote that great book ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, I just might go all Nacho Libre on someone.

2009 has been the year of the wedding. About 5 of my friends got hitched this year and it’s only May. Being ‘next in line’ (*rolls eyes*) at the ‘ripe old age of almost 23’, I get asked the Question. A lot. The ‘So when’s YOUR turn?’ question. If I got a Kit Kat for every time I’ve been asked this asinine question, I’d be pretty well, rubenesque. Which I am. *Draw conclusion here*

But even though my life is a blooming Wet Wet Wet song (Because Love. It’s all around.), it took a silly forward to get me thinking about life, love, and a kettle of fish.

It went something like this –

‘He climbed the tallest mountain, swam the deepest ocean, and walked across the hottest desert for her.
She left him because he was never home.’

Silly though it may be, it really got me thinking. What IS this love we keep harping on about? Why this, quite frankly, sadomasochistic need to ‘cross a blazing hot desert’ to prove your ‘undying’, intense affection? What’s the point?

So one of the many things I’ve learned about myself is that I’m not essentially an overly romantic person. OK, so I DO buy into the whole Mr. /Ms Right concept. But I’m also aware that Right does not necessarily equal Perfect. OK sure, I love listening to how couples met and fell in love, but I also know that it need not happen to everyone. Sure, I believe in monogamy but – no wait, there are no buts for this one. I just do. End of story. The thing is I just don’t get the whole flowers and V-day candle-lit meals thing, I mean sure, it’s fun and all, but I really don’t see the point if you’re going to spend the rest of the year in an ungrateful, unequal, unpleasant relationship where one person does all the giving and the other, all the taking. Call me crazy, but while I WOULD like to be swept off my feet (Ha! Fat chance. Literally.), I’d like it even more if, once in a while, the floor got swept too. Of course, I don’t expect servitude (Although that would be kinda fun. Hail Queen Sheryll! Giggle.), but an occasional helping hand would be well, helpful. (Consider this last paragraph as a long winded explanation to why my answer to the ‘turn’ question is ‘Not any time soon’.)

But then again, contradictory as this may sound, like every other girl, I too look forward to one day hearing those three wonderful, magical words –
‘I have chocolate’.

-
Shout out to Princely! Coz I can. ;)