off with her head!!

    Growing up as the daughter of immigrants in the States, it was always reiterated to me that failure was not an option. So when I inevitably failed early on in life, what happened next?

    A lot of the time growing up, I would watch Indian girls in media who had the same upbringing as me, and I would feel an almost embarrassing amount of jealousy because I could never be them. I always struggled with math. I had the hardest time making meaningful friendships. I never seemed to succeed at the level they did. I wanted nothing more than to be the smart Indian nerd that everyone stereotyped us to be.

And so I tried to become her.

    I signed up for every advanced and AP class I could in middle and high school (rest assured, I could barely pass them). I did dual enrollment for the last two years of high school, taking about 50 college credits with me (I failed Gen Chem 2). I signed up for countless internships, research opportunities, and summer programs (I never got into any of them). And, perhaps the biggest failure of all, I didn’t get into my dream schools in California. UCSC, UCD, UCM, UCR, and SJSU don’t count.

    I’m saying all of this not to throw myself a pity party, but to say that it is, in fact, possible to be a failure, even when you look like me or grew up like me. Even in the ridiculously expensive suburbs of the Bay Area in NorCal. Even when everyone around you seems to have this very specific idea of what you’re supposed to become.

    I remember the first time I watched *Mean Girls* (the newer movie, yes, I know it’s trash) and saw Avantika play Karen. It was the first time I can remember seeing an Indian girl play a funny, carefree, genuinely dumb character. And I loved it.

    I want more representation like that because, honestly, it’s just the truth.  Not all of us can be ivy league grads curing world hunger, some of us have to hold it down in georgia state university. 

And some of us are going to be perfectly okay there.

things i want to do b4 i turn 19

With the new school year literally starting on Monday, it’s starting to hit me just how quickly time has passed. That being said, I’m trying to stay so hopeful and excited for the year to come, and in doing that, I’ve collected a good list of things I want to do before I turn 19:

1. I want to eat more cuisines of food

My family has a really traditional Indian palate and we are vegetarian, which restricts a lot of what I’ve eaten growing up. I LOVE food and cooking, and it’s genuinely my dream to try every cuisine possible, so this year I want to get more adventurous.

2. I want to start AND finish a Persian tile blanket

If you’ve read far enough (I love all 9 of you), you know how badly I want to start one. But if I do, it can’t be like any of my other projects. I have to color coordinate, buy enough yarn, and do all the research possible beforehand. Praying I actually follow through with this one.

3. I want to run a half marathon

I’m so sorry, but I am in fact a pretentious person that runs. Don’t get your hopes too high though, because I do sub a 12 minute mile and love taking breaks, so I’m not your traditional runner by any means. I was SO close to doing an actual marathon last year, but life got in the way. I’m taking it down a notch and starting with a half marathon to hopefully jumpstart this.

4. I want to talk to a girl

After a bad breakup two years ago, I went a bit crazy and made a lot of regrettable decisions. Now that it’s been a solid few years, I want to rekindle that part of myself. I wouldn’t say I’m “looking for love”, I am in fact a STEM major and extremely busy, but if it so happened to come into my life, I wouldn’t be mad lmaoo.

5. I want to visit Covington, GA

Since going to NOLA to see loustat’s birthplace (please watch iwtv, I beg of you) might not be on the calendar this year, I fear being pre-med will fully consume my life, I will settle for the Vampire Diaries hometown of Covington.

It’s actually only an hour away from my house, which deeply shocks me. Hopefully this also serves as motivation to finally get licensed. #idontwannatalkaboutit

gotta be down cause i want it all

    I’m having seriously conflicting feelings about who I want to be. My entire life, I have always had a plan. Has the plan changed? Yes, of course. I started kindergarten saying I was going to be a painter, then by third grade it turned into baker, and by middle school I settled into engineering because I learned of the concept of money. 

    Freshman year of high school, I had a hyper fixation on planes, so aerospace it was. Oh, but then I got kicked out of the aerospace club, so in retaliation, I did a 360 and switched to biomedical engineering. Then, the summer of sophomore year, I watched my grandma fall down the slippery slope of Parkinson’s and shadowed my doctor aunt in India, which casually made me change my mind and decide I wanted to become a doctor. Cool. So I would major in biomedical engineering with a plan to go to medical school.

    I did dual enrollment for the last two years of high school and realized VERY quickly that engineering was, in fact, not for me and that majoring in it would decimate me. Sooo... biology? So here I am, all these years later, and I am, in fact, enrolled in college for biology with a pre-med concentration. And you may be thinking, this doesn’t really sound like much of a plan, but in other ways, it completely is. I was always planning on going to a good school, going to grad school of some sort, buying a big house in California, getting married, and having a bunch of kids.

    Now, going to a state school in the South was never a part of my plan, and I’m having a hard time coming to terms with that concept. With two weeks until move-in, I have no idea what kind of person I want to be. I think a lot of this is starting to stem from the fact that I don’t really know who I am anymore. I know that I want to be a doctor, and that I crochet, and that’s about it.

    But that’s lowkey the point of this blog. I want to find my voice and my life back. On other news I have started a new project with the little yarn I have left lol. No pattern unfortunately, freehanded by yours truly but inspo from @sophievaa_ on tiktok! Will be posted to projects tab once done ofc.