“Just when you think life can’t get any worse…  it goes worse just to show you it can.”

It’s funny how I named my last blog post “The End”…. now I don’t even have any title left for this one………..!!

I guess if “The End” meant death then I should call this something that means eternal-torment-in-hell………

I don’t see why it’s so difficult for ppl to just come out and say what they want… why is hanging on to self induced helplessness more promising than facing yourself for who you are, and rising up for what you need… what are they so scared of……

why do they feel they need to hurt to be strong and ignore to feel confident……

why do they blame everything on ‘life’ and ’situations’ and other abstract ideas……. it’s ppl who make decisions or can’t make up their mind… it’s ppl who change things or resist it… it’s ppl who make lives or break hearts………

so lets not blame anything on life or time or situation, coz they’re all lifeless things, they’re just vague ideas……………. there’s just you and there’s just me………… it’s just between us……… we make it we break it……… it’s all in our hands

……….’life’ has nothing to do with it………..

“Just when you think ppl can’t get any more difficult to deal with…. they get difficult just so that the confusion it creates will help them hide what they truly want, from themselves and everyone else”

Life, as I know it, ended today,
I guess I always saw it coming my way,
Hope was the problem, didn’t let me give in,
I’m burning in hell, but what was my sin?!!

All I did was loved you, unconditioned and true.
The complication to come, I never knew,
Not a thing I could do different, that’ll spare me this fate
I ran race to lose, I started too late.

I hope you stay happy, hope you prove that I’m wrong
That I was the only one, you should have belonged,
Coz that would be so hard to bear if it comes true
……………… forget it! I pray that you make it through.

I’ll hate if I’ll recover, I’ll hate if I don’t
I wish it doesn’t affect me, but I’ll hate if it won’t.
Can’t see you get hurt even if I’m torn to pieces
For you I’ll live and welcome death with thousand kisses.

Slowly diffusing,
And poisoning me inside,
Love is sweet slow death.

A beacon of light
To show me the way in dark
That is who you are.

[ My first Haiku ]

Time flies by really fast when you need to check your schedule to breathe. That’s pretty much how my first semester here felt like. Education system is really different here. Well for one, teachers do give a damn if you’re learning something or not. And exams! Don’t get me started on exams. I gave more exams than I had expected to give in my entire degree duration.

Almost everything you do during your course duration is graded – homework, tests, quizzes, projects, mid-term exams and in case of some professors even the attendance and class participation!! Oh yeah, I had 5% grade resting on how many questions I ask during class lectures and professor’s office hours for Comp Arch class. One good thing about graded homework and regular tests is that they always kept you on your toes. The work never piled up too much (cause you couldn’t let them) – get too far behind and you can never recover. At first when I had to pick like three classes for the whole semester, each with a mere two and half hours a week, I was worried about how I am going to pass my time. This worry soon took a completely different turn when I had to do several individual projects within weeks, with scales larger than the final year major project we used to do at IOE in groups of 4-5 people for allotted time of six months.

One of the best experience I had during the last semester was taking the exams. Needless to say like everything else, the exams were totally different then what I am used to. However, there was something very nostalgic about it. The fact that you were supposed to write your answers in the space provided under the question in the question paper and preferably with a pencil so that you don’t run out of space when you need to scrape out a wrong answer, took me back to the days at primary school Another wonderful thing about these exams were that this was the first time in years I didn’t have to struggle with the question – “How much do I write for this one?!!” The questions were beautiful!! Yes, they really were. Questions were designed to test your understanding rather than your memory. I remember taking the very first Advanced OS test – there were just two questions and 25 minutes. The questions could be answered under 5 minutes in 2-3 sentences max for each. But to get to the answers you needed to use everything that was taught in the lectures, and the two question made you think and work in rough paper for 20 minutes before you could write a word.

Now all that brings me to the projects and homework – my Achilles heel. Coming from IOE – a proud “copy-paste” engineer, all this fuss about plagiarism was a new thing for me. Apparently, they take this thing very seriously here, and it was made quite clear during the orientation where it was a common point of focus for almost every speaker. Moreover, being a TA here, I was well drilled about handling plagiarism right from the start. So copying from friends was a big “NO-NO”. Got it! Now, the problem is – I didn’t know any other way of doing my homeworks and project assignments. So, initially I struggled a lot with my assignments. But you live and you learn to adapt – and soon I managed to do better with my assignments as I learned to blur the plagiarism line

Having done with my first semester I feel I’ve learned a lot about the education system here and how to work your way in it. However, old habits die hard. And one such faithful habit that stuck with me through the years is Procrastination. I don’t think I need to explain this one a lot – this one line by one of my friends says it all – “Engineers from IOE work like rocket – we don’t start until there’s a fire burning up our ass”

It gets harder each day
I’m running out of places to hide away
My nightmares,
They find me in my deepest sleep
I’m scared,
Can’t talk, scream or weep

They creep up on me
They whisper into my ears,
Show me my losing battles
Reconfirm my deepest fears
I tell myself they’re not real,
They tell me how my wounds wont heal
I tell myself it’s all in my head,
They tell me how my dreams are dead

I reach out and look for help
I find your hands, see a glimpse of hope
I forget the voices for a while
I feel good – nothing I can’t cope
But suddenly the hands slip away from me
And I wake up from the pleasant dream
My soul doomed to burn for eternity
When there’s hell around and hell within

Am I evil?
Is that why I cannot sleep?
Or is it because of the pain and despair,
Trapped and I can’t weep.
I tell myself I’m right
Coz in the mirror,
I can meet myself in the eyes.
Or maybe I’ve become so delusional
That I’m believing my own lies.
But I ask you -
Is it so selfish to look out for yourself,
When you’ve done all the good,
And the Gods have been of no help.
Do good and good you’ll receive, they said,
And blindly, I followed their way,
There’ll be trouble along the path, they said,
But everyone will have their day.
I waited for my day to come,
But the fate skipped my turn.
Now, I’m taking my fate on my own hands,
Let the world burn.
I took a shot at being good,
It was never meant for me.
If evil gets me what I want,
Then it’s evil I shall be.

You’re kind and you’re caring
You’re strong and you’re daring
You make me feel near, no matter how far
You’re sweet and you’re nice
Help, without thinking twice
An angel in my eyes – that is who you are

You’re considerate and selfless
To have you I feel blessed
You guide me through dark like a shining star
You’re amazing yet humble
You’d never let me stumble
Holding my hands as long as you are

You’re so innocent, yet smart
Beautiful smile – golden heart
Compared to you perfections feels below par
Till forever I might try
The oceans will run dry
But words won’t fully justify just how special you are

A picture of you and it’s all I can see
Wherever I go, it’s always been with me
A graceful smile that makes my day bright
An innocent look sings to me through the night

A picture of you and I miss you even more
Keep asking myself why didn’t I meet you before
One look at it and it makes my day
One look at it and I can’t turn away

A picture of you, so pretty, so sweet
I take a look and my heart skips a beat
You can call me a liar and all I’m saying’s not true
You be the judge coz my heart is with you

I’m sitting here, it’s past four
Nothing to do, nowhere to go
I know I should have already slept
But my sleep went with you when you left

Read your mails and replied those
Watched your message in videos
But even that doesn’t make it fine
I’m just waiting for my sun to shine

… come back soon

It’s been a while since I put something up here. Well except for the few things that I eventually deleted.

Well, this is my first ‘undeleted’ post after I left Nepal. And for sometime now I wanted to write something about my new world – my life in the USA. It’s different here. Everything is different. People are different. The weather is different. Everything.

One reason I wanted to write about USA is that whenever I meet someone online from back home they have to ask one question – “How is America?” And honestly I don’t know what to say. Someone suggested me that I should just send them a map from the net and tell them “Well, this is America” “And that little green box down in the bottom – that’s Texas. That’s where I’m living.” I don’t know how America is. I lived in Kathmandu for 24 years and if you ask me how if Nepal – all I can describe is Kathmandu. And I’ve only been here for a month. Forget USA, forget Texas, forget Dallas (that’s the city inside Texas where I live), forget all that – right now, I’m not even sure what all the electric switches in my apartment are suppose to turn on.

Now let me tell you a little something about Texas. First of all, whenever I tell someone that I’m in Texas, they tell me about my other friends who are scattered somewhere in the Texas and ask me that I must be seeing them often. Well, about that – Texas is around 5 times bigger than Nepal – not Kathmandu – I’m saying Nepal. So, going to meet a real close friend of mine who’s also in Texas in a place called Lubbock means I’d have to travel more than 600 km; that’s like traveling between Kathmandu and Pokhara – 3 times.

I’M SORRY… I’M DELETING THIS

It’ll be the same old moon,
But not quite that sight
The same old morning,
But not as bright
The sun will shine again,
On the sky anew
But nothing compares…
Nothing compares to you

Chatting endlessly
On way back home
Forgetting meetings
Finding time to roam
Life goes on they say,
And I believe it’s true
But nothing compares…
Nothing compares to you

Short trips to the shopping mall
Or just a stroll ’round the block
Trying out every new food place
While you race with the clock
Thinking about all I’ll miss
Makes me feel blue
Coz nothing compares…
Nothing compares to you

To make you smile,
Doing the craziest of things
Seeing the awe in you eyes,
And the joy that it brings
Precious moments
However few
But nothing compares…
Nothing compares to you

The gifts, the cards,
And the surprise roses
Instantly jotting down,
Verses and proses
Making promises
And staying true
Coz nothing compares…
Nothing compares to you

Happy Friendship Day