Young Writers Society

I just spent one whole evening trying to format Looking for Alaska, a book I bought from Googleplay books, m to Kindle format. smh. I have done it successfully. But meh, won’t be caught in the corporate crossfire again.

I keep confusing Ishiguro and Murakami. Every time I go book shopping, I remind myself to buy Klara and the Sun. And every time I forget. That or, it’s out of stock. I’ve read Ishiguro’s Never Let me go and The Remains of the Day, and Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. NLMG and NW, both the stories had the mournful dullness that I like, TROD was just boringly dull. I had bought both Ishiguro’s book together so I had to read NLMG even though I found TROTD boring. And NW was a decent reading. I liked it and even recommended it to my friends. Some say Murakami’s women are portrayed like dolls, beings that are never understood by their fellow men, mute mystical spectators in their story like the readers, as the Male character monologues his way through the story. As a romantic-love deprived woman, I find this narration calming and funny. The frustration expressed by these men, I might go as far as to say, realistic because the writers are both East Asians. Asia is where these romantic-love frustrations are specifically tailored, and shipped to the growing market of west, see the examples of K-series, K-pops. Point to remember, both these authors are in their 60s and 70s, of course their perspective and portrayal are not 2020-esque.

Anyway, before this post gets anymore personal and unnecessary, let me just say what I wanted to say when I started writing this status: I am going to buy the Kindle version of Klara and the Sun.

After all these years, I can't believe # classified is still a thing. Usually trends die soon here.

Huh, what a weird day! I got a mail from Discord to update my username; I didn't even realise I had one till then. I logged in just to see ollllddddd discord chats of YWSers from when the chat box and chat room was disabled on the site. And the most bittersweet thing was, a friend of mine become a parent back in 2019 and they had messaged me their new born child's photo. And I'm only seeing the photo now, in 2024, because I stopped logging in as I had exams, as real life got too "on-the-face", because I am horrible friend and a person. I tried replying them back but my message didn't go through. The Bot gave me reasons as to why it won't go through, frankly, it didn't matter. Four years is a long time. A website's policy to upgrade/update just made me go down a memory lane that I didn't even know I remembered and enjoyed. So many emotions, can't type.

In other news, I've started mewing.

I really want to taste bubble tea with tapioca pearls but it's not available where I live. Humpf. I didn't understand the excitement over it when it first became a trend but now that the commotion has died down, I am suddenly reminded of its existence and want to try it.

happy birthday!

December ♥️

'On the face' art forms are very hard to relate to for me and physically makes me leave the room because of my issues with confrontations. This is ironic because I love Russian literature which is known for man's self-reflection, his confrontations with himself and the society he lives in. Though, I still haven't finished reading Crime and Punishment after starting it seven years back because it was "too much" for me.

So, for now, I'm watching "This is Us" to ease back into Russian lit. And these are the writers that aren't being paid properly? What a shame.

I cannot wait for Barbie 💓💖

So I see our PM took over New York City to do yoga on International Yoga Day and made a Guinness world record. People did yoga here on trains, railway stations, buses, offices. It was a fun news day today.

And Elon Musk dressing at his best and saying PM is his favourite person and a fan of him is the peak content. Can’t wait to drive Teslas on Indian roads.

Haha, when I saw this I immediately thought of YWS and how maybe this is how people here see me as. (I just have too much time in my hand now). “Who is this old woman on a youngsters site sharing her life and anecdotes that doesn’t even make sense?”

Half the people I know from here are either busy married or on a world tour. And I haven’t even written anything creative in a while except some poetry here and there to impress someone. (I don’t think it worked.)

P.S I keep in touch with users outside the site on different social media platforms and it took more than 4-5 years of being good friends on the site. We were just bunch of young literature lovers going through same cultural and mental shift. It took years of bonding, mutual respect and trust before sharing private infos. And it only happened when we were all pretty grown up (full adults) so don’t share anything with just anyone. That would be my advice to the society for now.

I had to download free VPN service to stream a movie. It wasn't a foreign language movie but a local movie that wasn't available in any streaming service. Back in the day, I would NEVER spend money on a streaming service. I'd rather surf questionable sites that usually would load inappropriate ads to get the movies free than to pay for it. But now that I was ready to pay, I still couldn't find the movie on a legal website. I don't know much about VPNs or how safe they are but I still gave it a try. The experience was unsatisfying, the VPN app I downloaded disconnected every 10-15 minutes, so I had to connect it back and re-load the free streamer then the movie would start all over again. It took me five hours to watch two hours movie. And the thing is I've already watched the movie, mom has always called me an hard worker but never a smart worker. The movie is actually against(?) different than my political views but this repeated meditative process made me see the movie in different perspective. I was able to sympathise with the lead's dilemma which previously I absolutely loathed. And the maturity of the women in lead's life which if displayed now would probably be unwelcomed across the society.

Maybe this is what I need to incorporate in my life too. I should probably disconnect, reload and start all over again when things get too cluttered. This will probably help solve the problems more effectively than with the preconceived notions, not to mention I hate confrontations, my brain goes into freeze mode so I already do the disconnection pretty well. Meditative repetitions is something I'd like to apply to my studies. lol.

I was taken ill two weeks back. I had to put all my lab work on a hold and take rest as per doctor's advice. Money had to be spent on medications since my pain was getting too intolerable to wait for free care. I had to take X-ray and a CT scan to find nothing and only to be told to not skip breakfast, even if I think I'm going to save the world. I am glad that I am well and there isn't any serious risks or illness. But to go through a labor pain for skipping breakfast, god, I am old.

But this post is not about my sickness. It's about movies (Shutter Island). Though I remember watching this movie way back, I did not know what it was about. Funniest thing is, I remembered what the twist was but not the step-up or what followed. So on a windy afternoon, I sat back to watch the movie but I was so blown away by the cinematography. The film felt very clean, and I didn't know what I meant by this then though now I have realised that I meant the edits and cuts were smooth. I don't need to be warned of probing lights or jump cuts but these things definitely create an aversion. There was a time I thought probing lights and fast paced, quick movies to the movies of tomorrow, I couldn't be too wrong. Dad was in the movie business and he taught me how to count cuts in a scene. He learned when they were making movies using films and actors were fined for wasting films, since films (a negative that is developed into a photo) was expensive and some production houses could afford only so much. Movies these days don't have this constraint and so have the liberty to experiment while they shoot and when they edit. I don't know why I am dedicating an entire post for this as it has never bothered me before. Maybe this explains why I love indie and slow-paced movies. One other clean and slow-paced(?) movie with amazing screen play that I liked was Interstellar though I don't believe it was shot with a film.

I am interested to see how clean and soft-paced Oppenheimer will be. And though I am a physicist I know I never have to face the moral dilemma these scientists felt, ever.

I saw the movie ‘Blue state’ last night. Not a single original thought I see. And I had this wild thought that maybe Leslie from Parks and Rec is their daughter. 😗

nvm, I read Jack’s interview on the Guardian. Apparently, when he was filming for Unbroken directed by Angelina Jolie, George Clooney advised him to delete all his socials, which he did after two years.

Poor guy. He couldn’t live down the character he played in the Skins. Which is actually one of my favourite TV shows, and his character arc at the end of the show was phenomenal- the mellowing down of the rude, good for nothing, high school playboy- is one of the interesting parts of story-telling. Not many writers do a good job of it, and I dislike when they make a joke of that arc. It’s never funny when a teenager is hit with the realities of life when he grows into an adult. (Parents kicking their kids out the minute they turn 18 is a crime to me.)

And tabloids, my god. Some country one of these days should come out and call them illegal, undemocratic, invasive, trauma inducing and ban them outright.

Dreamy wrote:It is terribly upsetting how there are only very few actors I want to follow on Instagram and only care for the things they share, smile and heart at every time they post something only to find that these low-lying actors have deleted their Instagram to probably lie flat on the surface. Grr.

Jack O Connell had The most funniest captions to his posts. And he was pretty chatty with his fans too.

Maybe I’m stretching the point when I say this but British stars (actors&singers) absolutely hate and cower under the Hollywood fame. Completely opposite to their cousin Americans. I wonder what comes into play, is it the psyche, polity, classism or to have some control and privacy in their life? 👀

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