Just a Girl Crush baby! ;)

Movie star

Model

Or just another older person you’re acquainted with.

          Throughout our childhood,we girls[or atleast I did and presume for the rest] have phases where we half revere half idolize girls older than us who seem to have it all and are the person we think we want to be.Pretty-always pretty and cool as hell.

All of them coming under the completely platonic term girl crush.

          A few years ago,I’d watch this show called Remix on TV where this character named Tia absolutely epitomized the word floozy wearing itsy bitsy dresses and with her blond behavior. But somehow I liked all of those pretty dresses and dainty mannerisms that everyone else found exasperating. 
*girl crush alert*

           Once when I was 12 and my extended family came to visit, I took an instant liking to one of the girls who was probably 5-7 years older than me. She was thin, pretty and wore glasses like Blair Waldorf[my current girl crush :P] does headbands. That day while going back after lunch when everyone was deciding how best to fit the people in the car on the way back,she suggested that the 2 of us sit together in the front. I went and sat next to her nonchalantly but I was grinning on the inside. To a bookish, rather nerdy 12 year old it meant,"She knows I exist. That is so awesome.Maybe I’m a teensy bit cool on the inside :P". Yes it made me feel awesome. Yes it made my day :D

          I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve noticed that a girl who goes to my dance class has a girl crush on me

• Over 5 years younger than me ✔
• Always smiles at me ✔
• Comes up to say hi to me at the beginning of every class ✔
• Chatters about stuff that’s “cool” ✔
• Says bye to me before leaving,sometimes even ignoring my friends ✔

          My friends tease me incessantly about her having eyes just for me, but I encourage it anyway, perhaps because I remember times when id want my girl crushes to stop and note my existence.

And so the cycle goes on……

*giggleblush*


-Nirmitee Mehta

Behind the Quill

               “Rita Skeeter reached into her crocodile bag and drew out a long acid green quill and a roll of parchment…”.That quill, known as the quick quotes quill, transformed a normal sentence like “Testing...my name is Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter” into “Attractive, blond Rita Skeeter, forty three, whose savage quill has punctured many inflated reputations”. This rather self obsessed quill that had a knack for spouting out eloquent sentences fascinated me ever since I first encountered it in ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’.

          Getting one, albeit a non magical one, was a rather serendipitious moment for me. Here I’d like to share it with all you quill dreams readers.

          During the course of my exchange program I went on a lot of tours. At this time last year I was on a Eurotour with over 50 other exchange students. It was on the Italian leg of the tour when we visited the beautiful city of Siena that I first encountered the quill. I was browsing through the shops for souvenirs and when in a stationary store I stopped in my tracks when I spotted it…the most beautiful pen I had ever seen. I stood admiring it for a few minutes and then rushed to share this find with my friend Volimte.We ooh-ed and aah-ed over the simple beauty of the quill before deciding that we could not go without having it for ourselves. She bought a green one and I a lovely deep pink one. For the rest of the day I was bursting with joy[no exaggeration] reveling in the bliss of having bought the most beautiful pen in the world.

          The next morning when I was looking through my things in my bag, I couldn’t find it but quickly put it down to the fact that I’d perhaps forgotten it in the bus the previous night and figured it would turn up when we got back on the bus for the day’s journey. It did not despite my searching long and hard and I spent the entire day distraught and worried about having lost it so soon.

          Later at night one of my friends came to my room. He’d heard me talk about losing it and immediately thought back to the stuff he had found while on bus cleaning duty. He’d gone back to look through the stuff and having found the quill, came looking for me right after. I squealed and couldn’t thank him enough. It was so gratifying to get it back.

          I thought back to this memory the other day when I wrote with it for the very first time[yes a year after buying it].you see, I couldn’t find a cartridge that would fit in so I chose the old fashioned route and dipped it into an inkpot, writing the way it was meant to be written with.

          And sometimes, that’s all you need to start writing………..

By Nirmitee Mehta

More goodbyes than most

All of us feel some regret as the year ends but maybe for me and exchange students all over, saying goodbye to the past year was harder than for others. When a single year means more to you because of the rich experiences you’ve had it makes it that much harder for you to see it end.

As the year 2010 drew to a close a wave of nostalgia and sadness washed over me. Going to a foreign country for a year as I did to Germany in august 2009,I knew that I'd have some unforgettable experiences. I however did not expect to get as attached as I did to so many people coming from so many different lands on the planet. I also did not know how hard it would be to say goodbye when the time came. Harder after it all ended to the year that had passed. It wasn't hard at the time I said bye to some not knowing it would be the last time I'd see them. It wasn't hard when I said goodbye to some months before leaving even when I knew I wouldn't see them again because it didn't seem that real then. Also it was not as hard as I'd expected to say bye to people I saw every day in school. The hard part came later with the realization that I did not know when, if ever, I'd ever see them again. When the January to December exchange students (ones from the southern hemisphere who come for a different period) started leaving last month,5 months after I came back home, it severed my last link to exchange year going on in Germany.
The hardest part was changing things in my mind, weird though it may sound. In 2010 I could still refer to everything that happened during exchange even things that took place in 2009 as this year. Now however it will all have to be referred to as last year like a door of experiences and memories that won't ever be open again; that I’ll be able to walk into only in my mind.
Then again, maybe the goodbyes won't be permanent, maybe I will meet them again and the euro tour reunion we've been planning will take off in the near future. And so with promises of new experiences and memories that will keep everything interesting, life goes on :)

By Nirmitee Mehta