Teens in the blogosphere

I'd wanted to do a post on blog mammas for some time - somehow haven't yet got down to it. Meanwhile, if the mammas are wondering what their little ones may be in saying their teens here's a sample selection. I hope you enjoy these:

The following are my own blog acquaintances:

Viva la Vi of Vibrant, Verbose, Voracious, a college fresher, asks herself 30 questions to be answered by her on her 30th birthday.

Harini in her A Babble of Emotions, touches us with her emotions, recounting an experience By the beach. A singer and music fanatic hosts her songs here.

Prachi of preity place says charity begins at home. (Link from Mama says so)

Cloudy Musings with Vague -in-vogue thoughts of mine!! does a tag from The not-so artful dodger

The following are mostly Cvians (students of Chinmaya Vidhyalaya, Chennai). I got these links from Vishesh and Tariq's blogs.

This is Vishesh. Vishesh is active on the commenting circuit, seems to be a philosophical guy. Read his poem on Mother India

Atul of Hitchhiking Across The Infinite crabs about EXAMS ! Imperative or Out-dated ??

Vishnu of With The Lights Out.....Its Less Dangerous.....Here We Are Now...Entertain Us writes about Some stuff i felt are twisted and evil.some serious.some just weird n funny..

Dman of Life is a jueey writes on being detached.

Priya says, N'fin much!!, but you can see her in action.

I seem to have left out Bharath, The Philanthropic Cynic, who warns Risk addiction if you enter his blog. A person particular about precise use of words, reviews a school play and records a Bionic ET attack.

Rusty Neurons Archives of Tariq; he seems to be a techie guy with quite a fancy site. Read his rant on school in Symbol logic. He too tracks The Brownie!

Vishal, The Green Monster talks about his blues.

Meet the Hrushita the blabberer at Junipers in the sun.

These are just some sample posts from their blogs. All of them are real cool blogs. You can navigate to other blogs (of their friends) from their blogrolls, which are equally fun. Have fun.
PS: Hey Kid, looks like not all schools are like Velammals.
PPS: This does not purport to be representative of all persons in this age group.

The Question Man again...

Mr Pregunto never ceases to amaze me! Here is his latest question:

If you were to create your own religion, what would it be like?

As usual some of us responded with lacklustre comments; that was all that Senor Pregunto needed, to go into analysing out thinking process (rather our imagination); the issue was no more about religion, but our capability to imagine. I am humbled, Sir, by your thinking. I will henceforth think, think and think, before I venture to answer your questions. Even if I give a shallow answer, I can be sure of getting some other aspect of your question in your response. I enjoy reading your discussions.

In a related post Paul F. gives his version or understanding of Christianity. Definitely worth a read.

Is it just a coincidence, or some invisible hand at play, that I should come across different posts all relating to the same topic?

Emily expresses her anguish relating to God.

Life on the Sea

This is for readers who know Tamizh. Mr. Kadal Ganesan (கடல் கணேசன்), a marine engineer, writes of his experiences in the merchant navy. This series (கற்றது கடலளவு), which has already appeared in Junior Vikatan, is being reproduced here again. Here are some snippets. If the snippets are anything to go by, I think the series is going to be very engrossing. I found the passages very touching. The first instalment of the series (published on Oct 3, 2006) appears here- Chapter 1.

If you have rendering problems for tamil with your browser, then you might have to change some settings of your browser. Go to

View -> Character Encoding -> select Unicode (UTF-8) (for Mozilla/Firefox browsers)
View -> Encoding -> select Unicode (UTF-8) (for Internet Explorer browsers)

Windows 98 does not support Unicode.

What Jungian type are you?

I like to know about myself; I presume that everyone else will also like to know about themselves. Atleast it is better than knowing about someone else :).
Thanks to The Kid and Archana Bahuguna, I came to know about this site that gives a description of you based on a test. I took the test and was labelled INFP (Introspective iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving) type. Here are 2 descriptions of the type given by Keirsey and Butt. They say some embarassingly nice things about me :)

If you want to know what type you are take the test here:
Human Metrics - Free test.
Myers and Briggs - Paid test.
Will you post your type after taking the test?
Do I (my blog persona) fit their description? (optional) ;)

PPS: An aside - a colleague of mine said that these tests do not reflect 'what/who you are', rather they reflect 'what you want to be seen as'. Hmmm.. that's a thought that needs some thinking.

Tag Again

Hip Hop Grandmom tagged me and here are the rules as received from G'ma:

I have been simultaneously tagged by Srijith Unni and Archana Bahuguna. While Srijith wants me to talk about 6 weird things in my nature, Archana wants me to say 9 things about myself weird or otherwise. Both want me to tag 6 more people by leaving a comment on their blog. I decided to combine both and give 9 aspects of my nature, some weird others not so weird. Those whom I tag may stick to the same rule.

State nine things (weird or otherwise) about yourself. Then tag 6 others, and also let them know that you've tagged them by leaving a comment on their blog.

I dont know if these are weird or not, but I can say that these traits are characteristic of me.

1. I am argumentative.
a. I cannot answer any question without asking a return question. I always ask for a clarification of a word, or the context for the question. For example, if somebody asked me "should I go in for higher studies", I'd ask "why do you want to go in for higher studies".
b. I tend to take an opposite stand of any opinion expressed (even if I believe in the opinion expressed). Example - If someone said, "The idlis were terrible today", I'd retort, "Dont say idlis were terrible, say that you didn't like the idlis".
The number of dirty looks that I've had on this count would be enough to wither a less sensitive being. This has been a cause of major trouble at home and work.

2. I like to generalise.
Whenever any specific issue is discussed, I like to make generalizations based on that issue. For example, if we were discussing something like, "when is one happy" etc. I might chip in saying "A happy man is always happy, a sad man is always sad or in other words a person will be as as happy/sad as (s)he has been till today for the rest of their lives - its all a question of perception". This trait has earned me the description of "the person who talks of vague things". I'm sure you wouldn't agree.

3. I love to sit and discuss anything and every thing.
This is obviously derivable from the above 2 points. I'd have been a top celebrity, if any career was to be made out of discussions. I ignore those who refer to these discussions as plain old gossip (vetti arattai). See point 4 before you jump to conclusions or give me advice.

4. I get very much involved in whatever I do.
The negative side of this is that I become an addict to that activity. Obviously, if I get involved in my work then that would be a good thing for my career. Unfortunately, I lose my addiction as soon as I take that activity as my job! Then I get addicted to something else. The kinds of career switches I've made in life! *shakes head*

5. I love my pet dog.
To say love is an understatement. The most important person? in my life is my pet. Fortunately, this feeling is shared by all of us in our family! Opinions on our pet is the only thing on which everyone in our family are unanimous. Of course, we've been ostracised by all our relatives (parents inclusive) for this.

6. I Like to be connected with people real/virtual.
In the days when snail-mail was dominant I always look forward to letters (and also writing them), then it was email, discussion forums and now it is blogs. A day without a comment totally dispirits me. I'm sure many out there suffer from this affliction - so it is not really a weird trait. Surprisingly I hate phones and speaking on the phone. Looks like I like the written form of communication.

7. I am a die hard escapist/dreamer.
I tend to look for delusory gratification, living in a dream world. My reading habits, addiction to soaps etc. are indicative of this trait. My other escape is listening to music. Generally I like to do things that lull one's senses or create an intense emotional experience.

8. I compare myself with others.
I constantly compare myself with others. So-and-so is better than me in this and this. :( I am better than XYZ in this :D . Of course I've never let out this aspect of myself to anyone. Shhh.

9. I want to achieve something in my life.
This is probably the weirdest part of me. Having all the above traits I still expect to achieve something in life. There's optimism for you. Anyway point no.7 helps me in cherishing this desire.


That wasn't that bad afterall! I did enjoy doing that.

Some additional frill points (kosuru):
I have starting trouble in any task.
I like to talk about myself.
I confide everything to my friends - I have no friends now :(
I feel guilty enjoying myself.
I want to win the Nobel prize.
Once I start talking, I dont stop..
I get high without alcohol.
All the above may not sound weird, but if you know that I'm a....Mmmmph, gurgle... sigh.

Having chloroform at hand is useful at such times... *The real me gets up after smothering the Visitor*

I tag Ranjit, Raman, Hip Prudester, Noble Savage, A.S, and Emily.
I request the above to do the tag, if they feel comfortable.

Back with more links :)

I am through black monday finally! Thanks to all your feedback - Visitor is back at the desk, typing away happily. :) To make up for the lost (wo)man-days today there are links to 4 blogs the I visited during my time in the wilderness, and found some solace.

White Forest
Have any of you read chess news reports that talk of "player X having time advantage over player Y"? I thought that it meant that X took less time to make certain number of moves compared to Y until I read this post by White Forest - Chess & Time at White Forest. Hey chess non-enthusiasts(?!) dont go away, there is something for you too in that post. Here's a heart warming post - Why me. A no-nonsense person, says we have no one else to blame for what we are, except ourselves.

Me Thinks
If you remember I'd mentioned my troubled times to you when I was travelling incognito in blog world. At that time I struck up an odd friendship with Lord Labak of Me thinks. To say that she writes well would be an understatement. Here is something about her - "That's me". Somehow her feeing for pets isn't the same as mine. :(

Emily's Post
Emily, as a mom has a dilemma, she writes about it in "Being Bothered". Emily's posts are ... well difficult to describe them... I feel nice reading her posts. The post that drew me to her blog - The House that Emily Built.

Terri's Turf
I discovered another dog blog - Terri's Turf through the post All Hail the VIP. Terri's mom has a dilemma, whether to go back to her first love or not - Bewafaa.

Have a nice day!

Identity Crisis

The past few days I've been having an identity crisis - all relating to my blog (persona). I seem to be getting too involved with the activity (addicted?). So I promised myself to not to post anything or even log into blogger for sometime.

I just thought that I'd just look at other people's blog; one thing led to another and before I knew what I was doing I was commenting away happily on other blogs but not as Visitor, but by other name(s) or as anonymous! Not only am I having an identity crisis, I am also hopelessly addicted.

When I created the Visitor persona for commenting on other's blogs, I had meant to keep myself anonymous for various reasons. I wanted to let persons have their own image of what I was, based on what they could have perceived of me from my comments. In some comments I have revealed more about myself, than what I'd have wanted.

Now this anonymity fetish that I seem to have is the source of all my worries. While I wanted to keep myself anonymous, everyone else with whom I've 'interacted' have been very frank and open about themselves. 'Knowing about the writer' has helped me put the writer's ideas in perspective and appreciate the post better. In fact, the blogs of those who have been very open have appealed to me a lot.

I feel guilty (about being anonymous) and a lot of uncomfortable questions keep popping up :

• Am I fair to the others (bloggers) by being anonymous?
  
• Should I reveal my real identity? I envy those (Madura, Raman, Premalatha) who make no bones revealing their true identity and about what others would think.
  
• Should I reveal only parts or the whole of the "real" me? (this real me is not necessarily my meatspace identity (nice phrase isn't it? lifted it ;) from the comment on another blog).
  
• In my past comments, is/are there anything that I would NOT say with my real identity? OMG- there are numerous things that I would never have uttered, if I knew X or Y knew this aspect of the real me.
  
• That does smack of hypocrisy - doesn't it? LOL
  
• Then have I been dishonest in my comments? No, I have always expressed my real feelings in my comments.
  
• Then am I dishonest in my real life? I dont know to answer that truthfully. Maybe I'm more non-commital (ambiguous) in my real life opinions.
  

There are so many more questions with conflicting answers. How much better it would be if one didn't have to grapple with such dilemmas.

Some options before me (suggestions I've made to myself)-

• Dont mix up issues - stick to your original Visitor idea - be objective, dont get 'involved'.
  
• Don't introspect too much - just do what you feel at a given moment.
  
• Reveal your identity , or atleast parts of it.
  
• End it all - I mean kill Visitor. That sounds rather dramatic and nice :) and I can go about feeling miserable and sorry for myself
  

The past couple of days I've been miserable trying to sort myself out. And I haven't got any answers yet. :(