OTHER SIDE OF ME: April 2015

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Thank you note

My face book home page is filled with the earthquake news that has brought major destruction in Nepal. As I scroll down the page, I see the images of people killed, structure destroyed, road damaged and a lot more. Tears wells in my eyes when I think about the people who are undergoing this phase right now. The death rate is also increasing. When natural disaster like this happens, we become prey to it. There are safety measures’ but lives are still lost .so we can only hope that such disaster won’t strike again. For all those people who have lost their dear ones, I am very sorry. I pay my deepest condolence and I hope that such hours of darkness gets over soon.

When disaster like this occurs, we are reminded about how fragile our life is and about our impermanence. We often tend to think more about what has not yet happened than to thank about what we have got so far. One day such things happen and you never got a chance to say thank you to all those wonderful people who has made your journey worthwhile and to live with such regret will be like having a disease without any cure. No one knows when will be the last day of our life. So why not thank now and be good to people in your small way. We need not have to be the remarkable person in others people life and not all will become so important in our life also. But everyone has the role to play and if it has made us who we are today and if we are grateful about it than be thankful. Even those people who made us cry has brought some change in a positive way than be thankful.

So with this thought I want to thank my family for their unconditional love and support. Despite of so many ups and downs in our life, we have stood strong side by side. We still have so many miles to go and knowing that you all will be there in my life will always make me happy no matter how hard my life becomes. If tomorrow something happens I want to let you all know that being your daughter and the sibling has been the best gift of my life. Thank you very much my family. I always think like what I did in my previous generation that I always land up being friends with wonderful people. I have met lots of wonderful people and yes some drifted apart but I still have more who are always there when I needed them and I would be there for them also. My friends have always made me happy and yes some do criticize me a lot sometime but that’s the beautiful part of friendship. We need not have to fear of saying what we want to say and they accept us as who we are. So thank you all for your friendship. Yes I did come across people who also made me cry or angry. But then now when I think about it I feel silly for being so immature and I do know that I do have mistake on my part as well. In some way I feel you all made me softer and made me think that not everyone is same and helped me to develop a kind of acceptance nature. Thank you very much for that and I did learn that lesson in a very hard way. And for the special someone who came to my life, thank you very much. I mean every word of thank you. And I want to thank all of people I have met even through facebook, blog or other social media. You all have also been wonderful people. Some inspired me, some encouraged me and some made me happy by going through my blog and some let me read their beautiful articles. Thank you very much.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Travelling?

I was a lazy person when I was in CST and in some way I still am. All I ever wanted was to keep myself within the four walls of my room and believe me it was not boring. The assignment, term test, presentation and a lot more was there to keep us fully engaged and I do miss this things. I don’t remember of going out much except the frequent visit to the goenpa below our college. Whenever I go to goenpa my friends would make fun of me and say “are you going for your leejong(exercise) ?“ well I once told them that I was going for leejong and since then they didn’t leave me alone for using the proper dzongkha word. Actually I really thought of taking a walk to goenpa daily because one of my friends told me that I look weak and fragile and need to do some exercise. But then I could not stick to the schedule and yes I am still weak and fragile. May be one fine day I will seriously carry out my physical exercise. Even when there are holidays for two to three days, I will prefer to stay in college and watch some movie or do something rather than going home because I vomit like twice or thrice before I reach home. So I guess this lame excuses stopped me from travelling and I thought I was not a travelling kind of person. I even remember telling some of my friends and my roommate from CST who is now in Abertay Dundee was like “I thought you didn’t like travelling” When we talked few days back.

But then I came to Riga, beautiful and calm city meant for person like me. I don’t like noisy and overcrowded places and Riga does not have any of those things. God did listen to me this time. I did see my seniors travelling when they came for exchange but I never thought I will also travel. I thought of travelling to few places and specially Prague. Ever since I watched the bollywood movie rock star in 2^nd year, Prague was stuck in my head and I didn’t know how and when but unknowingly I did wish to visit this place. I am very bad in geography and all those time I thought Prague was in Germany. Well sometime I can be so ignorant. So when one of my classmates in RTU told me that he is from Czech Republic, I was like where is this place. I had a very good laugh later on when I knew that Prague was the capital of Czech Republic.

So if you have the Schengen visa and very good monthly stipend (for exchange stipend is very good), you just cannot stop travelling. Even if you have thought initially to save some money, the idea evaporates when you know that may be travelling to the other places and countries in Europe may be once in a life time opportunity and the travelling list goes on. The roads are straight so I don’t vomit even if I travel in bus or train, another plus point for me. And I really started to appreciate those engineers who have constructed roads in Bhutan which is filled with mountains. It must have been so challenging. Only two and half months left and another trips on its way and then I will be back home. I know that one day when I look back and think of my days in Europe, it will always bring a smile on my face and may be will feel bit nostalgic. May be for a short period of time, my dream to study outside, learn about their education system was fulfilled. Somehow I feel that it is not that we Bhutanese are not capable, it is just that we do not have those facility at our disposal to do things we wanted to do. But then rather than complaining we have to make use of what we have. For this wonderful opportunity I will always be thankful to both the home and Host University and the project in particular.

p.s few pictures from places I visited during easter holiday.