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Sunday, 26 March 2017

A callout to the roommate life.

Hello Everyone,

I am sure many of us have lived a dorm life and have had a certain time in their lives where they had to share their rooms with roommate(s).
Media has introduced roommates to us in many ways. Everyone has always had dreams of having roommates who are like sisters and soulmates and people who do things together. (I have too. .)
And trust me, I have had moments like those! But also memories that have taught me the kinds of people that exist on this planet.

In my freshman year, I was not as assertive as I have become now. I was quite submissive and used to give in to things without questioning them. Let's just say that I was quite naive in my freshman year. Not that I wasn't compatible with my roommate or anything, but I was just too naive to this world.
I didn't think through the lines of "You're gonna be all by yourself". 
Getting back to the topic, My dorm life in the first three years of college was quite peaceful (Not Really). Except for this one huge drama I got dragged into, that made me lose trust in people.
I have had exchange students as roommates and trust me, bonding with people from other countries was never this easy. I've always had internet friends from different countries, but real-life experiences were better.

I am going to be following my set rules of not mentioning people or names on my blog. Also, some people might get offended but I am just trying to tell y'all what kind of people I've come across in these four years.



Well, beginning the core of the discussion! 

My writing may seem passive aggressive but I am just writing out some usual adjustment problems that I had to deal with.

It all started in the beginning of my final year when I had HUGE roommate troubles cause the person is a complete mess! This is not borrowing clothes, stealing food, using stuff without your permission or back-bitching at all~ but something that is very passive aggressive. 

Usually, there have been times when my roommates and I talked about the situations where either of us were uncomfortable with a particular situation. I tried this out here too. 
However, I was ignored outrightly instead of getting a response. That is when the huge set of problems began. 
How would you feel.. When you're working on a thesis all night long, sitting on your bed and being stared at for an hour?? (some willpower to not blink for that long) This all was because of the study lamp that was causing a problem to my roommate.

People who know me also know that it is basic manners to be hygienic enough to wash hands after using the Bathroom. However, I was asked by my roommate to wash hands through sticky notes on the basin mirror on the Bathroom door which was slightly amusing because.. I need not have to show people how I live my life??


However, this same person walks out naked out of the bath and it was awkward when my friend and I accidentally walked in onto that. This situation was responded by a "Why would you open the door so wide"
It is indeed very strange having come from a person who was uncomfortable looking at laundry in a bucket inside the bathroom.

Also, laundry can cause too many problems. I used to drop my clothes in a bucket in the Bathroom so that I could wash the clothes. It was appalling to see someone who also owns similar kind of inner wear to be feeling uncomfortable looking at dirty laundry. Well I agree dirty laundry is not very pleasant to look at, however.. it was inside a bucket. So I decided to stop that and only take em out when i needed to actually wash them. That did not sort out the problem.

The dorm cafeteria food is mostly edible but there are some times when we all love to order from out. There are some people who are vegetarians too. However, this problem here was addressed in a very very strange way. Room Freshener was sprayed all over the room whenever I'd open a takeout, majorly on my side where I'd be eating the food.
Is that not mild level bullying now?

Another most frequent problem is that, us young adults love to play out our music loud at times. There are rare times when I'd want to sing and play music out loud! but that's when I am alone or around people I am comfortable with.

After various one sided-discussions and requests, the loud music in my room still continued endlessly until we went home for winter break. One of the reasons why I seem to have developed a hatred towards loud music.

I have quite a number of acquaintances in the dorm, majorly due to my interests in the K-pop and anime culture. And those acquaintances keep coming to my room to exchange music and shows.
They always kept complaining that there's loud music being played in my room and something must be done about it.

Trust me, it is so loud that even neighbours five doors across can hear it.

I'm sure a lot of people love dancing as a working out option. However, doing that at 3:00am in the morning is very very noisy. Precisely, dancing with music on speakers at that time is quite noisy.
Also when a friend of mine came over to visit me, I was indirectly thrown shade at by my roommate saying to my friend that there are people who judge her dancing. (lol ..)


I complained to the authorities, but they only offered me a choice to swap my room which was almost impossible with the amount of work I have had in my final year.

That was when I decided to train myself to deal with it. Dealing with nincompoops would just have them feel victorious over the fact that they have received reactions to the crappy ways through which they've been dealing with people.


Before we left for the winter break, all her problems in our room were addressed to me. Through - a three page letter that was not even given to me in hand, but slipped under my suitcase.
A letter very passive aggressive and indirectly written. I thought of messaging her of how she indirectly addressed my upbringing in that letter but then, I would just have been an idiot reacting to the crappy behaviour.

However, I decided to be very very ignorant towards everything like it never happened.

And I returned after the semester break. I thought I'd deal with doing the opposite of all the problems that were addressed in the letter, but that was stupid cause watering a rock will do no good.
However, this time the vibes in the room kept getting strange as I kept hearing really loud sobs at midnight for a really long time. Soon after which, those sobs were loud laughs at night. I thought those might have happened while watching a TV show but nope. 

There were also STRANGE incidents of the wash basin having been coated with powdered tea leaves, tea bags and molten wax with matchsticks.
Once, there was also salt spread on my table. 


Later on, I began seeing tiny sheets of paper lying down by my basin. I thought those were used to clean some stuff, but in actuality.. those were the pieces of the artwork by me gifted to my roommate.
I actually admired how religiously and neatly cut those pieces were kept by the basin.

However, people like this will only be hated on by artists because they do not appreciate hard work.

There were also similar paper pieces and tea bag residue thrown in the elevator and I really wished that our country took strict action towards litterbugs. People like these lecturing about cleanliness and hygiene is a huge question mark with two exclamatory marks.

Borrowing or stealing is a thing. But, there were incidents where my expensive body wash and shampoos kept getting lesser and lesser everyday. Obviously, I didn't want to have suspicions but the situation had it made pretty obvious cause the cleaners who come to clean , know me since three years and know that they mustn't use things like these to wash the bathroom.

PS: It is very difficult to keep wet bottles of shampoo in the wardrobes.

So this is what I have been dealing with in the past few months of college life and it is honestly very frustrating when you have a roommate who doesn't even want to acknowledge you while talking. This is could be called mild level bullying at all.
BUT. . This also has some really really good points that I have learnt. I have learnt how to deal with the worst , I have learnt to adjust to conditions like loud music and random sounds and light and I have learnt to ignore people at my best.

Do stand up for yourselves and raise out your problems because it will only give the latter part an idea that they can do anything to you.
I am sure that not everyone has situations like these where it is difficult to have conversations so try and talk it out~

I guess this is it for the day and I must sleep now~

Friday, 10 March 2017

Final Semester + My Diverted Interests

Hey!

It's been really long since I've updated anything over here. I've been busy dealing with my final semester and lots of work. It's almost a week left to mid March and I have been extremely stressed over my final project. Of course, it is a lot of work and all. . . but it is solely my responsibility as I have chosen to go on that path.
This entire week was such a rocky road as nothing I tried to do went smoothly. I really hope that this semester passes by smoothly and I walk out of the college with a smile of satisfaction on my face.

Coming to the point of this entire post, I wanted to write about certain questions that people have been constantly asking me these days. As an animation student, I have often been asked why I am more interested in comic art or sequential art in general. 
To be very honest, I was interested in both traditional and 3D animation until my second year at college.
I even love learning new softwares and I've learnt a lot of them myself. However, in my third year. . I began reading web-comics or web toons and I was highly influenced by them. I had always been into comics and Manga. . but web-comics played a major role in changing my interests. Also they have majorly influenced my art style. 

People often assume that I have my art style influenced from manga, which is true in a way. Manga is what made me want to draw more. It was the reason I began practicing art more often in the first place. However, it is not entirely manga. I also collected small comic strips of Peanuts , Calvin & Hobbes and R.K. Laxman's stuff from the newspapers until I had an amount that created a huge mess of them in my room. Those were more of an inspiration that kept me going on. 
And then, I began reading webcomics which made me realise how art styles can have an impact on the readers. Some of the web-comics i read have a very simple art style but yet, they create a huge impact on the reader. Is it the story? Or the art? But the art is not even detailed!? How??
These were the exact questions in my mind. . And I think it is neither the art style or the story alone but how these two have gone hand-in-hand and have created an impact simultaneously.
Meaning, I was really fascinated by how the artist had managed to put the simplest of their work in a very beautiful composition that created an impact on the reader and had them say "Oh! so this is where the story is going"
I'm still very very fascinated by how different every comic artist puts up their work differently. There are still a lot of unanswered questions on my mind which only exploring and learning more can help!
That can only be achieved through experiments~

So, I haven't exactly lost interest in animation as a whole. I will still be really greedy to learn new softwares.
Even now, I am very much interested in learning new stuff and I shall definitely learn them after my graduation. 
This world is full of new things to explore and learn! 

Yes~ So I guess this was all for the day!
It will soon be my birthday in a few days and also my pre-final jury.
Please wish me luck, friends TT

Love Y'all!