Making hostel rooms inhabitable

It’s that time of year again, the academic year will start soon. The time has come, for those of us who live in hostels, to pack our bags, and go to the place we will call home for the next year. I’ve seen many dorm rooms in the past year, my first time living in the hostel, and they ranged from looking like the Sahara desert, or worse, a garbage dump, to looking like paradise. Mine was quite barren for the most part of the first semester. I stuck to the essentials, and it looked more like a sterilized hospital room (thanks, OCD!) than it did like an eighteen-year-old’s dorm room. I never really felt comfortable there, it was like I was a guest in my own room, until I decided to make some changes. After having spent hours surfing Pinterest, and Tumblr (I do many things to avoid studying), I came up with a few ideas, to make my room cozier than before. Suddenly, several people were interested in what I’d done; many of these people started visiting and making inquiries about how they could implement similar things themselves. Someone even offered to pay me to make something for her room! I also noticed what others in the hostel tried out last year, and I’d like to share the ideas I found most appealing!

1. Lights: To be honest, I was quite obsessed with lights in the last semester. I experimented with different kinds of lights in my room, and they seemed to work quite well. Yellow lights are a personal favorite, but any kind can be used in their place, to avoid the washed-out look that’s provided by the tube light. My roommate liked blue lights, and although it seems like an odd combination, our room ended up looking quite nice!

   

   My friend, Aditi made this hula hoop chandelier, and hung it from the ceiling of her room!

   

   The white balls were made from wool, and then attached to fairy lights, which I absolutely adore!

   

   The lantern I made from wool

   

   This is what it looked like, in the end!

2. Posters: Being a huge TV show buff, I thought putting up posters from the shows I’ve watched, would be the best way to personalize the space. It was a colorful, yet cost-effective way of filling up the blank space on the wall.

   

   I watched some of these shows as a kid, do not judge! xD

3. Fabric wall fixtures: I improvised on an idea I found on Pinterest, fervently hoping that they’d hold up, when I fixed them on the wall. I was overjoyed that they lasted the entire semester! These practically cost nothing, because all I used to make them, were Styrofoam pieces and unused pillow covers!
4. Original artwork: My roommate was a really good artist, and she had put up pictures that she’d made on her side of the room, which looked amazing!

   

   This was one of the paintings Shilpa made!

5. Photographs: This was, by far, the most popular choice among my peers. Many people brought pictures of sentimental value, and put them up on the walls.

   

   Aditi arranged her pictures on the wall with fairy lights interspersed

6. Gallery wall: This was yet another idea that I found on Pinterest (I really love that site). It’s basically framed photographs and other objects that have a central theme, put together in a specific arrangement. I’ve planned to try it out this year. My theme will be “Places I’d like to visit”, and the pictures will all be black and white. Also, instead of framing them, I’ll use thick black tape around them, for ease of handling and storage.

   

   Image source: Tumblr

7. Miscellaneous: I saw one room that had a colorful plush carpet, which I thought looked beautiful. Also, TV show and movie merchandise seems to be a popular choice. My future roommate and I have decided to get a Game of Thrones clock, although we haven’t settled on one yet! Tapestries which give off a Bohemian vibe, also seem like a really nice addition! Another popular choice that I’ve noticed, is quotes on the walls.

These are just a few ideas, which barely scratch the surface of all that can be done to spruce up the tiny living space, that we call our hostel rooms. Being at ease in our place of stay is paramount.  While nothing can replace the comfort of living at home, I believe personalization can be effective in making our rooms our very own “happy place”.

Combinations

Ever had an existential crisis? I have them all the time. Not knowing what my purpose is, what I am good at. One day, I think I am excelling at something, next day I see someone doing it so much better! I used to think I was doing well academically, until the national level entrance exams came into my life. I thought I was pretty good at solving the Rubik’s cube (my minimum time was forty seconds, okay?), until I saw someone in my class do it in seventeen. I thought I could sing well, until I heard the girl next door hit a high note. We all have these moments (or maybe, it’s just me). What we do not realize, is that while there are several people that do something better than us, there probably aren’t that many people who do exactly the same set of things, all better than us. In fact, there probably isn’t anyone who is exactly the same as you, only superior.  This sets us apart as individuals. So, every time I have these crises, I realize, that we are who we are because of the sum total of our likes, dislikes and actions. What we need to stop doing, is trying to be unsurpassed at one particular thing at a time. What we could do instead, is be the best we can be at our very own “combination”. I think everyone can pull that off. So, what’s your combination?

The Power of Introverts

“Quiet people have the loudest minds.” This quote by Stephen Hawking aptly describes all the introverts out there, including myself, having enormous untapped potential.

A third to a half of the world’s population are introverts. This could be the person sitting right next to you, your friends, family, all subject to a bias, internalized from a very young age.

Now, what is introversion? It’s different from shyness, which is fear of social judgement. Personal experience tells me that, introversion is more about how you respond to social stimulation. Extroverts crave this stimulus in large quantities, while introverts feel their most capable and alive, in quieter, more low-key environments. For example, I’d always prefer to curl up with a good book instead of choosing to attend a loud party. Even at the party, I’d not talk much, and I’d probably still be thinking about the book! As a kid, I had this ideology, which was an amended popular saying. It went like this, “A book a day, keeps unwanted conversation at bay!”

The bias comes in, in our most important institutions, our schools and workplaces, which are designed mostly for extroverts. Nowadays, kids are constantly working on group assignments, even in subjects like math and creative writing, which should depend on personal flights of thought. Those kids who prefer to work by themselves, are often seen as outliers. I was seen as one such “problem case”, which alarmed my parents very much. A vast majority of teachers report believing that the ideal student is an extrovert, even though, introverts actually get better grades, according to research!

In workplaces, introverts are routinely passed over for leadership positions, even though they tend to be more careful, and are much less likely to take outsize risks. A research by Adam Grant at the Wharton School found that introverted leaders delivered much better outcomes than their extroverted counterparts. This is because, while managing employees, they let them run with their own ideas, whereas the extroverted leaders may unwittingly get so excited, that other people’s ideas may not even surface.

Some reformative leaders in history have been introverts, for example, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Gandhi. They only took the spotlight because they had no choice, because they were driven to do what they thought was right.

When psychologists look at the minds of the most creative people, they find people who are very good at exchanging ideas, but who also have a serious streak of introversion in them. This is because, solitude is often a crucial ingredient to creativity. Darwin took long walks alone in the woods and emphatically turned down dinner party invitations. Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, dreamed up many of his amazing creations in a lonely bell tower office. He was actually afraid to meet the young kids who read his books, for fear that they were expecting a jolly Santa Claus-like figure, and would be disappointed with his more reserved persona. Steve Wozniak invented the first apple computer, sitting alone at his cubicle in HP. He admits that he wouldn’t have become such an expert in the first place, if he hadn’t been too introverted to leave the house when he was growing up.

Of course this doesn’t mean that we should stop collaborating, and case in point is Steve Wozniak famously coming together with Steve Jobs, to start Apple. But it means that solitude matters, and to me, it is the air that I breathe! I believe being an introvert makes me powerful, because I notice a lot of small details that most people miss out.

Look at most of the world’s major religions, you will find seekers, who went off on their own, and had profound epiphanies and revelations, which they then brought back to the community. So, no wilderness, no revelations!

Contemporary psychology says that we cannot be in a group of people without instinctively mimicking the actions and beliefs of the most dominant and charismatic person in the group, even though, there’s no correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas. None at all! Much better for people to generate their own ideas, free from any distortion, and then come together as a team to discuss them.

So, why are we making introverts feel so bad about wanting to be by themselves sometimes? The answer lies in our history. Society has always favored the man of action to the man of contemplation.

None of this is to say, that social skills are unimportant, and I’m not calling for the abolishment of teamwork at all. The problems that we face in today’s world are so vast and complex, that we will require armies of people to come together and solve them. But, the more freedom that we give introverts, the more likely they are to come up with their own unique solutions to these problems. I believe, that when it comes to introversion, and solitude, we truly are poised on the brink of dramatic change.

I am going to leave you now, with two calls for action, for those who share my views.

1. Stop the madness for constant group work. More autonomy should be given, because that’s where deep thought comes from.
2. Have your own revelations. Unplug, and get inside your own heads once in a while.

I end, by wishing you all the courage to speak softly!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The System

“But she was your best friend! How could you not know?” they said. I frowned, tired of the same question parroted to me over and over again. They were referring to Rita, my former best friend, and what they wanted to know, was where she currently was, and what she was doing. The problem was, I had no clue.

Rita was an extremely bright student, and the dearest friend of mine. She was what every other kid in the class dreamed to be, and, since I also did fairly well in class, but was never the “best”, she remained, in addition to being my best friend, also my biggest competition.

Now, I must admit, that there were times when it frustrated me when my parents asked me why I wasn’t doing as well as she was. However, I did my best to smother my frustration, simply because I knew it would take a lot more hard work than I could actually put in, to be the “best”. But there were times when blind jealousy got the better of me. My primal instinct was to always try and beat her.

However, it was in the ninth grade, I believe, that I first succeeded in my puerile attempts, when she was not prepared for a certain History test, and I managed to ace it. I will never forget the curious sense of gratifying pleasure rushing down my veins. And strangely, I do not feel proud of it.

She kept maintaining her standards for a year, though, until we transitioned into the “Junior College” after our 10^th standard exams. The Junior College entails more freedom, and to everyone’s utter dismay, she was losing herself. I was losing my best friend to unsavory company and habits.

Naturally, I was instantly without any competition. I could not do anything to help my best friend, and for a while, a part of me didn’t want to.

At this point, I would like to find the answers to some questions that haunt me off and on. Why did I want to topple my best friend even when I was doing fairly well in studies? How did I grow so blatantly passionate about being the “best” just in terms of marks, that I could not, or did not have the energy to restrain my best friend when I knew she was ruining her life? How could I let her do that to herself? Is it not the system that teaches us to evaluate a human being, just by the value of how that person performs in life? I do not think life is a game that can either be lost or won. Life is far too complex, and immensely more beautiful than that.

I am not ambitious enough to defeat the system, but I surely would execute my rights to question it. The loss of my friend to the evils of society, and my not-so-selfless reluctance to bring her back, finally created a permanent wound in my mind. I have lost a portion of my innocence forever. I have grown up sufficiently to realize, that my innocence did receive the first jolt, when I was made to believe that I need to beat my best friend in studies; that winning is the only option; that life is not a game, it is a battle; that our curriculum is designed not to enlighten, but to get addicted to an unreal fetish for a glorious mark sheet; that the terms of a civilization are bound by morals of mankind that does both liberate and enslave.

I wish her luck, and all the ‘Rita’s of this world, for being what she was to me, for paving the path of my life, and making me the person that I am today.

 

I am the person that never fits in, the outsider, and I probably view most things very differently.

I am starting a blog, as a way of expressing myself. Those who have met me, will know that I do not talk much, but I happen to be able to put my thoughts down better, in writing.

I start with a personal experience, something close to my heart. I cannot categorize yet, the articles that I will post here. The best I can come up with is “random musings”. I will ensure, that I always leave a piece of me in my work. Incidentally, this happens to be the meaning of my blog’s name, Meraki.  More soon!

-Sanjana