attack of the giant octopus.

As this will be my last entry while still in India, I thought it would be appropriate to recount the eventful story leading up to my stay in this amazing country. It’s a long one so bare with me.

Chapter One: Pre-Crisis

I had to go to into the city to get my employment visa. Without this visa I could not work in India, nor could I even get into the country— it was of the utmost priority. It took me a while to compile all the required paperwork for my visa. I had to collect the usual documents as evidence of my identity- my passport, birth certificate, proof of address, etc. But, the real tricky part was getting a justification letter, which is described on the India visa website as being:

A letter from the employer in India certifying that applicant is a skilled and qualified professional, technical expert, senior executive or in a managerial position. This letter should state that the applicant’s skills are not available in India.

Well, the funny thing is, I don’t have any skills, much less a skill that all the  one billion people in India lack. I graduated from a liberal arts college and majored in East Asian Studies. This means I am qualified to do absolutely nothing. Perhaps my greatest accomplishment from my four years of higher education was discovering this potato chip:

(click on image if it is really small)

I also did gain some proficiency in the hard level of Rock Band (guitar only, not drums), in addition to acquiring a deep-seated aversion to all the things related to science.

The folks down at our college career center encourage us to tell our prospective employers that we are critical thinkers. What exactly that means has always been unclear to me— a fancy way to say intelligent or logical, perhaps?

Anyhow, I was a bit curious as to how my employer was going to justify to the government of India my working over there. But, my boss proved to be a magician as he was able to produce the needed materials.

So with all required documents in hand, I was off to the big apple to get my visa and start my adventure across the sea. But, before I left, my parents informed me of a graduate school fair that was happening during the same time I would be in new york, and that I should definitely go because it would be supah helpful.

My new P.O.A. was to first go the grad. fair then go to my visa appointment at 11am the next morning.

I arrived in the city. Ahh the city!

I used to hate the city- it’s only redeeming quality being the cancer-filled hotdogs sold on the streets. But, now that I am older and have a mature appreciation for the finer things of life, I have come to really like it. Plus, the WNBA Liberty games are a really great and insanely inexpensive opportunity to get yo’ drank on and eat nachos.

Someday I would like to move there. Part of me wants go as soon as I get back to America. But the other part of me thinks I’m really not cut out to be a new york city slicker. Would I really fit in there? I’m certainly not cool enough to be a hipster. And I’m definitely not hardworking enough to be a young, wall street sort:

Regardless, I was happy to be spending some of my last few days in the vibrant city of new york, even if I didn’t fit in, and even if I had to go to a grad school fair.

When I walked into the large hall full of tables and grad school representatives from across the country, I noticed that all the other one-thousand, million people had on business attire. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Not only that, but everyone seemed to me much older than I- with actual job experience and such. I felt like a tween wearing a skirt from the Delias catalogue at a high school prom.

I awkwardly wanderer around the tables, pretending as best I could that I was really interested in learning all about the about the various programs offered, what kind of jobs students got post-graduation, and all the intriguing research the professors were up to. Everyone else seemed to be having really serious and informative conversations. I was way too intimidated to talk to anyone so I just walked around writing my email on a bunch of lists and sneaking away before anyone noticed me.

It brought me back to those stressful and daunting days in high school when I was applying to colleges and pretending to be a person who was really eager to write papers on things like the philosophy of philosophy, engage in dialogues about diversity and gender constructs, and eat dinner at my professor’s house. And now I was pretending to be someone who was eager to start a professional, lifelong career. This idea of commitment and responsibility terrified me— meandering my way through life is much more appealing. Tis’ the symptom of being 23 years old.

I was able to muster some semblance of confidence:

Wait one second! They are trying to impress me. They want to convince me to go to their school. I don’t have to convince them to let me in…not yet at least. Who cares if I have no idea what I’m looking for? Who cares if I am under-dressed?

So I stood a little taller, brushed the dirt off my shoulders (figuratively), and stepped in line to wait my turn to chat to a grad school representative.

I didn’t have a question in mind and there wasn’t anything in particular I really wanted to know— I just wanted to assert myself after having felt so out of place and awkward. I started thinking about what I should ask. I tried to imagine what an Ivy League Joe emitting toxic levels of confidence would say.

Hmmmm….what to say…what to say….maybe…

No. That won’t do.

Yea. That’s it. That’s what a person who knew their shit would say.

The woman in front of me was having a lengthy conversation with the representative. I tuned into their conversation only to hear,

Swiss Embassy, you say? Yowzah! That certainly makes my TJ Maxx work experience sound considerably less impressive. This is your cue to leave.

And I did. I busted out of that shindig at lightning speed without having talked to anyone. But it’s okay, because I did something equally useful and beneficial for my directionless future:

Chapter Two: Crisis

Flash forward next morning: I have overslept. I have less than an hour to get to my visa appointment, but I have no idea where the building is.

But, even against these incredible obstacles I conjured up my inner super powers and managed to make it on time. I triumphantly ran up to the receptionist. He asked me for my documents. As he looked at them, he informed me that I was at the wrong place and said,

Without taking the proper amount of time to put all my documents back in the folder, I was out the door and sprinting across Manhattan to get to the correct building. I finally arrived- only about thirty minutes late- and went up to receptionist. I handed her my folder with all my documents. As she looked at them she said,

I looked at her stunned. “It’s in the folder. All of my stuff is in that folder.”

Then she said four words that tore my soul into a million pieces,

“It’s not in here.”

And that’s when I realized-

Oh. No. I must have dropped it while I was running out of the first building.

I was absolutely destroyed. I was the stupidest person in the entire world. I had dropped my passport in New York City a week before I was going to work in India. It would take weeks to get a new one. I couldn’t get my visa. I would miss my flight and be stuck in America. All my plans from six months ago would be cancelled. I would forever live with my parents. I really was the stupidest person in the entire world.

I had no idea what to do. After 15 or so minutes of statue-like behavior, I convinced myself this was not the time to get upset. This was a time that called for swift and immediate action! I went out of the building and retraced my steps back to the other building.

(Do not mistake my decision to go out looking for my passport as some kind of newfound hope I would find my passport. I did not think I would find my passport. People don’t lose their passports in the city and find them. People pick up passports in the city and sell them to people in Kyrgyzstan).

So there I was trudging around Manhattan, looking like the most devastated, hopeless human being in all of america. I bought a pretzel.

I kept looking though. It was hard to motivate myself because all I wanted to do was lie down on the sidewalk and cry. For hours and hours. I couldn’t even fathom calling my parents and telling them what happened. I didn’t want to face anyone. You have to be a really talented idiot with years of experience in stupidity to pull something like this off.

How was I to proceed? What was I to do??

I’ll head west and work in a diner and be that unfriendly/alluring waitress with a mysterious past. Maybe I can go work on an organic farm in Mozambique. I’ve always been fascinated by beavers and their semi-underwater abodes. Maybe I’ll go runaway and study them for a while.

I arrived back at the building I had first gone to. No passport. I talked to a security guard inside. No passport. I went back outside and recognized a police officer from earlier. I walked up to her to ask what one does when one needs to report a missing passport.

She responded with the words that sewed the pieces of my torn soul back together and reinforced it with the glue of utter jubilation (illegal in most countries),

Chapter Three: Post-Crisis

“You found my passport?”

“Yes. Just dropped it off at the station.”

My jaw dropped.

Tears erupted from my eyes.

I was so stunned I couldn’t speak.

I put my trembling hands on her shoulder to show my infinite gratitude.

(and I nevah touch strangaz)

“It’s okay. Don’t cry, now.”

But I wasn’t crying. My body was producing angels of happiness and hope, and these angels were flying out of my eyeballs to fill the world with messages of universal love and joy. The world was a glorious, glorious place.

And within just two hours, I had gotten my passport back, returned to the correct building, and successfully submitted all my documents to receive my visa. Mission accomplished. I was the luckiest idiot evah.

What a rollercoaster of emotion. I was the happiest person in the world. I was the fat girl who had won the beauty pageant.  I was the handicap kid who got to be the water boy for the varsity basketball team. I was the happiest person in the world. I was invigorated, born again. I was an angel of happiness and hope, and I wanted to pass on all the fortune I had received to another soul in the spirit of karma. And also in the spirit of the movie Pay It Forward.

It did not take long for that opportunity to present itself to me. A homeless woman approached me as I was floating down the street in my bubble of ecstasy.

Who is Kendra?

Sometime back I received an email from my freshmen year roommate/super friend Ashley (fun fact: she knows the man who invented special features for DVDs). In this email, Ashley informed me that I reminded her of Kendra and that if I ever happened to meet Kendra, we’d be insta-great friends because we are so similar.

But then it occurred to me-

Ashley had thrown her name out in the email as if I would immediately recognize it. She had made no mention of who exactly Kendra was or in what ways I was so similar to her. She provided no last name, no identifying information- just simply Kendra.

Evidently Kendra is such a big deal that everyone should know who Kendra is by the mere mention of her first name. No further explanation is needed. She belongs to that very exclusive club of very accomplished people that are known by just their first names- like Aristotle, Mozart, Sinbad, Nico, Lassie, and Shaq. Who is Kendra? Kendra is Kendra.

Even though I had no idea who Kendra was, I assumed it was a compliment to be compared to her. If you can be referred to solely by your first name, you must be pretty great (exception: Bono).

I was really excited to find out who this amazing human being was and about all her wonderful qualities (that made her so much like me). Clearly, I had been out of the loop for not knowing who she was, but from that point on, I made an effort to keep my eyes peeled for any illuminating information on the mysterious and ostensibly magnificent Kendra.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After awhile, Kendra faded from my mind as I had many matters of utmost importance to attend to.

But just yesterday, for whatever reason, Kendra came to mind. I decided to finally put an end to the mystery and make the tremendous and time-consuming effort of googling her name:

Kendra Leigh Baskett (born June 12, 1985), also known professionally by her birth name of Kendra Wilkinson, is an American television personality and glamour model. She is well known for her role on the E! reality television series The Girls Next Door, on which her life as one of Hugh Hefner’s three girlfriends was documented. Although not a Playboy Playmate, she has appeared in three nude pictorials.

I failed to see the connection- Glamour model?  E! Reality television series? One of Hugh Hefner’s three girlfriends?

The textual description of Kendra provided no information on our shared attributes. Perhaps a visual depiction would shed some light. So I google imaged her name. At first glance I did not see any similarities. But then I performed a very complex computer-generated cross-analysis (see below) which finally revealed why I remind Ashley of Kendra.

 

 

 

Almost indistinguishable!

a friend’s sacrifice. part III.

This is the final installment of a three-part series.

When I last left off, we had just arrived at our campsite in the desert and I became best friends with a camel named Beyonce Giselle Knowles.

We ate dinner and watched what was quite possibly the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen.  It was absolutely wonderful and I was feeling rather euphoric sitting out there surrounded by all the natural beauty of the desert. It was quite the blissful Circle of Life-esque/spiritual hippie moment for me. I think I was the universe’s/nature’s biggest fan at that given moment:

However, that feeling soon faded as the temperature began to quickly drop. As most intelligent people know, the desert is a land of extreme temperatures. While the days are characterized by blistering heat, the nights are freezing. Such is the way of sand. I was not one of those intelligent people and did not sufficiently prepare for the numbing cold of the desert. Only carrying a light jacket, it became very clear that I had a long and unpleasant night ahead.

When it was time to go to sleep, I could not stop myself from shivering. It was so cold. I stared at Beyonce Giselle Knowles. Enviously. She looked so cozy sleeping in her warm, fur exterior.

I don’t know if my brain was succumbing to the freezing cold temperature, but I couldn’t stop staring at her. All that I could think about was that scene from Star Wars where Han Solo cuts open the body of his Tauntaun to provide shelter for Luke while stranded in the outskirts of Hoth (You don’t know what I am talking about? Shame!) Beyonce began to look more and more like a heated bungalow and less and less like my BFF homegirl.

“I can’t kill Beyonce Giselle Knowles, cut her open, and use her entrails as bed cushions and carcass as an igloo. That’s absurd. Anyway- we are great friends. The best of friends, in fact. We are the dynamic duo! Companions for life! She is Martin Lawrence and I am Will Smith. Batman and Robin! John and Yoko! Sloth and Chunk! Doug and Skeeter! The Golden Girls (if there were only two)! Bette Midler and the woman who dies in BEACHES!  Lindsay Lohan and cocaine! George Foreman and the George Foreman grill!   We are a team. And teammates stick together. Teammates are forever. Teammates never say die. And most importantly, teammates don’t eviscerate one another.”

But it was really cold.

I started to think of all those movies where people form wonderful bonds with animals- bonds that transcend any formed between two humans.  By the end of the film, the animal always ends up heroically sacrificing his/her life for the new human friend. Didn’t that happen in The Great Panda Adventure? It definitely happened in Old Yeller. Beyonce was a noble steed- she would be happy sacrifice herself to save me. We had spent 8 whole hours together- surely she was ready to die for me.

And anyway, after she did, I would be sure to search out her family and let them know of her heroic actions.

I would even raise her orphaned camel child as my own.

I didn’t disembowel my camel. I couldn’t. All I had was a dinky pocket knife. And to do something like that you need a lightsaber, stupid.