Sepia toned nostalgia

Two days ago, my parents sent me something which I have been trying to get hold of for a long (five years to be precise) time and had lost hope of ever getting. They sent me a collection of emails I had sent to them soon after landing in the USA for the first time to do my Master's.

At that time (2001), our family e-groups had not yet been created and the stingy mailbox quota set by the free email providers meant that emails could not be archived in the email account itself. I reluctantly deleted the emails I had received whenever the mail quota got exceeded.

However, my parents had saved quite a few of my emails from that time onto files before deleting them from their email accounts. But, of the emails I sent immediately after reaching the USA, there was no sign. I had wanted to see what my views had been back then. Oh well, you keep some, you lose some!

Then, a couple of days ago, when cleaning out old floppies, my dad stumbled upon those emails from me which they had saved. So they immediately sent them to me. Yaaaay :-D!

With great eagerness, I began to go through them. And immediately one thing struck me. My emails were littered with words like wud instead of 'would', mite instead of 'might', i instead of 'I' wat instead of 'what' etc. These mispellings kind of grate on my nerves these days and I wonder how I managed to use them so ardently back them. I absolutely do not remember myself being such a big proponent of these supposedly "cool" words!

Then the next thing struck me. In the emails sent in the first few months, every single email contained a reference to how much I missed home or how scared I was or how lonely I felt or how I was trying my best to cope up.

Really? Of course I remember being lonely and scared initially but certainly not to this extent! Without those emails, all I remembered now from those days were the facts that I had made new friends quickly enough and that my seniors had included me in all their activities - so I had plenty of company and that I had visited one new place or the other (outside Davis) almost every weekend - in short, I remembered having fun!

That set me thinking. As evidenced from the emails, my life had definitely been a mixed bag back then - but, I could only remember the positive things now. Apparently, all those initial difficulties no longer had a major impact on how I felt now. Only the good things mattered and these gave my memories a warm, lovely sepia-toned hue.

If that is indeed the case, instead of cribbing about every little thing now (a seasoned worrier like me can worry and crib about *anything*), I think I should spend more time creating happy memories - because that is what I am going to recall five years hence. And I bet it will be wonderful having LOTS of happy memories to think back on :-D.

So, more happy memories from now on - point noted and underlined with fluorescent sketch.

And finally, while reading the emails, I also realized that somethings will never change. Here is an almost exact reproduction of the mail I wrote about an evening of "doing homework":

"Actually the story goes like this - today we have a networks assignment due - queuing theory is the topic - which is the bane of my existence. So last evening V (one of my classmates) and me came back to my house in the fond hope of discussing the problems. But me being from AU and he being a lazier pig than me, both of us drank hot chocolate, ate chips, chocolates and talked for one hour abt our undergrad life. Then realised it was too much on our part and we shd start studying.

We spent 45 minutes exactly on reading the questions and then i had to go to the grocery shop to meet R (my roomie) - V told he would accompany me and we both went - R aalu adayalam kaanum - so we both shopped for my house.

Tired by this exercise, we came home and ate ice-cream. Then spent some more time breaking our heads. Queuing theory is one of the most horrible topics researched by man-kind - any amt of reading got us no where - so guess what we did - yep, we sat and ate dinner (R was back by then and had cooked).

We had spent a total of some 2.5 hrs so far and not a single problem was solved. i took a phone break and then i got back to queing theory - A was back by then - so once more brainstorming and we finally got sth done.

Then i had to faircopy the thing - ultimately 2:00am when i slept - i still have sth left to do in it..:( and i am feeling TERRIBLY SLEEPY.,,now! Thats how my whole day yesterday was spent on queuing hteory and more queing theory and of course eating! "

LOL :-D! I totally identify with it even now and I am glad (!?!) to note that my procrastinating capabilities haven't diminished one tiny bit after five years.