The magic of poetry : Revisited

I’ve always liked poetry. Not that I have ever written a single poem nor will I ever write. But there is something about that genre which warms the soul like no other. The words kinda touch you and though the lines may soon be forgotten, the imagery still dances in your head evoking memories, scenes and even smells.
I am doing one paper on French Poetry. I have really appreciated French Poetry or studied it in such depth. As a child, I have come first in every recitation competition that I have taken part in. I have loved learning verses and sonnets. Some of them I still do remember, most of them lie forgotten. But I have never formally learnt poems in French.
And so it was, as part of the lecture on introduction to rythme and rime in the writing of poetry, we were doing Verlaine’s Chanson d’automne. That really was something. After we’d read it a couple of times, the lines just stuck in my head. And voila, there Iwas actually reciting a poem in French. I have treasured that moment. I never thought there would be a point in my life when I could recite a poem in French. And am thrilled to say the least. I am raring to go. I hope to be able to recite twenty poems (in French) by the end of the semester.

Let me be

I have had enough…. Seriously…. More than just enough… Into my second year of my Master’s…. I’ve been in an education system since 1989… And I’ve had enough… I am not trying to say I have had enough of education…. Nor that am uninterested in pursuing my so called education…. But I’ve simply had enough of every single teacher telling me that I do not work hard enough. Laszy, casual, laid back, full of potential (but unwilling to work), work-shy… this sure will be one endless list. Every possible adjective has been used on me.

Why are my teachers so unfair in what they have to say about me? I sometimes wonder if the whole lot of them have conspired against me ? Not that I personally have anything against any of my teachers. I love and respect all of them ( of course, some more than the others). I do know and understand that what they tell me should eventually help in building me up. I know that none of them is spiteful. Yet, it gets to me. I have heard the same thing over and over and over for the last eighteen years. I have been to four different institutions, taken a wide range of subjects but at the end of every course, all I get to hear is “You know, Asha, you have it in you. But you don’t bother to work hard.”“Excuse me, have what??? And if I do have it, why would I choose to be lazy???” . Now, I must admit that I have been plain lazy several times. But c’mon, I do work as well, when I ought to.

After a while this kind of talk wrecks you. I have begun to ask myself where am I heading? What is all this in aid of? Am I really that casual about everything? Does not my future concern me? There have been times (a lot of them), when I have put in a lot of hard work and not got the kind of results that people expect of me. Ah ! there lies the crux of this issue. I have no expectations or aspirations for myself. I am extremely content to be living at this period in time. I have been blessed with everything that I could possible ask for. I do not see the need to be somebody I do not in any case want to be. So just please let me be.