Somehow, all this while, returning to studying didn't feel that difficult. As in, you had to sit in lectures, listen to some interesting professors, some drones, some 'ok' ones. And submit a few assignments - reading books and reviewing them, getting lost in technical jargon; writing term papers - starting them with utmost ambition only to see it all whittling away in the face of the deadline. It all got done, and got done with relative ease (yes, in retrospect, but still...) - maybe it was just akin to writing a press release that I used to sit on and finally rush through when the client suddenly remembered and asked for it. Screw the academic language - I simply wrote whatever my head said, with clarity. But now, exams stare down my face four days from now, and I'm staring at a volume of documents to read that's unimaginable. Explanations, critiques, papers written by twits who seem to be more intent on showing off their command of the English language and less on making people understand what they want to say. Theories that simply befuddle my practical head, and theories that arise to critique the aforementioned ones. This is it - the moment of reckoning. What studying again was to lead to - exams that test your ability to remember and lesser on your ability to understand theories and apply them.I slave over these documents at the rate of five pages an hour, which is terrible, given that a number of distractions beckon and I willingly give up at the drop of a hat - newspapers, sitcoms, songs, writing notes such as this one.

This has to pass. Otherwise I'm staring at an October-full of agony. I've done so many exams before, passed 12th grade with reasonable success - this can't be that bad, can it? Wish me luck while I mutter 'Come on, Vani, be serious' under my breath every ten minutes.

You are probably tiring of the number of times I mention the creepy crawlies that my home abounds with, but they really set me thinking. And this evening, it was a snail that set me going. Moving slowly down the white tiles in the bathroom, shaking its head and two antennae slowly, pushing forward in slo-mo. Snails have always terrified me - not for the fact that they are insects (or animals?) that creep me out, but because they move so, incredibly, slowly. No, look at one the next time you see one, and keep looking, and you'll probably get what I mean. Why do they move this slowly? Where are they going? What do they do, you know, in life? I can see why God made dogs, cats and cows; butterflies, cockroaches, and ants; monkeys, horses, centipedes and moths. But why snails? What's their purpose in life? I've always wondered if anyone's tried to understand what goes on in the, erm, minds of these animals. I know they don't have a sixth sense that lets them think outside of their fight/flight tendencies, but well then, what else do they do? What differentiates them from the million others of their kind? What do they do when it's not their season to be alive and about?

There are so many things to think about, especially when you have work to do. I wish my purpose of existence was to read, read a lot, travel and ask questions that other people can think of solving.