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You know, the people whom I work with, have come up with this fantastic contest called ‘Celebrating Myself’ for International Women’s Day 2012. Yep, you’re right! I am talking about the Women’s Web’s contest right here and since yours truly is the Content Manager around these parts, I am not eligible to compete – which means no gift vouchers from Zivame for me either.
Not that I hope to win amongst all the great entries that we get, but this time every single participant gets a prize! Sigh!
But sad as that may be, it is no reason not to celebrate myself, is it? Although my husband is already apprehensive that I might be afflicted with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, here I am, throwing humility to the winds, ready to find out what is it in me, that is worthy of a celebration!
I recently saw an ad for a movie called ‘London, Paris, New York’ – and I was like hey! I’ve been to all 3 places! That set me thinking to how many countries I’ve travelled to so far. Of course I know that there are far more better travelled people around and the world has a zillion more places to discover – but having been to 6 countries during the time period when I was 23 – 25 years old, is a slightly big deal, is it not? At times I’ve travelled with friends, at times with family and at times by myself; and I’ve completely enjoyed all my travels!
I’ve lived a rather sheltered life and travelling really exposed me to a lot of different cultures, broadened my horizons and taught me a few lessons along the way. Travelling really changed my thinking and my perspectives – it gave me a new found confidence and taught me to become self-sufficient. It taught me to to enjoy my company and gave me the guts to head out by myself – whether for dinner, movie or shopping or to simply pay bills and run errands, and to nonchalantly ward off inquisitive glances and nosy questions. And what’s more, it also taught me to survive alone in a tiny, studio apartment for months together, without a TV, without a computer/internet and without another living soul! Cheers to me, I say!
Moving on, I am quite proud of the fact that I found it in me to change careers to do what I really want to do. I’m so glad and thankful to be where I am today, doing what I do; afterall, “To love what you do and feel that it matters; how could anything be more fun?” – Katherine Graham (of the Washington Post). And when work doesn’t feel like work anymore, so much so that, I am sitting and writing this well into the eve of my weekend and not resenting it one bit – isn’t that a good enough reason to celebrate myself?
And on that positive note, now that I’ve blown my trumpet loudly enough for the day, off I go to kickstart my weekend! Let the party begin! Woohoo!
*Photo credit: Feral Indeed! (Used under a Creative Commons license)
Anne John loves to play with words and calls herself a reader, writer, explorer & dreamer. She has a wide range of interests and has recently jumped onto the Mommy Vlogger bandwagon! read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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