Tag: Life

Finishing the script – a new journey

After an entire year, I finally finished the rough draft of my comic book script last weekend.

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This post is a little late to the party but my mind desperately needed a break from writing. The last few days have allowed me to recuperate as well as re-evaluate my goals and objectives with regards to the comic book, and to a larger extent, my future.

What I required was a dose of reality, and I got a good share of it reading reference books on making and publishing comics. While I’m very happy to have finished the rough draft, there still remains a lot to be done. Reading and listening to the words of professional writers and comic book artists has also made it very clear how the journey towards becoming a full-fledged writer/artist is not an easy one. There is still a long way to go, and there is even more to learn. I need to really patch up my art skills, and consistently improve my writing as well. It is a difficult career, and success is not guaranteed, but when all is said and done I find that what is required is a little bit of initiative and a whole lot of discipline.

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Vegeta and I are on the same wavelength concerning this. 

I’ve been writing ever since high school. It started off with corny and over the top cheesy romantic teen novels. My first ever novel was titled, Love As It Is, so I think you get the point.

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These novels now serve as comedic enterprises on those days when I’m stressed and don’t feel too good about my writing just so I can remind myself how much I have improved since.

Then came an autobiography in Our Last Summer that allowed me to reflect on the most dynamic stages of my life growing up from a scrawny teenager to a responsible adult. At it’s heart, the book was about family, friendship, and remembering my roots while paving my own path in life.

This soon followed suit with a short, fictionalized novel in A Little Bit of Everything.  Despite being fiction, the story touched base and drew inspiration from what I believe will remain the most important and memorable moments of my life. Writing A Little Bit of Everything helped me define who I am and who I wished to be as an individual. When I completed the book, I realized that what meant the most to me in life was to keep my loved ones happy, and share my happiness with them and others through my stories and writing. Now, having finished the script for my comic book, that emotion has become a resolution for what I’m convinced and determined will be the foundation for my future career. 

While the script is complete, I can’t deny that it will be a few more years until the comic book as a whole comes together. I have just begun dissecting an art course on line drawings and fundamentals. I have purchased a few more on figure drawing, perspective drawing, and animation, in a toolbox that I expect will grow in time. I will soon begin polishing my script and setting out the layouts for the comic while doing a hefty bit of research on topics relevant to the work. I will be juggling these activities in between brainstorming another novel and completing my doctoral studies.

I have my work cut for me but I look forward to this new adventure, one that I intend to share with all my readers, friends, and family. With your love and support, I intend to pull through. That being said, I hope you are all doing well and staying safe amidst the current COVID-19 pandemic!

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I’ll see you all very soon with another post.

Busy working from home!

Hi everyone,

It has been a while since my last post.  Amidst the current coronavirus crisis, I hope everyone is staying safe, and practicing social distancing.

The last month has been a roller coaster ride in my life but it all turned out for the better. In short, I have been busy with my studies (publishing a paper on my thesis research), adapting to the gradual changes amidst the current crisis, and engaging with my family.

As of now, my research has come to a halt as I’m largely studying from home while engaging in my comic book script. Having arrived at the climax of the work, I have about three more chapters to complete before I have the first draft of the script ready. I have also returned to dabbing in my art immersion studies during this period of isolation and and intend to share my progress with you all as I move forward.

In the meantime, I hope everyone continues to remain safe, follow the prescribed hygiene standards, and most importantly engaging yourself in whatever positive activities during this difficult time.

I hope to see you all very soon with a new post.

Trinkets from the ’90s

We all have a To-Do List, and every time we make one, there is always something that we inevitably push off to the end. In my case, it was cleaning up the storage room in my apartment.

After months of “surface” organization, I got off my lazy ass this week and put in some real time. Having accumulated an array of materials from when I had first begun my undergraduate studies (and prior), what was expected to be a painful process turned out to be very enjoyable.

Among the mislabeled cardboard and storage boxes, I found an assortment of items that served as references to various trinkets from the ’90s and early 2000s (my childhood and teenage years) in what now seems to be a lost time.

I was hard-pressed to choose my top 10 favorites (in no particular order) in what I found. For those readers among my audience who were born in the ’90s (and possibly earlier) I hope we share common grounds in relating to these memories.

(1) Dial-Up Internet & MSN Messenger

The iconic screeching sounds of connecting (and re-connecting) to the World Wide Web so that I could chat with my friends via MSN Messenger after school is an enduring memory. I used MSN Messenger up till 2011 (when I was in the second year of my undergraduate studies at university) by which point it was done and dusted and Facebook had taken over.

(2) Trackballs/Boxed Computers/Floppy Disks

My family had one shared PC system hosting Windows XP and man was it the hoot to get some game time on it. The trackballs would get broken often and replacements were a frequent necessity. Floppy disks were the fashion while I was in elementary school, and it wasn’t until middle school (around 2006) that I got my hands on CDs (700 MB were certainly big storage back then), but it wouldn’t be long till  the USBs (and the GIGA-bytes) came into fashion.

(3) Cassette Players/Discman

On that vein, I would carry cassette players and discman all the way up to my early high-school years. These were the bomb, and unlike my first I-pod which seemed so fragile, these looked like they could withstand anything (and on many occasions, did).

(4) Boxed Television

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Not much different from the boxed computers. Boxed TVs were the fashion in my family until only very recently. In fact, the basement I lived in a few years ago, had a boxed TV that was compatible with my PS3. The graphics, on the other hand, were certainly not.

(5) 240p/360p

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Kids these days make too much of a fuss for videos that lack 1080p resolution. Back in my days, 144p was the king. Our eyes never really necessitated the measurement of focusing on resolution until the culture of pixel diversity kicked in.

(6)  Siruvar Malar

A callback to my childhood in India, I grew up reading the Tamil counterpart of what were children’s newspapers/comics. These magazines were my weekly entertainment and would be delivered with the Friday newspapers. The magazines would be peppered with folktales, crossword puzzles, brain twisters, and just about everything that made a kid happy. My grandfather collected over thousands of these magazines in what was a treasure trove of memories that I shared with him in my childhood. I can certainly attribute the origin of my aspirations to become a writer and comic-book artist to these magazines.

(7) Spinning Tops /Beyblade

In my hometown of Madurai, India, you weren’t a cool kid if you didn’t know how to spin a top. I would spend many hours learning the art, much of which initially involved slamming the top on the ground, before eventually becoming a street master. Dueling tops in my childhood in the ’90s would later transform into my love for Beyblade in the early 2000s.

(8) Slap Bracelets + Tazos

While I didn’t get to wear a watch frequently, I did get to wear these slap bracelets  along with a few of my “bracelet buddies” throughout my middle school days in the early 2000s. I would also host a gigantic collection of tazos during the Nintendo Pokemon craze of that time period. My family lived in Egypt back then, and unfortunately, my mother would throw the tazos away prior to our departure from the country. Despite their loss, I will always remember the memorable fights I had with my younger sister bargaining between Pokemon tazos as we became Lays chips (through which they were promoted) junkies.

(9) Multicolored Pens

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As a kid, I felt a certain amount of authority after buying a multicolored pen, especially when I had been frequently told that red/green/blue colored pens could only be utilized by teachers! These pens were just that cool. Even now, I would love to buy one just for the sake of it.

(10) Simpler Pleasures

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In conclusion, I got my storage sorted out, and in return inherited a flood of nostalgia on the simple pleasures that is my experience of the ’90s and early 2000s.

Living in the Past, ’96: A Movie Review

This post is a first for me as it is a review of a 2018 Tamil film which made waves in my home state of Tamil Nadu, India upon its release. Having watched the movie only recently, and being a Tamil movie enthusiast, I was left wondering how I had missed it at all.

’96 is a romantic drama starring prominent Kollywood actors Vijay Sethupathi and Trisha Krishnan in the lead roles of Ram and Jaanu, two high school sweethearts from the 1996 batch meeting again at a reunion, 22 years after their initial parting.

The plot progresses periodically between episodes of Ram and Jaanu’s past in 1996 when they were classmates in high school and fell in love, to their present state 22 years later. Their reunion, and subsequent interactions in coming to terms with their present lives form the crux of the film in an excellent eulogy capturing the nostalgia of first-love, the inevitability of time, and the power of memories.

A movie succeeds when it is able to make its audience part of its story.  Unlike most movies where I have played the classic part of the audience as a third-party individual looking in at the protagonists’ journey from a removed space, ’96 offered a refreshing and unique experience where I felt drawn into the world of Ram and Jaanu as though I were one of their close friends relating with their journey.

This is achieved largely through the original background score  of ’96. The music is evocative, providing  a unique dialogue that embraces the subtle emotions and silence reflected in the company of the protagonists, while simultaneously transcending the story by drawing the audience into their journey.

Indeed, Ram and Jaanu’s experiences reminded me of my very own efforts in writing Our Last Summer: A Personal Memoir as well as A Little Bit of Everything. Both books were motivated by my desires to capture and immortalize cherished memories from high school and the last few years of my life. The fundamental themes of love, memories, the inexorable passage of time, and the very act of remembering and living in the past as evidenced by the characters in the movie touched me deeply and served as an additional reminder of my personal life resolution to “cherish the memories of the past, live the present, and happily anticipate the future.”

I learned this lesson in the company of a tragic event in my life. It has helped me since to become stronger as an individual in making my future by remembering the past that builds my present and appreciating the subtle and simple things that I often tend to take for granted in my day to day adventures. 

Ram and Jaanu face those very same questions and find their answers in ’96. I leave it to you, my readers, to find out their journey’s end and be inspired to engage in your own drive down memory lane. ’96 joins the prestigious group of a select set of movies that have come from the Tamil film industry that I believe transcend its culture and language. I highly recommend the film for all my readers as it is readily available on Youtube, Google Play, or Einthusan.

2019: The year in review

2019 was a roller-coaster ride, and it is now time to turn the page toward a new year. The ups and downs of 2019 have served to motivate my goals and aspirations, both of which share a common origin in the personal progress my life has witnessed thus far. The ride as a whole stabilized around November, providing me a chance to catch my breath, and get set for what I hope will be a much smoother 2020.

2019 arrived at a crossroads in various facets of my life involving my family, friends, and my career aspirations. Moving into 2020, I have about 1.5 years to go in completing my doctoral degree. 2020 also marks the continuation of a personal and introspective dialogue that has helped me come to terms with who I am as an individual, and who I wish to become in the future. 

Looking back, 2019 taught me an important lesson in being careful to not spread myself too thin in my efforts.  I had to set aside my “pen” and give myself time to contemplate in solitude. For so long, I had perceived said course of action to be foolish and of no use. 2019 and Yoda proved me wrong.

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I needed to be patient enough to first settle my doubts and misgivings before jumping on the irresistible bandwagon that included my lofty dreams and aspirations. I needed to ground myself in reality, and be a little more practical in my approach lest I go crazy with stress. More so, I had to learn to avoid being overly critical of myself which on many occasions led to frustrating results in my writing, and just about everything else, along with a veritable lack of confidence.

The last few months have served as personal rehabilitation. I took a step back, and relaxed. Occasional road-trips helped as well. Altogether, I let life sink in, and every now and then, pondered over the nagging doubts, slowly overcoming my insecurities while solidifying my personal vision for my future. With 2020 at my doorstep, I spent much of December gradually organizing the blue-print for a committed, productive, and practical schedule in my full-time pursuit of a career in writing.

I find writing to be a dynamic activity, and one that is heavily influenced by the writer’s state of mind and day-to-day experiences. What I needed to find was balance in my personal life (as well as share and help my family understand the ensuing changes, the toughest part of it all)  and 2019 has been a resounding success in that measure. So, having accomplished this, what exactly do I have in mind for 2020?

I love writing but I’m also too stubborn to give up my love for science. My efforts will thus take me toward a serious pursuit of a career “sun-lighting” as a science writer, and “moon-lighting” as  an aspiring author/comic-book artist. The Pensive Reverie  has provided me the chance to share my thoughts and opinions with my friends and followers around the world on a variety of topics. I hope to expand that empire of mine while focusing The Pensive Reverie as a hub where I can discuss my interests as an aspiring author/comic-book artist: comic books, book reviews, writing, poetry, anime, art and animation.

Meanwhile, I intend to gradually build a separate audience for The Procrastinating Scientist which will cover my interests as a science writer. While it doesn’t seem like much in the outset, there is a lot involved on both these fronts and I will do my best to post regular updates while fencing with my doctoral studies. With that being said, I wish everyone and all a very…

To be Continued…

“Saying is one thing; doing is another.”

I spent the last few months in what amounted to a roller-coaster ride “parallel processing” all the variables that regulate my present life, and those I must now consider for my future.

I’m a guy who likes to live in the moment and not have to think too far ahead so, obviously, this was a problem. The floodgates opened with a series of conversations at work after I had successfully completed my candidacy examination.

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I was perfectly poised at the halfway point of my PhD degree, and on a near-constant basis, caught up in various conversations revolving around a necessity to plan ahead and begin setting the foundations for my career aspirations.

While much of the advice I received was in good spirit, it was quite overwhelming to take in all at once. It also served as a bitter pill that I hadn’t fully pushed myself to ask the important questions and seek the necessary answers for my future.

Thankfully, with this post, I can confidently say that I’m now on the road to getting my shit together and fully committing to my career aspirations.

Passions vs. Priorities

The world revolves around money, and I would be stupid to fool myself otherwise. I needed a good plan, and a backup to that plan, on top of another backup to my backup.

With that said, I spent the last few months heavily researching, not so much in science, but in life. I identified my passions as well as the priorities that come naturally as you grow older. As usual, it will ultimately be a balancing act, and one that I’m eager to dive into.

The goal: find a secure day-time job that fits my academic and scientific interests (ideally, a science writer), and serve as somewhat of a financial coverage, while simultaneously moonlight as a writer/artist….

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Who will take over the world!

Teaching at the university… 

My outlook on such a future was further strengthened in a recent opportunity as a guest lecturer for a higher-level undergraduate course at the university. As a teenager, I was a huge fan of the works of Carl Sagan. I was captivated by his ability to communicate complicated concepts in such concise and measured language.

Preparing for the lecture, I would try to emulate Sagan in my own way.  Unlike the usual recipe of wrestling with the concepts in my own privacy, I would wrestle with ideas on how to communicate my research to these undergraduate students.

The lecture itself would go “smoothly,”

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From what I gathered talking to a few of the students, they seemed to have understood the points I had tried to get across. It was also clear I had a long way to go until I could reach the level of Dr. Sagan. Set against the backdrop of inner monologues on my career aspirations, the guest lecture experience was beneficial and altogether, a lot of fun.  

Looking ahead

With that being said, I am now in full-time pursuit of setting the foundations of my career in writing and art. Moving forward, there are two major changes I wished to share with my readers:

(1) A science blog, established independently from The Pensive Reverie, that I will publish this coming week on WordPress. It will serve as my primary platform towards my efforts to becoming a science writer.

(2) The continuation and refocusing of The Pensive Reverie as more of a personal outlet (along the lines of this post’s content) to share my daily adventures and thoughts in my efforts to moonlight as an author/artist.

That covers most of the fun surprises I have in store for all of you. I will see you all again very soon with a new post, and a new blog to boot on top of it!

Turning 3, and 28

On June 28, 2019, I turned 28 years of age, and The Pensive Reverie completed its online journey of three years with 83 posts, and a sum total of 105 followers. A lot has happened over the last three years, but first I would like to give a big shout-out to my followers and fellow bloggers who have been supportive to the blog’s growth. Thank you very much!

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Looking back to the night of June 27, 2016 when I published my first post in “Introducing Me, and the Pensive Reverie!” I had made a humble goal to reach at least 100 followers on the blog. Three years have flown since then, and having achieved this goal, I’m now even more motivated to further expand and build this blog, not to mention update my personal profile and status! That first blog post began with the question, “Who am I?” Three years down the road, I can now confidently ask myself a different question (one that builds on its predecessor), “Who do I intend to become?”

My name is Ajay Peter Manuel. I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, my home. I hail from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. As a teenager, I traveled around the world with my family. I would complete my elementary education at Cairo, Egypt, followed by my secondary studies at Khartoum, Sudan. I was around 19 years old when I first set foot in Edmonton to begin my higher studies at the University of Alberta. Following the completion of my undergraduate studies in Astrophysics, I would self-publish my autobiography, Our Last Summer: A Personal Memoir, in the summer of 2013. With the book’s publication I would acknowledge an annoyingly persistent identity crisis, and in the years that followed, with the help of my loved ones and friends, overcome the greatest obstacle in my life: myself.

Having learned the price of freedom and individuality, I embraced the mistakes and regrets of my past, learned to live my present, and to happily look towards the future without fear and hesitation.  caption

This journey would culminate in the publication of a second book in A Little Bit of Everything, a treasure trove of memories involving the friends and family who had helped me along my journey, and most importantly my partner and soulmate. Back then, I wished to become an individual who “integrated his various passions in education, innovation, writing, art, music, science, critical thinking, accompanied with an endless appetite for life” and I continue to work hard on that front.

I’m happy to say that I have found my true-calling in becoming a writer and an artist. As I currently pursue a doctoral degree, I intend to further hone my skills on both these fronts, so that I may one day reach my penultimate goal of “sun-lighting” as a prominent science writer, and “moon-lighting” as a writer/comic book artist and animator. My dreams remain as far-fetched as they usually have been, but I can’t deny that as an individual my journey with The Pensive Reverie has motivated me to meet these challenges head-on, and with confidence.

Settling into the fourth year of this blog, I intend to stick to its original message in sharing my life’s adventures, hobbies, and interests. For all incoming and future visitors, I welcome you to read and engage with me on the posts I have written thus far, and hope that you enjoy them. For my current friends and followers, thank you very much once again for your support!

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The Procrastinating Scientist

There he sits in his chair,
Ready to go through his checklist for the day,
Little does he know,
His mind has other games to play.

Experiments aside,
Its simulations for the time being,
To run the clock down,
Until lunch break comes calling.

Productivity is the motto at heart,
But thanks to an ample lack of sleep,
Such initial motivations,
Just fall apart.

Trying all he can and must,
To stay awake,
He takes a walk,
Maybe a short break.

Alighting onto the path of knowledge,
And hoping to get lost,
He picks up a review paper to go through,
Not aware his efforts will come at a high cost.

Page after page, with heavyset eyes,
He pores through the work,
Glancing every so often, tiringly, at the computer screen,
For any promising result, as would a wayward clerk.

To steady his periodic consciousness,
Intermittently, he is driven to source,
Those libraries of social media entertainment,
Youtube videos and Facebook of course.

Soon enough, work-hour comes to a close,
As the afternoon tide arrives,
And in its welcoming arms,
Life swings a surprise.

Lo and behold, he is struck by an epiphany,
A grasp at an ingenious thought,
Rushing, he notes down his idea,
Commending his mind on a battle well-fought.

Seeking the counsel of his Professor,
He wishes to share the excitement of his finding,
To his Jedi Master of sorts,
Having put to good use, his share of the funding.

And therein he meets an exhausted figure,
Forcing his will upon public grants all day,
Wishing nothing more than directing research,
That can bend to his singular way.

With only a few minutes at hand,
The padawan shares his thoughts,
The master applauding him,
On an idea well caught.

The day may have come to an end,
But the night remains,
For more experiments to begin,
And curiosity to retain.

For in science,
Results don’t come easy, as they say,
But procrastination, well done,
Can go a long way.

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Chasing the memories of tomorrow

Setting aside the residual dream,
I welcome the gentle warmth of the sun,
Stirring, as I do,
Upon a waking dawn,
Undulating in its silent progress across the cosmic stream.

Breathing in the silence that stills my surroundings,
I relish the isolation of my existence,
In a moment that steals me away from the present,
My eyes, seeking beyond time,
Toward that distant horizon, where the future beckons.

Stepping forward onto the light,
I begin my journey,
Disposing my fears,
And following my heart’s desires,
In a wish to live free.

Shaking the uncertainties,
That question where the road ends,
I take comfort,
In the new beginnings,
That appear around every bend.

Gaining strength in every step of the way,
My shadow grows longer in the face of the rising sun,
Coalescing with others that appear,
From all walks of life, and spurring me forward,
As I begin to run.

Knowing that time waits for no one,
From the past, I borrow,
The happiness with which I may look back,
At what lies ahead,
Chasing the memories of tomorrow…

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What Makes My Imagination Click?

Just about anything to everything, and trust me, that speaks volumes.

In fact, my imagination is largely reflective of my approach to writing, which in the works I have published in Our Last Summer and A Little Bit Of Everything, can be described as an internalization of the reality that is my daily life. This process of internalization has paved the way for the construction of a landscape of epic proportions filled with a randomized but continuous menagerie and flux of thoughts and ideas that I frequently document in my journal. As such, more so than often, when I begin a new story, I would tend to look back to notes and inspirations I had garnered years earlier.

Moving forward from there, it would be a game of connecting the dots,

intermixed with the logical intricacies of how to put together a good story, and how well I emotionally synchronized with the characters and the worlds I wished to portray. Not surprisingly, the completion of said stories would leave me in an almost melancholic stupor stemming from my inability to accept the ending of the very realities I had created.

In that vein, I could say that I exercise my imagination at an almost constant basis through an assortment of activities from:

Transient visions drawing my interest on anything that randomly strikes my mind on an occasion where I may be bored as heck (particularly during university lectures).

Vivid dreams that would lead me out of bed and to the solitude of my desk on those frequent late nights where I would flesh out the details of my thoughts.

Inspirational knowledge from what I read in books, to what I watch on TV including anime, movies, the news, and of course, the internet, and at times even my own research. Speaking about books, it helps to live a block away from the Edmonton Public Library and Chapters bookstore, not to mention, a bunch of other outlets such as Wee Book Inn, making it all the more perfect to maintain my thirst for reading.

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And last, but not least,

Personal introspection, which is almost like a favorite pastime of mine.

Bat-Mode on…Time to introspect on my decisions and choices.

This could be the sweet stock of my imagination, as a large part of it is infused with the inspiration I find in relating to my daily experiences, from everything including friendship, family, love, and life as it is. Consequently, a crucial element of my writing is to translate the complex intricacies of emotions and feelings I experience in confronting the realities I face or learn from in my daily life, perfectly summarizing the internalization I mentioned earlier.

And that’s pretty much all there is to it.

Though it may seem that all I have said thus far may be geared towards writing, I’ve recognized their greater application in my recent foray into art and comics. I could even go so far as to say that it is my own way of life, and one that I find personally fulfilling as it offers me the sweet reminder in not missing out on the beautiful opportunities that lie around every corner, waiting to tickle my imagination.

All the same, it also provides me the inspiration to follow up on the things that I love most, and in a way, bring the desires and wishes I express in my writing to become the reality I live and seek…

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It’s always nice to take a step back and just immerse yourself in what is around you…