u/P_Icecream

People have been telling me to "read the room" for years now. I asked my friend what this actually means in my context and she said that I have to work on understanding sarcasm and understand what something actually means.

I've been accused of pretending to be oblivious in conversations but in reality I just find it hard to understand topics that are split up in such a way that each point appears disconnected from the other. I genuinely don't understand what some things said in conversation mean. How do I try to understand that?

I also keep saying stuff that in retrospect sound like I'm throwing shade on someone. And I don't understand when someone makes a joke at my expense. I know these aren't directly related to reading the room but I want to improve here too.

I went from 82 kg to 70 kg in a little over three months. Everyone around me has noticed that I lost weight. But nobody thinks I look like I lost 10 kg, only around 3 to 4 kg.

My starting weight was 82kg and now I'm at 70kg.

For context, I'm a teenager who started somewhat early around 11 years ago. I'm the first person in my family to have learnt carnatic music for more than a couple of years.

I started kritis super late and I've never had anyone make me practice because nobody I around me knew the importance of practice. I was too lazy to practice on my own and I didn't realise that I had to practice. I am practicing now, and I realise that I'm so behind because I simply didn't practice.

I feel like I'm not at par with any of my peers. A lot of people around me learnt manodharma years and years ago and now they've advanced so much even though I could have been at par with them five years ago. I'm a beginner at manodharma and I know it will take me a while to catch up with any of them (if I ever do).

My school has a very dumb rule that says all girls have to wear rettai pinnal or pigtails if their hair is too short. Like I seriously don't understand the point of this. Virichu potutu vara koodathu na that's fair, even though I don't believe in hairstyle restrictions. But ortha pinnal pinnina enna prachanai ivangalakku. I have a huge scar on the back of my head from a childhood accident and vagudu edutha it genuinely hurts. Hair a cut pannalum pigtails potutu vaa nu solranga. Nanga enna pigtails pottuka chinna kozhandaingala? It looks so bad if you wear pigtails after a certain age. I'm so done with these stupid schools run by old conservative people

So my 11th is starting in June (CBSE) and I'm kind of scared bc I chose PCMB with integrated JEE. I have school from 8 AM to 5 30 PM and I won't have a whole bunch of time to study after school. I'm not actually going to write JEE. I might write IAT or some other private entrance exam. I already studied some chapters in my core subjects. I'm planning to study all the chapters for the first term before the end of the holidays.

I need advice on how to realistically handle this schedule and also study everyday. Do I have to study all four subjects every single day or can I do some sort of rotation? Seniors who had similar schedules, do you have any advice?

High fantasy is one of my favourite genres to read. But I'm tired of the fact that the vast majority of high fantasy books seem to be based on medieval Europe, and all the Tolkien knockoffs. I hate how every single character is white, and so are the authors and a big chunk of the audience.

I wish high fantasy as a genre existed in Tamil literature because I'd love to see worldbuilding based on our history. I love Tamil history and south Indian history in general. I want to see good worldbuilding and a culture that's identifiably south Indian in a high fantasy book.

I am kind of new to the violin (I've been learning for about three years now). When I went to the shop to get my strings changed, they asked me what shruthi I play in and gave me strings based on the shruthi. They've never done that before though. My new strings have a whole bunch of ridges on them. My old strings didn't have those. What are those ridges, and what strings do people generally use for their violins?

I can't wear any traditional clothes like kurtis, half saree, lehenga or anything of the sort. I have sensory processing disorder (unofficially diagnosed) and most things that touch my skin borderline hurt. A lot of things make my skin feel like it's burning and I feel more discomfort than the average person from a lot of things, especially humidity, seams on clothes among other things. That's a very vague description of my problems. There's a lot more but I'm not going to bother you with that.

The only clothes I can wear are made of a very specific fabric and there aren't a whole bunch of clothes I can wear. I usually wear really worn down clothes with huge holes that are barely holding together. I look like a joke in family events. I sing carnatic music and I've had to skip a few opportunities to sing on stage because the dress code was traditional and I couldn't wear anything traditional.

I need some medium length keerthana recommendations about Ganapathi, preferably by Tyagaraja or Shyama Sastri and in ragas that aren't heavy. No karaharapriya esque ragams (for example, no abheri, abhogi, bhairavi, keeravani etc. I'm not referring to janyams here, I'm just referring to ragas that resemble karaharapriya.).