OOC: Info Post
Mindy Lahiri is a thirty-two-year-old OB-GYN from Concord, Massachusetts. She is a graduate of Princeton University and she went on to become a partner at a gynecological practice in New York City. Well, she was. Now she's a high school teacher.
If you are in the market for a witty, self-absorbed, bossy, entitled friend who knows her way around both Katherine Heigl's complete filmography and women's reproductive health, Mindy is your girl. Her likes include Katy Perry, Chris Pine, One Direction and stuffed pretzels. Her dislikes include lengthy museum visits, small portion sizes, judgmental Barbies and dry holiday parties.
Mindy is very dramatic. Her reaction to her Big Ex getting married was to give a drunken, insulting speech at the wedding and then ride a stolen bike into a pool. She has been known to walk off in the middle of conversations when offended and to react to extremes. Try to bond with her over a shared body type or suggest to her that your tastes in culture might not quite align and she'll most likely walk away, if she doesn't deliver an outburst first.
On the other hand, she's surprisingly easy to compliment. Her reaction to being told that she has big feet is "Thank you. I almost never fall down."
Mindy is extroverted and social. She thrives when people are paying attention to her, and she's able to strike up a conversation with just about anyone. Her direct, quirky manner of speaking tends to be seen as either charming or grating. Sometimes both at once. Many of her love interests start out as rivals.
She is creative and a surprisingly effective problem-solver. She talks until she gets what she wants. This sometimes comes in the form of giving spontaneous but effective speeches in public settings. Other times, she sits down and sweet-talks people until they pick up on the not-always-subtle hints that she's putting down. In everyday conversations, she has a tendency to talk a lot and to ramble on, but when she has a goal in mind, Mindy stays on point and is usually quite persuasive.
She's assertive, which can sometimes be taken to extremes and becomes less awesome, like when she lashes out at people for petty reasons. She says it's a necessary skill for her as a woman of color in a male-dominanted practice, and there's truth to that, but she's also a brat. She can be bossy, sometimes imposing her own opinions and values on others until or unless they tell her to back off. She's entitled and a bit spoiled too, and she expects to be pampered by the people in her life, although to be fair, she's a pretty sweet friend or girlfriend to have too, and gives as good as she expects to get. But she does tend to consider her own interests pretty important, relatively speaking, and she expects the people in her life to look out for her needs too.
Please note that Mindy is direct enough to come across as rude sometimes, but she usually has good intentions
(and so do I). She just doesn't tend to censor herself when she's being critical. Sometimes when she's hurt, she does try to be rude, and she's not always very good at it. She's better at judging people out loud than she is at deliberately insulting them.
Physically, Mindy is five-foot-three and "fluctuates between chubby and curvy" (she really doesn't like being told that she's overweight). She dresses in bright colors and wears her hair either down or in a neat bun, and has her glasses on when she's at work. Her style of dress is usually neat and professional with a feminine flair, but there are definitely outliers, like zip-up bustiers and tops with more glitter than a Student Council dance. She dresses to be complimented, for the most part.
As a result of her dramatic behavior, her pickiness and her general Mindy-ness, no one could be faulted for viewing her as a hot mess from time to time. Since she's so blunt and expressive, when she's having a hard time dealing with life stuff, everyone is going to know about it. She also doesn't hesitate to communicate to the world just how annoyed she is about being single and how much she wants it to change. All of this stuff may wind up being shared with just about anyone she meets, probably including her students. Sorry for the TMI, kids.
Why she's here
Mindy is here in Fandom because she's had a rough few months back in New York. After spending a summer (supposed to be a year, but it was cut short due to a medical emergency) in Haiti volunteering with her pastor fiancé, Casey Pearson, she broke up with Casey and came back to New York to find her spot at Shulman and Associates already filled by a new doctor. Although she'll swear that other practices around the city were vying for her to come work for them, Mindy decided to make a big change and come here instead.
This means that she might be a little down in the dumps for a while over the breakup. There won't be crying in public, but there might be sniffling in her office.
Her class
Mindy will be teaching Sexual Health this semester on Thursdays during third period. You can expect classes on STIs and STDs, pregnancy, birth control, anatomy, childcare, and an anonymous question box thread in every class for students to anonymously submit their sex-related queries to be answered the following week. Please make use of it! If people don't use it, I'm going to have to make up questions and it probably won't be as funny.