The past week

- My eyes have been twitching for a week now. Oh well, not constantly. It comes and goes. But its really annoying. Even more annoying is the fact that every time I mention it to someone (Indian), the first question they ask: “Which eye? Because, you see, if its your left eye it’s a good omen and if its your right eye it’s a bad omen.” And since its my left eye, I am told not to worry about it! Honestly?

- I called up my medical insurance company to ask about the date from which I have coverage. Since October 4th they tell me, but as they have not yet send me my medical insurance card I can’t visit a doctor (unless I want to pay). What’s the point of having a coverage which I can’t use, if I may ask?

- I, now, have a personal trainer, who did a fitness assessment recently to find that I am fat. I mean, my body fat is a whopping 23%. So I am given an exercise routine to reduce that fat and gain muscles. All I can say: my body isn’t too happy at the moment. The fat that they are trying to turn into muscle is protesting vehemently and causing me a lot of pain. Why don’t muscles protest that way when they get converted back to fat due to lack of exercise?

- When I was three, I was told that PhD is the highest degree you can earn (I asked because my dad is a PhD and I wanted to know what that means) and you don’t have to attend any classes after that. Well, you know what, it’s a big fat LIE. PhD may be the highest degree you can earn but you never stop taking classes if you earn that degree. Trust me. I am already registered for 3 classes (a week long classes) in next two months!

- I finally finished the first series of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Started the second series only to realize that only the first book of the second series has been written so far. And as luck have it: the second series is much better than the first series. The first series is all about Percy Jackson whining all the time, the second series has some better characters and has far more interesting plot line. So far. Again, I am not recommending it. Its no where near Harry Potter (that is, if you are a fan) but still is better than the Twilight series (again if you are a “fan”). I am, now, mildly anticipating the release of the second book next summer. Again you won’t find me standing in the queue at midnight (unlike Harry Potter), but I am kind of interested in knowing what happens next. So I will buy the book fairly early. (I am just a big sucker for magic world and mythologies. And it provides both.)

 

Am not complaining or anything, just talking aloud. Life is peachy. I am just trying to adjust to its peachiness.

P.S.: Read this on FB (via a friend): “One Day Santa was feeling Happy...After some time Happy got up and walked away.” 

Took me 5 minutes to understand it.

Just another useless piece of information that you don’t care about or need to know.

Lucky me

You know how it goes. You take things for granted unless you realize that you were privileged to have those things. For example, I recently realize that not everyone growing up had a gang of neighborhood kids to play with. Neither did they have a playground like I did when I was growing up. And here I was sympathizing with the new generation kids who sit at the home in the evening instead of playing outside. But when their parents also didn't identify with my childhood memories, I realized how lucky I have been to have such memories and such times. 

The evening started with the bell ringing at precisely 4:30 in winters and 6:00 in summers followed by the games of hide and seek, pithoo, king and queen, chain, vish-amrit which were followed by those twilight times ghost/scary stories. Did you know the only way you can identify a ghost is by their feet because they are backwards? Or that the people who kidnap children amputates them and make them beg by the bridge over the canal that ran through our town? Then there were the swimming lessons that all of us joined together: scared and excited to be in water but together. Exploring the military cantonment area on our bikes, getting scared by the guards and finding a route so that we don't have to cross them. Organizing the Republic day function on our roof-top every year (that's how we utilized our winter break), make a temporary stage with saris, arranging chairs, coming up with dance routines, jokes, trivia to entertain our parents (who else would come to see us perform). we once spent entire winter break making cards and put it on the sale. needless to say that we didn't make a profit but it was fun.

Oh ok, I got a bit nostalgic back there, but the point being, I think I had been very lucky to have such great memories and such a nice time while growing up and realizing that not everyone in my generation had similar memories of fun times makes me realize that it was even more special. 

Hopefully you guys also had similar memories growing up. If not, then I am curious about what you did for fun?

Weekends

are the hardest. After six years of being in grad school and having this nagging voice (which oddly resembles my mom's voice. Sorry mom.) at back of your brain at all the time, enumerating all the pending tasks, its hard to adjust to a weekend without a to-do list and that nagging voice. You know except the usual laundry and cleaning the house. So what do you do on a weekend when you are no longer a grad student? Really?

So far I have been reading the Percy Jackson series (you haven't checked out my latest "currently reading" section, have you?) but I will be running out of those very soon. True I can start reading something else but its so not me. I get bored very easily with any one activity and need to distract myself with something else (thats why I have so many hobbies: reading, photography, sketching, blogging, martial arts etc). May be I have an ADHD: may be I am also a demigod (sorry, a Percy Jackson series joke. If you have read them you will understand, if not, then never mind. Won't recommend them. I just wanted something silly to read at the moment so picked that series up).

But even with my numerous hobbies and pass times, I don't think I can keep myself busy through the weekends (seriously, you can't sketch or blog the whole day, can you?). So what am I supposed to do with all this extra time I have now? Somebody help...

Saturday Shots: Thinker

The trend in blogging world is to post a picture on Wednesday as “Wordless Wednesday” which is well and good. However, considering my writing pattern of writing more post during the weekdays than weekends as well as the drop in visitor during the weekend, I have decided to do a photo post every Saturday instead of Wednesday. So here goes the first post on “Saturday Shots” (I initially thought of naming the series as “Silent Saturday Shot”, but knowing me, these will be hardly silent).

Title: Weight of the world

Location: Stanford, CA

Date: 2007

Disqus?

I know, I know, I have been lazy about replying to the comments lately. Part of it is the depression and schedule, but part of it is also that I miss the disqus application I had on the older format of the blog. Its a neat little application that allows me to reply back to comments instead writing another comment. However, a few people complained about the problems faced while commenting using disqus.

So here is the question: Is disqus really causing a lot of trouble, in case you are using on your blog or have used it for commenting? I am seriously considering to have it back on my blog. Does anyone have a strong opinion about that?

P.S.: I know, I know, this is my blog and I can do whatever I want with it and I don't need anyone's approval for that but I will still like to hear from you before I make this decision.

Hectic Life aka the Real Life

Yeah, yeah, you heard me. I have finally descended in the real world ans started a real job. I now have regular work hours, regular lunch hour, and hopefully, from tomorrow, a regular exercise routine. I have been trying to adjust in this regularity which involves waking up 5 in the morning (I am in office by 6AM, though I must add that these odd working hours are by choice) and sleeping by 9ish. I haven't achieved the second part yet and so I am constantly sleep deprived, which explains my disappearance for past two weeks (before that I was too depressed as I was going to become a regular person).

Hopefully as this routine sets in and I start sleeping at expected hour, I will be able to become a regular at my blog again but its not my top priority at the moment (yes, I have already started prioritizing my tasks). I am still missing Stanford and bay area miserably. More importantly, I am missing my irregular student life. And please don't start with the normal pep talk about how I will be earning now and all that non-sense. My friends have already gone through those and they don't work. I know I can't be miserable forever and I have to eventually snap out of it but it's not a command that you give to me and I will be out of it. I am not a computer. It's a process and it will take some time. So bear with me.

Anyway, I am writing this quick post to let you guys know that I am here and I do have a lot things I want to write about (including last week's Glee episode of grilled chessus), but it might take me some time. So please be patient with me and I will be back soon.

P.S.: If you haven't been watching Glee, I highly recommend that show. And if you don't live in US, I hope you might be able to find them online. As I live here, I have no way of knowing whether the link I posted here works internationally or not. But believe me it's a show worth watching. I wish they could make a bollywood version of it though I will be very cautious if they do, unless its done by the team that produced "Dekh bhai dekh".

Kya jamana aa gaya hai

(What has this world come to)

Honestly. So I bought a new GPS (my old GPS does not have advance lane guidance which makes it useless in this big city). I was very happy with this new GPS when suddenly something caught my eye on its FIVE-inch screen (its huge for a GPS).

“Eat Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster”

I stared at it for 5 secs (I was driving, couldn’t have stared longer than that). I thought it was a fluke or malware or whatever. Next time, same thing happened. MY GPS WAS SHOWING ADVERTISMENTS IN REAL TIME!! Granted it didn’t know that I hate sea-food so there is a fat chance of me trying out eating endless shrimp but I watched the Red Lobster pass me by, nevertheless. Something I wouldn’t have noticed, had my GPS wasn’t so particular to point it out. And who knows, may be with time it will learn my preferences and advertize accordingly. Isn’t that’s what Google and Facebook etc are doing?

I mean what’s next? Picking up random words from my conversation on cell phone and then advertizing about them on it? They already advertize based on your search pattern and site visited. This is getting way beyond invasion of privacy.

What do you think?

P.S.: Other than this annoying feature I love my new GPS. It actually gives me the speed limit of the road I am travelling on. True that most of time they don’t match the speed limit posted on the road but at least they have always shown a lower speed limit than posted one. At least I will not get a ticket for speeding.