Trip to LA - Second Day

So, we had a great first day trip and went to the hotel room assigned by our tour guide and just fell off to sleep. I wanted to go for a swim, but the hotel staff said it had already closed around 6 pm. So we just watched a movie n slept. We were super excited about the next day - we had an option to go either to Disneyland or for a San Diego city tour... Like all other people on the bus (sans a few), we decided to go to Disneyland because we felt that the city tour would be super boring with all the war memorials and some other museum stuff they were gonna show us. If they were taking us to the national park instead, maybe we would have changed our mind. Anyways, we were really excited about going to Disneyland and taking pictures with all the Disney characters like Mickey, Winnie the Pooh and what not !! But we had something else waiting for us there... little did we know !! LOL !!

So, we left early morning for the theme park and since it was not more than a 20-min drive from the hotel, it felt like we reached it before we could blink our eyes. We got out at the parking lot until where our trip bus was allowed, and were supposed to take a train to the actual entrance of the park. We all got into the train all the while taking photos and embarked on our journey to all kids' favorite dream of all times. At the entrance, the guide informed us that for the first half of the day, he would take us around to popular attractions and for the rest of the afternoon, we were allowed to go ahead and explore on our own. We decided to stay with him at-least for a couple of hrs to see if we liked the places he would show us. We were then asked to go through a security check at the entrance and then get into the theme park. The entrance sports a large signboard "Let The Memories Begin". We were super excited by looking at all the awesome advertisements, thinking to ourselves "Its indeed gonna be a memorable day".

The first thing you see when you enter Disneyland is the Main Street... I will not describe here everything that we saw - because, you know, I dont want to spoil your fun or give away all the details. You just have to be there to experience it and everyone's experiences are different :) Anyways, since Christmas was already nearing, we saw a huge and I mean HUGE christmas tree in the center of the main street and so many street cars - the old style :) - they were beautiful... we meant to ride them sometime during the day, but we never got the chance and we did not even know they were free or paid. Then there were many shops which we did not even turn to look. We just wanted to go straight to the rides and to find our favorite characters. Anyways, one reason is we were running behind the guide, who was going pretty fast to take us to our first ride of the day - Indiana Jones Adventure. It was fun. We were expecting something very different, but we really liked it nevertheless. There was such a huge line for the adventure that we were waiting in line for nearly an hr or more I guess. And when we came out, what do we expect to see - our guide - but we did not see him there at all. Neither did we see any of the tour people who came with us.

We waited for quite some time and then dejected, decided to set out on our own. We both took out our maps of Disneyland and started to decide where we wanted to go next. The rides were all very very long and by lunch time we had not even covered 1/4 of the place even though we had skipped so many rides and attractions !! We were seriously disappointed about the fact that we were not going to be able to see the whole place. Moreover after lunch and after a couple more rides, we were so exhausted walking around and standing in line, that we started to feel more and more disappointed about the whole trip :( I guess the crowd and long lines were due to the fact that we had been there on a long weekend. Then we got so tired that we just decided to go to some shows at the California Adventure, because we heard someone saying that the same ticket would work for both the theme parks. However, the tickets that the guide had got us, was valid for just one theme park and we were disappointed even about that fact.

We finally decided we would come back and watch the Christmas parade at 5 pm. That part was sure fun. We watched as we saw many disney characters coming alive. And believe me, we had seen only Winnie the Pooh until that time in the whole time we were there !!! And we could not take a picture with Winnie, because we were standing in line for some ride at the time and after we got back from the ride, Winnie had disappeared !! Can you believe it... going to a disney theme park and not getting a picture with any of the disney characters :( We were getting more n more dejected by the minute with all these sad things happening to us. Not sure if it was just us, or all of them were facing the same problem. We got some good pics of the parade though and then there was supposed to be a fireworks show at 8.45 pm. So we had to kill 3+ hours and we had no intention of going on any other rides. We were super tired by this time and just wanted to relax. We decided to go out to Disney downtown street and shop around for a while. That is where we saw the "funnel cake" stall. YAY !! I was jumping with joy just looking at it. I had had funnel cake once before when I went to Six Flags with my friends - oh that was a fun day too :)

I explained to my friend what a funnel cake was and after the aebleskiver experience the previous day, she was eager to try it. But we still decided to buy just one and had it - and it was super super yummy !! Again it was time for the fireworks show by then - because of all the window shopping and we regretted not buying one more. We promised ourselves that we would buy one more before we leave for the day and went in to wait for the fireworks show. We wanted to get good seats to watch the fireworks and at the same time, we wanted to be near the entrance too - because our guide was going to meet us at 9 - right after the show ended outside the entrance to take us back to the trip bus.

Finally we got a good place to view the fireworks right in front of the castle where they were going to burst the crackers. We waited for at-least 45 mins for the show to start - yes, we had to get there early to get good spots. We got so bored that we started counting down minutes and seconds for the show to start. Finally it was time !! The show started. It was superb - simply awesome !!!! We thought all the wait and pain and tiredness was worth it - we took a video of the same. It was absolutely amazing... IT WAS WORTH IT ALL !! Believe me... I have seen many fireworks shows, but this was something different altogether. Anyways, then suddenly it was time to go. We ran for the gate - there was not enough time. We thought we would miss the guide and end up going back alone. So we dashed for it. Somebody showed us a shortcut to the entrance. We took it and reached there in no time. We found the guide. All was well again. We however could not keep up our promise of getting another funnel cake. We had so less time and we waited for the train to take us back to the parking lot.

By the time the train arrived, we were so exhausted that, all we wanted was to get into the bus, get to the hotel and throw our shoes somewhere and just crash !! Anyways, all in all - I guess it was a fun day - even though we were disappointed. Oh - did I mention that when we running around to find spots for the fireworks show, we saw Goofy and took a photo with him... Did I tell that the photo did not come out that great :( What a tragedy for us !! Finally we decided that we were sooo tired that we wanted to skip the Universal Studios adventure the next day, because we just could not walk anymore. We informed the tour guide of our decision and he tried to persuade us, but we stuck with our decision. We told him that we were just not interested anymore and we told him we will decide the next day whether we wanted to go or not and went to bed.

Wait for the 3rd and final day story....
- So

Sick to hale-n-hearty in no time !!

I would have continued on my previous post about my LA trip with my friend, but I have been sick since the past 10 days. Its been horrible. I think I got the flu "with the works" - cold, cough, excessive sweating, the shivers, sore throat, eye infection, sinus, migraine, swollen eyes - anything you name and I have it.

I get the flu at-least once every year without fail. I dread having the flu, and try to avoid it as much as possible. I generally dont fall sick, but if I do, then its pretty intense. It goes to the extent that I lose my voice and end up talking in funny tones LOL. I try to sleep as much as possible when sick, but the funny thing is sleep evades me even when I take medicines which are supposed to make you drowsy.

Trip to LA - First Day

Wow !! What a weekend it was... both fun and tiresome at the same time -- is that even possible ?

What am I talking about ? The long weekend trip to Los Angeles (LA) with my close friend A. We went on a guided tour to Solvang, Disneyland and Universal Studios over the Thanksgiving weekend on a Chinese bus with a Chinese bus driver and a Chinese tour guide. I guess we might have picked up a few Mandarin Chinese words here and there, since we had a bi-lingual guide who explained everything in English first and then in Mandarin.

All the excitement !!

YAYYYYYY !!! My friend A is landing tomorrow morning at 10 am in SFO and I am counting hours before I can meet her. I dunno why I am so hyper but I am super excited to be seeing her and spending a few days with her roaming around SFO and all that.

I just did not know what to do with all the excitement, so thought of penning it down. We are planning on a trip to LA and one to Yosemite and then we are planning to go around SFO and also to the beach... Not sure how much of this will work out, but somehow we plan to do it all !!

Lets see how it goes
- So

All set and ready to travel !!

I never knew I was such an impatient person until now. I am waiting to leave for the airport in less than 2 hrs time and I cannot think of anything to do that can help me pass those 2 hrs or less. Now that I think back about it, I guess I have always been very very impatient.

Anyways, I am waiting to travel to SFO for an interview on the 16th Nov. But the more important reason that I am going to SFO is mainly to meet my close friend A. She is arriving to SFO on the 18th for a company project and she is there for 1.5 months. I will be meeting her constantly every weekend for 1 month after which I will be traveling back to Athens, GA.

Its funny how you begin to count days to a particular event and then when the days get lesser and lesser, you begin counting hours and then minutes. The human brain automatically switches, making things go even slower than it already is and making it seem like its gonna take forever. It also makes other things seem so trivial, which is a wonder... And when the moment finally comes and goes, you just cannot believe later that its GONE and is probably not coming back again in your life !!!

Dont wanna be giving out negative vibes to myself right now. For now, I am just WAITING WAITING to meet this friend of mine and cannot think of anything else !!! Nov 18th seems so far far away !!!!!

So long folks
- So  :)

Belated but FUN Deepavali with friends...

Medu Vada and punugulu

Had a fun-filled deepavali with friends in the US this year. Most of us were busy with work / school during Deepavali days, so a bunch of us decided to celebrate it in a simple fashion over the weekend with a famous sweet from Andhra Pradesh, Bellam Gaarelu and an ever-so-awesome snack, Medu Vada from South India.

Making Ghee

Most people I know today do not know how ghee is made from butter. It is a very simple process where large amounts of butter is heated continuously until a clear liquid is obtained and the solids separate out from it.

The process of making ghee takes me back to my childhood days when the aroma of fresh ghee used to fill the house every Friday morning. My mom used to make fresh ghee for the diyas (oil lamps) on Fridays. She used to light ghee lamps on every Friday. She never used the old batch of ghee because it was already used by us for cooking / eating.

DEEPAVALI - THE INDIAN FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS...

Hey u'all

First of all wishing you a very happy and prosperous deepavali and may god shower you with lots of love and wealth throughout your life.

For those of you who dont know Deepavali, it is one of the biggest festivals in India and its the FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS. People adorn their houses with lots and lots of lights, lanterns, oil lamps etc., etc., and it generally lasts for 3 days. It is said that Goddess Lakhsmi walks into the houses which are bright and showers the family with wealth and blessings.

Damn (pardon the word usage), I have been writing pretty long posts nowadays - this is going to be one of them.

There are a lot of stories associated with the 3 days of Deepavali. I will not bore you all with the tons of stories right now. If you wanted to know that, you would have been reading something else - maybe I will put up the stories that I heard from my parents in another post, but for now, I just want to talk about my memories from the Deepavali at my house.

When we were kids, the only excitement during festivals was new clothes, amazing food, yummy sweets to eat and in the case of Deepavali, excitement over the kind of crackers we were going to burn and the quantity of crackers each of us would get. There would always be a fight over that ofcourse.

Several memories come into mind, when I sit down to think about it. My pappa (dad) used to get the pre-packaged boxes of variety crackers, one for each of us - me and my sis. The box contained one or more of the following smaller boxes - lakshmi pataki (its a small cracker), bijli pataki (even smaller), atom bombs (not the ones that we know would destroy cities ofcourse) - this kind of bomb would make a loud sound, bidrindlu - which is like a fountain of lights when lit, rockets (very small ones), electric crackers, nelachakras (to light on the ground), vishnu chakras (to light in the hands with a metal stick to hold each of them) - all of them in smaller sizes of course for kids.

Me and my sis used to exchange even among those small boxes, I used to get to light all the vishnu chakras - she was scared to hold that thing in her hand. Anyways, we used to light our own share of crackers, and then pappa would have brought some fancy crackers separately. We used to watch him light those - some of them were whistling fountains, butterfly, bigger rockets etc., - things which were dangerous for kids. After lighting all the crackers, we used to have dinner. We used to gobble up the food so fast on those days that amma (mom) used to tease us about it on other days. This was because another activity was in store for us during Deepavali.

Our house had a nice view of the city from our backyard and terrace, and we could see the crackers and lights all over the city. We used to have fun - lets call it - cracker gazing :P It was so amazing to see the whole city lit up with lights and also bursting various kinds of crackers and we could hear all the sounds from the bombs, the malas (garlands of crackers), whistles. It was a sight when the fancy firecrackers used to burst high up in the sky lighting up most of the neighborhood around it !! It was a heavenly sight. Its one of those things - you have to be there to get the experience. At the end of the day we used to refuse to come inside - because the city never stopped lighting the crackers even though it was well past midnight. BTW, those were the only days we were allowed to stay up late after midnight.

Then comes the awesomest food that my mom used to prepare and the oil massage and oil bath. That used to be a very bothersome time. Getting us kids to stay still while amma applied oil to our hair, face, arms, legs - yes almost to the whole body and then we had to walk it off, so that it seeps into our body, but amma had lot of rules around the house. Dont touch the sofa, sofa cushions, sofa covers, table, walls, blah blah and the list goes on... So basically just walk around the house - or rather stay outside the house if you can, but dont touch anything :P Now we understand how difficult it is to clean oil stains, but then, all we wanted to do was play... It was pretty intense both for us and amma. Finally it would be time to take the most-awaited oil bath. Piping hot water - yes, u heard me right, piping hot water was poured over us - mainly to get rid of most of the oil and we had to apply soap like 3 - 4 times to rid the skin completely from the oil - imagine how much oil that would be !! We would scream with the heat...

BTW, all this oil bath and running around would be early morning around 4 am. The previous night, we would have to fill the boiler (after pooja n all that) for heating the water. Wake up early morning at 3 am and all we wanted to do was burst crackers :P But all in all, I miss it nowadays. We hardly wake up at 6 or 7 on weekdays and even later on weekends. 3 am is just too much if you ask me. We would rather stay awake until 3 am than wake up that early :) And who will go to the extent of doing pooja to the boiler that too in the night, filling it with water etc., We have an easier solution now, geysers :P Nobody will be patient enough to get an oil massage and wait for an hour before taking a shower.

But ofcourse we still have the bursting of the crackers, there are so many kinds of crackers available in the market today that its so difficult to select a particular cracker. In comparison, selecting a good phone would be so much easier. But for those of us living in the US currently, even the firecrackers are mostly a no-no, because of the security measures and mostly that we dont normally find firecrackers in the US at this time of the year. For such of us, every year, we keep regretting that we are not in India to enjoy this wonderful time with friends and family. For others who are fortunate to travel to India at this time, way to go people :) Grab all the memories you can of this special day !!

I could go on with my memories from Deepavali at my grandparent's house but I will stop this now and free you from the boredom :) Go enjoy your deepavali !!! I will let you go with a pic from my childhood of the Deepavali day.

This is me and my sister lighting electric crackers.
BTW we used to try to write our names in the air while twirling the crackers :)
Believe me you should try it once, its beautiful !!

HAPPY DEEPAVALI ONCE AGAIN TO ONE AND ALL
- So

Phool Gantuche !!

...not an adventure really, but something of an adventure, if a person doesn't know what he / she is doing.

It has been a long long time since I wrote in my blog, around a month or so since I am visiting India right now. And once I got here, I got super busy, housework, visiting friends, visiting relatives, functions and the like. Currently I am in Mangalore. Its a bit of a relaxed atmosphere here and I am enjoying the free time. Phew !! This is going to be a long long post...

I guess only people who know Konkani will have understood the title of my post. It means - tying flowers into a garland shaped thing. Well, I am glad to say I am pretty good at it. So many people of our generation do not know how to tie flowers. They would rather use a needle and thread and sew through the flowers, which will look good - but thats not the traditional way of doing it. And this method looks so much more prettier.

There are a bunch of flowering plants in my parents' garden. My dad is a big fan of gardening and he takes care of and tends to so many flowering plants. Every morning, he picks flowers that have bloomed  for pooja at the house. Apparently priests from nearby temples and other neighbors come to our house asking for flowers to keep in their God's abode.

Anyway, there is a type of jasmine called "Jaai Mogare" (in konkani) or "Jaaji Mallige" (in Kannada). Its a beautiful white flower like the other jasmine species, but has these pinkish streaks on the petals making it all the more prettier. These jasmine flowers are also thin and long unlike their more famous Mysore jasmine counterparts. They also have a very sweet smell which is not as overpowering as the Mysore jasmine flowers. Heres a pic of a few Jaai jasmine flowers from our garden.

Starting the garland

I remember when I first learnt to tie flowers together. My grandparents were living in Kavoor at the time. Kavoor is a small town near Suratkal / Mangalore, more nearer to Suratkal than to Mangalore. We used to visit them for holidays. At one of these times, my grandpa taught us how to tie flowers. Yes, my grandpa (my mom's dad). It was he who taught us all grandchildren (atleast me and my sister) how to tie flowers, how to ride a cycle, how to ride a moped etc., Its surprising isnt it ?

Anyways, if he had given us flowers for the first try, we would probably have heaps of torn flowers, because we need to have proper tension while tying the flowers. The stems of flowers are very very delicate and if we pull the thread a little bit tighter, they cut through the stems and the flowers are not reusable. So he gave us mango leaves for our first try and a roll of thread and showed us the procedure. Mango leaves are so rough. At times, we pulled the thread so hard, that we cut through even the thickest of the leaves... LOL. Well, practice makes man perfect. He would not let us touch a single flower, until we got the leaves right.

The next step was withered flowers / flowers which are slightly rotten (a single rotten petal and the sort), which wont be used in a fresh garland made for God. We had to get those right. Once we got through this step, we were allowed to tie a few good flowers. We could remove them from the garland just by pulling the flower slowly and then retie them. We had to do this until we got it all right :) / until the flowers were so weather-beaten that they could not be reused again. Anyways, the result of all that hard work is what we have now !! A superb beautiful garland.

Completed garland

Looks like another flower in itself. Beautiful isnt it ?

Its funny what all man has developed for his needs. Tying flowers to keep them together is one such thing. Moreover it increases the beauty of the flowers (lots of colorful flowers can be tied into 1 colorful garland). And its a lot less messier when the flowers dry up and the place needs to be cleaned / the flowers need to be thrown away. Women can take a piece of the garland and place it in their hair (its a tradition to do this in India) instead of a few separate flowers, which cannot be pinned into the hair on their own. Whatever is the necessity, the solution to all that is Gantilele phool (tied flowers).

.... but I survived !!

Ever imagine life without the internet ? For us tech savvy people, it kind of feels that we are handicapped if we dont have internet for a few hours in a day. I read somewhere that a human body can go for several days without food and water, but can hardly stay 11 mins without internet. Well, I survived for 10 hrs without internet and it was not pleasant, but I survived.

Yesterday the router here was spoilt and I was not able to connect to the internet. It was a totally weird experience for me. Not knowing what to do. The major part of the day was spent in trying to get the internet to connect, trying on and off by switching off the router and switching it on again, restarting the laptop again and again just to confirm it is not a problem with my laptop, and then changing the wi-fi settings on the laptop. It was living hell, but I survived.

Finally I realized that the internet was just down and I wont be able to do much in this case. So, I just picked up a book regarding interview questions and began scanning through it just to pass time. At-least some of what I read there will help me during my interviews hopefully. I then watched some TV - not Netflix - god knows it doesnt work without the internet :) - just watched some TV shows while having lunch. I then settled down for a nice siesta and enjoyed every moment of it. Well, I did not have much to do anyways. What else was I supposed to do ? Anyways, it was ok, but I survived.

In the evening, my uncle was back from work and when he tried to correct the damn internet connection, he realized that the router had gone bad and he immediately bought another one on craigslist, picked it up from the seller's house and set it up. Lo and Behold, we had internet connection again. So, thats my 10 hours of agony time without internet connection summed up into - lets see here - 3 paragraphs. So, just goes to prove that internet is not everything in life. You can still do other things in life. Dont be glued to the laptop / computer all day peeps. Learn to enjoy other things in life, and you wont regret it later on. All in all, it was a good day, and I SURVIVED !!

- So

A Trip to the Mall and some more...

Today was a pretty eventful day... I had to go to the bank in the morning to set up an ExpressSend account. Do you know Wells Fargo has a tie-up with ICICI in India - and you can send money to an ICICI account in India for a very low service fee of $5 for upto $5000 remittance. Anyways, after that, I went to the mall with my uncle and when he initially asked me, I said (like a big show-off) that I dont shop much and I definitely wont take much time...

However, when we reached the mall, there was a door buster sale (50% off) and since I am going to India in a few days, I decided I will buy clothes for my niece and nephews since I am getting them at good prices.... Oh My !! There was such a vast selection of clothes, that I was just stuck there trying to decide what to buy and what to leave back... because, 1. you dont want to repeat the design, 2. you dont want to get all clothes in similar colors, and 3. you just cant decide between the awesome designs that are printed on children's clothes today !!! Anyways, finally after an hr of casting off and throwing selections back and forth, I decided on 10 different tops and t-shirts for the kids and we were out of there.

Here are some pics of the clothes.... :)

Whatever this was... I have nooo freaking idea !!

My personal favorite - although its not a cartoon :)
Sure shot recipe for DISASTER !!

Yep it came with a toy !! The pixar Cars !!

One more toy !! Wonder what it is - looks like a bug, but it says it lights up :-?

Spiderman - DUH !!

Toy Story 3...

Clothes for my niece....

Clothes for little girls are sooo soooo soooooo cute these days, that it is impossible to select between them... I love shopping for little girls... Its so nice to see all those cute designs and prints on the kids' dresses. Here are a few I picked up for my niece.

So true !!

LOVED this one... especially the knot on the bottom right corner.
Makes it look sooooo sassy !!

Anyways, after reaching home, a short nap in the afternoon was a must - skipped lunch because I had had a pretty heavy breakfast of tandla bhakri. Woke up and watched remaining few mins of a movie that I was watching the other day "Dhoondte Reh Jaoge". Then, it was time to cook dinner. I was in such a hurry making dinner and readying for tomorrow's breakfast, that I burnt the back of my middle finger badly. Hurts real bad... I must have held it under running cold water so many times today, but still after 5 mins of stopping the water, it starts burning again. Must be a real bad burn... will see what to do about it tomorrow.

Until then, ciao
- So

I LOVE TROUBLE !!

Thats the name of the movie I watched a couple of hrs back... Oh my !! What an awesome movie... took me straight into a mystery novel and I loved every minute of it.

The plot was very well-laid and it made me wish again that I was somewhere in the detective business... thats the kind of things I think when I read detective / mystery novels :) What an adventurous life they must have, those people who solve mysteries... not to mention the level of intelligence they have, without which they would not be able to connect links or deal with jigsaw puzzle pieces !!

But, its a very very dangerous profession, wonder how many times they come face to face with death and survive it.

Back to the topic, this movie starred Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte and was released back in '94. Yep, quite an old movie, but well-worth a watch. Why did I watch such an old movie you say ?? Well, for starters, I am a huge Julia Roberts fan... who isn't - she is, after all, one of the top American actresses of all times. I absolutely love her and I was kind of going through her movies list on IMDB and came across this one. Sounded intriguing and the rest is history.... Anyways, gotta go to bed now - its 3.45 am here and I have a long day tomorrow.

I will be back with more posts soon

- So

Childhood Memories **reminisces**

Today was pretty uneventful except that something great happened today !! I met who must probably be one of my oldest classmate so far.... I mean not in age (in the number of years we have known each other).... I have known him since kindergarten and it was fun meeting him even though the meeting lasted for just 20 mins or so.

We spoke about so many of our childhood classmates and reminisced about the past, the fun we had, where everybody was, stories, memories.... it was nostalgic :)

Also, he was the first childhood classmate that I met probably after 17 yrs.... wow !! long time :)

Well, hope to visit and see some others soon !!!

- So

Doing good so far....

Hey u'all,

I think I am doing good progress with my activities plan. I put up 2 recipes in the past 3 days in my recipes blog - YUMMMMY DAYS... !!!

Apart from that, I created my odesk profile so that

1. I can brush up my skills.
2. I can pass some time by working on some projects while I am hunting for a job.

Lets see how it goes for the next few days.....

Until then
- So

BORED TO DEATH !!

Ever been in a point in life, where you are bored to death itself ?? Wonder why its related to death ? Does it mean you would rather die than remain bored ? Whatever !!

Anyways, have decided today in such a mental torturous situation that I have to write something in my blog everyday. So in order to have matter to write in the blog everyday, I will probably do some significant work everyday ??? !!!! Well, that's the plan at-least for now :)

Lets see what it is for today... I will write back tonite... Keep waiting !!

Hey... looks like a diary entry to me :)

- So

GRADUATED !!!

Yay !!! the day of my dreams is finally here.... I officially graduated today with an MS in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Georgia.... I am super happy and even more happy that I am going to share this weekend with my BESTEST of friends. However I miss some of my friends from my days at MIT, Manipal :( Wish you guys were here....

BTW, I was kind of searching for something on the internet and accidentally ended at this web page.... funny - but highly unlikely though :)

What Happens IF INR 1RS=USD $ 1OO

Enjoy the conversation.....
- So

Its finally here

Yes, my defense date has been scheduled and I am waiting to get it over with so I can finally concentrate on other things in life. Lets hope it goes well and I come out of this with colors atleast - if not with flying colors :)

- So

WISH LIST !!

I have always harbored a passion for the creative arts (painting, music, knitting, crochet etc.,). Also, I am good at a few of them :), thanks to my parents..... they always encouraged me to learn new things !!

As a sequel to my New Year's resolution (none of the items on my list have been checked out as yet), I am putting up my wish list here :), a "things to do before I die"-of-sorts.

I have learnt some of these on a basic level, but I wanna be atleast on an intermediate expertise level :)

• Learn how to play the guitar (tried my hands at this and absolutely loved it).
• Many more projects in Knitting and Crochet (have promised my dearest friends some handmade gifts - hopefully soon).
• Learn tennis.
• Expertly fluent in French. Also wanna learn a host of other languages - especially interested in German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean (have a fascination for Chinese and the like -- because to the naked ear, all the words in the language sound the same --- I am sure they are just pronounced with a twisted tongue :P)
• Learn different dancing styles - already know basics of Salsa, Belly dancing and Bharatnatyam (what diversity hehe !!)... wanna complete my learning curve :)
• Would love to Zumba more --- wow !! its just an awesome feeling when you zumba.... its a "not have a care in the world" feeling. You just dont care that someone is watching. You are dancing crazily and well, its helping too --- you definitely lose a lot of calories. So being ignorant is totally worth it.
• Wanna learn singing --- I am kind of a kitchen singer i.e., I sing when I cook. I dont have a formal training and would love to get one. I love to hear people singing. So, maybe someday I can hear myself sing beautifully :)
• Would love to be able to swim better --- again, I know only the basics. I would probably not drown if someone pushed me into the water, but I am aiming at losing weight through swimming, for which I need to be at intermediate level - and build up enough stamina to do quite a few laps a day. Just love the water though.... thank god I am not hydrophobic :)
• Build a robot (intelligent machine / intelligent software) some day --- ONE FINE DAY maybe :) would be totally proud of myself if I did.
• Have some paintings of my own :P Not for sale or anything... just for me to look at and be proud of !!!

Phew !! Seriously a diverse list of stuff to do.... Oh well, so what.... I dont want to be a master of one trade, but rather a jack of all !! I know its quite a weird list, but I believe I can do it and I know I am especially good at some of them. So, why not ??

Well, until the next update.

À bientôt - So.

The freedom and the snow !!! ... TO ... TANGLED !!

Hey you all out there,

I missed you all a lot the past couple of days, or rather couple of months. Was too busy with my thesis work. Fortunately or unfortunately my thesis got postponed by another semester, so I am still stuck here, "in the middle of nowhere", I would like to call it, both literally and figuratively.

Lemme explain,
Fortunately, because, I am not "hot" in the job market as yet. Infact, jobs are being taken off the market like hot potatoes. Hopefully, I will be too.
Unfortunately, because, I was feeling that I was soooo done with the thesis work. I still feel that way. But looks like I am soooo not :(.
Hmm, I guess you all understood my figurative meaning to "in the middle of nowhere". Anyways, I finally finished writing my thesis clean draft... All I have are some small minor changes left, so all I can do is go ahead from here. Lemme see where that will take me.

As for other things in my life, nothing really exciting has been going on lately, except that I have been thinking a lot about both my personal and professional life and want to write and express so many things, that they are all jumbled up now.... oh I suddenly remembered --- I saw the movie "TANGLED" recently... most appropriate word for what I am feeling right now.... but what a cute movie it was ---- absolutely LOVEEEEEED it. Okkk !! now u know exactly how tangled I am. So what was I saying ? Yeah... I have these 1000 thoughts, which I wanna express, but dunno where to start and where to continue. I will try getting to them in later posts. Lets see how successful I get on that front.

I havent done much of cooking either, so I dont know what I am gonna write in my other blog. I was however thinking of starting on some knitting, now that its winter. Ok !!! The title of this post as I write reads "The freedom and the snow !!". What was I thinking of writing ?? Frankly, I dont remember. I am gonna change the title right now. There, DONE !! Intuitive, right :) Wrong... It sounds so stupid, but I dont wanna change it.

Oh, btw, has anybody gotten to the point where they could cross off one of the items in their new year's checklist ? I havent, mainly because, I never had a list in the first place !!! As I said, too many things on my mind. Moreover, I somehow have never believed in them. Never worked for me. I still hope to do the basic things though. Here are 10 of them.

1. Graduate soon.
2. Get a job.
3. Dont go on a diet, but reduce weight..... this one NEVER EVER works !!
4. Communicate more with my family and friends.
5. Have fun in life.
6. Learn something new.
7. Get back to my artistic hobbies (knitting, drawing, crochet)... would LOVE to check this off my list.
8. Eat healthy.
9. Get un-tangled :) thats a new thought.
10. Travel to someplace soooooo gorgeous.... that everyone gets envious of me.

Hmm, I hope to check off atleast the first 2 off my list soon. Anybody else who wants to share their lists here is welcome. We can all keep track of each other's lists and try to reaaalllllllly get there this time.

So long folks,
So.