About a broken phone and a book club

Friday sometime,two weeks ago, Gourav and I were talking on the phone and I was trying to empty the dish washer too, I was using both my hands to work the dishes and the phone was cradled between the shoulder and the ear. Suddenly the phone slipped and hit the dishwasher (open) face down, meaning the display hit the washer first. Next thing I know is I have a broken phone :( I could receive calls, but not know who is calling and I could only call the people who's numbers i remembered, which a grand total of two people!!!

A lot of people asked me this basic question, why I hadn't backed up contacts anywhere else. In this day and age of technology and data, one would think it's the most natural and obvious thing to do. Not to me, I thought my phone is simply unbreakable and such mishaps are uncommon in a life as simple and organized as mine! (yeah right!) . Since then I have learned lots of cool things about the email service I use, namely Gmail and the services my new phone, Treo, provide.

What is quite sad is, on my old phone I had some 120 contacts, when I had received emails from all the people who bothered to reply to my desperate email of getting their phone #s, I have only 56 numbers, I have no clue who the rest of the people are and what am I to do about people who don't have email and I cannot talk to unless I call them!!! Aaaahhh, the good old days of phone diaries!!! Naeh, I don't really miss it, I am just being melodramatic!

Another thing which I am maybe was very excited about was starting a book club. I saw this movie 'Jane Austen's book club' and the idea of being a part of a book club started forming in my mind. I got in touch with a few of my friends, and the idea went down well with most of them and it got decided that we will start a book club. Who knew that co-ordinating 5 people over a span of 5 weeks would be a daunting task, LOL. Apparently it is! We haven't still met but there is hope that in the coming week, we shall meet! And the first book we have picked up is 'Life of Pi'. We'll see how it goes! I will write about it, hopefully something interesting happens there!

And, I saw leatherheads, (I call it the John Krasinski movie)!!! He's 'oh just so cute'!!! George Clooney has done a really good job too in the movie, his comic timing is immaculate! Zellweger was simply ok! But it's a funny movie and a must watch for all you 'I heart Jim' fans ;)

Reminiscing

So Anu's comments about her initial college days reminded me of an incident when I was just going to join Engineering college.

To give a little background, I was brought up partially in Ranchi and partially in Delhi. My parents are very broad minded. We were taught spiritual values at home and to be religious, but not over do it, be practical, work hard, play, read and do whatever you do with love and dedication. Now the last part has always been hard to do. So the point is that it was a liberal environment for us.

So, now I was to join Jabalpur Engineering College, Jabalpur, it's not a big town, it's a small town in the state of MP in India. So my Dad and I go for the counseling session, where my Engineering branch (CS/EE/ETC/Civil etc) would be decided etc. So after a lot of hours, finally it's decided that I will get the coveted Computer Science and Engineering branch. Now I have a lot of family in Jabalpur,so living in the hostel would be out of the question. So, my Dad and I start thinking how I will travel to college everyday, it was a 10 km drive. Just then, we overhear a guy talking and he says he will be coming from Wright Town to college everyday. My Dad's ears are very sharp by the way ;) So he goes over to this guy, let's just call him, MTEE, and asks him if he was going to join Computer Science, and he nods. And Dad comes over to me and tells me, he found me a ride! So MTEE and I meet. Now my cousin, who was from Jabalpur was also there and he's staring at us. I couldn't understand what the problem was! So finally we wrap up and we go home. My cousin gives us an earful, 'are u kidding me, Megha will go to college, what a boy?'. To say, that I was horrified, is an understatement, my own cousin! I have always been around boys all my life, so this new aspect was alien to me! Anyway, we don't think too much about it and I am happy about the prospect of joining college soon!

One month later, it's the first day to college, and my cousin drops me off. How that day went and what all I went through, is a thing of the past, and looking back it was all fun! But here's the most important thing...later in the day I learn that MTEE is almost a goon of the college! He saw me too, I was so surprised and shocked that I just looked away, he I think smiled, but the bottom line is, the previous meeting was never discussed or mentioned! My poor Dad, what was he to know that the ride he was finding me to college would really be a goon :) It's seems so funny now, but the 4 years I was in Jabalpur, I always feared that someday somebody might mention it and I would die of shame!!! To be linked to THAT guy and that too for a ride!!!

Heartless!

So there is a person, I don't have too much respect for, simply because this person is very rude, mean and has no respect for other people's feeling. Today, this person did something to just intensify that feeling. Here's what happened:

I got broccoli and cheese stuffed potato for lunch to work. It's a nice, filling lunch and I enjoy it. So I have to go to the break room to heat my lunch and I cross this person. He/She looks at it, I didn't invite them to, and goes, that just looks gross, it looks like there is something growing out of it. And made faces. And even after I said, 'Hey, I am going to be eating that', the person didn't stop. "Ugh, how can you?".


I never had a good impression of this person, and now I just don't have any respect left.

50th Post!

It's a month into the New Year and here i am sitting not yet used to writing 2008. :) The past year was a very hectic year, as in the year went by real fast. Well, i feel that way about every single moment in my life :)

2007, was a fun year. I went back to India after 4 years and saw so much of my family after such a long time. So many new people in the family, who I had only spoken to before, not met, but all that is now taken care of. I met Gourav's family, it was so much fun to spend time with his parents and brother and sister in law. I finally shopped in India and now i am happy that my home has (some) Indian art and Ganesh jis. :) And i have new clothes! *isn't that the most important part?*

Gourav and I celebrated our first anniversary! We took trips to Boston, FL, DC. All of them so special and so much fun! Deshna, Ahana and Sanjana filled all our lives with their little coos and aahs and laughter :) I couldn't be happier for all my 'new parent' friends :)

Work wise the past year was very challenging, yet I came through! and i have been finding that it's been getting better ever since! Some people i really liked, moved away to different jobs, and i was feeling low about it. But i have made other/more friends and i have learnt to detach myself from the nastiness of some people i don't care about so much :)!!! I ROCK!

Now this year, 2008 has already the best thing that could happen to Gourav and me, he's stopped traveling!!! he's on a local project and our days are just so happy. it's fun to do things together all the time, and spend evening together, we have even set on a path to get fit and it's the best thing to do it together!

We bought a new sharp 46" LCD TV and it's been so much fun! Watching TV is just a totally different experience and the couch potatoes have been enjoying it :)

This year, i know is going to be a special year for us, and i am looking forward to the different challenges, experiences that will come our way.

I am at a very place in my life right now! I hope I don't jinx myself!!!

Not a good idea!

When one is doing a diet, it's not a good idea to look at recipe blogs...it makes you crave and crave some more...and it's really right then that you feel like making that delicious scone or biscuit!

So no, not a good idea!

I really don't learn from my mistakes

As far as my memory goes back, the one thing i remember from the past 1 week is that i don't learn...tsk tsk ..
One very cold afternoon, and we've been having tonnes of those, i was sitting in office, churning code @ 15 lines per minute, sipping warm water (warm water makes me feel warm)...and i had kept my glass of water in between my two arms and the key board...and i was sure i was being careful...when the phone rang and i without thinking made a dive for the phone and there...u know it, i toppled the water glass. It's not the warm water that was the problem, it was where it feel!!!...you got it...in the right place, making me more embarrassed than anything! So i go outside and park my butt in the sun so it would soak up the water.

One would think, i would be more careful next time around. Well...let's just say ...twice burnt, third time shy ;)

The one thing i should have learned, if nothing else, is that when one drinks warm water, one needs to be careful how the cup/glass is handled. This time round, i have my drink yet again placed between my arms on my work desk and i am merrily typing away. I want to consult my notebook for something and i reach for it, in the process, u guessed it right, toppling the glass....and yes it fell again, right in between my legs. And this time it was light blue jeans, so the comic relief people would/will get outta the sight cannot be lost on you.

Oh well...that day is over and i am really praying to god i don't repeat this mess in the future...the truth is though that right now i have a coke can placed right between my arms and it's just another calamity waiting to happen.

Have a great week ahead you guys...

I have always wanted to write this..

every time a celebrity is convicted of some crime, lots of people will say things like "he thought he was above the law, what now?" some others say the contrary "the system is such, people who are in the public eye are made the scapegoat"...
for the former kind, the law has been proven to be a puppet in the hands of celebrities so a certain sense of invincibility surely comes with the power and money one poses, so i don't blame common man in thinking that.

but the later, do u really think that if a scapegoat had to be found in anything, the law would find the man with the money, with the power responsible? don't you think that even these law enforcers are answerable, they cannot make random decisions. to say things like sanjay dutt has been made a scape goat, oh come on, do u really think, the police would go the extent that they did to convict him because............i don't see a reason do u? somehow his name came up in some investigation and the entire judicial system turned against him? he had originally pleaded no guilty to illegal possession of arms, but later when it became clear that he wouldn't be let off the hook, he pleaded guilty. there has even been a tape of his conversations with the gangsters but he was not found guilty of terrorism or acts of. yet the system reeks of partiality!

or in the case of salman khan...he runs over sleeping people, kills one, the case is mysteriously dropped and yet "the system is against him"? ... he spends a total of 6 days in the jail, for killing endangered species and yet he is the hunted?...

i wanted to vent and i am done! phew...
i know that sometimes some cases are mishandled because of all the media attention, but i don't think the above 2 cases are genuine and the accused were rightly accused.