14 Things you didn't know- And that's a tag!

Have you done something-mowed a lawn, poured a cup of tea, crossed a road, street, junction, seen a train passing by steaming fumes, been to a art museum stood watching a picture, picked a fallen handkerchief, touched a book on a shelf and it felt as if you have done it before. Not something similar, not some done it past but as if you have done this (Exact this) before. Seen it somewhere. Past life? In a dream? Maybe you saw this now, this future?

Ok that didn't make sense, did it? Well something I always wonder so thought should share. Now back to what I really want to say.Does any of you know how the "tag" thing in the blog world work? Don't look at me as if I am retarded, I am just new to the blogging world. I travel a lot of blogs during my free time and have often read about some random xyz blogging about some pqr tagging them. Since no one tag me, I decided to tag myself, hopefully I some of my tagged blogg will enjoy this as much as me.

So here we go. Call it 15 Things you didnt know about me. The rule is "For every answer for the following question you have to do a google/live image search and pick a picture on the first page with minimal explanation". And Minimal means the first one, even if it makes no sense. Ok then here we go:

Your favorite place:





Home sweet home, always was, always will be.













Your favorite food:

Oops that actually makes me feel sorry for the fish. But if you ask me meat, veggies or fish, I would always choose fish.
















Your favorite color combination:


The best color combination ever. I couldnt choose one color over the other,love all colors.











Your favorite pet:



This one is so totally random, but well the tag states minimal search. Lucky was the name of my pet a pomeranian and now that I think of it, she would actually do this.














Your favorite drink:





Fresh Lime Soda. Especially on a hot summer day in Mumbai.












A place you'd like to travel to:

If i could I would check out this place "Heaven". So many people including me desire to go there errr I mean say in a couple hundred years or so. I dont want to be disappointed with what I see then. Headsup is always good you see.









Your favorite tv show:



No other series has been so engaging. I sit chewing my nails through the entire show and fear some day I might just end up eating my fingers.














Your worst fear:



Fear death. Death of a loved one. I dont know how I will ever handle it.









The first thing you'll buy if you get $1,000,000:



Can't help it, I am a Cancerian. I will hide some in pillow, under bed, in books and put rest in a bank.















What or who you want to be in next life:

Definitely a wizard! I want to be able to do magic, time travel, be invisible and all that. Fight demons, trolls and the rest. I can't associate with a witch, witch makes me think of bad, ugly and evil, dunno why. But wizard makes me think of someone wise, someone like Dumbledore.










If you had to punch someone who would that be?

I think right now I could choose a bunch. But if it has to be one, then a terrorist, give me any terrorist, any is fine. Just ensure he is like properly tied and blindfolded and all that.















What would you do on a rainy day?



Sit by the window and sip a cup of hot tea. But well in Seattle we dont have much of a choice, it rains pretty much everyday. At that rate all I would do is sit by the window and sip tea.














If you could time travel, where would you be now?



Straight from heart- India. More precisely Bombay!













One thing that has fascinated you lately:



One laptop per child! And then India's 10$ laptop I am eager to see what the future holds!

Gosh that took some pretty good time but was so much fun and will be more fun to know a little more of the tagged person.

Here we go , Erika, Mrs Gadre, Sumi and you yes you anonymous.Come on folks I know you would enjoy it. Ok Ok I promise I'll take a tag when you send one sheesh! Moreover the best part is you get to tag others.

P.S Now this one's for Neeraja, tagged you are!

Another chapter

Do you still remember the day of Semester results? Sem result day I always felt as if there were a tight knot in my stomach. I couldn’t ever eat in the morning and if you know me, you know I cannot leave home without breakfast, morning tea is a ritual. Every step I took towards the university made me want to run home. And then there was this whole thing, where everyone you meet is either biting their nails, throwing up or lost is some eternal thought. There were also those who would constantly talk and ask over and over again “I think I did well in DB, do you think I did well?” But I am scared; everything was out of the textbooks. I mean really how could they do that to us? I really, really don't want a KT, less score would screw my class for the year. On campus interviews are coming up, life just sucks man, I hate the result day.

And remember how you would try putting up a brave face and tell the person it would be just fine. Only a couple of hours and the results would be out. While deep down you would pray that either the time stops or just jumps to future when everything’s over. And then the results would be out. Some would jump with joy, some would just sit quite, and some would be really sad. At one point or the other I have experienced one of the above. And also felt as if it was one of the stressful moments ever. But yesterday changed my perception all together. Yesterday was the day of layoffs here. 1400 people slashed. I got the news in the morning and as I prepared to go to work all those result-day fears came back. Just this time they were stronger and scarier.

Why does life keep getting complicated as we grow older? I mean now the result-day fear feels like a joke to me. I knew and kept telling myself that like all, this will pass too. But yet the moment was there and had to be faced. A lot of people were let go and some more will be over the next 18 months. I couldn't get the thought out of my mind- what will those people do, the stress, the loss, what if that person was the sole earner, what about the mortgage and so on. I know its kinda silly to keep thinking of this, I also know that nothing stays, that time heals and such but yet I think helplessly, you know what I mean, right?

So well, life doesn’t get any easier and isn’t meant to. Remember how parents, grandparents, all elders talked about –lessons of life. Yep, these are it. The only peace I found was talking to parents, inlaws coz somewhere it felt as if they have seen it all, been there-done that. I just added one more chapter to the “lessons of life”. How about you? Did you add any over the last few years?

Marketing Campaign

Where have we been? Friday came and went by and yet no post. No I am not drowning under a pile of work; it just called- being lazy. So how about we catch up on what’s going on these days starting with me visiting one of our neighbors, who has a fish tank and three cute,fat Gold fishes. No really they are pretty fat. And as soon as I walked to the tank they crowded together to see me. I kinda think they were gossiping. For a moment when I looked at them, I was concerned they may grow too big to fit the tank in a couple of months, upon asking neighbor convinced me these fish never outgrow the tank. I mean it seems Goldfish are like that.

At work there was this weird email. Has it ever happened to you that you email someone and the reply is an automated one saying “Sorry to inform you Mr So and So passed away on Nov-11- 08”? I received this one. And it felt weird not creepy just weird. I didn’t know the person, it was just another marketing campaign and several responses came through. But this one was so weird. If there is change in someones job title, company I usually mark this in database or inform the coordinator to do so. But for this person I didn’t know what I should say. I mean its really weird. I didn’t even delete the email from my inbox – it just stayed there and the thought stayed in my mind.

Talking of weird responses, I received several other weird responses to the campaign. I learnt people could have some interesting job titles like- gangster, mother-sister-wife-daughter, still thinking, I used to work as a Software Engineer but now counting sheep’s etc. No really I am not kidding.

Also learnt some people come up with creative answers for a simple survey question such as –

Are you an IT Professional?
-Yes, I am a Nurse
-Of course, I teach my son computers
-IT? ? Can you please email me what that means

Not to mention their names I have come across, Dollar Man, Mr Fadoo, Swamichandran Viveshwaran Trimbekshwaram Thimmappa Govindappa (And yes that is one name). How the hell am I to fit this in database, there is a character limit you see, its programmed that way, the IT dude will kill himself if I send him a request to accommodate this. Anywho there was also one other Ali-Mohammed-Hasan-Hamez (don’t ask me what’s the first and last name).

Ok listen got to get back to work now, you all well no? Cya will post soon!

Coz we are just bored!

It’s 3.14 pm here on the 2nd of Jan 09 and not a soul in office, at least not in my team, not on my floor. We thinks it’s kinda creepy and scary. We are reading Dresden Files-Death Masks and not fun reading it in an empty office. We can hear the sound of air vents and gushing air time and again, kinda of lame sound compared to Ramsey films background music. So where the hell is everyone? Half the crowd left for home after lunch and the other half never came in today. So here we are left with IPod (even 222 songs seem so less during such boring times), a scary novel, internet (only savior) and lots of soft drinks. This obviously gives us a reason to blog. So what were we up to on New Year’s Eve:

1. We ate at 7 pm and slept at 7.30 pm. What? How? When you have a splitting headache, dripping nose, throbbing throat and hubby with similar symptoms, you can sure come and talk to us about it.

2. We went to library today to get some books and while trying to pull some 5 of our books from the shelf, dropped a huge pile down, with 2 little books falling on a little toddler’s head. Surprisingly the kiddo looked up burped and as if he had found new treasure got hold of those books. Why you ask us? Toddler other than burping and some other ridiculous sounds can’t utter a word, let alone read. This act my friend was for the new treasure he could tear down and destroy. We simply didn’t have the heart to pull the books away from the said toddler and stop this devilish act, so we kept all other books back on the rack and walked to the librarian. “Some books have fallen down, guess the toddler has them”. Librarian panicked and ran, while we left the library with a smirk on our face and couple of good books.

3. We dreamt of bhel this morning. Yep bhel in a leaf cone. We woke up all annoyed, hmph!

4. We watched “Taare Zaamen Par” finally yesterday. Sniff and tears all through the movie. I know kinda lame to watch it so late but again was waiting for someone to upload good quality movie. After TZP felt nostalgic and hence watched “Rang De Basanti”.

5. A few seconds ago, phone in next office rang, loudly, extremely loudly. We didn’t budge. Had to find out if there’s anybody around. A sleepy soul emerged from floor above, asked who’s phone and muttered something annoyed, we hid our face and giggled. Sadistic Pleasure :)

Ok now back to Dresden Files!

Hope 09

Every year brings new hope, new wishes, new resolutions. Whether we believe in resolutions or not, when new year comes around at least once we think of resolution, some state it, some write it down. Some like me don’t think of any resolution, they just hope. For 09 I hope:

1. This year brings happiness to one and all in this world, by happiness I mean no more 9/11's, no more massacre at Taj, Hilton (ok so there wasn't a Hilton, but how many venues,events and dates should we keep in mind), no more Iraq wars. I hope this world becomes a much better place to live this year.
2. I hope everyone who desires a job, gets one. I hope the recession just passes by without affecting any families or lives.
3. I hope everyone thinks of "go green" and saving nature. Planting more trees, smoking less, just contributing in some way to save nature.
4. I hope there is more empathy around.

With this I hope all of you have a blast this year. Think of what you always wanted to do and haven't tried, be it singing, painting, learning a new language or simply bungee jumping and do it! Wish you all a very happy and prosperous 09.