Sorry? Ejjjaaaaclty! :P

For those who don't know, this is a famous dialogue from the movie Salaam Namaste. The context isn't important, and it's not like it made much sense in the movie anyway, hehe. What I'm going to write about is completely unrelated to the above, however, this is the best title I could think of for my post.

These days all of us use earphones a lot, though we know that they damage our ear drums and our hearing abilities will deteriorate over time. I've also read that the usage of ear phones increases the bacteria in our ears 700-fold! I even see young children aged 7-8 using earphones.

I was wondering... since this trend has begun only with our generation, no one has really seen what earphone usage will do to us when we get old. Or may be we won't have to wait to grow that old to find out. But we still use it anyway. (I do too. Not so much these days but I used to.)

I guess it won't be long before our hearing will become such that if anyone said anything to us, we would say, "Sorry?" And then...The little earphone devil would say "Ejjjaaaactly.. what I was hoping would happen to you!!"

:P

Dear Sir or Madman...

I came across some actual blunders made by job seekers in Reader's Digest.. they're hilarious!

- I am sure you have looked through several resumes with the same information about work experience, education, and references. I am not going to give you any of that stuff.

- My mother delivered me without anaesthesia, so I have an IQ of 146 and can therefore learn anything.

- I realize that my total lack of appropriate experience may concern those considering me for employment.

- I have integrity, so I will not steal office supplies and take them home.

- Please don't regard my 14 positions as job-hopping. I never once quit a job.

- I'm attacking my CV for your review.

- I realized that my resume is no longer exemplary thanks to my family destroying the computer file.

- Here are my qualifications for you to overlook.

- Thank you for your consideration. Hope to hear from you shorty!

Happy Birthday Soleil :D

Soleil realised in semester x that Confused Soul and Cookie Monster were cousins.

Clue 4: In RVR, go to level x and find dudette x.

=)

Do these questions have answers?

I read this poem somewhere:

If I knew it would be the last time that I'd see you fall asleep,
I would tuck you in more tightly, and pray the Lord your soul to keep.
If I knew it would be the last time that I'd see you walk out the door,
I would give you a hug and kiss, and call you back for just one more.

If I knew it would be the last time I'd hear your voice lifted up in praise,
I would tape each word and action, and play them back throughout my days
If I knew it would be the last time, I would spare an extra minute or two,
To stop and say "I love you," instead of assuming you know I do.

So just in case tomorrow never comes, and today is all I get,
I'd like to say how much I love you, and I hope we never will forget.
Tomorrow is not promised to anyone, young or old alike,
And today may be the last chance you get to hold your loved one tight.

So if you're waiting for tomorrow, why not do it today?
For if tomorrow never comes, you'll surely regret the day
That you didn't take that extra time for a smile, a hug, or a kiss,
And you were too busy to grant someone, what turned out
to be their one last wish.

So hold your loved ones close today, and whisper in their ear,
That you love them very much, and you'll always hold them dear.
Take time to say "I'm sorry," "Please forgive me," "Thank you" or "It's okay",
And if tomorrow never comes, you'll have no regrets about today.

They say you should always leave loved ones with loving words, 'coz you never know.. it may be the last time you see them. But is that how life works? Every day of your life when you talk to your family, friends, etc., is this what you think about? If you have an argument with someone and you decide to give the other person time to cool down before you talk again, is that not contradictory to what I first said? Or do these feelings come in only when you do lose someone and then fade away? Do we actually have the time these days to think about all this? Should we even think about all this? Should we not live life to fullest?

They say life is short.. is it really? If you've lived 20 years, isn't that a long long time? They say you shouldn't let little things bother you.. they say you must forgive and forget.. If you're upset because of someone or something for one day, is that bad? If 20 years is a long time, how small is one day? How can you live everyday just being happy? They say you should everyday as if it was your last.. Can you do that? If people say things to you and don't behave well, should you let that go? What happens to your feelings? You give someone time to get alright, but even during that time, doesn't it matter to you how that person behaves? Isn't life made up of little things anyway? And if they say life is short, then every little thing should count, right?

What is life really all about?

Don't worry, be happy!

Sometimes I wonder why things that happen in our lives, happen at all. 'Coz some of these things change your life entirely - may be forever. You wish that some things never happened, or certain other things happened - but what we always forget is that if everything happened our way, wouldn't life become too predictable and boring? You would just say "I want it that way" and it would happen - no, that's not what life is all about. You need to experience unexpected things and derive excitement and happiness from those things, cos if there are no chanllenges, there's no excitement. Challenges come in 3 categories - easy, difficult, impossible. Those who take on the easy alone have a boring and staright forward life. Those who take on the difficult have a tough but satisfying life. Those who take on the impossible are remembered forever! (I read this quote somewhere) Always remember - all that happens, happens for good. If God does not give you everything you want, it is because there is a reason behind it - and it is for your good. Time will teach you everything, even if you don't understand it at the moment. 'Coz time is the greatest healer..

The return of Confused Soul.. :P

It's been exactly a year since my last post. I don't really know why - I guess I just lost interest in blogging, or 'cos there were other things happening in my life, or as always, I didn't know what to blog about :) But now I'm back, and I hope to continue blogging the way I used to!

What really inspired this post was my trip to Banaras (also known as Varanasi), in UP. I went there with my mom and her mom - my granny, cos my granny wanted to take me to a few temples in and around Banaras. And I must say it was an eye-opening experience. I don't have any pictures with me unfortunately, I wish I had taken some.

~The roads, if I could call them that, were just pure mud. Stones and puddles all over, it was a complete mess. And such narrow streets! I wonder how people manage to drive there! And I am surprised people there haven't turned deaf - every single vehicle on the streets honks continuously.

~Traffic - my definition of it in Banaras: It's an ocean full of fish swimming in all directions - you find your way through and try not to get hit. Lol.. It was pretty hilarious.

~Temples. People go there with so much devotion, but the way everything has become so commercial, it is really sad. You can't visit any temple in peace. Right from the time you are half a km away from the temple, pandits come to you from nowhere and follow you till you reach the temple, offering you a good darshan in a short time, buying all the necessary items for the pooja, etc. There are a million shops selling things that are offered to God - prasad, flowers, milk, coconut, etc. and all the vendors call out to you to go and buy from their shop. You just cannot enter the temple in peace. As if this is not bad enough, you have beggars before you enter the temple, inside the temple, and when you are out, asking you for money. There are some who say they sweep the temple and so ask for money. Don't we put enough in hundis for the management of the temple? Then they say things like you will get a good spouse, make good money in business if you give them money. The problem is also that if you give any one needy person a few coins, the rest will come crowd around you. Everything has become so commercialized - it was a sad sight.

~Tourists. All the Indians treat tourists like they are Gods or some aliens from outer space. I wonder what impression they get of India. All the Indians try to make as much money from the tourists and I wonder if they resort to cheating them in doing so, by giving them false information or charging them exorbitant amounts. At the station, this foreigner was taking snaps of a little girl cleaning the railway tracks.

~Train arrival announcements. My train was late by a couple of hours. While we were waiting at the station, each train's arrival brought with it - *Ting ting ting*, then the announcement in Hindi, then in English, repeated atleast twelve times each! When the current went off a couple of times, I was so happy! Lol.. But it came back in a minute each time.. The announcements were really very annoying.. they were too loud, and were made too many times. And there was absolutely no mention about my train being late for the two hours that we waited. We were wondering if we had missed the train or something.

India is such a beautiful place. It has so much to offer in terms of culture and traditions, monuments, temples, etc. It has already become such a popular tourist destination. Rajasthan was full of tourists when I went there. I hope the government takes steps to put some systems into place, and to make potential tourist spots clean and organized, with good systems into place for tourists to get reliable information and to get bookings done. And when it comes to Indian devotees visiting temples and the like, I hope something is done so that we can have hassle-free and peaceful visits to religious places.

Mummy... it's over!

Yesterday was the last day of my two-month long internship at IBN. In a way, I was really happy that I wouldn't have to go to work anymore, but another part of me knew I would miss the place terribly.. and the fun I had during my internship.. both at IBN and at NUS..

I'm going to miss sleeping after midnight, most often at 1-2 and then snoozing the alarm a hundred times in the morning! Taking the NUS shuttle bus and then waiting for the Biopolis one next to NUH.. Waking up late on weekends and having lots of fun! Coming back from work and going swimming, playing cards, going out for dinner or for a movie, or simply watching movies on the comp.. [I've lost count of how many I've watched this summer!]

I'll miss the fun times at IBN.. the friends I made there over the course of two months.. a couple of whom I got really close to.. I wonder if I'll ever see them again, coz one of them lives in the US. It's a strange feeling, when you see someone everyday for 2 months, discuss your everyday events with them.. only to realize that you might never see that person again.. :( The messages that I would get the moment the clock struck 12.. saying "Lunch!! I'm hungry!".. getting my non-Indian friends to eat at Annalakshmi with me.. explaining to them what each dish was.. deciding how much to pay! Frequent visits to the IBN pantry to make milo or just to have cold water and read the newspapers.. waiting for the blessed 6 o clock.. having one hour breaks while doing an experiment [You get loads of these in research :P].. wearing my lab-coat and gloves and getting the feeling of being a dentist or something.. getting irritated when I had to do certain irritating and repetitive procedures.. getting instructions from my mentor.. talking about general stuff with her [She's only 5 years older], cracking jokes with people around..

It was a truly memorable experience.. I learnt a lot, and had fun all the same. At IBN, they don't call it 'internship'.. they call it 'attachment'.. Need I say more?

The worth of weekends!

Ever since I've started interning, I've really looked forward to the weekend. I'm not implying that I get bored at work or I'm not liking it, it's just that after a 9-6 week, you look forward to: the Friday evening when you can go out, have fun and get back however late you want.. the Saturday and Sunday mornings when you can get up at noon if you wish.. the movies you can watch at the theater and not just on the comp.. the book you were half way through, you can now complete.. meet all your friends who are working too and whom you don't get to meet during the week..

I had this feeling after the very first week of work! And I know many of my friends felt the same way too.. Even during the week, I used to have fun after work - we would go swimming, have dinner and then play cards or watch a movie. It had become a sort of a routine. But still, weekends have their own charm.. During the semester whenever my dad used to ask me "So, what plans for the weekend? Or simply "What plans for Sunday?", I would go like "Nothing much, just usual, might go out for lunch or dinner".. and most often, since it would be mid-term time or exam time.. "What else but study?". I never realized the worth of weekends then. But now, after working 5 days I week, I really look forward to Friday evenings.. sometimes, I start longing for it from Wednesday itself, especially if plans had been made for the weekend in advance.

Somehow, even when I was in school, I never felt weekends were so very special. May be because school just wasn't as taxing in the lower classes, nor as long as an entire day or work at office.. And after Std.10, the weekend just meant more time to study! I can't believe it now! So I would actually look forward to the weekends in this case, but for a different reason! After having experienced a tiny bit of how work life is going to be, now I realize why my dad loves to laze around on Sundays at home. He really relaxes, in the true sense of the word. He doesn't mind if we don't go out or do anything special on Sundays, but the very fact that he gets and entire day to relax is enough. Sometimes, my mom tells me, we should go on a holiday soon, your dad hasn't had one in a while. I never realized how much my dad needed it, or the value of it, until I started working myself. The value of getting a day/week off. Of getting time alone, of getting time to relax, to spend with your family.

A short internship has taught me so much! And it's just an internship. What it is going to be like when I start working? I will just have to wait and watch! :)

Change.. finally!

The much needed change in my template! :)
And so far, my shortest post :P

Whatever! :(

~ Three of my sandals/slippers have snapped in the last four days. Coincidence? Just plain bad luck? The first, while I was walking towards the library. I had no choice but to carry it in my hand and walk into the library. After borrowing the book I wanted to, I asked the librarian for some tape. My sandals were fine after that, for exactly ten seconds. So I walked from the library to the bus stop holding the sandals in my hand again! About 15 people stared at me, some of them more than once (!), and one old uncle walking towards me looked at me and started laughing! I joined him! The whole thing was pretty hilarious. I was as amused at their reactions as they were about me walking barefoot, sandals in hand. I was wondering why they were so amused.. When their slippers snap, is this not what they do? I feel it is better to walk barefoot with a pair of broken slippers in your hand, than just walking barefoot on the pavement!

Coming to the second pair of sandals, one of them snapped when I was crossing the road in Holland Village, and the other, half an hour later in Clarke Quay! But this time, they had snapped such that a little bit of tape kept the sandals in walkable condition till I got back to campus.

The third - well, my bathroom slippers. All three pairs are lying in some garbage can somewhere! I guess it's high time I went footwear shopping!

~ I've been swimming at SRC for the past few days.I meet Macho Girl at the bus stop outside MPSH and we go to the pool together. I usually take the A1 from PGP, but today I decided to take the A2 since I had to return the book I borrowed the other day from Hon Sui Sen Library. Since I didn't want to keep Macho Girl waiting, I decided to do this: Get off at the biz2 stop, run quickly to the lib, put the book into the 'book drop' machine, run to the Tamasek bus stop and catch the same A2, which would take time to get there coz it would have to go through the business loop, plus I saw it caught in some kind of a mini traffic jam opposite KR. It went off as I had planned, just that I reached the Tamasek stop huffing and puffing. Finally reached the pool, only to realize that I had forgotten my costume!! Everything else was there - goggles, cap, towel, sarong, only my costume was missing. Wonderful. So much for getting almost breathless to catch that A2 and not keep MG waiting! Going to keep her waiting for a day now!

~ We booked seats for HP5 online, and then site then directed us to the online payment section. But somehow, the transaction got cancelled. So we decided to start over. But to our dismay, the seats that we had planned to book (they were good seats) now showed the status 'blocked'!! Blocked by us! But we had received no confirmation ID or anything for us to go claim it again! We felt like such fools. But luckily for us, the site said that seats get blocked if a transaction stops midway, but after 15 minutes if it is still not completed, the seats become available again. Thank God! We finally got our seats back a little later!

~ This post seriously proves the fact that I am a confused soul, doesn't it? :P And when one is talking about me, how can lame jokes not come into the picture? Cookie Monster and me had gone to Macho girl's place for dinner on Sunday. But it started raining really heavily and we were kind of stranded at her place! Haha.. So Macho suggested we stay over at her place.. but both cookie monster and me had the same problem - both of us didn't have our lens solution and couldn't sleep with it on. Macho asked if water would do. We said yes. So she said, 'There you go! We found the solution to our problem!' And immediately I pointed out the lame joke in it, and so did cookie monster.. I guess I'm getting everyone around me to think just like me! :P

07.07.07

Back in school, I used to love writing such dates in my note books. I think the first one was 9.9.99 and then it came every year with 01.01.01, 02.02.02 and so on. It just looks so nice.. you can't tell the difference between the day, month or year, and it's like you're in a totally different world and time seems to have no bounds!

Anyway, this year there is something very special about this day. The new seven wonders of the world are going to be announced today - on 07.07.07 @ Lisbon, Portugal. After 2200 years of having had seven wonders of the 'ancient world', today we will have seven new wonders of the world! People from all over the world have voted for their favourite seven wonders. It has been unanimously decided that the Pyramids require no voting, and it is already one of the new seven wonders. So that leaves six more. You can see the nominees here. I voted too!There is a grand presentation ceremony which is going to happen tonight, and our very own Bipasha Basu is one of the few people presenting the awards! I so wish the Taj Mahal retains its place as a Wonder of the World! But only time will tell.. I can't wait to see the results! Well, I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed.. :)

**********************************************************************************
The resutls are out, the Taj Mahal is in! Yipee :D Congrats to India, thanks to all the people who voted for it! The Great Wall of China, Jordan's Petra, Brazil's statue of Christ the Redeemer, Peru's Machu Picchu, Rome's Colosseum and Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid and of course, the Pyramids of Giza are the other new wonders of the world.

Truly a wonder of the world.. Forever..

Why?

I realised only a few days ago that a chinese cluster mate of mine, living two rooms away from mine, is also interning where I am (IBN). I happened to see her in the Biopolis shuttle bus a few times and also in the lift at IBN. I'm pretty sure that by now, even she has realised the same thing. [Unless of course, she is totally oblivious to her surroundings! She actually helped me with a little problem I had with my lens one day just before I was leaving for work, so she's definitely seen me around!But at that time I didn't know she was interning at IBN too.]

We live in the same cluster, go to work at the same place and travel by the same bus everyday. And yet, we haven't said a 'hi' to each other or even smiled at each other! At one of our safety briefings, she was sitting in front of me, and when she turned around a couple of times and saw me, I thought I'd tell her that she was my cluster mate, but her face was totally expressionless and her body language seemed to indicate that she was not interested. So I decided against it. It's been a while now, and we still haven't spoken to each other.. I wonder why..

Is it because we are clannish and don't really like to mingle with other kinds of people?
Or is it because we have too many friends anyway and so we don't need another one?
Or we have our iPod's to keep us company on the way to work..who wants a person to talk to?
Or we just don't care about our neighbours, sometimes we don't even know who they are!
Or may be, we're just not the friendly-and-mingling-type anymore?

Milo protocol!

Warning:This post will seem hilarious only if you have experienced lab work, and have undergone the various safety briefings!!

I'm currently interning at A-Star IBN (Insitute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology) at Biopolis. Today, a couple of my friends at IBN and me went to the pantry on our floor to make milo. Each floor has a pantry and each pantry has a bottle of coffee powder, milo, tea bags, creamer and sugar, and a small box of biscuits/cookies. We wanted to make the milo and freeze it, and have it later when it became a little solidified. I had tried it before and it tasted really good, so I decided to make it again, for all of us. But there was a small problem. The first time I had tried it was in my first week of internship. Today, after 4 weeks at IBN, this is what was in my mind when I made the milo..

1. Wear your lab coat and gloves. Spray your gloves with 70% ethanol to keep it germ-free.
2. Spray the table with ethanol and wipe it with tissue.
3. Take 4 fresh autoclaved cups from the stack of cups covered by plastic, don't take it from anywhere else! And don't forget to label your cups.
4. Add 25g of milo reagent to each cup.
5. Add 10g of creamer to each cup, but make sure you don't touch the spoon to the milo reagent that's already inside the cup. If you do, use a new spoon.
6. Add 10g of sucrose reagent to each cup if you want to drink hot milo. If not, add 14g, because in conditions below zero degrees, the sucrose is less effective. Make sure you don't touch the spoon around, if not use new ones.
7. From the water boiler, add MilliQ water to each cup.
8. Since u have added the same reagent to each cup, u can use the same spatula for all the cups. Vortex. Clean the spatula with the delicate 'KimWipes' and place it back.
9. Clean your work area with ethanol.
10. Spray your gloves with ethanol and also the door handle of the freezer.
11. Put the milo cups inside. Make sure that the pantry door is closed when you open the freezer door.
12. After you finish drinking the milo, please dispose off the cups in the 'general waste' bin and the gloves in the 'biohazard' bin.

One month of work and this is how I think about non-lab activities!!
And I still have 5 weeks to go..

Status messages.. on your phone?

If you check my inbox/outbox during term time, most of the messages would be.. "Wru?".. "Give me another ten mins, I'll see you at your residence then.." and most importantly.. "Lunch?".."Dinner?".. Haha.. And especially if ten of you are going out for dinner from one place, like pgp, and you decide to meet at one place at a particular time, you have to message and ask each one why they aren't there yet. Lots of people may end up messaging one person, and on the other hand, someone may be left out! Haha.. haven't we experienced this before?

Given such scenarios, wouldn't it be really wonderful if we could have status messages on our phones just like we have on facebook? You can choose to display your message to one, a few, or your entire contact list if you want. And you can check the latest messages on the "Status updates" section, just like facebook. [Have I been facebooking too much? :)]

Then, in the given example of going out as a gang, you could set your status message to just those ten people as "CS is ready and is waiting at the foyer".. lol.. and if someone is late, they could write "X is almost done, will be there in 5 mins..".. Or if you decide to meet at the back gate instead of the foyer, just display it! :P It seems weird, but it is a great idea! Sometimes everyone is busy and you don't have company for lunch, you could just check your phone and see if someone you know is lunching somwhere and you could join them! But what if that person doesn't wanna have lunch with you? Well, in that case, that person would have selected you to be able to see his/her status message! Even during exam time, if you are studying in the library and you want a break, and you don't know who else is studying in the library [given that it is so huge!], you could easily set your status asking your friends if they are in the library and if they wanna go for a walk! Or if you're going to mustafa, you can tell a select few of your friends and ask them if they want anything!

Enough examples, you get the drift! I don't know if it's stupid, but it's just something I think about in certain situations.. and how helpful it would be.. This reminds me of the !dea tag line.. An idea can change your life!

Early morning blues!

*Beep beep* *Beep beep*

Aah, there goes the alarm.. It's morning already?

But I'm sooo sleepy.. I wish I could sleep a little more..

Snooze..

10 mins later.. *Beep beep* *Beep beep*

10 mins up already? :O I don't believe it..I just snoozed it..
Just 10 mins more.. I don't need to wash my hair today so I can sleep a little more..
[This happens only on alternate days, since Confused soul washes her hair every second day these days, thanks to the weather.]

Snooze again..

10 mins later.. *Beep beep* *Beep beep*

Okay if I don't get up now, I won't have enough time for breakfast and I'll miss the shuttle bus, and I don't wanna be late for my internship..

The alarm is finally switched off completely and Confused Soul sits up on her bed for a while..and then gets out of bed to get ready..

The 'K' mania..

Ekta Kapoor.. the lady who created the K serials.. all her serials begin with one, if not two K's [Kkusum..lol]! I stopped watching her serials ages ago.. some of them were interesting initially, but when the bitching and back-biting became unbearable, I stopped. Not only that, all her serials had similar things happening.. people dying [when they were actually alive and their family members find out only later], people losing their memory and so on..

I'm listing out a few characteristic points of her serials..

• As I mentioned, the male lead dies, his family members perform all the rites and rituals with some other dead body and plunge into a state of grief. The hero has lost his memory and hence cannot get back to his family. Everybody at home asks the hero's wife to marry someone else and on the wedding day, the hero gets his memory back and behaves like a mad man, cursing everybody at home for playing such a horrible chaal [game/plot] with him.
• Talking about losing memory, sometimes the hero loses his memory on purpose, when he actually has not, and he does this to find out who's ruining the family.
• Only here can people sign papers without even glancing at them, and they realise it only after the property is gone!
• Man1 and woman1 love each other. But man1's mom wants him to marry woman2, else she will starve herself to death. Man1 has no choice but to marry woman2 [who is usually the bitch of the serial :P]. Else man1 and woman1 get married secretly and man1's mother refuses to accept her daughter-in-law. Or even better, she accepts her in front of everyone, but has all her chaals planned out secretly so that her son leaves this woman soon and marries woman2. Lol.
• There's a surprising number of children the male and female leads have. A few from one marriage, a few from another. This applies to both the man and the woman, and they get married and the house is full of children. Sometimes, the children are older than the step-mother. Then out of the blue a son crops up from nowhere and he is the illegitimate child. It's just too complicated!
• The women have no other job but to bitch about someone in the family and do things to bring that person's name down. Isn't it really funny the way the ladies say 'Humaari pehli chaal kaamyaab hui..hahahahahaha(devilish laughter)'.. Lol!
• How much the ladies cry! I'm pretty sure that when they hold auditions to cast the female lead and also the other actresses, they are made to shed some tears to see how well they can cry and how realistic they look! :P
  
• The ladies are always dressed in beautiful sarees full of sequins and wear matching [and really heavy] jewellary and make-up. They go to bed with all this. Lol.
• Serials keep leaping 20 years ahead, and the poor young actors get white hair so soon! And the grandma's are always alive.. immortal I think. Some of the serials have been running for 6-7 years now!
  

There are loads more I know, but I'll just stop my list here. I have nothing against the lady, she's out there to make money.. But I can't believe the people of India. They watch all the crap, but I do hope they don't absorb any of it. Some of the things she shows do exist in families, I agree, but most of the things don't! People actually get to learn so many horrible things by watching all this. Adults are sensible, they will probably not absorb any of this. But children? What if they start following all this nonsense when they grow up?

People actually discuss these serials and guess what's going to happen next. Don't they have anything better to talk about? From 8:30pm to 11 pm people are glued to the television. I know that the channels have to show something, but why extend the serials for years and years? Why show unrealistic things? I loved Neena Gupta's serial Saans. She only showed things that happen in families in India and in everyday life, and even the clothes that actors wore were comparable to those we wear at home. There was hardly any make-up. A few things were exaggerated here and there, but you need that much to keep the viewers' interest and to keep the serial going. Why not make serials like that? As long as people continue watching these serials, and keep the TRP's high, they will continue being aired..What's going to happen to the people who watch all these daily soaps? Are there any answers to these questions? I just wonder..

Sapodilla Allergy!

Whenever my mom has a bite of sapodilla, she has some sort of an allergic reaction [or thats what we think] and her ears start itching! Lol! A teeny-weeny piece of the fruit is enough to irritate her ears! Have you ever heard of anything like that? If you have, do let me know, coz my mom is really worried that something is wrong with her! :P

I've heard of dust allergy, pollen allergy, nickel allergy, milk allergy, insect-bite allergy and other normal types of allergy.. but I had never heard of an allergy caused by a fruit, leave alone sapodilla!

My mom wanted to test if it was something to do with the cheeku, or it was some other sort of reaction. So we went to this place called Delifresh that sells fresh fruit ice creams with no preservatives and all that stuff. She tried out the cheeku ice cream.. and you guessed right, her ear-itching started again!!

She went to the ENT and got herself checked. The doctor said there was nothing to worry about and it was just some sort of a cheeku allergy. But she's not convinced.. coz she has never heard of such an allergy from anybody!

Sapodilla,Cheeku,Sapota,Safeda.. call it what you may, but the fact is this: my mom's ears don't like them! I know it's nothing serious, and so whenever this happens, I can't stop laughing! My dad has a different viewpoint though; he says it's all psychological, just to irritate her.. hehe..Poor mom! :P

First Anniversary :D A double anniversary too!

I can't believe this.. It's been a year since I first started blogging!I remember how it all started.. My friends Clueless and Macho girl used to blog very often, and whenever I commented on their posts, I used a pseudo name, h2O. [There's a story behind this as well.. the board in my room always had a piece of paper saying "Drink Water" and so they named me h2O! Having said this, I can't help but tell you about another related incident. I realised that I had no pink coloured tee in my wardrobe. (Now I do!) I kept telling my friends that I would get one the next time we went shopping. Once, when all of us had gone shopping together, guess what my friends found? A pink coloured adidas tee with the words 'Drink Water'! (or 'I love water'.. I can't remember which!) What a combination! They decided to buy it for me as an advance birthday gift. But when we checked the price tag, we decided against it! Haha..] I loved their posts, and I wanted to blog too, but never really got down to doing it.

My meeting Sachin a year ago [:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D] gave me a really good reason to start blogging!! The fact that he called me up and fixed an appointment to take a picture with him.. all my friends wanted to know how it happened!! I was too bored telling the same story to every person.. so I decided to write about it and tell everybody to read it.. and that's how my blog came into existence! I've not had too many posts so far, this is only my 24th post, and I guess it's because most often I don't know what to write about!

I'm really happy though, so what if the number of posts is a little less? :P I've loved it so far and I will definitely continue, I hope I haven't bored the readers of my blog too much! Thank you for putting up with my nonsense!! Beware! There's more to come :D

Venmai..

In one of my previous posts, I had said that I would write about my Venmai experience.. I’m finally going to do it now, after two whole months! What I narrate now will definitely be in some way different from what I would have written in the midst of Venmai practice or just after it got over.. It’s been a while after BC and the excitement I had then is obviously not there anymore.. Anyway, I really don’t know where to begin.. coz planning for Venmai began last semester itself.. atleast for the ex-co.. Being the Hindustani Vocal Co-ordinator, one of the very first things was to find out from the members if they were interested in performing for BC and then to select a few from them, since the number of vocalists we could accommodate on stage was limited and even the Carnatic vocalists would be there. There are so many things to write, that if I wrote it all, it would take you ages to read.. and before that, ages for me to write it! So I’ll just list out some of my memories of Venmai.. It was a wonderful experience over-all, I learnt a lot and enjoyed myself as well; and I’m glad Venmai was a huge success :D

Some of my memories with the ex-co..
• The various meetings we had where we discussed all sorts of options for various things! And me trying to crack lame elephant jokes in the middle of them :P
• Gift shopping with a few members of the ex-co.. unforgettable experience..
• Replying to Kalpana, Anuja and LP’s mails with details about this and details about that.
• Selling tickets at canteens, temples, Kent Vale, etc.. giving out flyers, getting lectures on Gods of other religions in return.. :P
• Our rule that the person who came last for any ex-co meeting would buy everybody drinks. The rule that was never executed.
• The ex-co photoshoot.. where the girls took forever to get dressed..
• The chain of mails we had after Venmai was over.. where we congratulated and thanked each other.. brought out the good and bad points of Venmai.. this chain of mails was the best part coz we really pulled each other’s legs! Someone was called a fatherly guide and someone else was being hooked up with one of the female singers by us.. lol!
• The ex-co outing that we had after Venmai.. was supposed to be a dinner outing, but turned out to be a dinner cum late night movie outing!

Some memories about Venmai in general..
• Collecting and passing on food money to the respective people in PGP.. the biggest headache of all!!
• 4-5 hour long practices and the shifting of instruments before and after practices..
• Photocopying of notes for the performers..
• Messaging/Calling Thyagu Sir before every practice to remind him about it..
• Drinking hot water before Pibare in the initial few practices so that we could reach the high notes properly!
• Messaging/Calling/Missed calling(!) performers of my group when they didn’t turn up on time for practice.
• Managing CAs and practice sessions.. and studies in general..
• Having meal-plan food outside the practice theatre with other performers..
• Starting practice late almost everyday and cribbing about it..
• The bus rides back to PGP practice.. singing songs, cracking lame jokes and getting high on plain air!
• The times we ran to catch the last bus.. the times we stood on the pavement undecided whether to take the a1 or just wait for the a2.
• The times when we walked back to PGP or simply cabbed it or when Raj Sir dropped us in his car coz we missed the last bus!
• My joy when I heard that there would be no practice on my birthday! :P
• During the practice days, singing BC songs or humming BC tunes unintentionally at various times of the day! Just an indication of how much we had praticed!
• On the day of the performance, the excitement we felt on stage 15 mins before the concert began when we heard the voices of people who had come in.
• The empty feeling on 22nd March, and even the next few days.. the feeling that something really big was missing..

Bookmarks!

I've been tagged again, and this time I have to list out all the links on my bookmarks toolbar. Here goes! I'm going to list them in the order in which they appear on my toolbar.. though I didn't really set them that way.. The newest bookmarks are put at the end, though I reposition a few.. Okay, here goes..

• IVLE, where I access my leture notes and everything related to our modules.
  
• CORS, which is used only at the beginning of each semester to bid for the modules I want.
• Google, I don't have to say anything about it, do I?
• Google Book Search, this is useful when I have to search for information for projects.
• NUS, the main page of the National University of Singapore.. when I want to search for any information pertaining to NUS, I use the search option on the site. I also use this site at home to access my NUS e-mail.
• Gmail, the most frequently visited site on my list!
• Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, no comments!
• MSN News, to keep myself updated on all that's happening around the world. I hardly visit this site though :P
  
• The Hindu, where I update myself on stuff happening in India.
• Wikipedia, very useful indeed :)
• Oxford English Dictionary, saves me the trouble of having to browse my dictionary to look for the meaning of a word I don't know. Here it's just a click away :P
• Confused Soul, my blog page!
• Orkut, I was so addicted to this at one point! Luckily for me, there's some problem with my orkut now, and it doesn't open in firefox, and so I use it less often!
• You tube, I use it when I am jobless, want to watch a movie or when I want to take a break while studying.
• Facebook, my latest addiction :)
• I can't tell you the name of this site, because my gang of friends back home and me use it to write coded messages to each other on orkut :P
• Mag4u, where I used to download old hindi songs.I haven't visited this site in ages!
• Papuyaar[fmw11], where I download all new hindi songs from.. actually I don't download songs these days, coz I get it from friends who've already downloaded them..so it saves me time and trouble :P
• DBS internet banking, a boon!
• Find Artciles, as the name suggests,but I don't think I've ever used it to find any articles for projects!
• Babel Fish Translation, it's a site where you can translate a line from a particluar language to any language in the world! I've used it a couple of times for.. ahem ahem.. if you wanna know, ask me in person, I'm too shy to say it here :P
• Hidden Emoticons from Yahoo! Messenger, I had searched for them once, and bookmarked it, but haven't used them ever!
• Amazing Photos, this is a link that of my friends once sent me, I loved the photos and so I bookmarked them!
• HyderabadiWeb, I watched an online movie here once, and it's on my list for future movie watching :P
  
• Love - Wikiquote, my friend sent me this link, and it's been there ever since.. I wonder why I bookmarked it though.. may be.. ermm.. hmm.. I don't know! :P
  
• AIESEC in Singapore, I don't know why it's on my list..I'm trying to remember why!
• Rajshri Movies, where you can watch all their movies online.. never watched any though.
• Centris, for all PGP complains,a boon again :)
• Buddha Bar, a collection of nice songs..
• I have lots of bookmarked sites containing information on stuff that I learn in my modules. If I search for something when I do an assignment or a project and find an interesting site that gives me information related to what I'm learning, I bookmark them for future reference.

That's about it.. Phew! That was a long list! I just realised that I hardly use some of the links on my list. But I guess it's ok.. I'll just let it be there.. you never know when I might need them :)