#94

You know the kind of texts you receive from your close ones that leave you numb, so numb that even after weeks you wake up each day hoping that you were just dreaming ?

It's tough. The other person is hurting , no amount of consolation or anything you say is going to help them at that time. You cannot bring their loved one back, yet you keep wondering if there is anything you could have done.

Why do we get so ridden with the guilt ? It's so stressful at times.


You know the kind of texts that make you change your perspective towards life. Life that fails to teach you what an event as death does...

#93. Am I really old enough ?

A friend and I were playing music in my room this morning and the playlist soon drifted to old songs from the 90s that we grew up listening to. We all got excited about hearing those songs after so long and started sharing our memories associated with them. Later I texted an old friend of mine reminding her of those silly times when we'd memorize songs like Truly, Madly, Deeply and hum them all day at school talking about our first crush with each other. I also told her about another girl we knew since many years who got engaged. My initial reaction when talking to my friend about it was "Wow, I can't believe they're engaged already!" but that's when she had to snap me out of the old days and remind me that we're already 24, and teenage memories and friends getting married should not amaze me anymore.
Which is when it hit me - "How did we grow up so soon?"

With social media controlling almost all our activities it's so easy to judge your own life based on what everyone else is portraying theirs to be. A lot of the girls I went to school with are married already, and some even have kids or are expecting kids soon. I judge their life to the vast contrast of my own, and many times wonder how I'm in such a different position as them. Some days I think to myself "Damn, I'm already 24!" and other days I have to stop and remind myself "Hey, I'm only 24!".

If I'm honest with myself though, I'm not ready to turn the page on this chapter of my life. So what if I'm still living my life the way the elders would no longer approve of and expect me to grow out from. Sure, those other girls are getting to flaunt pretty rings, plan weddings, decorate new houses, and prepare for babies. I know that eventually I'll get to do those things too. But for now, I want to soak up every minute of this phase I'm in.

It's easy to look at those girls and wonder what I'm doing with my life, but the truth is, I feel a sense of warmth and comfort in the juncture of life I'm in right now. I want to take full advantage of the fact that I can make my own decisions,and be a little bit selfish about them without having anyone whose life depends on them. I do have responsibilities, but not too much, and I have the freedom to explore and experience new things without anything or anyone holding me back ( except for my parents who never did ).So, if you're like me and tend to compare your life to others, stop. Take the time to enjoy this chapter. Once you turn the page you can't go back, and while the next chapter would be extremely exciting, it will never be the same as it is right now.

#92. I swear I'm not dead

Just busy figuring out this conundrum called life. 


But I miss this space okay ?

I really do.

#91.

Was at this amusement park yesterday having what I would call the time of my life, a perfect weekend with the perfect set of people I could ever want to be with. Until I spoke with my mother on the phone while on my way back, and heard her break down on the call with me.
Its like this distance suddenly hit me right on my face and ripped my heart apart. How conveniently do we children forget that while we are growing up and moving on with our own lives, our parents are getting older and need us more. Since when did we become so selfish?


I always wanted to remember this day all my life, but not like this.

# 90 . Shit Happened

I feel like screaming my guts out. Guess Mr. Murphy loves me way too much.
I opened blogger after what seemed like ages to finally let out what I've been wanting to for a pretty long time.
Was going through my old posts and drafts, only to delete two latest posts from the blog.

Shit.

SHIT !!

The day's gloom has now turned into outrage. I want the earth to split wide open and take me in.
And I do not want to come back ever again. Feels like I just lost a finger ( yes THAT dramatic this is).

So since I'm supposed to be an internet-savvy engineer, I will have to figure a way out to retrieve the posts. Somehow.

oh Google cache, I hope you've captured my Birthday list somewhere in some teeny weeny corner of yours. I was yet to start working on it *looks around guiltily* . Pretty sure I won't even feel like getting back to this space if I have lost #88 and #89 forever.

SHIT  



update :   YAY ! 

#89. Turning 23

23 things I wish to do / complete / accomplish / finally-get-my-ass-to-work-on this year

[in no particular order]

1. Revise the entire Harry Potter series. Yes this was the first thing I could think of !!  

2. Learn an instrument.

3. Be a part of the Ugly Indian Project. Join  them atleast on one weekend .

4. Finally figure out the perfect jeans size and fit for myself

5. Learn Photoshop ! ( I wonder whatever I did in college? )

6. Filter my Facebook Friend List. I've outgrown the stage of decorating friend lists .

7. Fall in love. Like real head-over-heels-crazy-mad waala love.

8.  Learn to recite Gurbani.
     Not just recite. Be able to understand each and every word and then recite.

     I really really really need to work on this. 

     Nothing in the word calms me down like Gurbani does. 

9. Make more and more use of Post-its. 

    Use them at workdesk. Use them in room. Use them in kitchen and washroom. 

    Make notes. Write messages. Reminders. Quotes.

    Drop them at friends' desks with little sweet messages on them. 

    Use them to make people around me happy. I love post-its.

10. Adopt a hair-care regime and strictly stick to it. Religiously. Before I go bald and 

      run out of tears.

11. Go on a trip to somewhere outside the city. Without phone. 

      Only a call to parents allowed.

12. Baby sit . 

      Just to test my patience. And tolerance to drool-poop-scream-sleep cycle for a company.

13. Over haul my wardrobe. 

     Get rid of the clothes I have been attached to for no good reason but never ever ever take them out to wear. On the other hand, go out for a day of crazy random shopping and try clothes I never thought I'd be able to carry. Challenge myself to come out of the comfortable checks-stripes-plain-loose-mostly blue and red-tees and shirts routine I am addicted to.

14. Be able to perfectly bake a cake and cook butter chicken. Not depend on chance to get the concoctions right.

15. Refer point 7. 

     If I succeed :

             Set up a filmy-style romantic candle-lit dinner for the guy and me.

     If I fail :

             Plan one for a couple friend. Or take a good friend out on one if the couple friend fails at the criteria of being one that believes PDA DOES NOT only mean posting sappy messages/ statuses/ photos of holding hands and pouting with cheeks stuck to each other's on Facebook.

16. Plan a trip / party / day out just for and with cousins. Catch up on years and years lost on what could've been otherwise the thickest friendships forged.

17.  Learn to wear and walk confidently with heels. Start wearing lip gloss. 

       Once in a while.

18.  Make peace with whatever that should not have happened but did. There is nothing that would change with my constant worrying/ analyzing/ over-thinking/ regretting.
Learn to smile and live with it.

19. Forgive and/or apologize and get back in touch with one friend lost in the 23 year long journey. 

20. Plan with brother and send parents out on a nice holiday.

21. Be able to do a 8 km run without running out of breath. 

22. Read the Gitanjali. Was supposed to do it on 18th birthday.

23. Be able to complete 100 posts on this blog ( fair enough right ? )

#88. Hug mode enabled

I'm quite a silly girl ( most of my friends would love to argue on the use of word 'silly' but hey I am allowed to bluff on my own blog right? ) and tad bit of an emotional freak ( as much as I hate to admit and openly display ). Today I'm in such a mood where all I can do is smother someone will all my ability to love. Nothing special about the date, nothing great about my life at the moment. Just random impulse to hug and cuddle and feel happy. Because we all need a little bit of love once in a while to survive, don't we ?

This is a day when I need a hug and be told that I'm special. My presence in their life makes some difference, if not much.  And that is something I need to feel happy right now.

PS: Mother arrives in Bangalore in two days, first time after my joining. The visit has been due for a very long time now. I have no idea where all I'm going to take her in the city, what all I'm going to do once she's here, what she would be doing during the days when I would go to office. I have a million things running in my head, a lot of mental notes of things to do once she lands. But for all I know, I just want to hug will all my might and smother her will all my love :D 

#87. It has been a crazy busy month

.....this March.

Started with a major event in office that the team was preparing hard for. I and the other new-joinee < my team insists we should stop calling ourselves new-joinees now O_o &gt; were naturally a little apprehensive about how we were going to handle the clients, if any such situation arises; clients who are far more experienced and well-versed with the products and so very easily capable of ripping us apart with the barrage of queries. Thankfully, no such disaster struck and the event was a great experience to understand and marvel at how SAP run millions of business processes every minute.
The month was in general pretty busy for a regular routine, with the year end approaching and lots of tasks lined up at the office front. At the personal end too there were a couple of things to untangle and a lot more to welcome in life. I've kept myself busy enough not to think about bigger issues in life, letting myself just soak in the moments and living them one by one that I don’t want to look back in regret or worry about the future. Life is going smooth on the whole and that is a reason enough to celebrate.
And yes, I did not play Holi this time. Not only owing to the fact that it was working day here in Bangalore, also because of the fact that I personally dislike this festival and try to avoid it by all means. I was glad this time around no one could force me into the madness. Before you jump into your conclusions and start opining, please read about my failed relationship with Holi here.
Finally made a trip to Hyderabad and met two of my best buddies from college. It was great catching up with them, and getting back an almost lost friendship with one back on track. One crazy hectic fun weekend was all I needed to unwind myself from the toll the 9-6 routine had started to take on me. I have decided to make a conscious effort to plan such short random trips with friends so that I don't have to face the often-talked about burnout AND more importantly, to realize the importance of maintaining relations as much as career, if not more.
Speaking of catching up, Urvi's visit to Bangalore was something I was looking forward to for a long time. Although we did not get to spend a LOT of time, but it was nice meeting her and her amazing family. Also I got to use her brother's DSLR on my own and I'm more in love with it than ever. I am unable to get over this irresistible urge to buy one for myself, despite being well aware of my infamous past of getting easily bored with anything I get attracted to and immediately buy. But I'm sure THIS one purchase would not go waste,. hopefully.
Amidst all the jam-packed schedule and frantic weekends, my reading challenge has gone for a toss, sigh. I hope I'm able to pick up and be able to complete at least 75% of the challenge, which now seems bleak to me.
As the month ends with a weekend, and with the salary duly credited , the normal life resumes with all its obligations and routine chores to be duly attended to. Have decided to start focusing more on health and follow a decent < won't go overboard with announcing a strict> fitness regime. Also it is going to be a trying time ahead to make a couple of strong decisions about many fronts.

# 86. Mid-Week Crisis

Its hardly mid-week and I'm already eagerly waiting for the weekend break

Life has become such a vicious cycle of weekdays and weekends.
I wonder if there'll ever be any digressions from this grind? [please do not tell me
about the vacations and team outings, you know I do not mean that]

College seems like a distant past now. A memory.

Was it even ever for real ? *pinches herself*

#85.

I opened my blog's dashboard about 2 hours back to push myself into writing something, since I was itching to write for quite sometime now. Some random surfing through a couple of old blogposts got me hooked into reading almost every past post of mine, until I reached the end. It felt like re-living the emotions and memories behind each post, felt like going a documentation of some of my life's events. And I mainly noticed a trend in the posts that finally made it to the 'publish' button. Most of them were written while going through extreme emotional experiences. As if I was attempting at freezing the moment for me to be able to re-visit in future.
Needless to say, I happen to type all this gibberish right now with the same purpose. Today is one of the days I want to freeze the memory of for the entire life. Out of lack of motivation and low attention span, I'll skip the unwanted description of what God-forsaken event drove me into getting back to this nearly dead space. I will let this picture speak for me ( yes I am that lazy :P )



Cheers to life and all its happy moments and unplanned surprises and unplanned achievements !


PS: I am officially a graduate now ! Went to college last week for the convocation ceremony. Goes without saying that visiting the college and meeting all friends after 6 months of moving out was one of the best feelings. Felt like we all found back the reason to smile with the heart and not just fake one with the lips :)
PPS: 6 months with SAP and so my probation period with the company are over. So officially I am a permanent employee with SAP Labs. Have to treat my team this week for that.
PPS: Life treats you well when you drop guards and decide to torture it less by fretting too much over should-haves and would-haves and why-nots and all that crap ;)

#84. The follow up post

So in my last post, I was moaning over a habit lost and difficult to get back at. I knew it was time I hit the panic button ( ok I know I'm being melodramatic here but it really had gotten this serious blimey) and do something about it. The next day in office, a friend and I were discussing about books in general when I told him how I have nearly lost the stamina to pick up a book and hold on to it for more than a few minutes. Thankfully, he could relate to what I was trying to explain as he was finding it hard to re-start his CAT preparation too after joining office. We both for seeking the much needed external kick to get started with what we needed to do before it was too late. We decided to start helping each other out by setting goals for ourselves each day, announce to the other person about our goals, get home and get to our books. We are not to sleep until we've achieved our target, failing which the target for the next day is raised by the other person.
4 days down and he is starting to gain momentum with his preparation, and I am almost in the middle of my novel ! Well it is mostly because I have read this one before, but since I wanted to start with something light and I had forgotten the plot of this one, I decided to re-read this. So I can finish this off soon and move on to its sequels, while at the same time I don't get bored off it easily. I feel much better and positive about starting my year with an making an honest effort on something I am passionate about.
Also, so that I do not waver in my plan and before I start ignoring my friend's pestering to stick to my challenge , I found this website where I will take up a reading challenge. Basically, one registers on this website and sets a personal goal for himself for the year, to read the number of books that he decides for himself. The website keeps track of how close/far the person is from his goal and how long will it take to reach his target going by his current reading rate.
I am registering with the site with a decent target to begin with, 30 books to read in 2012. The welcome mail I receive in my inbox looks promising:
" Thanks for signing up on Goodreads — you won't regret it, we promise. "

So far so good. I hope this works out for me well ! I publish this on the blog announcing my plan to the world so that I am constantly reminded of a promise taken by me, for me. For my own good.

Would you like to take the GoodReads challenge too ??

#83. The Joy of Reading.

I think, rather I am sure now that I have almost forgotten what it feels like to finish a book.
Feels like ages since I felt the thrill of picking up a new book, curiously going through its first few pages wondering what world was the author going to take me into, the joy of physical turning of pages and absorbing each and every word, every emotion. The accomplishment of reading something from start to finish, and still wanting more.
There was a time when reading for hours at a stretch was as effortless as..umm..breathing! Yeah, that easy. But now try as I may, I can just not be able to bring myself to pick up a book, and if by some stroke of luck I succeed in picking up, my attention spam doesn't stay on for more than a couple of minutes.
I feel stripped off a major source of joy in life.
Damn you internet.

#82. The customary year-end post

The compulsive urge to write a post for the year end. The post-mortem. Reflections. Introspections. Achievements. Regrets. Analysis. Would-haves and could-haves.
I'll try to make it as short as possible and hit the publish button before I get distracted again and repent later on for being too late to post.
December 31st is always the day for me where I get this panicky feeling of something important slipping off my hands. Its like, there is so much to do in the year and it has to be stopped from ending so soon. This time, surprisingly, I noticed that I am actually looking forward to the new year. Not because I wish to wash my hands off 2011 ( I have friends slobbering my FB feeds with "good riddance" " RIP 2011" etc etc since morning ), but because there is nothing about 2011 that wants me to hold it back. It has been a pretty much kind year to me, so to say. There were lows, but there were lots of highs too and that is what I will choose to focus on and take along with me to the new year. It has also been a year of many firsts, including my first job, a memory I will never forget for life. I also met many new faces, some of whom went on to make my life even more beautiful with their presence, whom I would never want to let go. On the other hand I held on to some people I should have ideally let go of, a decision which has turned out to be both correct and incorrect. Guess that is how it is with some people who mean so much to you that you just let them in no matter what. It taught me a very important lesson of forgiveness and compromise, and also the need to stand one's ground when needed.
If I look back, 2011 to me was about little joys and a lot of learning.
Resolutions for the new year? None. Its not like I'm going to shed skin in 2011 and dress into a new one altogether in 2012 at the stroke of midnight. For me starting afresh in the new years is just an excuse to make a more conscious effort to become a better me. Thats all.
How do I bring in the new year? No party. No sharty. Just a quiet evening with the 3 people who mean the world to me. And I'm glad both my brother and I managed to make it home together to end 2011 and bring in 2012 with the parents. Could I have asked for anything better ? :-)

Wish you a very very Happy and Prosperous New Year. Stay blessed.

#81. Of living in the past

Sometimes silence is the best rebuttal. And sometimes no response is acceptable.
Sometimes you feel at loss of words to explain yourself. Sometimes words are just not enough.
Sometimes people don't know how to deal with you when you are pissed. Sometimes they piss you with the way they deal with you.
Sometimes its their fault. Mostly its no one's.
Sometimes you wish you knew what to say to cheer your friend up. Sometimes you feel its better to shut the hell up.
Sometimes you wish your friend knew exactly what to say to you. Sometimes the telepathy just does not work.

Guess it never works your way !
Meh.


I began writing this post an hour back, out of guilt for not being able to find the will to write ( the same old excuse right? ). And like always, I got drifted to other things on the net and started chatting with an old friend after a lot time. We have been pretty much disconnected for a very long time now and are trying our best to bring things at a cordial level again, if not the same. Somehow, everytime we try to have a conversation, I find this friend upset with life. Over the regular daily issues. To you or me they might seem trivil, but for this friend of mine they are a major source of unhappiness. It bothers me to see him always dejected and brooding over things he has to deal with at his personal as well as professional fronts. I tried hard to cheer him up a couple of times, but failed evey time he started to express his unhappiness. Lately I started to notice a trend in the conversations, that of him tending to regress to past. I realized he is clinging on his past too much to be able to embrace with open arms whatever his present has to offer to him. Our conversations mostly start with "there was a time when..", "remember those days" , "it used to be nice then" and end with "nothing is the same" , "wish those times come back" , " everything has changed" , "no one is the same anymore" .
It struck me, don't we all live that way? Always comparing our present with that of our 'glorious' past. We refuse to live in the moment. We refuse to acknowledge that something good could possible be in store for us. We expect our world to stay static. As it was weeks, months, years back. We fail to realize the change in dates is more to do with just striking them off the calendar.
I thought of giving him a long sermon to shake him into senses, but then I realized I am no authority to do that. So I decided to rather write about it to remind myself to consciously make an effort to not complain and worry too much about what is happening and why is it not happening the way I want, or the way it used to be.
And also because I did not have the strength and patience to put this across to my friend in one go without him interrupting me to stop selling him eutopian dreams. Buddy, I know you'd be reading this. Life has never been rosy, it never will. The future is always going to freak the hell out of you. The present will keep challenging you every single moment. But the past was never so rosy either. The only reason you have made peace with past is because its done and dusted with. It no longer intimidates you. The only reason you like the past now is because you are familiar with it and wish to relive it. But that shall never happen, and thank God for that. Else you would have never grown up. Face the present, it is never easy but that is what you really need to. Things will be much easier for you if you make peace with them.
:)

#80. Of Pondicherry and 10 years with SAP

Yesterday we had a tiny celebration in the team. The manager had returned last week from a trip to Barcelona and brought chocolates and goodies for us. It also happened to be his 10 years with SAP.

" 10 years !!? " I ask. " How ?"

~ " Did you realize how you too are 4 months old in office already? Thats how ;) " . I get a reply.
" It seems like a vast ocean to me. And I'm still learning how to swim. Still not confident enough to take the plunge without holding on to someone. When will I be able to learn and get on at it entirely on my own. "

~ " You remember how three days back you were so scared of getting into water at the beach in Pondicherry? And how your entire team came together to build a wall around you to help you get in. Remember how they would hold you everytime you felt you'd fall. I saw how in no time you gained confidence and plunged in deeper in the water with everyone around you moving forward with you"

" Yes I remember, it couldn't have been possible without them. I loved how they helped me overcome my fear and blend in"
~ " There you go. You have the answers. It would work exactly the same way here. Everyone is there to help you out. That is why we all are a team, afterall."


PS: Had a team outbound to Pondicherry 3 days back.
3 days. 150 people. 4 buses. 8 hours journey.
Now I know what they really meant by Work Hard. Party Harder

#79 . T.G.I.F.

If there is any living creature whos happier than me for the week having finally ended- its ME.

From a friend coming over from another city to my place to us going over to our guy- friends' place for a sleep-over last weekend.
From a bunch of buffoons joking and cracking up a moment to a turn around of the mood the very next moment.
From a silly stupid haggling of two friends to an entire sleepless night looking for the girl disappearing from the place.
From clueless frantic search to a lot of revelations about our groupmates.
From a lazy start of week in office to the thrusting of a hectic training schedule for the month.
From the long holiday hangover to frantic preparations for the check session with the project manager.
From dreading a massive goof-up in the check session with the biggies in the team on Thursday to pulling off my demo quite well.
From a flatmate's midnight birthday celebration to beady eyes in office next day.
From the dinner party of the flatmate at a restaurant to another flatmate's horrifying sudden epileptic attack.
From raising a toast to the birthday girl's health to reviving the other girl back to consciousness the next minute.
I saw it all this week.
I'm glad the week is finally over.

Dear God, slow down please, pretty please.
Atleast until I'm able to sleep it all off. OK ?

#78 The "aur bata" syndrome

Is it just me or is everyone else going through the same dillemas of "aur bata...kya chal raha hai aajkal.." ??

Its only been a couple of months since college is over, and calling someone to make a conversation seems like the hardest thing. It is happening too much, nay, almost always, these days. I hardly have anything to talk, invariably I end up repeating the line "aur bata" and when asked the same, I just have "nothing much yaar.. tu bata? " to return. There have been times when both speak the same lines endless times , followed with an uneasy silence..until one of us decides to break the ice with a "chal yaar..will call you later" .
It is not like initiating a conversation or chattering with friends is such a hard thing for me to do. I usually am very talkative, and find it quite easy to come up with things to talk about. People who've known me for long know how effortlessly conversations over the phone or gtalk can run for hours and until late in the nights, sharing every possible bit of update with them. Obviously, I'm one of those who believed that constant, or atleast frequent communication is important after leaving college. With almost everyone she knew, or atleast the ones she believed deserved to be in touch with. Afterall, we all have shared a part of lives together, they sure should atleast be aware of what is going on now.

But somehow I see myself failing to keep up with the constant pressure of this "keeping-in-touch" business. And deep inside I know what is at cause. I find it pointless calling up a friend just for the heck of it, only to utter the cliched "aur bata... idhar kuch khaas nahin, tu bata ? " every single time . It irks even more when, if by chance either of the two manages to share some piece of information, to be replied to almost instantaneously with a "yeah I read your facebook / twitter/ gTalk / 4square < insert any other of the gazillian social networking sites here> update...cool.......aur bata? "

Got my drift ?


These sites have made real- life conversations almost impossible. "Catching up after a long time" seems to have lost its entire meaning when all it includes is " must've read my updates / seen the album I uploaded ? " . What extra can I possibly talk about with a friend whose day-by-day ( or even minute-by-minute, in some cases) updates I'm being slapped with on the internet ? We prefer publishing our lives for everyone to read over picking up the phone and making a friend feel special. There were times when a phone call or a small note for me after even a long hiatus would make me feel remembered and special. Returning the favor meant having a special place in the heart for that friend. But today, it feels almost nothing to read about whats going on in their lives on Facebook, just a superficial validation of the fact that we are "friends still in touch" .

Maybe its not as grim as I make it sound, the friendships are still strong and dear. The friends still remain the same as they always are. I just can't help introspecting on whether the means we choose to keep in touch are puling us apart , or bringing us closer? Or way too closer to comfort ?

I don't know what is the resolution to this feeling, how do I make conversations with my friends more real and less of virtual.. But for now, I need to call a bestie and ask her details of this outing she posted about on her profile.

#77 . But I Thought He Was Different

Ah. That line .

The number of times you've heard the "But he seemed different from others " line . The number of times you fall for it yourself. The number of times you started to believe this was what you always wanted. The number of times you realize how it isin't and admit in resigned anguish the joke of a line it is. Accompanied with a suppressed yet hopeful sigh that he will appear from nowhere to hold you tight and softly whisper in your ear " I am..Trust me" .

But then, is he ??

#76. Steve jobs

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.


“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

To one who changed the way I wake up and go to sleep and almost everything I do in between.
R.I.P.

Image courtesy: http://jmak.tumblr.com/post/9377189056#disqus_thread

#75. Things I've been doing over the weeks in lieu of posting.

1. Trying to keep pace with the super sonic speed of life in Bangalore. I've been stuck in weekday-weekend cycles, and am left wondering where does all the time fly.

2. Realized that setting up a full-fledged house to live is is not as easy and 'fun' as it seemed to be. Took us almost a month to get the kitchen running in full swing. We decided to manage dinner by cooking on our own instead of choosing other unhealthy options. Although it takes us much more time than what it should ideally take to put together a meal of rotis and veggies, there's nothing more satisfying than the taste of hand made home food.

3. Getting myself moulded into the life of an adult, with juggling between office and home, work and groceries and garbage bins and laundry and such stuff. All this leaves me exhausted by the end of the day to be able to pick up any extra read or movie. Don't even ask about the blog.


4. Taking up all the responsibilities and handling chores on my own has made me appreciate the role of mothers in life a lot. Need I say more on this ?

5. Joined the team a few weeks back, although I haven't been formally given any task in the official. There is still a hell lot of learning to do before I'd be able to independently share any team work. Here in SAP Labs, they follow the 10-20-70 rule : 10 % classroom training , 20% guidance and 70% hands-on experience. I was directly given a case study with a week's time, one that I had absolutely no clue about. Struggled a lot initially and eventually took a while longer than I was supposed to take, but managed to pull it off pretty well. Realized the best way to learn is not through any constant hammering on the head, but by actually getting down to doing the work, making mistakes, rectifying them and getting good at it. Now I feel much more confident about how the things I fiddled with during my case study work than I ever did when I was being "taught" about them.

6. Joined the gym . And surprisingly keeping quite regular with it, thank you very much. As lame as it might sound to you, it is a big achievement for me since for years the closest I've ever been to exercising has been must have been bending down to pick up a dropped pen. Yeah , that bad.
So unless its unavoidable, I make it a point not to miss workout after a day's work at office, even if its just 15 minutes of cycling. What makes it easier is the little candy-watching that I get to do with all the cute guys from office coming there too ;)

7. Played Agony Aunt to many. Yeah. Everywhere I went , I found myself listening to personal problems of friends and trying to help them out with whatever solutions I could offer. Or would just listen patiently until the other person felt better just by sharing. I've learnt that speaking your heart out to someone makes you feel umpteen times better, listening to someone do that makes you feel so even more. Suddenly all my little troubles seemed so trivial and took a back seat while I took charge of cheering them up. If I managed to bring a smile on someone even for a split second, or maybe just helped them from breaking down, I feel honored.

8. Speaking of help and generosity, October is the month of service in SAP Labs, where employees pledge their time out from their schedule for social work. I'm quite impressed by the policy of the company of laying stress on the importance of realizing our duty towards the society and not losing the human within us to the cacophony of the professional world. They encourage employees , as a part of Corporate Social Responsibility to participate in such activities once in a while as per their will. The entire month of October is dedicated to a variety of events ( link) and I plan to participate in as many as I can ,since I have ample time as a fresher joinee. Because it makes me happy.

As I type this, my watch tells me its midnight already, high time I should go off to sleep if I wish to reach office well in time and pull off the day without dozing off on my desk.
Funny how in hostel midnight was when I used to be the most active. Sigh.

Good Night.