03 December 2011
29 March 2011
1. Tangerine and Wasabi
2. Peppermint and Aqua
3. Strawberry and Lime
4. Peony and Nickel
5. Burnt Orange and Sky Blue
6. Lemon and Lime
7. Wintergreen and Lavender
8. Gray and Lemon
9. Powder Blue and Plum
10. Eggplant and Gobstopper Pink
11. Pumpkin and Slate - LOVE THIS (my room's kinda this colour!)
12. Navy and Black
13. Sunflower and Sea Glass Blue
14. Canteloupe and Grapefruit
15. Navy and Fuschia
16. Canary and Cotton Candy Pink
17. Chocolate and Vanilla
18. Butter and Gold
19. Cherry and Mocha
20. Bubblegum and Grassy Green
I'd love to experiment with these sometime :)
18 March 2011
Didn't want to go for this coz 1. $95 tickets for a 2-hour show, 2. no karthik, no naresh iyer, no hariharan, no shankarM! BUT THANKS TO DBS TREASURES we got 2 free tickets!! So T and I went for it :D
Twas at MBS, and we were seated at the $241 ticket area, about 10 rows from the stage!! Seriously lucky. It started at 2045, which is really decent (only 15min late!), and there was no rubbish Vasantham Star nonsense that we had to endure the previous time. So the concert started off with drumming for a while (but gasp, not Sivamani!), and ARR came up on stage singing O... Sayaaaaaaa :D :D (Slumdog Millionaire). And during the song, all these females came up from various boxes and they turned out to be the female singers! I didn't know any of them but I think one's Shweta Pandit? And all three girls were gorgeous and dancing along too! So there was a LOT of showiness and glitz and glitter. And random dancers whom I refused to watch coz I'd much rather watch the highness and pure exhilaration on the singers' faces as they sing :) :) (but the female singers weren't looking too emotional, just smiling a lot and dancing hmph).
Let me try to list the songs here (not in order!):
1. O.. Saya
2. Irumbile Oru Irudhayam (Enthiran), sung by ARR and female1
3. Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera (Swades) - last para in Tamil, sung by ARR
4. Dil Se Re (Dil Se), sung by ARR
5. Bombay Theme music, played BEAUTIFULLY by flautist Naveen
6. Chaiyya Chaiyya (Dil Se), sung by Vijay Prakash, Javed Ali, females1&2
7. Hosanna (Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya), sung by Vijay Prakash - one line
8. Kadhal Anukkal (Enthiran), sung by Vijay Prakash - one line
9. Hello Mr. Ethirkatchi (Iruvar), sung by female1 (and pronunciation slightly killed)
10. Ik Onkar (Rang De Basanti), sung by female3
11. Rang De Basanti (RDB), sung by Javed Ali, Benny Dayal, females1&3
12. O Paalanhaare (Lagaan), sung by female2 - one line
13. Khwaja Mere Khwaja (Jodhaa Akbar), sung by ARR, Vijay Prakash, Javed Ali
14. Dreams on Fire (Slumdog Millionaire), sung by female3
15. Jashn-E-Bahara (Jodhaa Akbar), sung by Javed Ali - one line
16. Genda Phool (Dilli 6), sung by females2&3 - one line
17. Ringa Ringa (Slumdog Millionaire), sung by females1&3
18. Tu Bole (Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na), sung by ARR
19. Random Jamaican song
20. Kilimanjaro (Enthiran), sung by Javed Ali (right?) and female2
21. Bhor Bhaye (Dilli 6), sung by all - one line
22. Barso Re (Guru), sung by females1&2 and very nice instrumental bit
23. Urvashi Urvashi (Kadhalan), sung by ARR - one line
24. Taxi Taxi Nanba (Sakkarakatti), sung by Benny Dayal and Blaaze
25. Ishq Bina (Taal), sung by ARR - one line
26. Luka Chuppi (Rang De Basanti), sung by ARR and Lata M who'd been video-d back home!
27. Jai Ho (Slumdog Millionaire), sung by all - penultimate!
28. Maa Tujhe Salaam, sung by all - FINALE! Same as last time :D
I think there are songs that I've missed out and will add on when I remember. So mostly newer songs no.. And I think lots of Hindi. But he spoke in Tamil and said "porumaiya iru" when everyone started shouting requests :D (T was the one who caught this. I didn't understand coz Tamil fail.) Since I'm not that big a fan of Slumdog songs, and much prefer ARR's older stuff, I didn't like the song list TOO much. And there was way too little classical! They had a classical segment where each singer sang about one line of the classical stuff and I definitely wanted more!! Also, not many famous singers, as I'd said earlier! The previous time, I enjoyed screaming for favourites like Hariharan, KARTHIK, NARESH, Chitra, Sadhna Sargam, etc!
One thing I really didn't enjoy was all that SHOW. There was a video going on throughout in the background which was sometimes like the 'ambience thingy' that Windows Media Player has. Not very necessary. And all songs had dancers mannn. If it was meant to encourage the audience to dance, it didn't work! Hopefully people dance during the subsequent shows.
The show ended at 2245, so only 2 hours long! Definitely too short for all us fans! Clawed our way through the throngs of people towards the bus stop, and luckily most people went off to the taxis and car park so the bus stop was quite empty. On the way there, we spotted someone who looked a lot like Blaaze! I'd always seen him from afar so couldn't really decide if it was him! So I asked T who said "yes it's him, go talk!" but he has a habit of making me look like an idiot so I didn't know whether to fully believe him or not. But thought, ah nvm, let's just go say hi. And it WAS HIM!!! We each took a photo with him and mentioned CharanK whom he said was going for today's show! So all HIGHLY we walked towards the bus stop (I was high, not T). And suddenly wondered where Blaaze came from and found a door near the bus stop. And slowly the orchestra artistes trickled out :D And then Vijay Prakash, Javed Ali, females1,2,3 and flautist Naveen!!! GOT PHOTOS WITH ALL OF THEM :D And Maithreyi and Divya happened to come to the bus stop too and we all went to take pictures with the singers again. And then my awesome brother (enough credit?) said "eh ARR is walking there" and after a slight hesitation, I ran madly to ask for a photo. And he was with 3 bodyguards and they all just kept walking on! By this time, T, My3, Divya and 2 random girls had caught up, so the bodyguards finally said "ok give me all your cameras and just take a group photo". SO WE HAVE A PHOTO WITH ARR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He didn't speak at all, and I was too mind-blanked to talk also. And he happily jaywalked and crossed over to MBS. So we went back to the bus stop and ogled at the others (Vijay Prakash being a new favourite :D). My3 lipread VP and found out that only ARR was gonna stay at MBS but smartly forgot to see where the rest were staying. Anyway it was 2345 and we were dangerously close to having no bus transport home, so T and I left then.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH :D :D :D :D
The end. (old blog post from 2005 to compare: http://archanasramblings.blogspot.com/2005/10/hiiiiiiii.html)
05 February 2011
and vidhu's got a shortened version which she wanted to use as a fb status, but was rejected hehe: FAILED FB STATUS HERE
I'm too sleepy to write anything out now. But it's been an absolutely awesome 2 days of hanging out, yakking, etc. Love my g12 family so much!
09 November 2010
In the last one week:
Escape Rooms (click on hyperlinks to play):
Diamond Park Escape
Ruby Room
Ruby Room 2
Crimson Room
Viridian Room
White Chamber
Now looking for URL puzzles where each answer gets you up to the next level..
Watched:
1. Down with Love - Ewan McGregor & Renee Zellweger
2. Leap Year - Amy Adams and hot Welsh dude
3. Four Weddings and a Funeral - Hugh Grant and ugh Andie Macdowell (she looks like a man.)
4. Lagaan - <3<3 Aamir Khan & Gracey Singh - LOVE THIS MOVIE
5. 3 Idiots - Aamir, Maddy, Sharman Joshi
6. Panchathanthiram (finally) - Kamal & Simran
7. Legally Blonde - Reese Witherspoon & Luke Wilson
8. I Hate Luv Storys - Imran Khan & Sonam Kapoor
9. Kadhala Kadhala - Kamal & Prabhu Deva
10. Ever After - Drew Barrymore
Applied to:
1 company (after spending ages on my resume!)
Cooked:
1. Rasam
2. Eggplant curry
3. Vanilla Fudge
How productive :P
29 May 2010
surfing @ wavehouse, take 2! wooohooooo! I could stand for about a minute! sb and the rest were superrr pro too! felt pathetic and inspired at the same time :P sooo funnnnnnnn!
12 April 2010
hiiiiiiiii! The weekend was spent highly productively. Which means 2 days of slacking AND engaging in different activities, thereby making it so much more fun than normal boring work days.
I went to WAVEHOUSE SENTOSA!!! With sb and 2 of his pals. Completely new experience. And people who know me ask "vaat. you went surfing?!?!". Not surprising to ask hehe. And it's not exactly surfing, but something that simulates it. If you go to the website, you'll see two "rides", Flow Rider and Flow Barrel. Naturally we did the basic one, Flow Rider. Just that it wasn't that basic.
It's made up of a slide with a constant current of water. So when I saw the photos, I thought Oh good, this is just a slide down. heh it wasn't. The water was actually flowing upwards! Coz when you surf, you go against the wave (? I think. I dunno the technical stuff hehe). So this similarly has water constantly flowing towards the top, and when you ride the surf, you need to control the board so you're "flying" over the water!
There are 2 types of boards. The body board was slightly easier. More controllable I guess. So you lie flat on your stomach on a float (like the ones used when learning swimming) and use your arms to float over the water. The other one's a typical surf board. So you use your feet to control that. MAJORLY failed at that hehehe. Oh and what happens when the board turns even a little? The water takes over and pushes you all the way up! It's like getting engulfed by a current of water and not knowing what happens until you hit a cushiony wall! Actually the video on the website shows it very well. I should've watched it before going, to see what we were in for :P
So the wipe-out happened A LOTTTTT of times. Luckily the whole group of us weren't that pro, except this tiny little vellai kid who was awesome! Rest all failed just as badly so it was super fun. A little on the ex side though. $35 for an hour! But good if you wanna try something new :D
Now my body hurts like MAD and I can't move my neck. It's all good pain though. Reminds me of yesterday :D I shall go sleep now, goodnight!
02 April 2010
hiiiiiiiii! It's been way too long, and I've missed blogging about so many things already! But this should be documented coz I haven't been this high in AGES :P
G12 WON THE SDBBS CRICKET CUP!!!!!!!!
heheheh. It's really an achievement for us, after last year's sad (but narrow margin) defeat. We've now regained the title of defending champions (we won in 2008 too!) wooo!
Completely different this year without our resident uncle captain. One of the guys enthu-ly formed a team, and I was also included 0.o there was a rule to have at least 1 compulsory female player! And I've been wanting to play since '08, so naturally I fussed for the sake of it but was actually jumping in excitement! But I knew I sucked so was quite disappointed that we had NO training whatsoever before the actual match. And the last proper match I played was in '03. Total fail. But fielding is decent when the ball doesn't fly around wildly, so just mustered up as much optimism as possible this morning before the match.
Bro was participating too, of course, so dad drove us to GIIS Siglap campus at 7.45am. I had a highly sugary pop-tart breakfast and was all psyched up (and slightly nervous) to play. Our team basically consisted of 3-4 g12-ers and a whole lot of other youngish boys (I was the oldest heh) so I obviously couldn't go around hugging everyone to wish us luck. V was already there! So made a beeline for her and started yakking until I was called back to the field where I was supposed to be hehe.
We were to bat in the first match, which started around 8.30am. By then nutti and snoo had come too. So since we were batting, I was talking to them. But then was asked to update the scoreboard so was standing alone screaming for our players to "runnn!!" and "GO GUYS!" etc. sigh I've missed that so much. Finally, thanks to our awesome batsmen, we made a score of 94 in 10 overs!!! (this score was the highest in the whole c'ship!) Next was the bowling/fielding part. So I had to go in womg. Captain A asked me to be "cover" so it wasn't too bad. And bro was sweeping behind me so that was good! And ahem my role didn't just involve "standing around looking pretty on the field" unlike what CERTAIN people thought HMPH. I actually stopped the ball 3 times, when it came directly to me hehe. But bro said I let out a scream everytime it came towards me hahaha. Didn't even realise.
Ok so thanks to the tight bowling by our fantastic players, they opposing team only scored about 30+ so we wonnnnnnnnnn! On to the next match, which was immediate (round robin). This team had played for the last 2 years so they were stronger. They bowled really well, and we only managed a score of 50 smth. Oh and this time, sigh, all the batsmen got out. So I was the last on the list, and in the 10th over, 2nd ball, I had to go out to bat!! omg man. I was super nervous coz the last time I attempted batting last year, it was an AWFUL experience. So the bowler did his thing, I missed it happily, wicket keeper caught it. But guess what, like some pro, I'd stepped out of the crease to hit. And got stumped!! hahahaha. It was suchhh a fail moment. Of all things, STUMPED?! sigh. But nvm, I don't think being on the field for those 4 extra balls would've helped anyway. And the boys were nice enough not to say anything mean. So I just laughed it off :P
Luckily our bowling was even better! The opponents struggled to make our score, and we got quick wickets. Finally they got all out within 8 overs, so we won that match too! On to the finals woohooooooo! Then we got to rest coz the previous 2 defeated teams played for 3rd/4th place. So we worked on improving our banners, and eating and watching our opponents for the finals match. They were really good. Defending champions from last year. And in '08, they came in a close 2nd. Andd, their team was made up of total douchebags. Sore losers who used to jeer our team all the time (they didn't fail to keep up their standards this time too btw). Anyway, sometime then, the banner competition judges came and said our posters were good (thanks for the ideas girls!) so we were hoping to win that one too :D (starbucks voucher prize heheh)
Finally, the finals! We won the toss and elected to bat, as we'd done in the previous two. Less pressure. And then, one of the uncles found out that they'd removed the compulsory girl player rule (I had a feeling, coz there were 6 teams but only 1 other girl player!) so I HAPPILY got replaced by a dad in the finals! Really, the opponents were too strong. It was tough. Their bowling was good, our batting was slow. Initial run rate for about 4 overs was only about 5. The guys weren't hitting out. Then someone got out, and quickly 2 more wickets fell. So 3 wickets in the 4th and 5th over! Score was about 29/4, with 10 overs to go! aaargh! The new batsmen picked up a little. It was only in the last few overs that they started hitting out! Boundaries galore :D (ok not THAT many, but comparatively!) and it was our brothers playing so we screeeeamed like crazy. The scorekeeper gave us a look but HMPH WHATEVER. Who wants a boring noise-less cricket match!! Final score was 88, so target was 89 in 15 overs. Not a very difficult total to make! Avg. req'd run rate: less than 6 omg!
The start of the final innings was promising. Bowling from our guys was FANTASTIC. The only few runs were made because of wides (2 runs each :( but no extra ball) and score in the first 2 overs was about 4 for ONE WICKET!! But the loss of that wicket was bad coz the next guy to come in was their star batsman who's a crazy bugger (not personality, vee, but cricket-wise)! He's capable of smashing left, right and centre so main goal was to get him out asap. Unfortunately that was tough to achieve. He started hitting boundaries and took lots of singles and the score kept rising steadily. Our bowling was good, but the batsmen were able to overcome that! Run rate was hovering around 6 for the first 6-7 overs, so it was similar to our innings. Which meant there was a 50% chance of winning or losing!
THEN. That crazy fellow got OUT!!!! Excellentttt catch by vishy!!!! OMG WE WERE SOOOOO HAPPY. even though their line-up was pretty decent all the way till the last batsman, at least this guy was out, so the chances of winning were higher! YAAAAY! That helped psychologically at least. Run rate was still around there tho heh. The next coupla batsmen were really good too. But it was very close, and that idiotic team's "supporters" started jeering us. Saying "wides, wides, wides! go g12, bowl some wides!" and cheering for the slightly more expensive bowlers. SO IRRITATING. and one of the boys who got out next, came and gave some big speech about how he was wrongly given out, and how the umpires and score-keepers were from the 19th century!!!! WTH WE GOT SOOOO ANGRY!!! and they started saying stuff like "keep your cheat tactics away, g12!!" and made comments about how our team wasn't even part of the original g12 and we had to buy good cricket players to make up the team. HELLO??? That would totally explain why I played in the first 2 matches WHICH WE WON FYI. SUCH IDIOTS I WANT TO PUNCH THEM.
Ok but moving on. I really do hate them. They started getting pressurized (duh. we're so much cooler) and making mistakes. More wickets fell. Then the 13th over started. 23 runs to win in 18 balls! Definitely possible! Our bowlers were really excellent. Made it tough for them to take singles but they managed a four or sixer so it evened out all the no-run balls :( 18 runs in 12 balls. 2 wickets left. The 14th over started and a wicket fell. Then a kutti little boy walked in as the last batsman (aww!) It all happened in a blur and I was too busy screaming to see what actually happened, but they got the last guy out and
WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Everyone around us must've gotten deaf. We screamed, we hugged (among the girls. dumb boys didn't let us come close, other than low-fiving), we congratulated the loserish team. And took group photos! Posed for the official photographer and all. aah so nice. And the uncles and girls were like "YOU should go too, you played!" so i'm baekkishly standing among all the boys in the group photo hehe.
Then, prize presentation. We got individual awards like best fielder, best bowler, etc. It was great :) The trophies looked really nice this year, with a cricketer holding up his bat! And we won second prize in the poster competition (coz they can't let us win everything hehehe)! There was no food left by the time we helped to clear up people's mess on the field but nvm we were too high to care. YAAAAAAAAY! So that was it. But of course, I missed a few people there sigh. I hope one of the loosus can join in next year, coz rest will still be in US :( It'll be awesome having everyone there again next year.
Didn't take many photos, but they should be up on the sdbbs website soon! hehe. Ok I should leave now. Sorry ending's very abrupt but it's VERY LATE. byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
23 March 2010
lazily sharing (free) ben & jerry cones + 15min stroll on a balmy WEEKDAY afternoon + LOML = priceless.
15 December 2009
Anyway, leaving singapore wasn't how it usually is. These last 2-3 weeks were extremely taxing and involved working late daily, 9ish was the average, and it even went as late as 11.30. So it was bad. But silver lining was, I fell sick and got an MC for the day of my departure so could help out with the packing at home and stuff. SO MUCH TENSION man. Until the last minute. And my poor chauffeur had to come all the way across the country, only to spend like 2 minutes with me :( but thank God for him and his fast driving hehe. (6 min to the airport!) I was maaaajorly emo-ing in the plane after that.
From South-East Asia to the Indian Sub-Continent:
The plane journey was normal. Flight took off about 20min late, after waiting for many last minute passengers (IST) and landed 3 minutes late which is typical of SIA! And baggage came quickly so patti and chithi didn't have to wait too long at the airport. For a change, I'd opted for Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian instead of the bad, stale jeera rice that they always give for Indian veg. And got SO MUCH scolding at home from everyone coz apparently teenu and I had asked for ovo-lacto a coupla years back and hated it. I had absolutely no memory of this and still insisted on trying out something new. And luckily I did! Got cream fettucine with capsicum and olives and parmesan cheese :D compared to the bad, stale jeera rice and squishy okra curry and dhal which the parents got muahahahahha. Hopefully the return journey'll be good too. So for once, I actually ate SIA food. Oh and there was kit-kat ice-cream for everyone! Usually they give some weird raisin pudding so this was a nice change. And despite my flu which was MC-worthy, I ate the ice-cream and happily fell sick later. The movie selection wasn't that great. I always try to watch the mushiest rom-com possible, to make me feel high and forget about air-sickness. The only one they had this time was All About Steve with Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper. Not at all romantic sigh. But managed to watch the pilot ep of Better off Ted and he's a highly shoodu engineer geek so yay.
Anyway, so we went home close to 11pm, and had to unpack and repack coz we were leaving for Bombay at 10am the next morning. Just me and amma. Coz appa was off to Bangalore for his official trip. Couldn't really sleep thanks to the blood-thirsty mosquitoes sigh. So woke up early and stressfully packed. Sigh too much stress man. And we were off to Bombayyyy!
From the East Coast to the West Coast:
(I realise I always take beaches for granted since they're there in Singapore, Madras and Bombay, all being coastal. Never thought about how it would be in the inner states. Ah I love beaches. Ok anyway.)
We took Jet Airways Konnect to Bombay and reached home around 4pm. So this was on Wed evening. Shopping started immediately! And continued till Thurs evening hehe. And at other times when I was home, I was doing my favourite newspaper puzzles and yakking with patti and thatha. Time passed really quickly :( On Thurs evening, the grandparents wanted to take us to a nearby Gujju Thali place for a buffet kind of dinner. Lots of dhoklas, makai (corn) rotis, dhal and kadi (sweet moor kozhambu), and kicchdi! Typical gujju stuff. It was good. But taste-wise I prefer Punjabi for its paneer :D No time for Bhel and other Chaat stuff, which was sad.
The next morning, they took us to the nearby theatre to watch Paa (Rs. 70 only! slighly over 2 bucks). Different kind of story, and very touching. And I was in some emotional state so you know what happened :P Still, I liked that it wasn't too draggy and drama-ish with lots of crying. There was humour and nice dialogues which make one think! And I actually understood the whole movie without subtitles :D :D :D (this is an achievement coz the previous time we watched Om Shanti Om without subtitles, I translated the whole story wrongly to teenu and he never forgave me for that hehe). Yay my hindi's improving.
After the movie, Neha came over! It was awesome seeing her again after a year :) :) and this time, it was quite late for her to go home after 11 so she stayed over and we had an impulsive sleepover! So much fun. But I'd happily neglected my packing, and there was quite a bit to do after all the purchases, so again, Sat morning included stressful packing :P and teary goodbyes. Neha came to the airport too with lots of sweets and savouries so that was a sad goodbye too. Can't wait to meet her again.
The Bombay airport is such that no one but passengers can enter. And once you enter, you can't leave. Total nonsense. So even though our IndiGo flight was delayed by about 30min, I couldn't go out and talk to neha. So amma and I just walked around, looking for bookshops and interesting stuff. The waiting area was terribly packed. Oh btw there were so many jams on our way to get to the airport coz of the wedding season (I saw random bunches of people dancing on the roads, with decorated horses and a huge marching band hehe.) And these traffic jams followed us to the airport as well, on the tarmac! The domestic flights have buses that take us from the terminal to the plane, and there was a jam there. And after we boarded the plane an hour late, there was a plane queue for take-off!! Crazy. So jams EVERYWHERE. So we reached Chennai really late and everyone there was tensely waiting and praying feverishly and all. It was quite bad. But anyway, that was the end of the Bombay part of the journey.
Last leg of leave:
Back in Madras. After all the rushing around in bbay, I just wanted to relax at home in Madras. Woke up nice and late on Sun morning, but had to go for visiting coz parents were to leave for their own little trip on Monday morning. After they left, I felt very odd. It didn't seem like how it does every year. No teenu, no parents. Cousin's in US. And everyone seems sicker than usual :( :( So I was badly missing Singapore. Then I checked my office email and remembered all the annoying people there and now I'm thankful that I'm here :P Got to catch up with the loosu paiyans back home too, over msn and phone so feeling a lot better now.
The temperamental weather is the same as last year so it makes it tough to go out. Not that I CAN go out anywhere alone, since I can't even cross a road here :P But need to meet up with keeths! (Oi, call me quickly you busy person!) At this point, I'm just rotting at home watching long movies (Quo Vadis!) and cricket, and reading Mahabharatha and my Learn Hindi book :P soo fun to slack! And I'm nicely putting on weight too sigh. Another 4.5 days of this to go heheh. Beware. (note to self: daily gymming pls!)
wogay will go read now. Or take a nap. mmm. rainy weather. byeeee.