quick one:
saw in the papers today that there's a new "application" that's getting circulated on facebook which tells users that their friends have problems checking out their profile, and to activate the application to rectify this.
If you see such a message, IGNORE IT. It's a virus. Sigh.
I'm gonna slowly start deleting my older photo albums.. signs of facebook-fad dying away heh.
Lame random post but I can't get these songs outta my head!
1. Tere Naina - Chandni Chowk to China (RUBBISH movie) - Shankar Mahadevan & Shreya Ghoshal
2. Aahista Aahista - Bachna Ae Haseeno (again RUBBISH movie) - Lucky Ali & Shreya Ghoshal
3. Khuda Jaane - Bachna Ae Haseeno - KK Menon & Shilpa Rao
heh all non-ARR but I love Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy too, and my impression of Vishal-Shekhar is going up steadily! :D
Slumdog Millionaire has done amazingly well in the Academy - of its 9 nominations, the movie won 8 awards. That's quite a success rate! Congrats to all the people involved :D :D I have got to see what this movie's all about soon.
Wasn't planning to sit and watch the whole thing, just towards the end. But Hugh Jackman was the host and I couldn't resist. *swoon* Four hours gone :P
finally had a chance today and blew it.
edited to add:
something's totally off. dunno if it's me or my surroundings. or maybe it's both. but i'm feeling angry (with myself), v guilty, slightly upset and well, just not right. and it's all engulfing the tiny spurt of confidence that's trying to show itself. feel like just brooding in my room with a book.
hiii! Got inspired by nutti's really cute new template and decided to check out the website for something less boring than my previous one. So here it is! It's called Pyjama Party and it's blue so it works :D
Still doing job apps but there have been a coupla breaks here and there. Nothing has changed yet but will update when I actually sign a job contract. Other than that, I've started volunteering with the Art Outreach Programme which is a non-profit organization that aims to promote and teach art to the society. It's highly interesting and I look forward to the sessions! Also signed up with organizations like SINDA and NLB but have yet to do anything useful. There's also paatu class keeping me busy as usual.
Yesterday's Art Outreach session was at Jurongville Secondary School. Since I'm a novice, I opted to just sit at the back of the classroom while a veteran, also an NUS graduate, did the teaching. It was great. I was back in a classroom (complete with the class joker, action bedek, back-bencher and over-eager-beaver) for the first time since '01. Since it was a non-examinable art lesson, the kids were typically noisy so I have a feeling it'll take me a while to get used to teaching. Really good experience and it'll make me decide whether or not to consider teaching as a career (since relief teachers are not at all needed at the moment!).
Celebrated Valentine's Day a few days late at East Coast Beach. We went to Scruffy Murphy's, an Irish pub, for dinner. Totally NOT a romantic atmosphere but the beach more than made up for it :D but anyway, it was wonderful! Food was really good and reasonably priced. Best veggie burger I've tasted so far. And they have a TV screen inside so just imagine how exciting it would be to watch a soccer match with all the fans! Felt all nostalgic with Euro '08 memories. Very nice feel. And what better place to walk off all the heavy food than the long stretch of beach. It was great.
And thanks for the lovely roses, they're now making my table look a 100x prettier :)
I'm trying to pack my days with as much activity as possible as my productivity turns out much better this way. There's always something great to look forward to everyday!
K, time to plan out tomorrow. byeee.
hiii! I've been super inactive here, sorry hehe. I forgot to welcome the month of feb! It's probably one of my favourite months. Nice and short with 28 days. And the best part is, Valentine's Day is right in the middle. So we can spend 2 weeks daydreaming and looking forward to it, and 2 weeks after vday daydreaming about it :D I've heard of many people saying that vday is overrated.. like why be extra special to the special someone or loved ones in your life, just on that ONE day.. isn't it supposed to happen everyday? But let's face it. There's no way you can be extremely romantic or whatever every single day of your life coz 1. it becomes insincere, and 2. it loses its charm. So I would gladly look forward to a day that celebrates love, coz it's one of the greatest things in the world (love, I mean). And I'm gonna be totally romantic and mushy and hiiiigh on vday (AT, nee gaali). Of course, this is just my personal opinion and I'm sure many people disagree :P I'm kinda idealistic that way.
Here's to love!
I miss appa :(
Still in the midst of apps. I've got to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Stocked the house with bananas, apples, oranges and multi-grained bread for the upcoming week. Now working on my sleep schedule. Breaking the habit.
hiii! Today's Karthigai! Lots of lamp-lighting was done, and tomorrow there'll be a grand bonfire at the temple. Everyone's TV's probably tuned to the channel showing the ceremony and prayers going on at Thiruvannamalai. And we keep hearing crackers sporadically. Since there are only oldies here, and me, we didn't burst any crackers or play with sparklers here. But did light up lots of clay lamps and place them all over the house, especially at the entrance! It looks so lovely.
Speaking of old, a primary school bus stopped outside the house today afternoon and as usual I was sitting out in the balcony doing today's crossword. And a whole lot of kids were having a heated discussion about something, and suddenly one of them saw me and told the others "eh there's someone there!" and they all turned to me and said "Hi aunty!"!! 0.o AAARGH. I am so depressed now. I just waved sadly at them sigh.
But on a happier note, the England-India test has started! And finally I get to watch it on a normal screen instead of the mosaic in Singapore. It's actually taking place in Madras!!! If it was a One-Day, I'd have forced people to go with me to watch it, but since it's just a test match, I'm not insisting. Yay I love cricket! Okay dinner time, byee!
Sigh the weather's horribly dull now. Side-effects of the cyclone I think. It's not pouring, thank God, but it rains on and off which is equally irritating coz our clothes won't dry at all. And amma and I are too lazy to leave the house. It's been a week since we got here but we haven't gone anywhere! Not even to the nearby library yet! At least I've got a year's supply of Reader's Digest and puzzle books to keep me occupied for now. I'm also getting thatha to talk to me in Hindi all the time but I end up laughing at my lousy grammar so much that I don't really learn anything finally. My favourite hang-out at home is the balcony. It's cool and breezy so we can save electricity, and the stuff we see from there is really interesting! Compared to sitting in our balcony in Singapore where we can either see the playground or Marine Parade Road. It's a nice change.
Stuff I see while sitting in the balcony from 11am-12noon:
1. Squirrels chasing each other up the coconut trees in our garden.
2. The crow coming to our window sill to eat paruppu saadham (cooked rice with lentils)
3. The vegetable vendor calling out vegetable names in some weird madras accent, cycling along with his cart of fresh veggie.
4. The neighbour's car struggling to get out of the basement coz it's completely waterlogged.
5. The priest leaving on his bike, while wearing saffron robes and a kudumi. (kudumi = a tail kinda thing in his hair. The traditional priests have it)
6. Sari-clad moms on scooters!
7. My grandparents' friends walking past and exchanging pleasantries from the main road (they yell).
8. A sudden gust of wind causing about 50 Neem leaves to fall off.
9. Not-so-well-to-do school kids looking unkempt, but still chattering and running about happily.
10. The road-cleaner who takes ages to clean just a short stretch of road coz he's not doing his work most of the time, but sitting and gossiping with his pals.
11. Americans dressed in Punjabi Suits who come to the nearby school to learn Carnatic or Hindustani music.
12. 2 pigeon couples taking turns to fly from my house to the neighbour's house, and vice versa.
13. The cook maami arguing with my great-aunt and pacing outside to steam off.
And at this point, I run back into the house, in fear of getting caught in some mindless argument. There's never a dull moment here!
Ok, back to my crossword puzzle! byeeeeee :D
hiii from chennai! I'm still calling it Madras coz I'm not used to the new names (which are actually the old, pre-British names). It hasn't changed at all since the last time, but for some minor differences.
Bid farewell to three guys/men at Changi Airport, all of them looking relieved to see us leave :P ("so much more peace in Singapore now!") The plane journey on SIA was good. There was quite a bit of turbulence, and me n amma were stuck with a really irritating guy next to us (well, he kept ON asking for brandy, thereby irritating us) but food was pretty decent and landing was smooth. I was looking forward to watching the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2 but that dumb channel refused to work! Neither did the comedy channel showing Scrubs and 30 Rock. So I was stuck watching some unheard of movie called Ghost Town which was actually quite funny, tho not the brainless chickflick type I would've preferred. Anyway I was more thankful that BrandyGuy didn't barf so was in a good mood till we got to the immigration. Oh, the mess! 3 flights had arrived at the same time and there were just masses of people forming their own queues which all ended up at the same three pathetic immigration counters. It took 3 times longer than the usual long time it takes to clear immigration. And after that, baggage collection was a gigantic mess as well. They'd hyped up the security due to the Bombay bombings so we had to clear our hand luggage before getting our checked-in stuff. Luckily, thanks to appa's PPS card, our stuff was placed outside the carousel and we could retrieve it immediately. As we exited the airport, there was another mass of madly-waving people holding up placards, but we managed to find my grandma (patti) excitedly waving to us, standing right in front. So all was good.
On the drive home, the windows were down and the Madras breeze hit my face along with the sights and smells which I'd missed for one whole year - the ample billboards with actors and cricket players, the stench of the rivers, the crazy honking of the motorists for no reason at all (even after 10pm), the crazy driving of the motorists as they drive without adhering to any of the road rules (why do they even bother painting lanes on the road here?!) and the few places like Anna University and Bill Roth Hospital which are familiar to me. Finally we got home, and saw my grandpa (thatha) and great-aunt eagerly waiting at the gate. Here at last! Patti had made cake and custard as she does every single year, so at midnight we were happily having dessert and catching up on whatever we could, despite being thoroughly exhausted.
The next few days were typical and routine, but I won't get bored of this lifestyle for a month at least. Waking up around 8.30, having tea, watching TV, reading the papers (which are v v interesting btw), eating like mad, more TV, more reading, talking to the elders and more TV before sleeping. Lots of cricket, LOTS more bollywood - inexhaustible fun! It's just different coz teenu's still in Singapore and my cousin Adithiya's been posted to work at Mysore. Once they get here (Adi just came today), it'll be just like always. Every year is so similar, yet each day is different. That's what I love most about India.
There's cyclonic weather due to hit Madras tomorrow. So no plans to leave home. This rain, however, might bring in an onslaught of bloodthirsty mosquitoes which have been surprisingly quiet for the last few days. There has also only been one power cut so far which happened this morning. I'm praying that there won't be any more of those. There definitely won't be a water shortage here (dunno about Bombay). So it's just gonna be a fun and lazy two weeks before we set off for Bombay on the 21st.
Oh I went for a wedding today! Vijay TV Ramya's bro's wedding. It was lovely tho we were only there for half an hour. Saw actress Suganya and singer Harish Raghavendra. Oh and Prakash Raj!! But it was weird asking them for a photo coz they seemed to be in a rush. Probably would've seen more if we were there for a longer time! I'm finally getting to wear my few new saris. Haven't even done any shopping yet or gone to the library. I'm just too lazy to leave the house (and the TV)!
Alright, I'm getting enticed by the smells from the kitchen - patti's making a cake for adi's birthday tomorrow - so shall go hang around there now :P goodnight! Oh, did anyone go for the B&J ChunkFest today btw? Sadly there wasn't anything here. Clearly, I am hungry. Goodnight! :D
