Daddy Cool

Digging out those old family albums in an attempt to find my sister’s baby photos (I think, so that we can compare what Shani looks like now) my mum stumbled across this and was nearly crying with laughter.

I can’t deny that this is a comical photo: the general 80s-ness of it all, my dad’s hair and the sunglasses. Besides, I’ve heard it mentioned that children often rebel from what their parents want, only to find later in life that they become exactly that. Obviously, this means that I’m destined to be cool!

3 days with one person can drive you mad – Dublin

So a friend (female, wishes to remain anonymous) called me up last week and said let’s go on holiday… so we booked some cheap flights to Dublin and headed off this weekend.

A weekend spent with one person appears to drive me slightly insane. Every time Akshay and I have been away together, we both came back a little crazier, and I can’t say that this holiday was any different! But hey, a little madness never did anybody any harm and it was all good “craic”.

First stop was the Guinness brewery. Probably one of better tourist destinations I’ve ever been to. There’s just enough information and a lot of brainwashing, so that when you reach the bar at the top you’re salivating like a Pavlovian dog and you really do enjoy that free pint and an excellent view. Other than that, there was the usual assortment of restaurants, pubs (of which there are many), museums, a walk around the coast, and random strolling around the city.

If you ever go there, listen out as you cross the road… the pedestrian crossings make a somewhat entertaining sound (“pyoo”) as you cross and then proceed to a (tut-tut-tut…). It kept us entertained all through the weekend. I guess it’s the small things in life!

7 hours sleep and counting…

I have this rule: when one person says something to you, feel free to ignore it. If two people independantly say the same thing, you should give it some serious thought: Somesh told me I should read ‘Getting Things Done’ (because I was whining about the 100+ unread emails I had) and Maithri had picked up a book by David Pelzer (you might know him as the child abuse guy, although apparently he doesn’t want to be known by that title… which makes me wonder why he wrote 3 best-selling books about it) called Help Yourself and told me I should read it… the point is, do I really need that much help?

The book was good, though. Essentially it’s all about positive thinking. Somebody asked me what the one thing to do was to be more productive… you know what the moral of the book was: there isn’t just one thing. Actually, I also remember a bit where ‘work, work, work’ was the motto. So, 250 pages later and I learnt that to get a lot of work done, you need to work hard! Seriously though, everything in it is pretty obvious but sometimes it helps for it to be spelt out coherently. Of course, I think whenever you pick up a self-help book, you’re bound to enact change because otherwise you wouldn’t have picked up the book in the first place.

All said and done, there are no unread messages in my inbox now, I’ve developed a bit more routine into my day (I thought 8hrs sleep was too much during the week… so i’m on 7 at the moment), I read the news regularly (incidentally, did you read the story about the 4 Commandos who strapped themselves to the wings of 2 helicopters to go behind enemy lines to retrieve the body of their fallen comrade? The definition of camaraderie, although, I’m sure I’d not want my friends to risk their lives for my dead body).

With all this organsiation: I’d like to say my project has miraculously finished itself… but apparently that requires work, work, work… I just hope this doesn’t die the death of other resolutions typically made at this time of year… although, I read that it’s the first saturday of the year that resolutions are normally broken so if you’re still going strong, you’ve jumped the big hurdle.

Shani and co are in Sri Lanka so there are no new photos yet, although I’ve been assured of some good ones of the 4 generations! My gran is much better now (i’ve been told she’s quite alert and talking) so thanks for your thoughts and prayers.

Right, off to work, we go…

The New Blog

Woohoo! Look at the new shiny blog, thanks to those people at wordpress. Luckily, I never really caught on to the whole blogging thing so it wasn’t too difficult to upload all my previous rantings. You can now click your way through my online life over the last few years and see what’s been on my mind. Alternatively, you can cruise the photos and non-bloggy stuff I’ve written on the left.

New Year, New Resolutions?

Whoa! It’s a new year. Which means another few days of trying to make that 6 look like a 7 on the date, so it looks like you’re not completely absent-minded. But I forget that you might not ever write a date down any more. I mean, who uses pen and paper these days? My writing is becoming terrible. I wrote a letter to a friend the other day – weird. I’m surprised that I could write in straight lines on unlined paper (I was never good at it and it’s been so long since I’ve done it).

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It’s been a while since I last blogged, mostly because I haven’t been at uni, not because I’ve been doing anything more productive. Shani’s growing bigger and she’s apparently just started eating solids. Whoa! Soon, she’ll be sitting on my lap and I’ll be feeding her rice and curry. I can’t help thinking she’s going to be a little spoilt. I mean, you should have seen her Christmas present mountain! It was at least 5 times her size! I wouldn’t be surprised if she already has more clothes than me, and mine take up one and a half full-sized cupboards!

Anyway, I’ve uploaded loads of photos, including university highlights plus some ones of Shani over Christmas. You may have noticed the new website. I simplified it so that I could update it much easier rather than having to faff around with complicated programs, then Somesh told me to use wordpress to blog, so here it is. Did you know you can make a website in Word (or OpenOffice’s Writer, which is what I’m using, it’s free by the way!)?

So, new year. I’ve never really been into resolutions but I seem to be getting into the idea. After I gave up drinking all of last term (with the exception of Somesh’s wedding! heh heh – hic!), I’m beginning to understand the sense of achievement when you fulfil them. It’s nice. Not to mention good for you (depending on what you’ve resolved to do!). I guess I did make a few in my head: who knows, maybe some of them will be fruitful.

I’ll leave you with a random fact: my computer uses approximately 160W of power when turned on, and around 12W when turned off. 12W to do what? It can’t possibly be to power that little green LED that I know is still lit inside my case. I’m beginning to believe that those adverts about turning appliances off standby may actually NOT BE EXAGGERATING!