I blog, therefore I am: April 2008

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Arbit stuff

So g-man tagged me....and here goes...

rules:
1. each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. people who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. at the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
4. if you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach third series or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes.

and here we go...

1. I am terrified of riding cycles...even pillion on a two-wheeler is a little scary...I met with an accident the first time i cycled on a main road so the fear is ingrained i guess.. and the first time i rode a tvs, i dashed into a croton plant and broke it..amma was much upset

2. I once ran away from home...for seven whole days...the story is a whole new blog post in itself

3. i intend to write an autobiography of myself sometime soon...

4. i plan to live on the streets for sometime

5. i once tried killing myself...actually more than once...but as you can see it, i failed..

6. I am certified clinically insane

7. i don't like round digits and multiples of five... i prefer the numbers in between like 46 and 72

8. i had much fun typing out this post and i hope that it shall generate much curiousity..plus, i have become fat as a cabbage now

I tag Gayatri, Dielle, Juggy, Sniggy, Debasis, Itika, Sameer, Vaishnavi

Sunday, April 13, 2008

The countdown begins

The madness has begun. And i am playing the silent spectator.

Yes folks, I am referring to the madness at the eleventh hour thirty fourth minute twenty sixth second of the Times of India launch. The first half of the day seemed a little dull. But that was because i was sitting in the reporters desk and they had already finished all their work. Later on, I moved over to the page makers' desk and that was where all the excitement was. People were running hither-tither discussing which stories go where and which pictures to use.

For the most part, I watched. And laughed. But not out loud for i didn't fancy getting fired in the first week of work. The insides of my head echoed with my guffaws but on the outside, i maintained a nonchalant expression. I was not laughing at the poor souls, mind you, but at the madness that enveloped them.

An hour and a half more to go before the dreaded deadline. I just wonder whether any order will be able to squeeze its way through this mass of chaos.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Of craponomic and nose picking

My uncle had come home today. The conversation, as is the norm these days, was about my job. Among the many questions he asked me, one of them was - What are you specialising in?

Now, I pride myslef in being a Jack-of-all-trades. Specialisation has never held much allure to me. So when the question was posed, i drew a blank. The uncle, who is one of the most focussed beings i have ever come across, was aghast. He always thought of me as a highly focussed sensible girl. Little did he realise that i was someone who enjoyed writing about crap (literally) rather than the intricracies of Tamil Nadu politics.

So anyway, the question stuck on my mind and hanunted me throughout my hour-long bus ride to the office. This is not the first time I have heard about the specialisation craze. One of my professors at college keeps ranting about how we must leave our jobs after an year or two and go specialise - in anything, even anthropology.

Now imagine spending some of the best years of your life studying something like that. Sheesh.

Someone once told me that man is by nature, polygamous. I agree. One woman is not enough to satiate man's insatiable appetite. Similarly, one subject is not enough to engage man's attention for a lifetime. At the risk of sounding trite, Variety is indeed the spice of life.

So here's a word of advise for all you Jacks out there. The next time someone asks you what you are specialsing in, politely ask them to Please f*** off.

But then again, if they were awarding doctorates in Craponomics, I would galdly jump into the wagon.

p.s. talkin about specialisation brings me to the topic of absurd research. To compete with the Nobels, some smart-asses have come out with the Ig Nobel awards. Here's a gem from the website:

Ig Nobel for PUBLIC HEALTH
Chittaranjan Andrade and B.S. Srihari of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India, for their probing medical discovery that nose picking is a common activity among adolescents. [REFERENCE: "A Preliminary Survey of Rhinotillexomania in an Adolescent Sample," Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, vol. 62, no. 6, June 2001, pp. 426-31.]

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Farty tales

Warning: Not to be read if food has been consumed in the past 2 hours. Possibility of inducing vommiting sensation.

So I am still at work. And i have nothing to do. So i decided to indulge in some more blogging.

Thankfully work allows u to use gmail so i keep chatting half the time.
I was just chatting with a colleague/friend who quite liked my article on the new gas. So i decided to enlighten him a little more on the fine art of farting.

Now mine is a family where the dinner time discussions usually are about post-dinner activities such as shitting and farting. My brother is quite obsessed with the two of them and my father openly encourages his interests much to my mother's distress. So this other day the bhai was narrating this particular incident during a sumptuous lunch of vethakozhambu and vazhathandu sabzi.

Now I have two bhais. the one related to me by blood is Shankar and the other is my cousin Prashanth. Shankar is the original prankster and makes life terrible for Prashanth and I. So this one day he hurriedly calls Prashanth to the loo saying that there is a big insect in the toilet. Prashanth runs behind him and lifts the seat only to find pieces of Shankar's shit floating in the pot. EEKS..That's how disgusting my brother is.

And then of course is the famous sloka (on the different types of farts) that my brother is always narrating. The sloka has been passed on from my graun aunt to my father and from him to my brother. It describes the four kinds of farts. here is how it goes:

Dam dam damarugma natham
Pee pee madyamam
Kaschi pischi maha ghoram
Nishabdam pranasankatam

I guess the sloka is quite self-explanatory. My brother has categorised each of us into one of the above four slots and he is a master of all four of them.
Enough of farty tales for now. Will keep you posted on any updates.

Next Change

I can't belive that i have actually started working. It seems just yesterday that i went to school for the first time. My mother still keeps recounting that day to me. We were living in Vizag in those days. Being the goody-goody girl that i was in those days, I was visibly excited about entering the divine portals of learning.
So i wear my new uniform, tie bright red ribbons on my hair and get ready for my ABCD's. I enter school all smiling. And then i see the rest of my classmates weeping buckets. Its a miracle the classroom was not flooded.
So i see these tiny tots in tears and in a few nanoseconds, i am competing with the loudest of them in a wailing competition.
First day at office was quite different though. No tears were shed - crocodile or otherwise. This is the pre-launch week at Times of India, Chennai and so there is quite a buzz in the office.

Yesterday was the first day.
Consumed yummy jalebis for lunch at Dhaba Express.
That was not all that was had. The rest cannot be named for fear that the family might check on the blog ocassionally.
A report on a press release was written and liked by the boss.
An attempt was made to look busy and do nothing.
The above attempt was successful.

Gotat go, someone's shouting out for me
Ciao

I blog, therefore I am