The year that was

As usual this post is a wee bit late.. but better late than never right ?
So 2008 - this year did go by really quick. It was filled with lots of ups and downs, like any year usually is. But on the whole the year was good.

~I had my health (with a few injuries thrown in here and there)
~I had my family (and through all the trials, love underlines everything we do)
~I met new people (and made good friends)
~I let go of the past (both people and situations)
~I went through the tears (from the sad moments, the frustrating moments and the funniest times where you laugh so much you have to cry)
~I discovered more of me
~I travelled (alot!)
Delhi .. I consider it travelling as now Kodai is my home
Goa - absolutely fantastic! long way to travel just for 2 days but totally worth it. Beach..sun...friends..bonding..partying..and the other 'interesting' aspects of the trip
Bangalore .. meeting with family and friends all in the span of 36 hours, because I live on top of a mountain and we travel 12 hours one way to get to a decent city
Chennai .. same as above
Turkey - an amazing place. I loved it. Hot air ballooning was the highlight of the trip
Chidambram - this time it was much better..knew what to expect and having friends around always helped
Pondi - one of my fav places in south india. This place is gorgeous. Paper factory is a must along with satsanga (fantastic little restaraunt)
Madurai - for my exams. Thanks to JP and Hoops I made it through those days
Kerela - canoeing on the backwaters of kerela for 6 days. Fan-bloody-tastic. 65kms baby!
Thekkady - you got to love friends who take you for a holiday when the know your down. Added bonus was staying in a fantastic resort. Chilling near the pool, drinking beer, hiking in the forest, dealing with leeches. Got to love A&A
Varanasi - the interview with the people from the leprosary colony was an eye opening experience towards understanding human nature and ability to deal with adversities

~Visitors to Kodai included my bro and then my dad surprising me on my birthday
~Best moment - dad walking in on the birthday song
~Work..goes on. Now incharge of the yearbook and looking forward to learning why I try to lead.

~Technological advancements
Getting my laptop
Learning how to hook up my laptop to my TV
Harddrive :)
Swapping software with J3
Getting itunes and finally putting music and pictures on my ipod by myself

~Technological boo boos
Deleting my recovery folder from the D drive (luckily I dint delete it from the recycle bin, its now back to my D drive)

~Crazy moments
Sneaking out a swan paddle boat at 4am and going around the lake with C
The week of Yaka in May
Categories
Pen 15 club
Cafe Mondys
TGIF and ultimate margaritas
Bad Jokes R US
Laughing till I fall over and cant breathe
TC ... just call me the wing man
...and so many more

~Beauty & Styles
My hair has been cut, coloured, straightened, braided, conditioned with avacado and egg
Pushed my limits (and it dint hurt as much as I thought it would)
Pierced my ears again (and this time he said my ears have lost weight)

I love
.my family
.my nephews
.my friends
.crocheting
.cooking
.hosting parties
.being me

and that was 2008 ladies and gentlemen
To the new year
I look forward to change and new opportunities
Raise my glass and wish you all a wonderful 365 days ahead!

Why you so fat?

So I decided to cut my hair super short. Tried out a new hair dresser. For all the Indians out there, you have probably heard of Habib’s. My folks have been there once, so I thought I would check them out.

Was a bit worried, since I dint have a concrete idea of what I wanted and was not too sure how the guy would cut my hair.

Walked in and there is a guy in super tight pants and an ugly shirt with blue hair. You that was my hair dresser.
Insert gulp here!

Me: Hi I am Shreez, I have an appointment
Hair dresser: You are shreez? Why you so fat!
M: Excuse me ???
HD: haan haan ok, so I will cut your hair, chotu go wash her hair
M: uumm but…wait..what…

Get dragged off to get my hair washed. Still quite flabbergasted by his comment.

I did manage to message close friends, basically shitting my self because I have a feeling this is not going to work out!
The replies I got were hilarious

~what a jerk, ask him what happened to his balls~
~tell him to F off, and keep his comments to him self~
~hysterical laughter~

Anyway I make my way to the chair and he says “so darling kya karna hai? (what do you want to do?)”
M: am planning to go super short, but with the front a bit longer
HD: ok ok, but before that tell me what do you do. You see I cut hair according to peoples profession
M: what a load of bull I think
M: I work in an international school, but I want some thing low maintenance, and funky. I like crazy styles.
HD: haan haan, wunderful… I have the perfect cut for you. Come come

He drags me to his pin up board, points and says “this will be perfect!”

Who does he point too… Lady Diana…
No offence to the lady, but hell that is not the funky hairstyle I was looking for.

M: uumm not really what I was looking for… I have had super short hair before and I would like to go back to it
HD: dharling, why do you want to go super short.. that is a summer cut, its winter now. Bob is in.. get that..
M: NO! bob does not suit me.. I have a round face it wont work
HD: arre we will make it work.

At this point of time I am on the verge of tears and was about to walk out.
He sees this and goes
“ok ok, lets look at some thing else.. you see you have a very nice centre part of the face.. the rest, could do with some work…

Remind me again – what the HELL am I doing here???

HD: dharling, its time you get out of your tom boy phase… dress like a girl, act like a girl.. your no longer a small baby… you are a grown woman!”

Now this would be the time I open my mouth and tell him exactly what I think, but I just end up saying it to my self
“how the hell do you know what I am or what I do. You have not met me before and you try to classify me. Just cut my damn hair and let me get out!”

One stony stare from him, shuts his trap and we finally get back to the chair and he begins to cut.

My blood pressure rises, my heart runs at a mile a minute and I am praying to god that I don’t have to shave my head before Christmas.

He does a half way decent job but styles it with curls and I look like an actress from the 90’s in a Hindi movie.
Chick from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

At this point of time a few tears managed to escape and I am biting my lip to stop my self from freaking out.

I know slightly dramatic, but seriously it was a few days before Christmas and I looked ridiculous.
No wise cracks about and what’s so new about that thank you very much dear reader!

I ended up wetting my hair again and styling it my self, while he looked on. Stylist my foot!

Anyway so that was my experience at Habib’s.
My opinion – not worth going there.
My major issue with him was that he dint cut hair according to the person but more like he knows these cuts and that what he is going to do.

I leave the place, while frantically calling IG and Hoops to tell them about the drama!

Quick as a wink

I know I know, it has been AGES!!!

I apologize profusely.. so much has been happening and I keep starting a post and then delete it because I am not happy with it.

So enough, today I finish one of the many posts, before I head for a well needed nap!

Am in Delhi right now and with the christmas madness finally over, now begins my vacation. The first 10 days in delhi was spent making cheese biscuits, kul kuls, fudge and all the other christmas goodies.

As Wiggles puts it "jeez shreez you stink of fudge"

Anyhoo christmas was lovely. Small affair this time, with just the family. Wiggles spent christmas with us. Very nice :)

Its so easy when you have people who are so easy and laid back, hit it off with all my friends so that was nice.

Last night a few of us went to the new TC in VV. Quite nice, dint have the old TC charm but yeah... bartenders were good..extremely good, looking at our states today!

Good retro music, some dancing, good friends, good fun...

got home at 2 am and was up early to take W to the airport.

talking about the airport imagine this is you please... Me standing infront of the departure gate, in trackies, oversized sweatshirt, uncombed hair, glasses and fluffy gorilla slippers...

DO YOU KNOW THE NUMBER OF DOUBLE TAKES I GOT!!!!

only me... and the best part, this was the third time I was doing it. Went to the airport twice yesterday the same way.

Off to see Ghajini today...seems like an interesting movie.. need to find a copy with english subtitles..

Went to varanasi for a few days with aussie girl, YP, W and some other friends. It was really nice..

W had to do an interview on the leprosy colony and I was the official translater. Yeah yeah dont choke on your drink. I did the job perfectly fine thank you very much.

More on that in another post.

The funniest part of the trip... 8 people in one auto, singing christmas carols on the top of our voices and having the cops stare at us..

Yes you heard me right, 8 people in one auto. We took the backrest out, and two girls sat facing the other direction, the other 3 girls sat on the seat. W, me and the driver shared the front seat.

As Pappu our driver said - one on the left and the other on the right

I hung on for dear life and spent the entire trip propping my self up.

This was the case for the 2 days we were there and the average time for our journeys were 40 minutes.

Ok so thats a pretty decent post on the past few days. I now bid farewell, my pillow beckons me.

PS - have cut my hair super short.

Done it, said it, noted, quoted

So I have a major presentation due at the end of the week but as you can see I am being quite good at procrastinating. So let’s get on with what’s been happening in my life!

Trampolines
Now you’ll probably know about my previous trampoline incident. Well I went on it with dreads and spent most of the time on my butt laughing while he kept jumping up and down and I rolled from side to side.
Well come on give me a break it was my first time on the trampoline!

Carnival 2008 saw me on the trampoline again. This time with Ficus. I was on my feet longer that the previous time but majority of the time spent was on my butt. I was laughing my head off at my ridiculous efforts at the trampoline and so was everybody else!

My legs did not cooperate with me like they do most of the time. And I did a couple of interesting falls. You know what the sad part is, I do the exact same falls while walking on solid ground! Remember the 3Bs

So that was fun!

Sick days
Woke up on Friday morning feeling absolutely horrible. I called in sick and went back to bed. Spent most of the day in bed fighting a fever and body ache. Finally got around to going to the doctor on Saturday (see told you I was a procrastinator) and found out that I have infected tonsils and that is what is causing the low grade fever, body ache etc.

You miss home and family tremendously when you are sick. When I went to the clinic on Saturday and while I was getting my temperature taken and telling the nurse what’s wrong, I just broke down into tears. Don’t know why, I was not that sick. But I just felt like crap and all I wanted was my mom to feel my forehead, kiss me on the cheek and tell me to go to bed.

I miss home!

New hobby
In the words of my teacher (aka hiccups) “oh no I created a monster”
So I have picked up a new hobby, crocheting and I have been on quite the roll. Have already done 6 beanies, 1 scarf, 1 slipper (am working on the other one now) and future projects include mittens.
Yes I am quite obsessed with it. The fact that H put an album up on facebook and in every picture there is me in the background crocheting.
So guess what your getting for Christmas!

Injuries
None so far for this week, well apart from the muscles in my gluteus maximus which are complaining after my disastrous attempt on the trampoline. However I did play an entire game of Frisbee without falling. Now that’s an achievement.

Books
The Other Boylen Girl – good history / fiction. Worth a read
You are here – quick read, not what I was expecting
My sisters keeper – have just started this one. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life… even if that means infringing upon the rights of another?

Movies
Elizabethtown – all is can say is Orlando Bloom – glazed eyes..drool….yummy. Ok now that I am done with that, it’s a cute movie. Good cast, decent story line. Worth watching.

Fools gold – Mathew McConaughey – glazed eyes…drool..yummy.. another nice movie. Involves scuba diving, treasure hunting, ships and sex in the church. Worth a watch!

Sound of music – so I have never watched this movie before (yeah I know I suck!) finally got to watch this one. Love it. We all sang along and ate quesadillas. Good Sunday evening!

Other movies watched include – little mermaid, mean girls and other random stuff on TV.

Music
Got loads of new stuff from Aussie Girl and wiggles. On the top of my list for the week
Are you going to be my girl – Jet
Disturbia – Rhianna
Your so vain – Carly Simon
Thunderstruck – AC/DC
Have a nice day – Bon Jovi
Free Fallin – Tom Petty

FYI - my presentation is done !

Tears of happiness and sadness and other things happening

So I have not done a post in ages, forgive me oh loyal reader. Life has been interesting as usual. My internet at home is finally working *yay for me*
And while I work on this post, I hear the resident shrew rummaging around my kitchen and I have just shut the door and hoped it will go away.

This is the same shrew which tried nibbling my toe while I was washing my dishes, which lead to me screaming hysterically while I was on the phone with mom. Ah the joys of Kodai.

Ala-bama left on sunday. Miss her terribly!

Have learnt how to crochet. Made my first beanie. :) Its loads of fun to do and quite addictive.
Am now in the process of making christmas gifts for every one.

Semester is coming to an end really soon. Work has been going good. A couple of busy days ahead. I had gone down to chennai last weekend to do the voice over for the alumni film. The editing has been done and we should get the final copy in a day or two. Its going to be weird hearing my own voice. FYI realized I have a slight lisp. This realization came when I needed to say the word 'interest' for the voice over. Took about 10 takes to get it.

Looking forward to the Halloween party this friday. Any suggestions for a costume will be highly appreciated.

Laughter has been the theme for the past week. With random conversations in the staff lounge, impromtu dance parties which include wild random moves by moi, sexual connotations in conversations and chilling with the BW boys.. my stomach hurts with all the giggles.

Well that was a pretty random post. Hopefully will have some interesting posts soon.

Last movie watched: Waitress - quite random
New fav song: Long jacket short skirt by Cake
Food: whole wheat banana apple pancakes
Drink: freshly made grape juice

The motions of thy emotions

Emotions have been running pretty wild this past week and in the midst of down right depression I have had fleeting moments of happiness.

Been doing a lot of soul searching lately
Old fears creeping back into my mind
Learning about my self,
Things I can do and things which leave me a crumpled mess on the floor
I have learnt
That there is an ugliness inside of me
That I can be spiteful
Hidden in the darkness - usually content to be there
But once in a while breaking out
Shocking me
Scaring me
Some thing I need to work on
To remove the anger and the hatred
To remove those thoughts that run through my head
The ones which make me says things which I wish I never did
Words which shatter relationships
I also encountered one of my weaknesses
Some thing which had held on to me for over two months
Not willing to admit it and not willing to ask for help
It was easy to zone out that to actually deal with the situations
But I also learnt that I have friends who look out for me
Who look past the smile plastered on my face
And tell me “We need to talk”
I’ve learnt you need to put aside pride and ask for help
I’ve been happy
Sad
Frustrated
Hurt
Lonely
Homesick
Loved

Canoeing in the backwaters of Kerela

So am back from a week in Kerela, which was absolutely fantastic!
We left Kodai on 14th morning by bus and drove down to Alleppy. We stopped at Thekadi for lunch and started our first of many Kerela meals. Kerela rice, spicy fish curry, fried beef and chicken curry. Delicious!

We got into Alleppy at 7 and went straight to the orphanage where we were doing some SoEx work. It was an all boys orphanage and we had planned different activities for them – art, games, story telling / skit and dance. It was really nice hanging out with the kids and they were so appreciative of the things we did for them. We had dinner with them and then went back to the hotel. Hotel Raiban was not the greatest hotel but we were so tired every one just crashed.

An early start the next day, we went to the canal, unloaded all the canoes. There were 6 ‘mad river’ canoes – fibre glass canoes and three country canoes which is the local canoes and can take up to 6 people.

Day one I was in a country canoe with three other students and the gang was off. We rowed 12 kms in the morning, starting from Alleppy and going across Vembanad lake. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant on the backwaters itself. Fresh prawns and fish. We got to swim before lunch. Back onto the canoes after lunch and rowed 10 more kms to Kavalam where we stayed the night.

At Kavalam we had a home stay and some kids stayed in the house while a group of us spent the night on the boat. It was so much fun, sleeping under the stars and the bright moon. The mosquito’s weren’t too bad and I guess we all were so tired that sleep came pretty quick. Around 5 it started to drizzle a bit but we decided to sleep through it and were up at 6am to get ready for another day of canoeing.

Day 2 I was in the mad river canoe with uncle Dan and it was a blast, though it did take us some time to figure out how to go straight J
Another 12 kms later we arrived for lunch, tired, sun burnt and extremely hungry.
After lunch the boat took us to a nice swimming spot and we spend the afternoon swimming in the backwaters not trying to think about the gunk which goes into the water. Jumping of the roof of the boat into the water – lots of fun.

We then had another 8 kms to row and Azra and I were on a canoe together and we kicked ass and reached our destination first! I know I know I am competitive!

The tourist lodge in Neerettupuram we stayed in was not that great but one has got to rough it out. We finally got a break from rice (which we had had for the past 5 meals!) and had some Kerela parottas and chicken curry. Yummy. There is a temple right next to the hotel so wiggles and I got a chance to go and check it out. Fantastic thing – multiculturalism is, I learnt about Hindu rituals from an American, along with some tamil phrases and how to tie a lungi! Who would have thunk it!

The next morning we got off to a late start, due to some missing oars and by the time we got going it was so hot. Got some more color on me J Day 3 – back in the country canoe with 5 students. We kept pretty good pace and some good team work was the reason.

We stopped for lunch at Edathua and then there was no rowing that afternoon. Since the roof of the boat had been removed (we were going under some low bridges) us girls were innovative measured the speed and direction of wind and tied up some lungis and had a made shift cover which stayed up thanks to the wind.

Our destination for the night - Chambakulam was this really nice resort, which had a proper bathroom. Oh what a relief. A long shower – washing my hair, bliss!
We then walked around town for a bit and did a bit of shopping. My first trip where I dint buy any shoes!

Dinner was fantastic and included prawns and squid. I am really glad I am getting over my issues of eating sea food. This trip made me appreciate well cooked fish / prawns and squid. Yummy.

After dinner our guides said they had a surprise for us and we went out into the patio and they gave us fire crackers to burn. It was really thoughtful of them to do that for us.
Wiggles then found some tamil music CDs and we had a dance off with all the students.

Last day of canoeing and it was a mad dash towards the finish line and kudos to the country canoe super team who beat out all the mad river canoes.

We stopped for lunch at this house which overlooked the backwaters and the backyard was a huge paddy field. It was such a serene place. While we waited for lunch, Benny our guide climbed up a coconut tree to get us tender coconut. This meal was the best of the trip. Typical Kerela food and absolutely delicious.

After lunch we got onto the boat and headed back to Alleppy. The last 5 kms we got back into the canoes for the victory lap. As we came to our finish point we saw a whole load of people waiting for us including a bunch of reporters and TV crew. KP our translator gave the interview and the next day there was an article in the Malyalam Manorama along with a picture.

Our last night we stayed in a 3 star hotel which was really nice. The hotel must have been shocked when they saw us walk in. 28 people – haggared and in lungis. We checked in and then went to the beach. I must say the beach in alleppy is the cleanest beach I have seen in India – apart from Lakshwadeep that is.
We got back to the hotel and jumped into the pool. The pool was tiny and by the time we all got in we barely had space to swim. But I was fun.

The next day we headed back to Kodai – tired, burnt but immensely happy about the fantastic trip.

Extra extra read all about it...

Students of Kodaikanal International School in the Backwaters of Alleppy
The locals watched with great delight as the group of international students who rowed their canoes through the backwaters of Alleppy. The beauty of the place and the activities gave the students a memorable experience which they would cherish.

A group of 28, comprising of grade 11 and 12 students from Kodaikanal International School came to Alleppy for canoeing as part of their social experience, which is an essential part of their curriculum. There were 18 boys and 6 girls. The group was led by the Vice Principal of the school, Mr Faddeggon and three other staff members.

The group went through R Block, Kavaalam, Kidangara, Neerettupuram, Edathva, Chembakulam, Nedumudi and Chendangani to cover a total distance of 80 kms. They also visited St Anthony’s Orphanage in Alleppy and spent time with the children singing and dancing. The staff Neil Hutton, Dan Winfred and Shreya DeMonte said that the interaction with the children was an enjoyable experience.

They chose this place for the field trip as they had heard about the scenice beauty of the backwaters. In the group was a Keralite from Calicut, US, Japan and New Zealand in the group. The tour was organized by ‘Alleppy Backwaters’

*The post on the trip will be up soon, but this article came out in the Malyalam Manaroma on 19 Sept 2008. And yes the trip was fantastic!

Inspiration or plagarism

India churns out highest number of movies every year in the whole world. However most of them are blatantly copied from other movies. Some of them just take some inspiration and some of them are simply a remake and some even go to the extent of copying the original movie scene-by-scene.

Is being a director in India a tough job, hell no - just watch an english movie, convert it into hindi, add some music and you have got yourself a movie.

These people need to be sued. A couple of cases have been taken up but to my knowledge nothing really has happen. Sony is currently in the process of sueing Ero's for plagarizing the movie hitch (the hindi remake was - Partner)

So next time you are watching a hindi flick, you probably have paid to watch a film you have already seen.
Hindi movie ...........English movie it is based on
Naksha.......... The Rundown
The Killer....... Collateral
Krrish.......... Paycheck
Mr Ya Miss ............Hot Chick
Sauda - The Deal............. Indecent Proposal
Salaam Namaste............... Nine Months
Koi... Mil Gaya.............. E.T. & Forrest Gump
Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai........... My Best Friends Wedding
Hari Puttar ......................Home alone (you thought Harry Potter dint you!)

I raise my glass

To the people I treasure
To the people I love
For all the times you stood by me
For all the times you fought for me
To the times we laughed
To the times we cried
And to the times you consoled
Through the good times and the bad
I thank you for being there
For the hugs
The pats on the back
The jokes
The love
I thank you for being special
I thank you for being my friend
To you my friend I raise my glass
To you my friends - a toast
For the time shared
For the memories created
To YOU
Cheers!