and the finishing line is in sight...

35 days left and it marks my one year of living in Bangalore..

With the highs and the lows the city has put me through, almost a year later as I stretch out in the comfort of my humble abode (yes my house still makes me smile!) I say,

I am settled

.

I am happy

.

But enough of my contemplative nonsense, this past month has been super busy and one wonders where time has flown...

I am almost to the end of my B.Ed degree..cant believe its almost over... the major hurdles have been crossed and now the finishing line is well in sight.

My student teaching is over, and boy did it go quick. For an entire year we were bombarded by the teachers in our college, telling us how tough it would be, the sleepless nights, the hard work and the stress we would be dealing with.

But honestly it was not as hard as they said it would be...

I was teaching in Mary Immaculate School - Wilson Garden. An all girls school and your truly was teaching 9th grade girls - English and History..

My first day of class, boy was I nervous.. but as soon as I entered the classroom all the nervousness disappeared and I fed off the girls responsiveness!

Smart bunch of kids, with loads of questions and always keeping me on my toes!

I got great feedback from my teachers, teachers from the school and my fellow classmates! I was happy, excited and satisfied with what I was doing!

I think the biggest boost to my ego was that teachers from the school were asked to sit in my class since my classes were so interactive! Modern ages is not an easy topic to teach... I always hated history in school, so my form of teaching was to do the opposite of how I was taught :)

Worked well enough I say :)

Even the principal was observing me on the CTV cameras (creepy but got good feedback!)

As you can see I am still feeding off the high from my student teaching...

Oh and also the whole I have to wear a sari every day... which was totally freaking me out... easy peasy... am now proud to say I can put on a sari, in exactly 7 minutes wohoo!

In other aspects of life... seaman went and had an accident, he is now nursing a broken elbow... layla is gone but she saved his life!

He's in Bangalore, home bound and getting a bit cagey now days, understandably!

Its been movies movies and movies for him... along with games of poker... he aims to win enough to buy a new car, and with my luck in the cards looks like its all from me !!! :)

My past couple of weekends have been spent at WC's house watching 2 and half men and chilling... My weekend house to get away from the city !

I know have a week off before my practical exam, theory exam and valedictory day... 36 days and I am done!!!

Looking for a job, fingers crossed that everything falls into place...

Well thats all from me for now, how do you like the new blog look?

*Listening to Smile by Uncle Kracker

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!

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 !

Battered bruised and burnt

Quite the title for a blog post what say you?
But the contents of this post are completely true and explain why I am called Calamity Jane / Accident Prone etc etc

Lets break it down (maybe I should be careful with my words. All I need is to break down now!)

Battered:
So I am doing my usual Sunday activity – Ultimate Frisbee. It’s going pretty well. I have caught a few, done a few decent throws and I even think my team is up. So why battered? Well Shreez decided to run across the end zone to try and catch a Frisbee which just seems to be floating in the air waiting for some one to grab it. I tell you it was screaming into the wind “catch me Shreez, catch me and get a point for your team, catch me and be the star!” Well self obsessed me starts to run. Faster and faster I go, the Frisbee (lets name him mike) while mike just stays mid air. Me being the bright spark that I am thought if I slide I will be able to catch mike before he touches the ground, which he is now precariously close to. Mistake number one – the ground is not wet which makes sliding difficult – the whole friction concept. Shreez trips – slam on her knees – bam on to her shoulder and stop the whole thing with the side of her head!
Wham bam kapooie.
I see stars mummy, they are bright and sparkly
Well the usual Frisbee crowd are not fazed. They stay where they are waiting for me to get up and throw mike back up.
A couple of wobbles and I am ready to go again. Battered but ready to go!

Bruised:
So back tracking to Thursday, I had my go at indoor soccer. Now yeah I know what you are thinking, are you serious, shreez with your clumsiness you want to run around with a ball between your feet. Jeez talk about being an idiot. Well I realized that my skills do not lie in that area but I did do quite a good job being goalie. 45 minutes passed with no one being able to score against me. Well don’t pat my back just as yet, I was playing against dreads, hoops, dan and wiggles. But they were kicking pretty hard and I had solid bruises over my knees, arms and legs. So thus my story of being bruised.

Burnt:
And the crème da la crème, my story of being burnt. So apart from being self obsessed I am quite vain as well and obviously I cant walk out of the house with my hair looking like a mess. So early Monday morning I decided to straighten my hair with my normal iron since I dint have my straightening iron with me and in the midst of it I nicked my forehead with the side of the iron leading to a Harry Potter scar. Talk about being clumsy!

So with my new look – black hair, scar across my forehead and bloodshot eyes I look well I don’t look like me and don’t feel like me either.