Living the dream. One day at a time.

Yesterday I had Jasmine tea at Bamboo, (BTW a treat for Chinese, Japanese cuisine) and now officially its my hot beverage for this season, I gulped down this entire kettle. Surprisingly the floral smell was not irritatingly sweet (I get headaches because of lot of floral smells) but soothing and refreshing, also loved the rock sugar stick which added perfect sweetness.

This doesn’t help someone already hopelessly addicted to coffee, Elaichi tea, mountain dew and similar. Take away either of these for a day and find me wild or sulking at the corner.
And I just noticed the following:
-I use Jasmine oil,
- order Jasmine rice,
- wear Nina ricci perfume with Jasmine fragrance and
- drink Jasmine tea
In short I am a Mogra girl! (This post needs to be skipped)

I am neither a “lets make a style statement in a crowd” nor a complete “I wear a gym tshirt on Friday night” girl. The truth is, my fashion idol has always been my elder sister who says ” Reshma always had an eye on my wardrobe and had an obsession for my clothes though they were always too big for her”. When I was 18, I imitated her hair style (high pony tail) and for next 4 years I flaunted thinking that it was cool. okay flashback ends !

This time during my trip to India the conversation in my room went like this:
didi: look at your hair so frizzy and shapeless u need a makeover!
me: its not that bad
didi: lets get you a haircut
me: I want to go to your stylist
didi: no copy cat, lets get you a good hairstylist (googles cool hairstylist in Mumbai)
here is one: He cuts Bipasha basu’s hair
me: But I want to look like you!
didi: (not paying attention to me, calls rather furiously) Hi I need an appointment with the senior hairstylist ..wednesday afternoon sounds right:

I forgot all about it the whole week because I knew i would be in safe hands along with my fashion guru. A week later we entered the upmarket salon, looking totally out of the place surrounded by funky girls and guys (half my age!!!!!) and didi trying to cool me down, repeating the list of famous models and bollywood actors who were regulars there. All this while I was praying for my hair stylist not be one of the girls with pink hair and pierced lips who were running around with scissors.
Finally my name was called and my “senior hair stylist” greeted me, (thank god she had straight hair and looked mature, sorry couldn’t help but judge). She interviewed me for next 15 minutes and I kept repeating ” No No you are totally getting me wrong, I want something like her” pointing to my sister whose eyes were hurting because of the much rolling! Finally after much interrogation and argument miss senior started the procedure. We were served sandwiches and tea in the break (?? yes we got one of those). I avoided looking at the mirror because I wanted to do the whole Sushmita Sen “oh!!! cant believe it’s me” scene. Miss senior was rather intimidating and did not ask a single question during the actual cutting process, which I interpreted as professional and experienced. Finally when she announced the end of the process, I finally looked in the mirror, I looked.. well, different, my head was now much bigger than my body I looked at didi and got a semi-approval nod. (Notice No Sushmita Sen moment here). After some time I got used to looking at different me and we left the salon. As soon as we came out didi exclaimed, “I know what you hair looks like, it looks like someone placed a flower-vase upside down on your head”. There I was, standing outside a frilly salon looking like a flowerpot, and with a perfect analogy. That was the worst haircut I have ever got. My hair looked too funky for my personality and got much chiding from my mom who thought my hair looked like a mane. When Shreyas first saw me at the station, the first word he said to me was “horrible” (did I mention that most of my friends are rather blunt).

I moaned about the haircut exactly for the time spent cutting it, after that I did not feel bad at all, I mean it (I was aware of the disaster, but thankfully I have outgrown that age of self obsession) . Instead I went to the mall, bought 10 hairbands, and for next 8 months i.e. till now never went out without controlling the growing flowerpot. Moral of the story- style channel is fake, there is no before and after moment in real life!

Year 2007-List of things made me :

1. Graduated a week back yaay!!
2. Got a job( signed the offer letter yesterday).
3. Loved Algorithms class.
4. Got a chance to work with Professor Futrelle at school.
5. Realized that I can’t get bored of studying.
6. Got a set of 10 books of Laura Ingalls as a gift, can’t decide which one is the best.
7. Miss PHD did the obvious amen to that!!
8. Learned to be calm and patient.
9. Except for the coffee machine I own all the thing I mentioned here in my wishlist, well almost all!!
10. My niece Trisha turned one, though I missed the party my mom described it in such a way that I almost attended it.
11. Managed to perform well in all my courses.
12. Made 2 new friends and learned to bond with only those who matter.
13. Passed the dreaded driving test.
14. Fell in love with Marathi songs, I wonder whether I was in alien’s land all this while!

Year 2007-List of things made me :

1. Rejection from Google, especially after visiting their mind blowing office.
2. Some of the shocking results though I thought I performed well.
3. Dear ones I adored the most; changed and startled me with their unexpected behavior.
4. Trisha doesn’t even know I exist.
5. Lost atleast 5-6 pounds (yes that makes me almost invisible and definitely not proud of it)
6. For being such a bad driver.
7. Hardly posted anything on blog.
8. For feeling helpless so many times and realizing that it’s by volition.

Just came home after passing the most dreaded driving test :), the test went so smooth without a single mistake that my instructor couldn’t believe it was me !!! He also told other students that I got the worst scolding every lesson and we had a good laugh thinking about all the mistakes I did during the lessons. Now even I can flaunt my license card every time Shreyas boasts about his driving skills and how he follows the protocol .

At work, I think I am learning a lot of new things and my mentor Bob makes it a point to brush off the dust on my fundamentals. I hope someday even I could visualize all the threads in a running program, function calls and use patterns as comfortably as Bob. But it’s fun to work with someone who is a total perfectionist and can not even tolerate any imperfect comment in the code. Also I have been following => this blog for last two days and find it pretty informative and interesting so thought of sharing with everyone.

Now that Neha and me are proud license holders, no need to mention that our shopping tours would be doubled in next couple of weeks and so would my fights with friends to let me drive on freeways.

This is for everyone to follow road crossing instructions as I would be hitting the road soon(Though even today i dint cross 15 MPH and I am one of those over cautious drivers whom everyone loves to overtake )