A list..

Of unfinished/unstarted/left in random state projects. Because Upasna who I am constantly in awe of wrote one with the most apt illustration.

1. Books - 9 physical books have piled up on my to read list. I don't know how/when I am going to arrive at them.

2. Photo memory project - I am not big on clicking pictures using phone or any other device. Recently with the addition of a new member to our family i.e. Baby M, I want to document picture memories. I have made a start on this project, but but but..

3. Website - This year my blog completes 10 years! Hence I want to convert into a digital real estate owner. Initial research is in, but rest of the pieces of the puzzle remain to be arranged.

4. Alarm clock - This is not a project per say, but a personal move away from smart phone alarm clock, I have been meaning to do. Call it laziness or sheer unwillingness to take time out of my schedule, I have been unable to buy one! I don't know what will happen to me. 

5. Home lighting project - I live in a rented apartment, but I have been wanting to change the lighting for quite some time. I have not found the time to do any research in this regard to even get started :(

6. Bullet journal - I skipped #bujo for 15 days of February - excuse travel and 15 days of March - excuse work.

7. Medal hanger - My running medals deserve a space of their own. I might just scrap this project and buy a hanger off amazon. #GettingThingsDone

8. Pocket reads - I have more than 100 unread links/articles in my pocket feed. I am a stickler for 0 inbox and that numbers keeps on gnawing at me. I know sane advice is to just delete the app and live a peaceful life. But I really want to read the stuff I have saved over months (I even remember what I have saved over time). I want to chalk out a project to attend to this. Recently Raja Sen tweeted that he allotted 2 hours every Saturday every week to devour the pocket feed. I think I'll take inspiration from him.

9. Blog posts update - 3 posts from the Europe trip, 2 from the Himalayan trek trip and countless other drafts remain untouched.

I don't want to list anything more because this is making me feel like a loser! But sharing this also makes me keep things in perspective. For eg. I really need to start utilizing my weekends more productively.

getting back to school?

Who wants to study further ? Raise your hands! I see one for sure. Two more including my own are reluctantly jumping, up and down.

Yesterday I visited the Stanford campus. Was there for 10-15 minutes hardly. But just looking at the natural beauty around and the little bistros, cafes and students on bikes, fields, under the trees inspired me! So much that I could not help but think of studying further. Of course not that I aim for Stanford, but getting there would be so much awesome! #WishfulThinking :D
Dear future kids, very unhealthy expectations in terms of where you might get your education from have been set. Please don't blame me later.

Disclaimer: I went right out of office, did not have a camera, so could not take any pictures. Google's got beautiful pictures though! -> 

Appearances

I read a really amusing and inspiring post here And traveled back in time to an incident when I had my tryst with 'the awesome'.

Since teenage I have been a fan of the Murthy's. Their entrepreneurial success and middle class (not communist) approach to wealth really inspired the idealist in me.

So during one of early training days at India's biggest IT firm (size wise at that time) I happened to stand 4 feet from Sudha Murthy and observe her. She was tiny, hardly 5 feet few inches and I do not mean in a patronizing way. As in she was like a very average Indian if you know what I mean! She wore a plain white cotton saree with red border and had a gajra (flowers) in her hair. My instant reaction was, this lady looks like my mother! Not just looks, but dresses up like a very normal Indian woman.

I was wonder struck. Because, she was not this shoo-shaa image of a hot shot lady, that I had had in my head. That day one of my perceptions about being awesome and still be not very 'jazzy' broke. Shattered if I am allowed to be dramatic, in a good way.

Simple and awesome. Works so well together!

~nightflier

IF...

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!


-Rudyard Kipling

Found it in a pile of stuff.

~nightflier

phew!

Moving/shifting is good for the soul. Specially if you are the archer types. Since most of the mess I (we) create, is in the head, starting to live in a new place feels like a fresh start. At least in the head. Plus the newer the old illusion, the better fool you can make out of yourself. Anywho I don't like condescending talk specially from me-to-me. Because, even though I *sometimes* appear like this sorted out, zen person to myself, *sometimes* I am not. :P


Digression. Digression.


The new place is so spacious and nice. I instantly felt connected.
Also my bed is adjacent to this huge window, from where I can gaze into the lovely weather (on weekends only, sob) and pass time without even getting out of the house. Lame confession, I have a thing for windows, give me one and I can sit through the day with a cup of coffee or a book without troubling anyone the slightest bit. So anywho, the kitchen is even bigger. Plus I am not sharing it with anyone, so I get to be the boss! And I am practicing all the monica gellar-ish traits of my ex-roomie, in a good way. Yay!

google image

But the house still does not have this! -> 
Alas. But I have the build myself a book-shelf project. So until then, I guess I don't mind living without a walk-in closet! :D


Oh yes and the internet at home got activated today. Finally. I must not have missed blogger so much. The way I was glued to the laptop proves it :( But the unplanned hiatus kind of worked, as I hardly missed facebook and other stuff. I feel *zen* like. Again. Almost ;-)


Anywho, a lot more awaits my blog space. Japanese. Do you get the zen fixation ? ;-)


~nightflier

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~William Ernest Henley