Mid year check?

Ok, I can see how my disappearance from blogger has become quite routine nowadays, but this time it was for a good cause... but before I launch into a description of what I've been upto, I thought I would do some mid-year stock-taking... remember my post from New year? Ok, here it is...

Since June is fast approaching, I thought I'd take stock of how many new year resolutions I've achieved, and how many I need to remind myself to complete! Since this is almost the first time I've made a list of things to do in the new year, I'm quite excited about seeing where I stand... so here goes:

I "pledged" to - learn a new language
I learnt 3 words in Spanish - usted, despacio and bien.. so now I can string together an entire "sentence" in Spanish - "Senor, usted drive despacio por favor, my sister pregnant, bumpy road no bien"

I "pledged" to - Get back to singing
I sang my heart out on my recent vacation... everyone avoided looking me straight in the eye after that! Hmmm.... not repeating this mistake again :)

I "pledged" to - Graduate from the bunny slope
Ummm.... I love bunnies?

I "pledged" to - Stop wearing shades of grey, black, brown and white
So now I'm wearing shades of green and blue most of the time... when I was packing recently, I realized all my office clothes were still black/brown/white, and all my "party" clothes were blue and green... hmmm.. I need some colour!!

I "pledged" to - Give more time to myself instead of my job, laptop and sleep
So now I'm spending more time on the phone!! Add reading to it. I have no tv, so nothing to substitute the laptop with! :(

I "pledged" to - Learn how to say no
Nope, definitely no progress in this area

I "pledged" to - Travel to a new country
And THIS I did!!!! I just came back from Peru yesterday! Was an awesome vacation, one which deserves a whole separate post, especially the jam... errr.. never mind,more later about that.. anyways this is my biggest accomplishment for the year! And the one thing on my list of to dos that I least expected to achieve! Clap clap!

I "pledged" to - Convey my love to my family
Still working on it

I "pledged" to - Stop crying in every emotional scene
I have now degenerated to crying while reading books as well! Sigh.


Btw, at the risk of sounding like an incurable romantic, here's the last song I sang and tortured everyone with:

Aankhen band kar loon, dekhoon bas tumhe
Khyabon mein hee keh sakta hoon apna tumhe
Rehne de mera yeh veham pe hee yakeen
Na jaa abhi
Pyar ke yeh raat hai, ab na jaa
Chhoti si ek baat hai, ab na jaa
Pal do pal ka saath hai, ab na jaa
Jaadu si yeh raat hai, ab na jaa...

This is one of the most romantic songs I know, thanks to Euphoria!! It's true, sometimes all you need is for someone to tell you "don't go"...

Party like a rockstar!.... or not

This post is about perseverance, and its rewards (or punishments, depending on your general mental attitude in life). Its about the great human tendency to aim at the sky and strive to achieve higher heights. This is a story about this guy who demonstrated a "never-say-die" attitude! Oh yeah, its an awe-inspiring story of he who dared, failed and fell flat on his face, but rose up from the ashes and tried again!

This weekend saw a considerable amount of partying… On Friday night my friend and I ventured downtown to check out the nightlife there… there’s an array of nightclubs in this particular area of downtown, ranging from latino to hip hop to reggae music… the clubs are also differentiated based on the crowd that gathers inside, like primarily Hispanic or African American and even homosexuals… interesting mix and loads of choice, like everything else in US! Anyways, we finally decided to go to the hip hop music club, a peaceful compromise because my friend didn’t know how to dance any Salsa and I refused to "getjiggywitit" (or whatever reggae music is!)!

When we were ushered in, the floor was packed with people “getting down” and doing the grind. Now, the ‘Grind’ calls for explanation… if you guys ever saw the program ‘MTV Grind’ (which used to be aired at like 11 in the night on Fridays because of its “adult” content), imagine a live version of that right under your noses! The ‘Grind’ involves a guy holding a girl by her waist with her back facing him, while she “grinds” against him, hip down! His role is limited to holding her in place and “enjoying the grind” while she’s supposed to move against him, and apparently that’s a lot of fun… Depending on how late it is in the night, the raunchiness of this entire “dance form” takes on monumental proportions, so that ultimately, somewhere around 2 in the night, the entire dance floor begins to resemble a huge orgy. I realized that no matter what kind of music is playing, the only “dancing” that happens on these floors is this grinding and bumping (A bit like the universal bhangra in India?). And the most important thing is that most of the couples are strangers! They just met on the dance floor - sometimes the girl doesn’t even know who she is grinding till much later! Hmmm… alcohol can make dreams a reality I think.

It took a lot of getting used to this new dance form, with everyone looking like they’re literally having s*x on the floor… so I decided to maintain eye contact with the dance floor and do my own non-grinding, “normal”, at-arms-length dancing (Oh, how I missed good ol' Punju music then!).

In the midst of all the “fun”, my friend and I noticed one desi guy standing around on the periphery of the floor - carefully checking out all the girls, meanwhile forming a game plan in his head – a ‘how do I get to dance with a girl tonight?’ plan. Specific targets in mind were the non-suspecting Caucasian girls. He was there with a few guy friends who were also scanning the crowd with similar intention.

Suddenly, about 15 mins later we found this guy clinging onto a girl who was at least a 5” 10’ in height, big-bodied and looked like she could swat him like a fly! Because he was, in contrast, only about an inch taller than me, which made him a whole of 5” 6’ at the most, and also very skinny! But you’ve got to admire the guy’s strategy – "I'll just cling onto a girl who won’t be able to find me for at least 5 mins, in which time I've got what I wanted… errr… danced with her".. He basically wanted to imitate the “lucky American guys” doing the grind. Aha! Now, if you want to do the grind, at least learn how to do it right first! Instead of standing straight and letting her do the moves, this guy assumed that just because this looked like s*x on the dance floor, it actually was s*x on the dance floor! So, he held her tightly with her back to him and began to move like what can only be described as a horny dog at the peak of mating season!! If we had not collapsed with laughter, we may have tried to warn him that his moves were inviting trouble! Of course, the girl was very quick on the uptake, and realized there was someone behind her who didn’t know jack shit about what he was doing (or did, depending on what you think were his intentions!) and she ran, and I mean actually ran with her girl friend to the absolute other side of the floor, leaving this guy in the middle of his self-deception.

You’d think he’d learnt his lesson and would then slink into the periphery again and adhere to the “you can look but you can’t touch” policy, but no… he was persevering, demonstrating a great never-say-die attitude which may have gotten him through very crucial situations in his life, and applied it to the task at hand – “I want to dance with a hot chick”. So, right before our eyes, he proceeded towards another group of girls, waiting for his “chance” standing behind them, and suddenly grabbing them… every time they realized what he was doing and turned to look at him, it resulted in either fits of giggles and a scurry across the floor, or a disgusted expression and an almost physical push asking him to get away!

We began to feel bad for him after this happened for the fifth or sixth time, but I mean, you’ve got to admire the guy’s shamelessness! His admirable one-pointed focus on what’s got to be done – he has to tell his friends back at home that he literally “made out with a hot American girl”, carefully omitting the embarrassing parts in his “report”! We wanted to stop him, saying “Please stop humiliating yourself and us, by association”, but we couldn’t get ourselves to stop laughing, so talking coherently to him was out of the question. I also think he was drunk out of his mind, and don’t think he would remember the next morning what he subjected himself and others to! (At least not for his sake). It is important to note that this guy’s friends had disowned him sometime during the virtual orgy he was indulging in, and he was found alone later in the night, lurking around a group of girls, hoping to “get lucky”! Needless to say, he was packed off home alone 5 mins later.

I have only one thing to say after this entertaining yet harrowing (coz the image of this guy is stuck in my head!) experience – I love Bhangra and the Orange Room! :))

P.S: Pls don't crucify me for writing about this gentleman, I just couldn't keep this story "inside me" for long!!

Stories from last week...

"Are you married, single, divorced, widowed?"

"Single"

"Are you pregnant?"

"Ummm... no..." (With the Indian upbringing, I'm still wondering why the question is being asked.. I'm SINGLE, psycho!)

"Are you trying to get pregnant?"

"Hell no!" (Eyes popping out at the horrifying suggestion)

"Ok, don't get pregnant in the next 6 months"

"I don't foresee the danger of that happening" (Goodness, stop already!)

-- Thats my conversation with the new doctor I went to visit last week. I was thinking the whole time "I have an earache for God's sake, what does this have to do with my being pregnant?!!".. Its an American thing, I noticed, that even if you say you're not married, they ask you pregnancy related questions... ofcourse you can't take anything for granted here.. in India, you went for a blood test, they asked "Are you married?" You said "No", and they peacefully moved on, avoiding any questions relating to marital status.. comfortable... answering 20 times whether you're pregnant or expecting to be pregnant is hell of a lot more awkward than I could imagine!

Other laughable situations this week included spelling out my name for the girl at the counter at Blockbuster videos... I said "Its spelt as Are You See Etch Aye Kay A" and she's like "ruc-what?" "Etch" "What?" and she looks at me like I'm some non-english speaking illegal immigrant from a 3rd world country where they don't teach how to pronounce H correctly. My cousin pitches in, she goes "Aetch" "Oooohh.. you mean H"!!! Yeah, you dim-witted moron, H... you should be glad I wasn't saying "hetch"!

But accent I realise is a matter of habit.. If you don't pronounce words the way they're used to listening to it, the above situation repeats itself everywhere.... so you have to end up rolling your r's, "Do I have the time? Oh yes, its eight-turrrty"... Pretty soon you're talking to your parents with the same rolling rs... damn. Well, atleast I haven't pronounced fast as fayst yet, so I'm glad.

Anyways, in other significant little achievements (which I've told you I will start celebrating), I've declared myself a "sober chocaholic" :) I can now look at a rich dark chocolate brownie with hot melting chocolate sauce poured over it - without devouring it the next second. Its an attempt to get my ever increasing mid-riff in control! Cheers to that!

Also this week, I finally watched 'Serendipity' in an attempt to find out what everyone is so ga-ga about! I had tried to watch is once before, but had to shut it off within 15 mins, disgusted as I was with all the mushiness (it didn't help that I had a broken-heart to mend at that time)... This time, with renewed enthusiasm, and since my heart is now in perfectly good shape, I watched it, and managed to see it to the end. But, I still don't know whats so great about the movie! Its not exactly the Dr. Zhivago or Gone with the wind of romance, and its based on such a silly idea. And worst is, many of us are trying to find our own 'serendipity' in our own little worlds, thinking someone somewhere is "made for us".. Like an SRK-Kajol movie, complete with gazing at the clouds and imagining soulmates... Jeez!

And the song thats been stuck in my head the past 3 days - "Pom pom pom pom pump up the jam!" (--Partner, 2007) Hahaha! Its too funny! :))