Wednesday, October 20, 2010

The fake weather man!

Leeds has been cold for a few days and Tuesday was no different. Coming back from a friend's house after a session of pan cakes, wine and some wolf, the 5 minute walk from Montague Burton to Leodis seemed like eternity. The chilly weather did not help and for the first time in my life I felt jeans was not thick enough!

It seemed as if somehow the cold breeze was seeping in through my pants. Thankfully I wasn't wearing one of my 'hole' wala jeans. To the surprise of my dear friends and family I did not carry any of 'those' with me.

So anyway, back to what I was talking about, the weather. So it was quite cold on Tuesday night and I was expecting today to be as cold. But to my surprise when I woke up today I felt colder than what I usually do so I decided to check the temperature on the computer. To my horror it read 0 degree!! I was flummoxed and my first reaction was to look outside the window to check for snow! Yeah, come on now, when you come from Mumbai or India for that matter and realize it is 0 degree you will hope there is snow. But surprise, surprise! There was sunshine! The sun was beating down and there was no hint of snow anywhere.

A tad disappointed I was a bit relieved as well. Was thinking the time to wear inners and gloves hasn't come as yet, but the weather man almost had me there. Yet, taking all precautions I decided to wear four layers and a scarf to keep me warm. As it happened, when I stepped out of the building it did not seem as chilly.

My phone too was saying it was 1 degree so I really did not know how what to say. And before you jump and say that may be my three layers had a say in this? No, it wasn't that either. IT JUST WASN'T AS COLD!

Hut saala, aise hi expectation high kiya!! :P

Sunday, October 17, 2010

When life gives you a lesson, pay attention!

I do not know what I was thinking when I decided to take up this course here in the University of Leeds.

I was all very happy about having to live all on my own, cooking my own food and leading my life the way I always wanted to. Little did I know that life had more challenges than I thought it did!

Let's begin with the first few days and my first few visits to the supermarket. After spending my first few hours in my room looking at my desk, cupboard and bathroom I decided to open my suitcase and set stuff. I began with promptly tagging my love letter from my dear friend Megha. Which made me realise I needed some pins to put stuff on the soft-board. I realized that the laptop will soon be dying if I did not manage to get its converter. This led me to my first visit to the closest supermarket called Londis. Londis near Leodis, is that a coincidence? I don't know and I don't care!

So, thus began my search and should I say my poor foresightedness. As I entered the shop I realised it had a lot of stuff that I will need to survive the next few days, so I decide I shall indulge in a little bit of grocery shopping. I picked up bread, milk, juice bottle, pins, garbage bags, some sauce, etc.

As always happens, you always tend to buy the thing you need most...never! I forgot to buy the converter I was looking for and instead bought a lot of stuff I could have done without. Well, to be honest, atleast could have done without it for a few hours!

Which brings me to my most favoured shopping destination - Morrisons. The supermarket which is every students' dream and home! I seriously feel that once all of us leave Leeds we will have to de-morrisonise ourselves in order to live anywhere else in this world!

Anyway, coming back to my shopping spree. My next destination was Morrisons as I declared earlier. I was told to buy some duvet and pillows by our taxi guy and my friend Mej. So I jumped right away when I saw some great deals on bedding, etc. I decided to throw that on my trolley. Next came, actually let's skip ahead because the list of things that I saw and I bought will cross the word limit of any blog ever seen or written in the history of a student life. Ok, am exaggerating but trust me you do not want to hear it, rather read it.

So after I am done with the billing I realize I have a little over 4 bags to carry back, I am tired as hell after a long day, i have not eaten lunch and yeah, saving the best for the last, I have to climb uphill for about 20 mins to reach my destination - Leodis!!

So chindi as I have always been and I take pride in that, I decided to walk. Don't worry, I reached my place in one piece. Albeit, with 7 breaks and thank god for the bottles of mineral water that I bought, which by the way I finished before I could reach home, I survived the drain and also caught the fancy of an Indian couple who smiled seeing me and commented after seeing the big bags and the sweat on my brow when the weather in the city was making others wear three layers, "Indian ho? College student, aaah!! Nice, nice! See you!"

So the biggest lesson that I have learnt since coming to Leeds, never go to Morrisons to buy stuff that you cannot carry back. Two, always take friends along when you go there, so you can always share a cab, share the bag and of course, put your stuff in their bag and take it only when you reach home! ;)

As someone once smartly said, always share your knowledge, it will only multiply, not decrease. So I would Smart Alec'ly tell any random stranger I would meet in my student accommodation or in random international meets to never go to Morrisons alone and definitely not buy more than two bags. Of course, most of the times I would be laughed at, yet I would not buckle down and keep reiterating the fact.

So, coming to why I began writing this blog. Well, one incident that just occurred a few minutes back with me prompted me to write down a few others that happened just to have a good build up and for you to have some sympathy towards me as a first timer.

It all began with me having to wear an old pair of socks today morning for my squash appointment. I could have just finished it at 'in the morning' but I added the squash part to show-off! I was wondering how come I was running out of socks to wear since I assumed I had enough to last me more than three weeks. Little did I know that I had already used up around 9 pairs and if I did not clean them urgently I would have to either buy new pairs or just wear old ones. Which is fine by me, but over the years I have kind of started to feel for the opposite gender and their nasal powers and hence would not dare to do the latter.

So, I decided to wash them along with a few underwear and thus I put them all on the floor in the shower room and switched the shower on. I also put some Ariel washing powder so that it could lather up. I was hoping that the granules would mix with the water and I could just soak them up for a bit and hang them all around the room and wait for them to dry. Which is where in-experience comes in, I did not know that the granules would not mix properly unless and until I put them all in a bucket of water and clothes. So now I have a bathroom with 9 pairs of socks, 5 undies, 3 boxers all half wet, half lathered and no place to have bath!

This is the end of this blog, I can only update you about the situation once I find a solution for it or if one of my followers or readers is kind enough to give me a tip!!!

Thanks for reading, I thoroughly enjoyed writing this piece and hope to write some more interesting ones soon!

Adios.

Friday, October 15, 2010

I fall in love too easily...

Funny but true,
I can fall in love with you,
I don't even have to try,
I will start thinking before you ask why,
My friends will not be surprised,
When I tell them I have found someone nice,
The same story will repeat itself,
I will like her and she will abandon me,
Find someone else and give that a try,
Come back to me when she needs a shoulder to cry,
I was, I am and will always be,
The nice guy that you want to see,
To help you forget him and cheer you up,
And rise with a smile when you wake-up,
But am tired now of being him,
Just want to live up again,
Can't help but think of love,
I know I will just never give up!

Thoughts

You are looking for an apple and I am an orange.

When you love someone, do not let them go.

Can someone be as rude as she was?

Tere jaane se, main adhura reh gaya! - This sums up the feeling I have right now.

Living it, loving it!

Don't know where to begin this one from. To think of it, I did not ever imagine I would be doing this. Staying abroad, doing my masters in a foreign country. Life...is in my control.

This is something I always wanted but never knew. Something I learnt thanks to my biggest lesson in life, engineering! Yes, its true, my biggest failure in life has been the biggest lesson for me. It let me find who I really was, it let me dare to take a step back to take two steps ahead. It allowed me to take decisions for myself. It was then that I realized that I wanted to live life my way. When I could make my decision and be happy or sad about it. Be able to blame myself if I had to for anything that was to happen from there on. And I am loving it, living it.

From that time to now, things have changed, but for the better. Life has improved at every stage and it has only given me reasons to smile. I like it this way.

Now I am controlling my life more than I ever have. Earlier I would just do what I would like to but yet be dependent in a way. Now, not anymore. I am liking the part where I wake myself up, I feed myself, I clean up the place and I dirty it. I have to look for everything that I have and everything that I do not. I have to go out and get things what I do not have but want. It has never been better.

Yes, I do miss a few things. Who am I lying to, I miss a lot of things, but then this is something I am willing to give up anything for. I have my freedom!

Have been thinking for a while that I would write about my observations and picks from Leeds. I thought that would be my first blog piece once I reach here. But then again am happy that I have the ability to surprise myself.

Am going to make double use of this blog. I have already written what I wanted to so now am going to use the same blog to talk about the things that I find worth writing about.

First and foremost, getting used to Toilet Paper. It's different, it's weird and at times it seems unclean but that is how it is going to be. Sorry, gross start!
I do not like as many options as you have here. Like choosing potatoes - you have baking potato, baby potato, new potato, large potato and god knows what all!

Electric plates - it took me three weeks to realize the vegetables that I was cooking were undercooked because the electric plates take much longer than what LPG would.

Duvets - I hate them. They are the worst things that could happen to a college student. They are
way too comfortable to allow someone to get out of them. They need to be discontinued with immediate effect.

Mobile phones - not just any of them. There are it seems just two brands in the world now - its either BlackBerry or Apple iPhone. People want it, people have it and people crave it. These are the only three types of people that I see around me now and I am fed-up of them. I hate them, I detest them.

Right now I cannot think of anymore, but I swear when I have a good big list I am going to come back and list them down to remind myself of them.