Year in Review: Part III

OF NEW EXPERIENCES...

~ Watched the brilliance that was the musicals, Matilda and Wicked
~ Kissed under the glittering Eiffel Tower
~ Did salsa in a pub with more than a handful of onlookers
~ Became a Monopoly pro!
~ Experienced the autumn colours
~ Made my first real make-up buy
~ Bought a real winter jacket
~ Got active on Instagram
~ Watched cabaret in Paris
~ Stayed up all night to click the red moon
~ Sat on a tram
~ Had my first serious experience of jet lag
~ Spotted jelly fish
~ Started living with someone who ensures I always have fresh flowers at home

Year in Review - Part II

FOOD & DRINKS

~ Became a Sarvana Bhavan regular

~ Made dosas with coconut chutney and sambhar at home and they were GOOD!

~ Made papayas a regular component of my diet

~ Ate at a Georgian restaurant

~ Tried a new drink called Ginja

~ Also had Champagne IN Champagne

~ I fasted. 

~ I partied

~ Had a short phase of desi-style do-at-home corn cob addiction

~ Cooked for and hosted more than 15 people at home

~ Ate a lot of crepes

~ Attended many a gatherings of wine & cheese

~ I tried another new drink – the porn star martini!

~ Went cheese-tasting

~ Had an authentic Palestinian meal with a Palestinian family

~ Had the afternoon tea experience in true British style

2015

I usually do a recap of the year every December. But since I haven’t written much this year, this recap is really going to be about me trying hard to recall the details – big and small – before they fade with memory. 

Since it’s a long list and since the blog post number has been so low this year, I shall break the post into a few parts. 

Here goes the year in review, part I:

PLACES
~ I moved from Abu Dhabi to New Delhi to London

~ Stayed at a super luxury hotel and found it utterly underwhelming

~ Visited a lavender farm that looked and smelled like a dream 

~ Travelled first class 

~ Travelled low cost 

~ Got bumped up to Etihad's business class on my final flight out of Abu Dhabi

~ Got an unexpected five year Schengen visa

~ I visited Berlin 

~ Then I visited Paris

~ And then I went to Portugal

~ Visited a museum of natural history and saw the T.Rex! 

~ Visited the Guggenheim museum

~ Chose not to visit the Louvre 

~ Visited Cambridge

~ Booked tickets to Scotland but couldn’t go

~ Booked two trips for 2016

Part II to follow...

Time

Given that I was away from the blog for most part of 2014 and that December was fairly busy itself, I never got to pen my year-end post. And then I came across this feature on HuffPost which served as a good starting point for this post. Thinking through the below 30 questions about the year that went by and the year ahead put things in perspective – some a little late in the day and some just in time before I start a new life. 

Here we go…

2014 in review

1. Describe your 2014 in three words

# Stable

# New

# Challenging

2. What was your most common mental state this year?

Happy

3. What was the biggest event in your life this year?

The engagement

4. What were your three happiest moments?

# The couplet night

# Telling Mom about Chetak

# The birthday dinner 

5. What new skills did you learn?

# Cooking

# Work processes-related things

6. What personal qualities or habits did you develop, cultivate, or strengthen?

# Started to articulate thoughts more clearly

# Introduced more fibre intake

7. What new things did you discover about yourself?

After pondering over this question for a few minutes, I feel old. There’s nothing new I discovered about myself. What I did discover about life is that 100 per cent happiness is a myth. 

8. What little things did you most enjoy doing on a daily basis?

Chatting with cabbies

9. What out-of-the-ordinary things did you do this year?

Most part of life this year was out of the ordinary

10. What cool things did you create?

All the food! Rajma, chhole, kadi, pasta, etc

11. What big things did you do that you had to get out of your comfort zone?

# Moved countries

# Worked with people from a completely different culture (inter-personal and professional)

# Swam in the ocean 

12. What achievements are you most proud of?

Living on my own

13. What was the most memorable moment this year?

The proposal

14. What are you most thankful for?

Love

15. Who are you most thankful for?

Chetak

16. How did you spend time with your family and how did the relationship evolve?

Technology-dependent bonds 

17. What or who had the biggest positive impact on your life this year?

Chetak did

18. What was the most important lesson you learnt in 2014?

You need a lot of patience and discipline to move the needle beyond a point

19. If you could turn back time, what would you have done differently?

Tackled the new role at work differently

20. What advice would you give to other people about what you have learned this year?

Ask more questions, do more research before jumping into anything

2015

21. What new things do you want to try in 2015?

# Regular exercise

# Euro travel

# Better cooking

22. What or where do you want to see, discover, and explore in 2015?

I don’t think this one is applicable given the year’s planned schedule

23. What do you want to achieve career-wise?

Discipline and independence

24. What new skills do you want to learn, improve, and master?

# Cooking is important!

# And maybe see through the Urdu plan

25. What personal qualities or habits do you want to develop, cultivate, or strengthen?

# Assertiveness

# Discipline

26. Who do you want to spend more time with?

The family before I move

27. What do you want to "feel" most of the time in 2015 (happy, content, excited, relaxed, busy, productive, creative)?

Happy and productive

28. What do you want your day-to-day life to be like in 2015?

Relaxed breakfast. Decent office hours. Productive conversations at home. Date nights. Cookouts. Travel. Socializing.  

29. What do you want to completely get rid of in your life and in 2015 you will make it happen?

Nothing really

30. What is your number one goal in 2015 and how are you planning to achieve it?

Active lifestyle - hopefully with some consistent help

Nervous

I happen to begin the year with the last thing I expected from myself. Expectations.

It worries me. 2011, don't disappoint.

White Sand

See you next year! I'm off to Ratnagiri. :-)

You've Seen This Before

While there is still close to a week left for the year to end, I want to write about the year that has almost gone by because I have started making my new year eve plans. So let's get to the custom of listing it all out.

# Life's second moment of hysteria happened early this year. More emotional stress than I could handle.

# Travelled to Jamshedpur from Pune to meet Shady who used to be

# Met Subhadip in Kolkata

# Started playing badminton after many years

# Travel ventures began with Ajanta and Ellora. And I covered everything from rock sculptures and paintings to river rafting in the mountains to frolicking on a beach on a rainy day to playing under waterfalls in the hills to a quiet lakeside evening to a drive to a beautiful dam followed by an awesome fort as well. A tiny wildlife sanctuary is on my list too. :-)

- So it was a first view of the sea
- A first dip in a river
- A first lakeside moment
- A first waterfall experience
- A first of a dam during rains
- A first walk on clouds in a fort
- AND a first of the wildlife

# Travel to Chandigarh to meet grandparents is definitely a separate point

# Holi brought my first rain dance experience

# Break-up happened and I became my cynical worst after that

# Got the fourth piercings in the ears

# Experienced working with a chauvinist

# It was one of the most volatile years of friendships

# I bought my first dress

# Got drunk for the first time

# Ran a marathon

# Bhaiya got engaged!
# Bought the perfect red saree I had dreamt of for a decade, for bhaiya's wedding
# More of ultrasounds and related crap

# Siddhartha passed away

# Bought a new lens with my own money

# Invested in a photograph for a good cause

# Made a perfect wall

# Dev D's music was one the biggest forms of madness ever!

# And so was Delhi 6

# Missed a flight

# Lived the thrill of having a Costa Coffee in Pune for the longest time!

# I contested and lost elections in college

# Experienced guilt like never before

# My first plant died

# Did political PR

# Voted in general elections for the first time

# Watched somebody I loved fall in love with someone else. Twice over.

# Made a little trip on Delhi's local trains

# Watched way too many movies on my laptop

# Got associated with one of the biggest brands in the world

# Attended a santoor vadan concert of Rahul Sharma's

# Saw Shah Rukh Khan :P

# Started loving peanut butter

# Sinus pains went beyond tolerance levels

# Had a man tell me I'm perfect

# Fell out of love with Nike for Woman

# Watched theatre

# Became more rude, arrogant and intolerant

# Broke my laptop's keypad in anger

# Laughed through many days too.

I am sure I am forgetting more things. I'll come back and update this list. Until then, spend some time in writing out comments. :D

Wishing Well

I don't know the reason, but the blogging rate seems to have dropped here in the past two weeks. Maybe I'll just claim my usual - work is getting to me. Keep that raised eyebrow away, one CAN have employers who expect you to work. And one can be good at mismanaging time too. Both together lead to an awfully busy life. To add to it, thoughts about boyfriends 24x7 do not help. The extra 's' was just for kicks.

So the new year is almost here. Until end of 2007, every new year's eve I sat at home and sulked about my unadventurous life because of unadventurous parents. This year I am sulking about a research paper. Yes, sulking is the key word. You got it right.

Anyway. It's all in the name of a subtly romantic boyfriend. So it should be ok. (Don't try too hard to find the link. I'm writing like this just for fun.)

I'm wondering what 'special' thing can be done on the blog. The new year post was done three weeks ago. :-/

I wrote a nice senti piece about Dilli Haat, but somehow never got to posting it. I almost wrote about the superbly fun and the best ever Christmas I had. AND I really wanted to write about how it feels like to be in a normal relationship. But stupid Footprints, and submissions, and reports, and research, and projects fucked my head a little too much. :-/

I seem to derive some strange pleasure out of cribbing. Therefore, please note that I AM extremely thankful to the world that conspired the delay in my departure from Delhi, but I don't know what to do with all my luggage and the bloody 20 kg baggage limit! I would not have brought all the clothes for laundry, and all the shoes I have ever owned. If you're still wondering what the issue is - I was supposed to take a train back to Pune.

Joke of the day -
Guy to a waitress: "how do you serve this dish?"
Waitress: "How do we serve this dish. In a plate (with gestures suggesting what a plate looks like)".
I was there. At the same table.

Let's hope the new year is happy and peaceful. Enjoy it. Live it! :-)