Squash it Sunday and Shaadi Shopping!

I am so happy Squash it Sundays have become a regular thing. The last time I played this regularly was back in Cherry Hill Condo - MISS THAT TIME!

The memory I have of this Sunday is Squash, Sleep and Shaadi Shopping! Unlike the first 2, the last one is not an activity but a project. One needs to plan, budget, have a list of things and places but at the same time keep an open mind.

There are plenty of gorgeous outfits to choose from - simple & graceful, elegant & bling, classy & colourful - no matter how much you budget the place you shop from decides how much you end up spending. I am still new to the game and learning.

Some of the clothes are honestly designed to seduce! I have been thinking about few outfits more than I thought I ever would. I am not even a shopaholic. One of the outfits of my dream is a Abhinav Misra designer Lehenga ($$$) and another one is this beautiful Green skirt-crop top styled indo-western lehenga ($$$) that I stumbled upon while browsing. What's worse is that the prices are not bothering me lol.

But I need to visit the stores and see for myself. As much as I want to, I should not get married to the idea of a flashy outfit over causal insta browsing. Kudos to myself for this epic topical reference ;)

Definitely more on this one later!

The fastest Saturday!

I'm no longer a Friday night out kind of a person but somehow I am not ok with this! I should still be able to party till 4 am and then wake up the next day as if nothing happened as it used to be during the good old college days! I guess age is more than just a number :O

Today, I woke up first at 9 am when my helper rang the door bell and slept through the next 3 hours as she cleaned the house. I then woke up at 12 noon to walk around and check if she was still around. I then finally woke up at 3:30 pm to start the day officially :P

So thats how fast the day went for me. I had one meal throughout the day which was a half Fatburger chicken sandwich + Fries + Strawberry shake at 5 pm. As I am typing I'm getting reminded of food which is making me super hungry again!

I should totally make myself sth now and then knock off for tomorrow is SQASH IT SUNDAY! :)

Bbye!

Feels like Friday!

26th July  (Delayed post because Friyay evening happened! Partied till 4am for Mohit Surana's bday <3 )

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Past couple of weeks have been hectic at work and I’m finishing after 10 pm almost everyday. But I’m proud that I’m continuing these posts even though I'd write them after I reach home - typically the last thing I do before sleeping off.

On Fridays I have a 30 mins catch-up with my manager who is based on London. She's an incredible woman - someone I look upto. I'm sure I'll have more to say about her in my future posts as I am a big fan of her management style.

Today when she asked me about how I was doing I almost immediately said that "It feels like a Friday"! It was an busy day but I felt a lot more relaxed as things are coming to a close and falling into place for my ongoing project. Having a handle on the various moving parts of the project does not reduce the work but it makes project management a lot peaceful - eagerly waiting for 5th August when I can officially take a breather.

Signing off!

Priorities that matter!

There was a time when I would a more fucks that things demanded. I'd give attention to the smallest of things (mostly related to academics / work / upcoming presentation) trying to get everything right and in the process neglect everything else. I'd find myself in the middle of all that worry feeling unequipped to handle the work at hand but in reality it was the anxiety that didn't let me pause and evaluate the situation. I would spend the time questioning my self-worth rather than figuring out a solution or seeking some help!

More recently I am avoiding putting more effort than needed on a particular task and that is enabling me to keep my mind open to attempting different things during the day. This blog is a clear example of that practice.

Although it has improved, I have a lot more to learn and practice on how to prioritise things. I remember a concept of LIFO applied to Stacks and FIFO applied to Queues from my Computing class - never thought I'd ever try to draw parallels between computing concepts and life priorities back then. My default policy is LIFO (Last in, first out) which is very distracting and often leads to over-complicating simple tasks, unexpectedly delaying important tasks and in general overtiming at work. Thinking more deeply about it now, this might have just been one of the fundamental causes of the bigger issues in my last relationship.

But today I did things differently and I am glad I prioritised. There were a lot of opportunities to pull a LIFO today which I avoided as much as possible. Unlike the last few days, today I managed to get done at 8 pm from work (still late but ongoing project demands it). This could have easily stretched till 11 pm had I not made up my mind to prioritise completing the surprise video recording for my sister's farewell.

LIFO is at times great because it helps in impression management and shows promptness but it should not come at the cost of unneeded long hours at work!

Until tomorrow!

10 mins catch-ups that matter!

It is not everyday when you get to speak to a friend whom you have not met for nearly a decade.  The feeling is special and the last memory you have of them is so long back that it can't be negative!

I had a 10 mins Facebook chat with an old classmate, Phong, today and realised time really flies. Phong is the smartest and the most humble person I've known and this is exactly how I remember him. He is doing postdoc in AI now and I am sure nailing it!

We did a group project back in NUS in which we built a Task Manager (which was a feature-rich To Do List software with a CLI and GUI) for CS2103 Software Engineering module. I wrote about To Do List in my previous post and since then I was struggling to remember the project name so I looked it up. We called it "ScheduleMe" - seriously? And here is how it and we looked like back in 2010.

That project brings back a ton of memories and a big smile :)

Until next time!

To-Do lists that matter!

Today was one of those rather long days at work but I am not tired! I had a lot more focus and a different kind of positive energy during the day. A Monday without blues - is that even Monday?

No coffee and still full power: 

- Reached home around 11 pm and cooked myself my version of Shahshuka that looked like the image on the right. 

- Started the HBO show"Years and Years" which I have been avoidingso that I don't get hooked. My colleague described it as HBOs best series (better than Chernobyl?) - promising 1st episode though!

- And I am blogging at 2:45 am - still not tired!

Lets rewind:

20th July (Saturday): I ran a relay Marathon @ MacRitchie Park with my colleagues. We had to complete the underestimated goal of 14 rounds of a 3.5 Km track that was not exactly on a plain terrain. I completed 2 rounds in 30 and 28 mins respectively, felt extremely sad about for my fitness levels yet snacked throughout the time my teammates were running and had rather active Saturday in anticipation of solid DOMS the following day. 

Following Day (21st July): If Saturday wasn't enough, I decided to confuse my body yet again by actually showing up for the Squash game with the Squashers. By now my body is sore and my organs are still settling from the torture. Post the game I treated myself a meal of Egg-Onion-Cheese Prata and Teh Haliya @ Jalan Kayu!

So the physically active weekend can explain the high energy the following Monday:

- It was a productive day as it started with completion of certain small tasks in the first hour and that prodded me to create a To DO List for the rest of the day. 

- Striking one task after another gave me such invincible power - it was addictive

- I was organised in my work and felt super confident in chairing the weekly meeting today

- I didn't mind staying back and completing some of the tasks still pending on the list.

- The list is not yet complete and I can't wait to go to work tomorrow to strike few other tasks off (maybe this is an exaggeration - but I do feel the energy now)

Would I like such Mondays to come more often - YES

Do I need a super active weekend to feel this way every Monday - Perhaps!

Will I make more ToDo Lists again - YES, I need to get used to them.

I need to knock off now to actually wake up in time for work!

First Post - Why the need to write

Regularity

I have never been a regular blogger. I have not published many articles but I have certainly scribbled my thoughts on paper or in draft mode in the past decade or so.

In the past, I have taken up personal challenges to maintain a journal which have never lasted more than a week. The journal is soon forgotten and is often revisited during either a panic stricken invasion of the storeroom to look for an old/important/forgotten commodity or an even worse and tedious task of house movement! At that time the journal serves as a reminder of something I did without thinking too much. I'd have a laugh about the things I wrote, being amused by my thought process at the timestamped date and then quickly move on to the more stressful task at hand.

In this blog I want to make an attempt to write about things that I find meaningful and that matter to me on a day to day basis. Hopefully my T+10 year-old self will appreciate this as much as I do it now. We will know when we get to it!

Being honest with myself 

I've had a constant tussle understanding my feelings at any given point of time. Until few years back I did not even know what anxiety is and I'd be confused going through a stressful thought without having a practical reason to feel that way. This led me to hold things or people around me accountable for my state at that instance - there ought to be something or someone that is causing the distress, never actually looking inward. Perhaps this topic deserves it's own dedicated post. But the fact being I wasn't able to understand and consequently express myself truly. 

While my self-awareness has sky rocketed in the last few years, it demands a lot more work - one day at a time, one blogpost at a time.

Little things matter

What you are today is a function of little things from the past and present: millions of cells working and evolving every second, thoughts, nutrition, breathing, interactions, habits, focus, luck, actions and sometimes the lack of them, to name a few!

This blog is an effort to realise the importance of these little things more regularly!

Hope I can keep up!