Melange

The stay at home thing

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Archana K B / 4 Comments

The cliched happily ever after. Less fights and more smiles.

All these are part of the screenplay when we watch the movie of dreams every night. And the dreams are formed when we have some goals in life. You say you don’t have any goals? Yes, you do. You are just unaware of it.

Some people just hang onto the happily ever after and think that working hard and earning money, and living prosperously is the only goal to every human being. Though its not. Everyday, there would be an underlying goal towards which we work every minute. It could be either making lunch or dinner, or completing that piece of code assigned for the day, removing that defect in the software, doing some household chores, being more healthy, or raising your kids, or working towards better personal relations. Relaxation and lazing around are just the means of reviving ourselves before we are back in the race. The race within yourself to achieve the goals in your destination. Continue reading →

blogathon/Personal

Alphabet meme – Part two

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Archana K B / 1 Comment

Sundays are holidays. Don’t you remember. So here is the fill-in post to my rescue. The rest of the alphabet meme of which the first part is here.

The Letter N
Do you have a nickname? Yes, I am also called Nisha at my home, by Amma
What is your favorite number?9. Maybe because I have heard it as a lucky number and hence unknowingly would have registered in my mind.
Do you prefer night or day? Day.

The Letter O
What is your one wish? The cliched “Happily ever after”.
Are you an only child? No. I have an elder sister.
Do you wish this year was over? It just started, no? And it has been a great start with all the blogging. ‘m lovin’ it.

The Letter P
What is one fear that you are most paranoid about? Apart from the fear of losing near and dear ones like everyone, I am also afraid of heights, being in the dark jungle, being alone on the road, watching horror movies, and cockroaches!
What personality trait would you look for in someone you wanted to date? Ability to keep me engaged in talking for minimum half an hour, and with enough money and manners to pay the bill without pride.

The Letter Q
Are you quick to judge people? I guess yes, though I wish to consider not.

The Letter R
Do you think you are always right? No.
Do you watch reality T.V.? I have watched MasterChef, Indian Idol etc but not the originals like Bigg Boss or the ones in Channel V.
What is a good reason to cry? Retrospective and futuristic thoughts.

The Letter S
Do you prefer sun or rain? Sun
Do you like snow? Haven’t experienced it. But since I am not happy in winter, I guess not.
What is your favorite season? The festival season. August end to December end.

The Letter T
What time is it? 10.00pm
What time did you wake up? 6.15am
When was the last time you slept in a tent? Never

The Letter U
Are you wearing underwear? Muahahahaha..
Do you open your eyes when under water? I can’t. I need goggles.

The Letter V
What is the worst veggie? Bittergourd
Where do you want to go on vacation? Somewhere abroad.
What was your last family vacation together? The last December in Jaipur

The Letter W
What is your worst habit? Hmm..Where to start. Biting nails and the nearby skin?
Where do you live? Bangalore

The Letter X
Have you ever had an X-ray? Yes, lots of dental x-ray!
Have you ever seen the X-Games? No. What is it?
Do you own or have you ever played a xylophone? Haven’t yet, but has given a try on the toy version owned by N.

The Letter Y
Do you like the color yellow? Yes. Some shades reminds me of sunshine, while some others of TamilNadu.
What year were you born in? Kerala
What do you yearn for most? Contentment

The Letter Z
What is your Zodiac Sign? Libra
Do you believe in the Zodiac? Nowadays yes. It was true somedays!
What is your favorite zoo animal? Either the tiger because of its image, or the big monkeys like Chimpanzee and Gorilla, to watch its tactics.

blogathon/Thoughts/Verses

Visible to the heart

Posted on January 25, 2014 by Archana K B / 1 Comment

It all starts in the morning with a silly thought and sight
But later blows in the night into a big fight
And the child watches it all, hugging his toy tight.

At the mall, he sees a huge soft toy,
A big no from her, leads to a rather loud cry
And she then moves faster after picking up the boy.

As we wait at the signal on bike one day
With arms forward, the young come nearby
And shaking our heads, we say no way.

As they walked towards her, she looked around
But no one offered her to help her on the side road
And all her cries and shouts went unheard

Its not that our minds and souls do not think,
Its just that our lives has to go on as we blink,
As sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye
And then time ticks and pushes it away, closing both its eyes.

———————————
Written for the writing prompt for Write tribe.

blogathon/Personal

Anti Sportsperson

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Archana K B / 5 Comments

I have never been a sports person. I have been very weak physically in my childhood years, and hence was not sent to any sports class. Quite the opposite, RK played badminton very well in his younger days. He was the one to introduce me the rules of many sports, like badminton, tennis and table tennis.

Eager to start with some activity together, we enrolled in the Bangalore Games and Fitness Club in Malleshpalya near the place we stayed earlier. He went for badminton doubles and I used to be the sole female who just watched her man from a corner, rather than playing along in newbie courts. In those times, I played tennis, badminton and table tennis for the first time in actual sports ground.

I also ended up watching the whole of Football WorldCup Final after midnight. And just like him, I became a fan of Roger Federer. While I am writing this post, watching the Australian open 2014 live on Star Sports, I remember how I wrote an analysis on him after watching the same Grand Slam in 2009. But gender differences mattered here too and I ended up admiring Roger, the human being, and the doting husband, rather than watching his tennis points!

Apart from being bloggers and churning out creative blog posts, what sports do you like to watch or play?

blogathon/Links/Mélange – Random Tidbits

On blogs, Lalbagh and rooting android phone

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Archana K B / 3 Comments

The past weekend, we went to the Lalbagh flower show. It was an annual routine when I came initially to Bangalore, which stopped after the second year. Over the years, the increased interest in gardening, and the addition of the DSLR, and the hope that N would walk more, rather than aching my back, made it easy to make the decision. Though we have bought some seeds and plants, I wonder how much would be the success rate of their transplantation.

Rooting Motorola Defy+

These days, I was busy with rooting my android phone. The plan started owing to the #100happydays project which needed an easy way to take pictures. My phone camera (Motorola Defy+) had a problem owing to which I was not using its camera, from long time. I was waiting for the warranty to get expired so that I can start doing my experiments on it. Though it was not guaranteed that the camera problem will get solved after flashing a new ROM, thats the only method being suggested in the forums and by friends. For rooting I followed this guide, and then wanted to install the latest version of CM10(CyanogenMod ROM), but I ended up getting errors. Then with help of Sreejith, got to know about SlimKat, but I did try CM10 once again, since it was so popular. I did not like the interface and the menu, and moreover, installation of Google apps broke it down. So finished off with SlimKat, though the interface looked similar, it looked more refined, and the integration of Gapps went smoothly. The camera is still giving problems, but have installed Camera360 which seems to have workaround to revise the direction. The real test will start when the lag and battery drain would reappear.

On blogging:

This blogathon has opened to me many personal blogs, in which most blog posts are not planned or scheduled. The advantages of such posts are that they are true ramblings or scribblings coming straight from the heart of the writer. Most of my blog posts also originated from some of those thoughts. Though it started off as on online diary, the blog has covered many topics, but remained faithful to the original category of being a personal blog. At times I do think about the future of this blog, and whether I can take it forward to a particular niche where I excel, but I have not received any inputs from fellow bloggers to make the vision clear.

The entire thing of rooting phone took majority of my time that I could not think of blogging at all. These days N has been pestering me to pick her up all time, and I have got a little backache maybe as the result. Though I feel, the sitting posture while devoting my time at the laptop seems to be the more appropriate reason for the same. Meanwhile, the feedly reader is bursting with blogposts of many other blogathon participants. Some people have suggested bloglovin but for me, I need a reader, wherein I could see entire posts in the reader, rather than visiting their blog page. I wished there was a reader so that we could also post comments too in the same window. There are times, when I could not comment in many of them even if I liked their posts because of this. The WordPress.com has a “Like” feature in their posts, similar to that of the Facebook, which is more convenient to let the authors know that I have visited and read them, but sorry that I could not comment and hence notifying you that I liked this post. Maya did a humorous post in which she also explained her inablility to comment more on the blogs. I feel almost the same.

Being Wednesday, I have already started scratching my head over the writing prompt from Write Tribe. Have you?

Bangalore life/blogathon/mommy

Chitchat with my little one

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Archana K B / 2 Comments

Yesterday, after returning from playschool, N was not in a mood to settle back into home. As I was removing her school uniform, in a casual chat about happenings in school, she asked me,

“You don’t have school, Amma?”

“No, I already went to school when I was young like you”

“Appa also went to school?”

“Yes, he also went to school like you”

” Which school you went, Amma?”

“Holy Angels” (Tries hard to repeat that!)

“So where was I when you went to school?”

“Er..You were not there that time na”

“Or did I stayed here, all alone, with the doggy?..”
(Makes sad face..)
(Doggy is a soft toy who she considers as a real life dog)

“Or was Ammoomma here with me..”
(Starts making all guesses..)

I catch the opportunity and with wide eyed face and teeth, asks her,
“Shall we have lunch.. Guess what is it for lunch baby!!!?”

In my implicit thank you note to the invisibles, ” Oh the Unknown, please provide me with constant supply to the bulb in my head.”