A week back wood-work started at my apartment. Plan is to finish the wood-work by the end of the month and complete the apartment by middle of March. Parents wish that the apartment is ready before March 1st, since Lent season starts by then. It looks not possible.

Of late, I’ve been bragging how good my life is. Well, it still is.

Understanding boss, co-operating team, challenges that keep me enthusiastic, all keep me in a good note. Did I tell you that I’m pursuing a six sigma certification? If not, you know now.

Personally too, it is going good – at least so far. Going to sister’s house on weekends and having good food really does good.

Then why am I whining? No, I’m not whining. Some events trigger nostalgic moments. Though it has been more than two years since I came back from Belgium, many events, places and faces are still so fresh in me. That is the trouble! Not that I want to forget them.

I was watching, ‘Autumn in New York’ the other day. It was a movie that I enjoyed so much sitting next to a pretty gal, eating chips and sipping ‘Coke’. That moment was so pleasant that when I watched it this weekend, I was transported back in time.

I’m reading ‘A walk in the woods’ by Bill Bryson. In a humorous way, he describes his adventurous walk on the Appalachian Trail, a hiking trail on the east US. While reading through, I feel like taking my back-bag and go on a trip, as I did in Italy or in Germany or…you get it.

So that is what I’m going through now. But, as they say: that is life.

This year has been good to me. I started the year in disappointment, tears and heart-ache. But I’m finishing the year exactly opposite – satisfied, happy and excited. I cannot recollect days when I was content. I’d been happy, but not content. Now I’m.

I want to thank my friends and family for this. Without their support/help, I wouldn’t have come thus far.

I wish you, my readers – (being a private blog, readers are mainly friends & family), a happy year ahead.

I’m an introvert. And I’m picky about whom I interact with. This didn’t cause me any trouble when I was young, or even when I was in Belgium. However, after my return to India, I started feeling lonely. Feeling lonely, I started behaving erratically. That was a trouble – to me and others.

So in beginning of this year, I decided to go out of my shell and make contacts; not necessarily friends, but acquaintances. Knowing my personality, I limited myself to make just 4 new contacts. Looking back, I pat myself. I have much more than four contacts. True, every time I made efforts to build up a contact, they left to different places – but the lead kept me going.

Interestingly, I was able to establish contact with an old friend of mine, who was busy settling down in the dreamland. Also, I made two contacts because of photoblog.

So all in all, I could be well satisfied.

Last week, I was sick. I was sick to the extent of taking bed rest for 3 days. Once I was bit ok, I decided to go out, because I was so bored staying in bed. On Saturday morning, I went for shopping.

In the evening, we went to ‘After the sunset’. Before getting into the movie part, I should mention the way PVR group has utilized technology. Booking tickets over mobile is nothing new, but they have completely automated it with voice recognition. Once complete, they send an SMS with booking number. It is that simple.

The movie was good. Superbly good. The plot, dialogues, sceneries, everything. It is an action comedy movie and both aspects are well handled. Even my sister – who normally sleeps during English movies (she slept through Pearl Harbour! ) – enjoyed it thoroughly.

Whenever I was asked by people for my number, I borrow a term used by Phoebe in Friends, “I don’t know my number; I don’t call myself!” My little brain cannot hold too much information. So last time I got an opportunity, I got a number whose last digits represented my birthday. So it was easy to remember for all the family members.

One of the main concerns that I had when I’d to move out of Chennai, was that I’ll have to forgo that number. After I reached Bangalore, I asked for the same last 5 digits. They agreed. But as luck would have it, it got delayed further and further. It got complicated too. Customer service would block the number for me. But the technical team would come back saying that the number is locked for someone and cannot be given. I tried explaining that it was indeed given to me. This cycle continued for at-least two numbers.

I was about to give up and then one lady from customer service came for my aid. She spoke with technical team as well the customer facing team and got me a fancy number: 99458-jjude. Don’t think anyone gets a number like this. Now if you can’t figure that out it is 99458-55833.