One thing I love about where I work is that I don’t need to wait six months before I can take leave. This is usually a requirement of most companies. Out here, I’ve planned my leave well in advance, the first one begins today, for a week.

This blog post will take you three weeks back. I’ve had three weeks which have been so filled with work (yes, that is a usual statement I make) that my initial plan of updating the blog took a back seat.

Anyway, three weeks back, I met up with Maria, who, along with her sister, has been complaining that I’ve spent more than two months in Bangalore and hadn’t even seen them! The main reason has been my prolonged effort to settle into the city that I haven’t yet called home and the lack of a full weekend out here yet. I haven’t seen much of Bangalore yet and I don’t know when I will be able to. The few places that I have visited have been Church Street and Brigade Road area on two separate occasions.

Maria picked me up from near my house in Koramangala on that Sunday morning and we headed over to “The Only Place” in Brigade Road. “The Only Place” is famous for its steak and I decided to try one of those. Well, it was also a while since I had some good meat. We then walked down Church Street to the Levi’s store at Brigade Road. My current pair of blue jeans had started to fray and rather than make a fashion statement, I decided to pick up a new pair.

From what I have seen, shopping in Bangalore seems to be more expensive than Mumbai. I’m going to verify this on my trip back to Mumbai as I hunt for some clothes. Anyway, I found a decent pair of blue boot-cut jeans for a little more than 2K and picked them up. It turned out to be a smart thing to do because my jeans finally frayed and well, they are now a pair of torn jeans that many people pay so much extra for!

After this, we walked over to one of the Cafe Coffee Day’s in Brigade Road, where they insisted that we have to take addons on Saturday and Sunday. I have definitely not seen this at any other CCD and we told him that we refused to do that. Why should I take chocolate sauce in my coffee, when I don’t want it?

We didn’t spend much time there, because we decided to drop into Garuda mall for a while, which is supposed to be one of the biggest malls in Bangalore. Well, I still prefer InOrbit in Mumbai, which is not only bigger, but definitely better planned than any of the malls here in Bangalore.

Anyway, I decided to go window shopping for suits. Saw some excellent ones which were 7K and above. Decided to check the same out in Mumbai over this week. I need a good business suit for work. The one we got in college was good for college and the one I got at home is too party types.

We hung out at Garuda mall a while and after that tried to find out the mass timings at the nearest church out there. We found out that we had to wait for at least an hour for mass and so decided to rush back to the one near Forum. It turned out to be a mixed language double-feast mass where we found ourselves standing far far away in the dust and the dirt and the crowd. We just gave up hope and headed back home.

Stay tuned for yet another post with the events of the last two weeks. Until remember you cankeep track of updates of my blogs and me of course by following @ajaydsouza on Twitter.

After a quiet two days at home, I finally ventured out on Sunday evening for mass. I?ve realized that I can spend days at home without evening stepping outside and not even think twice about it. Pizzas always get delivered, don?t they?

Anyway, Sunday the 4th also marked the 28th Wedding Anniversary of my parents and since Dad isn?t here I decided to take Mom out for dinner. However, she chose to order home and so be it.

Dinner was Chicken Manchurian, Prawns Masala and Chicken Fried rice. We tried a smaller new restaurant near my place instead of the regular one I ordered. While the chicken was good, the prawns was terrible. Note to myself. ?Do not order sea food from small places?.

Monday and Tuesday were normal days. Aditya was in Mumbai yesterday on placements work and dropped in after that was done. Took him to InOrbit, Malad whose sheer size had him all amazed.

Got back home, bid farewell to him and got ready for Seema?s birthday party. We were at her place gossiping and chatting till post 10.30pm before I drove back home. Had no energy to make any of the blog posts I had originally planned. Had also decided to make my way back to Pune and so needed to get some sleep.

Caught the second Volvo to Pune. The last time I was on my way back the bus tire was punctured and the driver and cleaner spent a good hour fixing that. Fortunately, today I didn?t face any such problem, though the bus that I missed by a minute broke down on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. After our driver lent a hand, we were on our way.

Reached here in the morning, met up with friends and then got down to making those blog posts. The count of unread posts in my RSS reader is slowly mounting. As is the case of my Gmail inbox which seems to be locked due to Google detecting unusual activity. Now, me not checking my email for 20 hours is characterized as unusual Hopefully, this gets unlocked by tomorrow.

Tomorrow is a long day with a lot of lectures scheduled. We also have a so called Finance paper to work on tonight.

Today was one tiring day, of which I spent little time at home.

Awoke nice and late (I need to start sleeping earlier) and left to meet Trupti to give her some stuff.
Just as I was about to leave I realized that I didn’t have my bike. I had given it to James who will be looking after it while I’m in SCMHRD.

Had to travel to his bro’s place at RNA Heights to pickup the bike and found out that he didn’t carry the helmet. So, it was back home to pickup my helmet and gloves and so reached a bit late at InOrbit.

I don’t like being late, but then a girl in a mall will never get lonely

And it was Subway today as well. (Visited Subway yesterday with my brother and it was my lunch and dinner).

Was there sometime before dropping her off my my journey home. Got home, had barely some time with my love and I was off to an eye doctor to get my eyes checked. It’s been over two years since I visited and opthamologist and decided its high time (of course Mom kept grumbling to ensure I do it).

We arrived very early and so killed time with kachoris and sugarcane juice

Spent a great deal of time at the doctor because in addition to getting my eyes checked I also got the retina checked. Had drops put into my eyes which dilates the pupils and also resulted in the title of this post.

Eyesight’s back to normal now and hence the blogger in me had to post about it.

If there is one thing a geek needs, then it is a good internet connection. Now, that is one thing that has always eluded me and there is no chance of it changing in the near future!

That is one of the reason this blog has seen absolutely no updates for a long long time.

The past week and more can be summed up as follows:

Choir

Practice has been on in full force for Good Friday. We’ve had practice four times in the last week and things are shaping up.

Had to sing for a funeral mass on Thursday at the Oshiwara Cemetery. Few of us from the choir decided to drop in at the “Mega Mall” just across the road. The place is still coming up and the only thing there was the super market. We weren’t out shopping so just moved on to Inorbit food court.

Headed home and back again to choir practice.

Yesterday was Passion Sunday and we were singing for the 6pm mass. Father dropped the bombshell that we had to do the part of the crowd in the liturgy. With no prior practice, I think we carried it out well

Computers

My internet connection sucks. I’ve been calling Exatt up every single day for the past two weeks to ask them to come fix the connection. I dropped in at the office today and waiting for the folks in charge to come. The problem is they have no clue how to fix the frequent switch hanging.

I’ve been considering the MTNL Triband, but my mom is too terrified about “incorrect” billing on their part. I’ve decided to chuck the idea. If my net is down, a cyber cafe shall have to serve as my resort.

On the computer front, my Dad was down last week and he brought me a Kingston U3 DataTraveler.

I am very impressed by the drive. Besides functioning as a normal 2GB memory drive, the U3 Software adds autorun capabilities with easy installation of portable software to run directly from my drive. I’ve got my browser and other software installed on the drive, so no privacy issues at cafes

Dad also got me a 120GB external hard drive. It’s small and portable and a real life saver. This will all be part of my baggage to SCMHRD in June.

College

On the college front, I received the results for XIMB. I’m 101 on the waitlist which is definitely not converting. Besides, I don’t think I will be taking it up anyway. SCMHRD seems a better option after weighing in a lot of factors.

The SCMHRD Foundation course which was supposed to start on April 1 has temporarily been postponed. I’ve received the confirmation letter and receipt for the payment.

Also metup with the several SCMHRD folks from Mumbai on Saturday. Will save that for a small post later.

Personal

The mouse dropped in on Wednesday to say hi. Someone should be studying

Accompanied a pal to town on Friday. Have been digging up some stuff about studies in Australia. Maybe in the future. Then again, maybe not.

Have also made plans for a holiday in April. Things are shaping out well. I’m not much of the holiday person with hardly any trips at all.

But, the holiday always makes for some good blog tales…

Met up with my “two year treaty” friend today. The name because I first met her two years back and now we plan to meet two years down the line!

Anyway, we went to the food court InOrbit in Malad. I’ve realized inspite of the wide choice you have to pick what you want to eat, there isn’t much I would eat.

After she gorged into a Subway sandwich, I decided to take one. My last experience with Subway wasn’t too good and a pal of mine has kept telling me to stick to the non-veg.

Decided to do that today when I ordered the Turkey Chicken Ham & Bacon Melt. It is one expensive but extremely filling sandwich!

Just got back home sometime back. Not much roaming planned in the next three weeks…

Went off to watch Ladder 49 with James, Amita, Melita and Joel at Fame Malad in InOrbit Mall (my third journey there).

Had plans for Collateral, however we couldn’t make it in time. Was a bit sceptical about Ladder 49, but the movie turned out to be rather good.

Ladder 49 tells the story of Jack Morrison (Joaquin Phoenix), a fire fighter under the guidance of Captain Mike Kennedy (John Travolta).
The story begins with Jack on a fire-fighting rescue mission within a burning building, where he gets trapped. Under such extreme circumstances, Jack reflects on his life. His journey down memory lane begins ever since he joined the Baltimore fire station, his journey up the ladder into a seasoned fire fighter, the sacrifices he makes, his trials and tribulations, his struggles and successes.

A rather touching tale, with an sad, but hope-filled ending.

The movie kept us laughing at times, and in tears at others. John Travolta is amazing as usual. Joaquin does an very good job as the protagonist.

This is a movie I didn’t regret watching.

Had to go back home after the movie to continue the cleaning work. We got painting going on at our place for the next three days and I am off to Lonavala for the training program. So, sadly will be disconnecting my darling PC until I return on Wednesday.
Will come to know my department tomorrow. Hopefully, I get what I want.

It’s been over three weeks since my last post. Lack of time and interest have been solely responsible for this. Lot’s has happened in the last few weeks in additionaly to my usual routine.

Work has been excellent. I have completed over two months in Larsen & Toubro and we now have our induction program going on, where we have been learning a real lot about everything that ASC does.

Am not in the mood to post a really long post, and I don’t remember all the dates well, so will just briefly list out everything that I have done in the last few weeks.

Went off to a vendor one Friday in connection to the PCB I was using. Couldn’t make it back for lunch in time, so we had to eat out.

Payed a visit to Melody in relation with her company website Mediacenter. We are working on a brand new look for the site and have finished a good amount of work on it.

Also went off last week to watch The Village, the brand new movie from M. Night Shyamalan. Heard both sides of the movie, and so just decided to watch it for myself. We went off to Fame Malad at Inorbit. Must same, I was rather impressed by both the theatre and the shopping mall. My new haunt?

Now back to the movie. Characteristic in Shyamalan style, the movie was slow but interesting.
‘The Village’ depicts the thrilling tale of an isolated town confronting the astonishing truth that lies just outside its borders. At first glance, this village seems picture perfect, but this close-knit community lives with the frightening knowledge that creatures reside in the surrounding woods. The evil and foreboding force is so unnerving that none dare venture beyond the borders of the village and into the woods. But when curious, headstrong Lucius Hunt plans to step beyond the boundaries of the town and into the unknown, his bold move threatens to forever change the future of the village.
Can say I did enjoy the movie quite a bit.

Had a party on the 30th of September to celebrate the joint birthdays of U. Conrad and Havilah. Had a good time there, but sadly had to get home as I had to work the next day. Thankfully, this year Christmas and New Year are both Saturdays. So, hopefully I party Friday night.

Also went for a program in church last week. It was conducted by Fr. Felix D’Souza and was in an effort to educate persons of various organizations in my parish on working for the betterment of our parish. It was followed by mass and then lunch.

On the computers front, Melody’s site Glorify God went down along with the server. Have her site hosted at WebberZone. Anyways the site and community is up. Registered an email service with Godaddy, in order to ensure that her official email runs even when the site server is down.

Also, placed the order for my new computer. A really cool high end system. Couldn’t yet afford the 8-channel speakers I had in mind. Will probably go in for them a few months down the line.

That’s about all that I have been done. Got rather good news yesterday. I along with a few others will be going to Lonavala for three days from 25 October to 27 October for training. It’s the same place we went for our orientation program when I just joined L&T. Should be fun.