Mystery of minutes!

Today is very cold out here, the temperature fluctuating between -18 to -20 degree celsius. Sitting idle in the department, I was browsing the various features of my cell-phone. Well, it does not have a lot of features as the handsets people use nowadays. I am not quite expert in managing gadgets, so I am happy with the simple features which my "old cute" handset provides me.

I was curious to know how many minutes do I have so that I can make a call during daytime. In US, you can make unlimited calls from 9 pm to 7 am on weekdays, and on weekends, its unlimited during the day as well, and more than that, this unlimited time is offered for FREE within US.But in the daytime, you have limited amount of minutes which varies from 300 to 900. Mine is 450. This is one of the very few aspects of this country which I like.

I saw that I have more than 100 minutes left to make calls during daytime, so I was really happy. There are only 3 days remaining for the curent cycle to end, so more than 30 minutes daytime is somewhat really fascinating. Now, I turned my attention to see how many FREE minutes I have utilised. I was "shocked" to see that I have already used 11,000 FREE minutes!!!!!!!!!!!! This is something very unusual, more than that, unbelievable!!!! I have talked over 183 hours in a month, which is over 6 hours a day, and that too after 9 at night!!!! This is something very weird. I wondered about this matter for sometime, and was a little disappointed. I am getting tooo talkative, "a chatter- box."

But then, after a while, I realised the actual scenario. It is not that I have talked so much. All the cell phones here have the facility of 3-way calling, that is, you can call two people at a time. So , if you talk with them for an hour, the phone will record the talk-time as 2 hours . So, that makes my actual talk time to about 6000 minutes, which although big, is not unusual. We usually do have long conferences over phone, 4-5 friends talk together, so everytime, the talk times are doubled for us.

This realisation made me so happy that ----------guess what?????????------- I made a call during the daytime for about half an hour!!!!!!!!!
Dude, you talk tooo much!

Holy Friday

Friday is a very good day for me. I can say that, all over the week, I eagerly wait for friday. The main reason for this is, Friday marks the starting of a weekend------------- which is the time to relax and chat with friends. Well, well, that does not mean that all through the week ( Monday through Friday) I do not relax-----------the usual norm is to relax while you work. But my case is different: I work sometimes while I relax! Workaholics may sue me, but thats how I am, and I wish to remain like this as long as possible.

Anyways, another reason which makes Friday so important is-------once in every two fridays, I get a paycheck from school. Actually, that is the usual custom in almost all the universities here in US. So, the fridays which fetch us dollars, we call those weekends as "Wet Weekends", and those in which we do not get any check, are referred to as "Dry Weekends". This particular Friday is the "holy wet Friday".

But I can tell one thing: weekends were not that joyous when I first came here about 3 years ago. In fact, weekends at that time was a real pain. I did not have a cell phone, nor did I have any computer. I used to wake up early in the morning (because, I was not habituated to sleep till noon when I first came here), and used to sit idle till 10. It was around 11 that the computer labs in the school used to open, and only then, I could get a chance to chat in YM, send emails, read newspapers etc etc. The evening was also no good, sitting alone at home and getting bored to the hilt! It was only after a couple of months that I realised the fun of weekends. In one way, the boredom was good, otherwise I would not relish the weekends as I do now.

I end here with one single note: Hail Holy Friday ---------kaash har friday aisa hota!!!!!
Keep smiling

Potato v/s Spinach

I have never enjoyed cooking, it is a real pain to me. I think that I am the worst cook in this world. So, I do not usually try to go beyond my cooking capabilities, which mostly consists of rice, fried fish(usually rohu, or 'rui') and dal, and once in a while, chicken. But one day, I over-estimated myself, and got into a lot of trouble.
On that "auspicious" day, I went to the grocery shop. I usually do not visit the "frozen food" section. But that day was different. I wandered through the various entries, and my eyes got stuck to a very interesting item: chopped spinach! Back home, I liked this item too much.So, getting nostalgic, I purchased one pack of spinach and happily came back to my apartment.
Now I need the recipe. So I called one of my friends here, and got a recipe from him. Then I was about to start cooking, when another friend of mine called. When he heard that I was "trying to cook" spinach, he adviced me to use some potatoes as well, which my first friend did not tell me.
What I cooked, is not the reason of this post. After an hour, when I was having dinner, the second friend called me again, He asked how was the preparation? Only one sentence I could utter," thanks yaar for your advice, i was lucky that I put the potatoes"!!!! Well, the original words were," bhaggyis aloo ta diyechhilaam!!!!!"

The Beginning

I have created this space only as a way to express my feelings. There comes a number of occasions in life which are memorable in one way or the other. Memories fade away, and as for myself, I have a very weak memory. So this is just a way to preserve my memories. I hope that my current initiative will be long -lasting, if not ever-lasting, because I am a very laid-back person.
At least the beginning is done. Hope that it continues.