Happy Birthday!

I know I wrote a post just yesterday. But I had to write another one now to tell this...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RAFA...



Here is wishing u success in the next 5 French Open tournaments!!! You are a champion and will always remain one! :-)

ITMARK Me

The past weekend was one that made me extremely happy – a weekend filled with hugs and kisses from my family – mom, sister, cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents – it made me very happy to meet so many relatives after a long time. I had a great time – cousins pulling my legs, talking about everything from movies to cricket to hot gossips! It was the perfect weekend…

When everything is going great guns in my life, there were a few moments which made me go “What’s wrong with me?” All such moments were because of my work place practices. It amazed me to know how much it has changed the real Me.

Things to prove I am an ITMARK (IT equivalent of AGMARK) software engineer.

1. I was at the ‘Sadabhishekam’ of my grandparents and there was so much smoke coming from the homa-gundam; I started wondering why the smoke-detectors work only during fire evacuation drills.
2. The other day, when I returned home from work, instead of inserting the key into the key-hole and turning it, I reached for my ID card to swipe it to open the door and wondered where the swipe machine went.
3. I stay far away from my mom and always talk to her over phone. Now she is in Chennai and for calling out to her when she was in the kitchen, I shouted “hello amma” instead of “amma”.
4. I write “Pls do let me know if there are further concerns” in personal mails.
5. My idea of flirting has become, “Which technology did you say you are working on?” (No wonder the cute guy next door runs like crazy in the opposite direction when he sees me walking towards him)
6. I am in a Production Support project wherein we resolve any ‘ticket’ raised by the user when they face any issue with the data in the database/in the application. It made me nervous when my friend said, “I have ‘tickets’ for the concert”. I started thinking about how to resolve it.
7. My roomie was looking for one of her DVDs and asked all of us to search for it and I said, “I’ll google it right away” without thinking. I was glared at by all of them.

God help me!!!

Aaarrrggghhhhh...

I caught a severe cold from my friend and have been making strange noises (read: like a frog during mating season) for almost a week now and no amount of milk with turmeric powder and pepper has made it any better. I have become the butt of so many jokes that my room mates are planning to publish a collection of such instances.

The house I stay in is a big one divided into 6 portions – 3 in the ground floor, 2 in the first floor and 1 in the 2nd floor. I and my friends live in the ground floor. One of the other houses in the ground floor is occupied by 6 Telugu-speaking guys (hereafter referred to as the “guys”) and the other ground floor house has a Bengali husband and wife (21 yr old girl, just married, can speak only Bengali, no English, butler Hindi). The house owner stays in one of the first floor portions. The motor switch is inside the owner’s house and my owner aunty has a big problem with her hearing (she has a hearing-aid, but I have never seen her using it).

Now, our house and the guys’ house are separated by only a thin wall and we can hear whatever they are singing (which is not very pleasant to hear, trust me). During the IPL, they were staunch supporters of the Deccan Chargers while we were supporting Chennai Super Kings. On the day of the first semi-final – between the Deccan Chargers and the Delhi Daredevils (in which Gilchrist showed no mercy on any of the DD bowlers), I had a chat with one of the guys. He was obviously very happy about Gilchrist’s form and told me DC will win the cup. I was super confident about Dhoni and Co. that I told him, “No way, CSK are gonna win. Last time we came so close. This time we are not leaving without the cup.” Sigh!!!! We didn’t even make it to the Finals. The next day (after Chennai lost to Bangalore) when we met again, he gave me a sarcastic smirk. I should have been furious, but I didn’t coz, let’s face it, the guy was cute!!! ;-)

My room mate is travelling to the U.S. for a couple of months and we wanted to make her feel how much we were going to miss her, so we decided to treat her and let her pay the bill (ok, I can hear that “idhellam oru pozhappah?”)… We decided to keep it simple (month-end, you see) and agreed upon ordering pizza. I was given the task of calling up Pizza Hut and placing the order.

Pizza Hut Guy (PHG): Hello, Pizza Hut. I am Nixon, how can I help you?
Me: Hello! I am Sandhya. I am calling from Tiruvanmiyur. I wanna order pizza for four people.
PHG: Could you please repeat your name again?
Me: He can’t even get my name right. OMG, how am I gonna tell him what Pizza, what toppings and everything? I am Sandhya.
PHG: Ms. Sandhya, can you please give the phone to someone else (veetla periyavanga yaaru kittayavudhu phone-ah kudu paappa)
Me: ?!??!??!?

:-( :-( :-(