TGIF #7: The Snooze Button

Image Source: Mingret

Are you the kind of person who bounces out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off? I am not. Some people cannot wake up until they hear a loud noise which jerks them awake but I prefer a more gentle approach. Most of my alarm tones are soft and melodious and serve to nudge me awake rather than shaking me up. I generally roll around for some, try and bury my head into my pillow and wish the world to go away. But obviously since I have a life, I need to get up eventually. If you are anything like me, then the snooze button on your mobile phone must surely be one of the most used.

Usually I set the alarm to go off about 15 – 20 minutes before the actual time that I might need to wake up. This way once the initial alarm wakes me up, somehow there is a smug sense of satisfaction, knowing that I can sleep an extra 5 or 10 minutes! What’s more I can comfortably doze off again, secure in the knowledge that the alarm will faithfully ring again in a short while. At times when I don’t happen to have my phone with me or if it has simply died as I have forgotten to feed it some life-giving charge, I end up being paranoid – waking up intermittently every 2 minutes into my dozing period and checking the time , afraid that I might have overslept.  Of course, there are also times when I mistakenly press the ‘off’ button instead of the ‘snooze’ in my semi-sleepy state, which then leads to inevitable delays accompanied by inappropriate cursing.

I know that research suggests people are better off without the snooze button as apparently it only makes you sleepier and lethargic. I also realize it probably goes to show the extent of our dependence on machines and gadgets in our day-to-day lives. But hey! It works for me and I’m not complaining! Sometimes we never acknowledge the small and seemingly insignificant things in our lives, that go a long way in making our lives far more comfortable, easy and dare I say lazy too?!. The poor little snooze button is one such thing. Thank God for it! 

TGIF #6: Life

Image Courtesy: Dreamstime

It seems to me that the very fact that we are alive is a miracle. Every day we hear of some disaster, natural or otherwise, claiming thousands of lives. If one part of the world is hiding from hurricanes, another part is shrivelling with famine and poverty. As if these were not enough, we have disillusioned terrorists detonating bombs or gunning down innocent victims. Planes fall out of the sky, trains go off the tracks and cars crash all the time. Wars are fought with utmost zeal and young people are killed off in the name of honour. All this apart from the other huge group dying natural deaths due to sickness or old age. Whew! It looks like the odds are definitely stacked against living!

And yet I am alive. (Touchwood!) 

When there are so many other promising lives being wiped off the face of the earth, I don’t really know why I have been spared. When my life could have been possibly extinguished in a snap, I don’t know why, God or Destiny or the Universe or whatever has thought that it is important for me to still be alive. And that itself should imply that my life is precious.

Have I ever felt depressed? Yes I have. Have there been times when I have thought, “What is this wretched life? I wish it would all just end” Yep. Have I ever felt that nothing is going my way, that all my efforts are useless and that it is just not worth it? Of course. Have there been instances when I was angry and dissatisfied with life? Sure. How many times have I felt that even getting out of bed needed a supreme effort and that it was much better to just lie buried in the depths of my bed-covers instead? Many times.

I am a kind of person who oscillates between two extremes. One day I love everyone and everything and the next day, the feeling of goodwill has magically evaporated. One day I am all happy and pleased and content and the next day, I can’t stop feeling miserable. One day I am floating lightly humming “I’m on top of the world, looking down on creation!” and the next, I am down in the dumps, bitterly cursing and lamenting my fate. You get the drift – I am not really a well-balanced person. (I am still evolving, okay!?)

But since I have chosen today to be thankful, I have made a conscious decision to be a better person. I realize that I am special – because I have been blessed with a most special gift – a beautiful life. Replete with laughter and dreams. Yes it is not all rosy and enchanted; there are tears, tantrums, disappointments, pain and heartache too. But today I choose to look at the brighter side, at the silver lining. Today, much out of my basic character, I choose to look at the glass half full.

Therefore this Friday,  I am indeed thankful for the gift of Life! Both mine and your's - because without your's, what meaning would there be to mine?

TGIF #5: Capable Of Doing Many Things Competently Makes Me?

 It seems August is my lucky month! Won 2 competitions – one where I work and one about which I wrote here. Not only that, my blog has won 2 awards too! Isn’t that awesome?! I don’t know if Sunil noticed all my bragging when I won my first blog award but he was brave enough to give me the second one! It is great to know that he thinks I am a versatile blogger! So for this 'Thank God Its Friday Feature', my thanks goes to Sunil – am so flattered :-)

Actually Sunil sent this award my way a few days back but unlike my first award this one entitled me to do some work! So lazy me is putting it up only now ;-)

So for the first part of the award, I am supposed to say 7 facts about me. I have already blabbered a whole lot about me on this blog, but still due to popular demand (hehe!) here goes:

(1) I was born prematurely. I was soooo impatient to stay in my mummy’s tummy that I popped out in 7 months flat. So when I was born it seems that the docs gave me only 50% chance of survival. But I guess I decided that there was no getting rid of me so quickly and managed to hold on with my itty-bitty fingers! I am proud of the fighting spirit that I had ;-)

(2) Continuing from the above point- I still am a very impatient person. I can’t bear to wait, I want everything now! And I fight a lot too!

(3) I hate over-possessiveness in any kind of relationship. I find it stifling and restrictive. Some people seem to think that a person is overly possessive of you because they love and care for you a lot. Sorry, but I disagree. I think that it simply means that they are insecure and have an inferiority complex.

(4) I love to write and sometimes it seems as if I just can’t stop writing. Ideas and words keep flowing non-stop that I don’t even have the time to jot everything down. And yet at times, I can think of absolutely nothing to write about. In fact that is why I even wrote about nothing here.

(5) I cook quite well (if I may say so) and I find it mildly annoying that many people are quite surprised about this. I can’t see why people should be surprised about that and I detest lame jokes like “Oh what can you cook well? Hot water?” Seriously? Not funny. Do I look like somebody who can’t cook or what??!

(6) While on the topic of food, my all-time favourite dish is hot and spicy Chicken 65. It sounds totally uncool, I have no idea about its origins and I don’t even know if it is available in other parts of India. In case you want more info, check out this mad video! Laugh but please don’t curse me!

(7) I prefer British English to American English. I try to write in British English but sometimes I muddle up both of them.

Was that some interesting trivia about me? So now moving onto the second part of the award. Although I have been blogging for 3.6 years I joined blogging networks only a couple of months back. So I am relatively new to blog-networking and it looks like most of the people I read have already won gazillion well-deserved awards! So after a lot of research, here are some of the blogs which I feel should be awarded 'The Versatile Blogger' *Drumroll*:

Namrata Mahalingam from Complicated Life. I think her posts are so simply, yet refreshing.
Ashwini from Just The Way I Like: Her posts make me laugh and she is a fellow Chennaite! No no I am not biased-it is just that she writes a lot about things that happen in Chennai and so I can relate so well with it!
Arpitha from Me-ing: I love her "don't give a damn!" attitude. One spunky gal!

I am still discovering more and more interesting blogs and surely this list will keep growing. I also notice that my list has only women. Well, I just can't help it! I like reading women's blogs, sorry guys! So for now, this is it and I hope that all you 3 lovely ladies will accept this award and keep the tradition going :-)

TGIF #4: Seasons

Growing up in India, especially South India and more specifically Chennai, one would be aware of a single climatic condition: Hot. As the joke goes, Chennai has only 3 seasons – Hot, Hotter, and Hottest! Okay it rains sometime in-between, a keenly observant eye might notice fresh new growth sprouting after the rains and maybe December nights have a slight nip in the air. But apart from that, the weather is generally nearly the same throughout the year, although the mercury does soar to unbearable heights during April/May.

Coming from such a backdrop, I feel truly blessed to have had the chance to experience the different seasons first-hand during my travels. The melting snow and impatient plants that push their way out and pop up eagerly herald the arrival of Spring. Everyone is relieved that Winter is finally over even though Spring also brings with it a lot of seasonal allergies and very slippery pavements!

When I used to read in books something like, “It was a clear summer day and the sun was shining down brightly, with not a cloud in the blue sky. It was such a fine day for a picnic.”, I always used to wonder how can such a day possibly be a nice day? Because in my experience, such a day is almost always sweltering and humid and sticky and plain irritating! But then I actually realized how lovely Summer days are in some other countries which experience the full gamut of seasons. Everything is so bright, sparkly and cheery that it is almost impossible to feel gloomy and you can’t help but skip along merrily humming a happy tune to yourself!

And then Autumn comes calling with a plethora of big, fat pumpkins and luscious, juicy apples! This is by far my favourite time of the year (and mind you, I don’t even like apples!). I know that Fall officially signals the end of life and most of the vegetation is shedding leaves and preparing for the bitter winter to descend on them, but somehow I love Autumn. The sun shines down so brightly that if you were indoors you might be fooled into thinking that it is actually warm outside! But no! There is a crisp and chilly wind playing with my hair but it is not freezing cold as Winter. It is as if Nature, in a wildly passionate moment, whipped out her palette and starting splashing the Earth randomly with every colour imaginable! Deep red, rich gold, striking orange, glowing bronze, shocking scarlet – the world seems simply ablaze with colour that it compels you to pause for a moment and just take it all in. How can anyone not like Fall?! The only people I can imagine are the sweepers and cleaners as they might have to end up sweeping away a lot of falling leaves!

It makes roads treacherous, people just never want to leave their warm beds and go out for anything and even if they do, they end up getting stuck in snow. But none of this can ever take away the awe and amazement that would fill every South Indian who witness his/her first snowfall in Winter. Everything is going along jolly well and one fine day you look out the window, only to find the entire landscape magically transformed as if by the sugar fairy! All the griminess and grubbiness is artfully covered up and it is surprising that a landscape solely having shades of just two colours, black and white can be so breathtakingly beautiful. The whole place seems like one gigantic iced cake that it is almost surreal. Watching the softly falling snowflakes twirling to the ground so silently fills be with wonder and to think that no two snowflakes are exactly alike, my God! Isn’t that simply mind-blowing?! If instead of gentle snowflakes, you happen to have a snow storm raging outside with the wind howling outrageously through every nook and cranny making your teeth chatter uncontrollably and giving you shivers up and down your spine, well what better time than now to snuggle up with a steaming bowl of chicken soup and an interesting book or with your better half, whichever you prefer!

And then the whole cycle repeats itself like clockwork. I know that there are many people who don’t like routines. But strangely, I happen to like routines. I like it that there is a particular order to my day and thereby my Life itself. I like it that I am aware of what is going to happen next and that I know what I am supposed to be doing at a particular point of time. Although I would be the first to admit that Life is what happens when one is busy planning for it, I am content with atleast having the illusion that perhaps I am in control of my Life, however slight it may be. Yes I do appreciate a break in the monotony now and then, but broadly speaking, never changing and constant routines make me feel safe, even though I aware that it may well be a false sense of security. I feel that the Seasons serve to remind me that there is indeed a pattern to be followed. That if Autumn comes then so will Winter and no matter how much inches of snow your car is buried under, eventually Spring will melt all that away and the sun will start shining again to bring you new life. It is an eternal cycle or circle if you wish, of Life and it fills me with quintessential hope and faith.

And therefore, this Friday, I thank God for all the beautiful Seasons that choose to grace this wonderful world.
So what's your favourite season?

Image Courtesy: Dreamstime

TGIF #4: My First Blog Award!

It is said that Archimedes got a brilliant brainwave, while stepping into his bath and promptly went running around the streets, shouting ‘Eureka!” to one and all. I know that some people get their bright ideas while sitting on the potty. I get mine (ideas, not potty) when I am drifting in a semi-conscious state, wavering between sleep and wakefulness. Now, this of course means that by the next morning when I wake up, I would have forgotten half of the ideas that I had thought up, thus depriving this world of potentially huge and path-breaking intellectual insights. (Ahem! Ahem!)

Anyway so last night, there I was, snuggled up in my cozy bed, listening to my husband’s snores, thinking about what to write today for the TGIF feature. I could envision a couple of nice ideas and so fell into a deep and satisfied slumber. Today, I sharpened my pencils (Ok Ok! Can’t I just use a figure of speech?! )and when I opened up my blog to write a post, what do I see? A comment from Sujatha. Ta-Da! Abstract Admissions has won it’s very first blog award folks!

Now if I don’t thank God and Sujatha and the wonderful blogging community out here, wouldn’t that just be an unforgivable crime?! So thanks a bunch Sujatha for your generosity in giving me this award as well as for your fantastic blog, which makes for some very interesting reading!

Also, give yourself a small pat on the back, dear readers and followers, coz now you have solid (well actually virtual)proof that you have not wasted your time, but have rather been reading one lovely blog indeed!

Image Courtesy: Dreamstime

TGIF #3: Breaking Dawn

First, a disclaimer to all Twilight fans. No I will NOT be thanking God for the Twilight series.

Second, a disclaimer to my parents, brother, husband and in-laws who might be reading this post. I know that you all would probably roll your eyes heavenwards and burst out laughing if I say that I am going to write about dawn. But please bear with me.

As I have said before I love my beauty sleep and am no early-riser. The warm bed, the cozy blankets, the soft pillow - all hold me in their loving trance and I have to try mighty hard to untangle myself from their comforting embraces. In fact, many times, I have felt relieved that I didn't have a Hindu wedding. As many Tamil Hindu weddings take place really early in the morning, surely I would have fallen asleep while the mangalsutra is being tied ;-) Usually my mood is pretty sour if I am woken up early-which is hardly ever and then too only upon force under dire circumstances. But maybe, it is precisely because of the fact that I experience the breaking of dawn so rarely, that I also appreciate the inherent beauty of it.

I believe that living in glass enclosed spaces in high-rises cuts one off from the changes that happen ever so subtly during the break of a new day. After all sitting in an air-conditioned room with the curtains closed – who can say what time of day it is without looking at the clock? One can perhaps, hope to catch a glimpse of a new day if you are blessed with a balcony or private terrace or simply lean out of the windows. But if I close my eyes and think about breaking dawn, here are some of the associated things that pop into my mind’s eye.

A sense of the whole earth being slowly nudged awake by a cool, refreshing breeze, not yet warmed up by the Sun and not yet sullied by grimy exhaust fumes. The Sun itself, creeping stealthily above the horizon, sending out testy feeler-rays in advance, to check if indeed all is well. The skies transforming from an inky blue-black to deep oranges and golden yellows, couching the promise of a colourful day in dreamy, wispy clouds. Wise crows, cawing raucously and going about their business intently, bent on proving to everyone that early birds do indeed catch the worms. The mystical and melodious “ko-kooo!” of the koel hidden in the gently rustling leaves of the neighbourhood trees. Squirrels squeaking loudly, friskily jumping about and bounding off helter-skelter with their bushy tails held up disdainfully. The “krrr krrr!” of stick-brooms sweeping away debris at every doorstep, followed by quick, short “chalap chalap!” of water being splashed about accompanied by the intoxicating smell of damp earth.

A pressure cooker whistling merrily in the distance, signaling to a busy mom getting her child frantically ready for school, that the idlis are done for breakfast. The “triiingg triiingg!” of the newspaper delivery boy’s cycle bell as he goes around hurtling newspapers like deadly hand grenades. The gruff “kaaaiii mmmmaaa kaaaiiiii!” of the vegetable vendor who comes visiting with her basket of fresh vegetables balanced precariously on her head and a voice grown coarse over years of such shouting. The "tink tink tinkling" of prayer bells shaking vigorously by a devotee, as if he is trying to awaken God himself, afraid that his prayers might fall on sleeping ears. The aroma of fresh brewed filter coffee. Straining your ears involuntarily to listen to that faint sound of a song playing in someone’s house or in the nearby tea shop, which then proceeds to lodge adamantly in your brain, repeating itself over and over in a never-ending loop.

And then suddenly, in the blink of an eye, everything vanishes. School buses come rudely blowing their horns and stepping on the accelerators, people rush off hurriedly to their respective jobs, the Sun blazes down from a clear blue sky so angrily that even the few gentle clouds have been scared away, the air grows increasingly humid, heavy and hot, squeezing out tiny drops of perspiration on your forehead, the newspapers whose folds where not disturbed even by grenade-throwing actions, now lie sadly in a crumpled and soiled heap, the idlis and coffee are long gone with only dirty tumblers and plates with remnants of tiny, white idli crumbs and chutney smears remaining to prove that they ever existed in the first place.

As if by magic. As if it was all only an illusion created by an evil temptress to trick you into believing that for a moment there you were in Paradise, when in reality you were just another mere mortal, placed on this earth for purposes yet unknown.

But fret not. Because no matter how improbable it may seem, somehow, somewhere, there will always be a fresh start, a new beginning. There will always be a new dawn that reaches out and touches you and simply speaks to your soul, in a language that has no words; filling you with hope, reinforcing your beliefs and reassuring you of the goodness and greatness of God. In Scarlett O'Hara's words, "Tomorrow is another day".

Thank God for every new dawn!

Okay, now let me go and brush my teeth.

Image Courtesy: Dreamstime.

TGIF #2: Good Samaritans

We were going to this mall the other day and while walking towards the Metro, I was stopped by a lady tourist, who was going to the same mall. She had no clue as to which train to take and seeing the cool, confident and suave me (Ahem! Ahem!), she approached me for guidance. I told her that we were also going to the same place and she gladly tagged along.

Firstly thank God she was going to the same place that we were. I am pathetic at giving directions. Once I was walking to my school and a car slowed down by me to ask directions to go to another school which was just next to mine. I couldn’t explain although I knew the place but I was eager to help. My parents had repeatedly warned me to beware of strangers and I was wary of getting into the car with the driver. So I confidently told him that I was also going to the same place and he could follow me! I don’t know what the driver thought, but the poor fellow did follow me in his car for the next couple of blocks at a snail’s pace!

So Kirsten, this lady I was talking about, is a South African Animation Specialist - pretty chatty and has a beautiful smile where her eyes crinkle up when she grins! When I told her that we were from India, she asked me which part and informed us that she had visited Mumbai and Delhi! The train was crowded and we had no place to sit. All three of us stood and gaily yapped away about this and that - well, actually she did most of the talking. She had come to Dubai on a last minute trip for her “baby sis’s” wedding! Arranged marriages, the Caste system, Astrology , Work, How I met My Husband were just some of the topics discussed in the short span of 30 minutes!

When we arrived at the mall, she was met by her (South African?)friend who on hearing that we were Indians, promptly greeted us with “aap kaisa hai?”. When I said that I was from South India, he then said “vanakkam!” Pretty charming, is it not!? Anyway then they went on their path and we went on ours.

We were running a little late for the movie that we had planned to catch and we had to drop into the library too. So my husband and I split up, with me choosing to go to the library and he to buy the movie tickets. We didn’t actually decide where we would meet up, as I thought that we could call each other, once our respective jobs were done. So I happily finished my books browsing and when I whipped out my phone to call, it was dead. I had charged it the whole day but I’ve been having a few problems with it lately and apparently one such problem was that the battery wouldn’t last for more than a couple of hours.

I went to the theater (or cinema if you will!) hoping to catch my husband there but he was nowhere in sight. I stood around wondering what to do (whatever happened to PCO booths?!). I then spied two Keralite Muslim women accompanied by a man strolling around. So I approached them and explaining myself, requested to use their phone to call my husband. I guess they were initially taken aback but they obliged. I made a quick call and let my husband know where I was and we were happily reunited in a few minutes.

I know that my no means were we in any kind of disastrous situation. If this kind stranger had not lent me his phone, maybe someone else might have. Or my husband and I would have been running around for a couple of hours trying to locate each other. (But by this point, my heels were already killing me. How on earth do people manage walking in high heels, let alone dance in them?!). Or eventually, I could have just hailed a cab and come home, hoping that my husband might do the same.

But we would have most definitely missed our movie, wasted a lot of time and energy and probably cursed each other. In short our day would have been spoiled. But instead, because of that good Samaritan, we had a pleasant time together. I’d like to think that my small little good deed earlier in the day earned me some good karma. As they say, what goes around comes around , eh?!

So today I thank all the good Samaritans out there, who have helped me in any way, big or small. (BTW does everyone know the history behind the phrase "Good Samaritan"?) I remember, when I was a kid, I used to go to a creche after school. Having too many kids around me was too great a temptation and instead of having my afternoon nap, I used to happily play with all the other kids. This resulted in my nodding off, sitting on the backseat of my dad’s scooter when he picked me up and took me home. If not for the numerous passersby who alerted my dad time and time again, “Paapa thoonguthu!” meaning “Baby is sleeping!”, I would have probably, slept and fell off the bike and seriously hurt myself.

There must be loads of people whom I have asked directions to go somewhere. The many people who have helped me lug my luggage through the many airports, when I teeter around with bag, baggage, coat, passport, ticket, book et al. And the people who have helped me shove my usually-heavily-over-loaded-bursting-at-the-seams hand luggage to the overhead compartments, without dropping it on the heads of the poor unsuspecting passengers seated below. These people were neither my friends nor family, or even acquaintances I vaguely knew. They were strangers. It wasn’t their job to help me. But they did. I would have probably managed to survive without their help. But the truth is however inconsequential their help seemed to be, it made my life slightly more tolerable; a tad bit easier. It made this world, a little brighter and a little better.

My thanks to all those good Samaritans out there! May I too find it in me to pass on all the good deeds that I receive!

Image Courtesy: www.dreamstime.com

TGIF #1: Weekends

Well, first things first. I ask you, what is the point in saying TGIF without being thankful for weekends. Right?

Over the years, my weekends have varied a bit. In school, we used to have Saturdays & Sundays off while in college it was Sundays & Mondays. In a former life, while working as an IT professional it went back to Saturdays & Sundays. Later on when I wasn’t working, all days were weekends! Currently I have Fridays and Saturdays off.

The first thing that comes to my mind when someone mentions weekends is... sleep! I get to sleep a few extra hours! I’m a sleepaholic so yay for that! My husband is exactly the opposite. On weekdays he moans and groans and grumbles to get up but on weekends, he is up bright and early and is pottering about long before I drag myself out of bed. (Sometimes I need to be bribed with a hot cuppa coffee too. Mrs.N S don’t cringe - coffee is good for you;-)) This weekend, we are going to drop in at the library (Yes I am also such a nerd) and then go watch Harry Potter! So yay for that too :-)

But more than anything else I am grateful for weekends because my husband and I get more time to spend with each other. The whole week goes by with him slaving away at office and me cooped up by myself within the four walls of our apartment (as I work from home). Whether we go anywhere or do something useful is immaterial. It just feels nice to simply be with each other.

Apart from that, I also think that in this busy-busy world, all of us need to pause and spare a moment to “smell the roses”; and this is where weekends come in - After all even God rested on the 7th day so hey, who am I to argue?! On that note, I will leave you with a lovely poem I learnt in school (Don’t I have a good memory!?) called Leisure (In fact, I even remember that this was when I came to know that it was pronounced Lee-sure and not Ley-sure)

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

- William Henry Davies

Image Courtesy: www.dreamstime.com

A Fresh Perspective & A New Approach

The downside of having a creatively satisfying job is that I don’t blog that often as I used to. Usually when I go for a short period of time without expressing myself creatively, I have this compelling urge to blog. But having that urge met by my digital publishing job as well as my travel consultant one (now, now, don't be jealous!), I find that I am neglecting my personal space over here. Obviously lack of new and interesting content translates to a drop in the number of people visiting Abstract Admissions. And let me be honest. I do like having many people - some whom I know personally and some whom I don’t – read my (brilliant!) thoughts, laugh at my (witty) jokes, nod at my clever (!) insights and generally appreciate this little corner of mine in the vast and ever-widening blogosphere. I get so excited when someone drops a new comment and I am thrilled to hear from someone about their opinion on my blog. In fact, sometimes it even surprises me that there are other people out there who like reading what I write :-)

So this being the state of affairs, I decided that my blog needed more focused attention. Therefore from this week onwards, I intend to blog regularly atleast twice a week. For maintaining this discipline, I thought of choosing a couple of particular subjects that I can talk/write about every week. I pondered over Tip Tuesdays, but frankly I really don’t know any great tips and I would probably be shelling out some rather lame advice which everyone already knows anyway. I thought of Sexy Saturdays, but well, let’s just say that my knowledge is pretty limited there too ;-) Whiny Wednesdays? Nah, I crib too much already, without even having an allocated day for my complaining! After bouncing around many such great (!) ideas I finally settled on two: Wednesday Wishlist and TGIF.

Wednesday Wishlist, as the name suggests is for me to share anything that I yearn for. (No, not just 3 wishes-that is only if you are a genie). If you think that I am being a spoilt, greedy and ungrateful brat, think again. This is where Thank God Its Friday comes into the picture. Every Friday, I am going to count my blessings and write about one thing that I am thankful for.

So there! With this new (to me) approach, I hope to maintain a steady blogging pace. This would help me in improving my writing skills and help you read interesting (Yes I know I think too much of myself ;-)) stuff! Plus it would help me live a more meaningful life by truly realizing how blessed I am and help you lead a meaningful life by making you realize... er, what are the things that you could possibly gift me ;-) Smart, huh?!

Image Courtesy: www.dreamstime.com