Tuesday, February 27, 2007

I want to play in the snow...And I'm gonna

I have started getting used to the temperatures here this week, walking out more often and keeping my body warm without having to resort to shivering. My nose doesn't start flowing like it used to, about a month ago. Everything is much more beautiful when you look up straight instead of looking down trying to protect your face from the cold wind. So every day as I see more and more of it, I realize what fun I'm missing. The freshly fallen snow looks very beautiful during the day, no doubt, but it also looks very beautiful from inside your house at nights. The snow reflects a lot of light. It reflects the moon and any and every other light source. That makes the nights so much brighter. It doesn't seem like its past sunset. Its as if the sun just stopped there. you have to see it to realize how awesome it is.

Then there are the man made attractions in snow. I have seen quite a few snow mans in front of various houses on my way to and from college. I have seen people making them. I have seen little caves dug into the snow. Playing with snow is really a lot of fun. I remember when I went up north in India, I had a blast! considering those were my first two times seeing snow. But its not like the desire to do all those things has died. I just am a little too cold most of the times that I step outside. I think the reason has something to do with metabolism and blood ph levels. I had looked it up once and found that more acidic(or was it basic) blood keeps you warmer so you should eat the stuff which makes your blood more acidic(or basic whichever the case may be.)

But the desire to go play is becoming more overpowering since the last few days. I saw two very little kids playing by themselves in the backyard the other day. And today I saw shawn playing snowball fight with two other kids right in front of the house. I had talked to arjun bhaiya a few days ago and he said if he was in my place, he would have done it the first time it snowed. So I got inspired to dare to do this. But this realization is coming at a time when I'm preoccupied with another task at hand. My portfolio submission. But I will do it as soon as I get back from college after all the procedures are finished on Thursday itself. And for the first time I want spring to be delayed for atleast two more days.

Monday, February 26, 2007

My Experiment with food

The first one that got published
Now, I woke up at 10 am after being awake till 3 am working on my portfolio and not getting much done for a reason not concerning this blog. I knew I have to make the most of the time I have in these 3 days so I went down to get a fix of caffeine. I finished my coffee slowly, looking out he glass door, it was snowing outside. Been snowing a lot since yesterday. And everything was starting to look so much more beautiful again. After the coffee was over, I decided heck, lets have something for breakfast too. Then came my most dreaded moment, picking what to eat. I am so frustrated of having the same things to eat always. "No matter how much things change, they always remain the same," was what came to mind.

I finally decided to have a tortilla. They are also called wraps but basically, they are just rotis. This one was made of 100 % whole wheat it said on the package. I never did like its smell. Eating it was not out of liking or I missed indian food and it tasted like Indian food. In reality, it didn't taste anything like indian food when I had it so many times before. I had microwaved it, I had roasted it on gas in a pan(and even managed to burn the underside and make it into a crispy papad) Now don't tell that part to my mom. She's just not supposed to know it ok? That day was when I was gonna post my first "experiments with food" post. So today too, it was gonna be a horrible breakfast, that I was certain of.

So to not make a fuss about it and get it over with, I put it in the microwave on a plate and watched it inflate as it cooked for about a minute. I took it out and first thing I did was to pick it up off the plate because it was all soggy from below. That's how the pizzas get too. And that's probably the only thing I hate about microwaves. Then I decided to butter it up while it was still warm. And just when I ran my spoon of butter over it, I realized what had happened. I picked it up and bent it and it broke in two halves with a click. or crack or whatever sound u wanna hear. It had become dry and crispy like a papad. But it wasn't meant to be a papad. And it certainly didn't taste like a papad. I took one bite and decided enough is enough! Threw it in the dust bin and geared up to cook something really appetizing and satisfying.

I put my brain to it and figured, last time I cooked it, I didn't have any ghee or butter but this time I do. I could use the butter to cook it like a paratha. And I put all The butter I had scooped out into the pan and let it warm up. I then put the tortilla on it and waited for it to get a little more warmed up. I didn't want to take chance of letting it get charcoaled like last time, so I was flipping it over at constant intervals, pressing down on it at certain places if I thought it wasn't buttered up properly. In a little while, I started seeing it getting brown. I was so happy! The familiar colour that I had long missed. It was even soft and oily. Not crisp and dry like before. Now I knew this was a kinda pre-cooked bread, so didn't want to overcook it and took it off before long. I didn't cook a second one as I wanted to "verify" that my experiment had succeeded.

And it did. I really enjoyed my breakfast and was very happy about it too. Then I thought I'd do it tonight too so I didn't put the pan in the sink and ran upstairs to write about the success of my procedure. But don't tell this to my mom, it'll be embarassing. Parathas anyone?

Monday, February 19, 2007

Lacross match

I knew I was running behind on my projects but I would have regretted not going more than I regret not having my assignments done by yesterday because I have some time after tomorrow to complete my assignments but I would not have gotten another opportunity to go to watch a lacrosse match downtown anytime soon again. It was an amazing experience and I can't help but take time out of my "busy" schedule to blog about this. First big news of the day, I HAD A BATH! yay! heh... two days ago, I skipped a bath because of suju, She came online just about an hour before class and I decided to stick around to chat with her. The next day I woke up at 10! I was already late for class...I just changed my stinkin tee and ran to class hoping nobody else comes too close to me.

So after having a nice hot shower and shaving my stubble I had my lunch, two muffins and a banana. And that's when the idea for my surreal painting hit me. I would draw a muffin eating a guy. I then thought how was a muffin related? what does it signify if at all... so I figured it has to be a burger. Since people are relating junk food with obesity, diabetes and death. What a time to have a eureka moment. Because couldn't have gone to the college and painted it then. The idea would have to be kept on hold till tomorrow. And now to get back to the topic.

I took a coke bottle out of the basement and put it in the refrigerator to take to the game. But I didn't know that they didn't allow outside foodstuff in there. Someone should have told me about it while we were leaving. DAMN! The drive downtown was a long one, but watching everything on the way was pretty exciting for me. As soon as I saw the CN tower, I was impatient to get as close to it as possible. I had my eyes constantly set on it. There were so many other things, I hardly remember them all, I just wish I had some camera so that I could share it with my friends. Well, soon, some day for sure. How about on Saturday when we're going for skating. Mr. Kelly said its going to be around the same place. So keep coming back at my flickr and yahoo galleries.

The stadium was amazing-even though it was the "smallest one". The environment and excitement there is amazing. The music is really energetic and gets you high no matter what mood you're in. And I'm not saying high as in getting drunk on alcohol. I mean high in spirits. Now if you didn't get the difference between the two, you're hopeless. There are four big LCD screens right in the center that beamed live footage from the camera. And before the game had begun, the cameras were capturing the audience in the stadium. That was definitely one of the high points of the day. It was so exciting for the people who were featured to be on that big screen there and for me to try and spot where they were actually sitting. I hoped I would get shown on the big screen too, but I wasn't lucky enough.

I was sitting between Brandon and Shawn and Mr. Kelly was to Shawn's side. whenever toronto rocks would make a goal, Brandon would hit shawn. He was even playing around with him in the car all the way to the stadium and (almost all the way.i think) back home. I can tell they both had fun. I remember I was also like that till a few years back. I couldn't sit quiet for a few minutes around arjun bhaiya and constantly had to disturb him and piss him off real bad. well, maybe some day when I'm more comfortable with him. But for the time being, I'll just suffice with hi-5 es and knuckle bumps.

I wasn't even lucky enough to win one of the other goodies like a teeshirt or a pizza from pizza pizza. I didn't see anybody else in my section get anything so I just guess it was a bad position. I just checked the ticket stub today and saw that it had the price quoted on it too, otherwise I wouldn't have gone and asked Mr. Kelly how much did the tickets cost after the game. But he's really nice, he said I didn't have to pay for it and it was worth 21.25 dollars! While driving back, I almost fell asleep. it was a long and smooth drive and shawn and brandon went very quiet for a few minutes. That gave me a sign that I needed to catch up on my sleep and not stay up so late. But that doesn't make a difference as I AM gonna stay up till 11 today watching heroes. So, I guess I must try and finish my painting today. gotta go. Take care.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Free Pizza day!

Today, a really pleasing and "satisfying" incident happened at the pizzeria in college. The one that's right next to "the cage". After painting, we usually played basketball on Thursdays so I asked Freddy if he's like to go to the gym again today. He said he was hungry and would like to have a slice of pizza first so we headed towards the student union. Freddy went ahead and ordered a slice. I was not really hungry and not gonna order a pizza, but I thought why not and said gimme a slice too. She tool both the slices left in the pan and put them on my plate. I was a little confused what she was doing, I said to her again, I wanted only one slice. She said its ok, take it, its closing time and we want to get rid of these. WOW!

Freddy wasn't even sure I could finish both the slices. These are not the usual size we have in India, these are much bigger slices I'll have u know. But I was desperate to finish them. I just love the pizzas and I could eat them till my stomach bursts out! So we sat there and I gobbled down the pizza like I hadn't eaten in days. Well, actually, I hadn't eaten anything since last night. Suju was online in the morning just when I was about to go get ready to go to the college so I sat there chatting with her instead of brushing my teeth, having a bath( how long has it been since the previous bath???) and eating breakfast.

But now, I was too stuffed to play basketball with him so I just left him near he bookstore and we both went our separate ways. I chatted with peter for a while after that and he said I should buy a lottery ticket today. I wasn't very keen on lottery thing because I am never that lucky. I never win anything. So he asked me to give him some numbers. That reminded me of the lost episode where the fat guy winds lottery on cursed numbers. HAH! But he hadn't seen the episode before so it didn't make any difference. well, anyways. Maybe some of you guys had seen it and will get a kick out of it.

Friday, February 09, 2007

Roti and aloo ki sabji after such a long time!

Today, I have to thank Freddy and his friend because of which I got a chance to have Indian food after so many days. And here I want to make it clear chooda and papad don't exactly count because I mean cooked meal. As always, our 2d class was left early so we had loads of time on our hand. I was gonna have a slice of pizza at the cage today so asked if Freddy wanted to come along. I also had to stop at the bookstore and get The book "creating characters with personality by Tom Bancroft. But as we headed towards the bookstore, Freddy spotted his friend standing near the tables where students and faculty from the glass designing stream had displayed their wares for sale.

Freddy talked to her and she said that she was hungry too and wanted to eat roti at this place nearby. I most readily agreed. After all, we had almost two hours at hand. She said she`ll just need to go put some stuff in her studio so we went upstairs to the third year animation studio. This was the first time that I actually went in there. The place seemed like heaven to me. Each student is assigned his own desk where he can work on the lightboxes or take out their laptops and work on that if they liked.Going to that place made me even more desperate to get into the animation course here. I could have stayed there and ogled at the place and the other student`s works for hours but we had to leave for lunch.

Freddy is one big forgetful guy. Because he forgot where he had parked his car and we were out in the cold for almost 10 minutes looking for it. But the torture finally ended and we drove down to the restraunt and picked up our rotis and went to Tae`s place.

"So...this is what a student's apartment looks like"

Heh, I didn't really mind all that garbage around me considering that I`m surrounded by such creative people and so much animation related stuff to ogle at. She had her own homemade lightbox and a pc, loads of posters covering the wall, a television, game console, notice boards with drawings all over. God that was overwhelming. I'm surprised I didn't forget to breathe and die there. The meal was pretty satisfying and more. I couldn't finish it all up and had to throw the rest of it. If I didn't have college after that, I'd have taken it home and put it into the refrigerator to eat some other day. well, it was only 5 dollars. The non-veg ones were as expensive as 8 or 10 dollars. But I really feel I should try those out the next time. Well, I`m gonna tell this to my parents over the phone as soon as I can and now I`ll end the entry.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Its a bad week or something really!

I don't know what curse has descended upon me or is it the house itself, but I've totally managed to wreak havoc all over! I wonder what my landlord thinks of me...I must be like Dennis the menace for him. A constant pin in the ass. But he`s too good to let me know about it and that makes me feel even more guilty. I wish I could make it upto him somehow.

The other night I was very tired and wanted to just go to bed as soon as possible. Thats why I didn't give it a second thought when the cord that I pulled to turn off the light didn't snap back up like it always did. The next morning when I pulled it, it won't budge. And the light won't get turned on either! Oh GOD! why? I was so damn nervous but I had to run off to college, it was a wednesday so class started at 12 but today we were supposed to be there earlier for something. When I finally finished my college and got back home, I was very tired to care so I just went straight to bed again. Mr. Kelly was downstairs playing poker with friends. He probably didn't notice I was gone.

Then again I woke up this morning to see the phone in the kitchen saying extension in use. That was odd since I didn't hear anybody talking in the house and He usually never gets up so early. There was something wrong for sure HE confirmed after checking all the phones in the house. He later declared it was the router. I didn't realize all his phones were voip until now. This was an even bigger disaster because it not only affected me, but the whole house and communications! No contact with the outside world whatsoever! Damn! and I was responsible again(But like he said, there is a slight chance that its their fault because when he called them up, he was told that many similar complaints were coming in.) Well, whatever is wrong, I wish its fixed up real fast and the defaulter be punished. And I have definitely learnt my lesson and I will not be careless with the stuff around the house because its no mine!