Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Weekend fun

This weekend was superb. Saturday was all about shopping. I bought this kitschy poster for a neat Rs 115/-, which is going to adorn one of my doors, pretty soon!

I discovered another splurging opportunity for myself. I realised that I have fascination for interesting notebooks as well, and I have actually been collecting them for sometime now! In fact, the name of my blog ‘Pen-Paper’ comes from my fascination with all kinds of stationery. I am not too much into Pens though, so no Lamy, Cross pens for me. I can happily write with a 5 rupee pen.


I visited Either Or, and absolutely loved this travel notebook but priced at over Rs 700/-, I stopped short of buying it. May be sometime later. So, I settled for a pretty hand-made paper notebook, which can fit in nicely in my handbag. I have always been accused of carrying mini-luggage with me. This reminds me of a funny incident that happened 2 years back (completely unrelated to this post, but it’s funny)


I was on an official travel to Delhi with my team. The trip was for 2 days with just a night’s stay. Everyone was carrying a suitcase. When I reached, I just had a small overnight bag with me. Everyone kept saying how smart I was and how I have planned it so well that I need not carry too many things. One of them even pointed out that his daughter, who was 4-5 year old at that time, had a bigger bag on such trips. Well, well…………….and then they saw my handbag! “No wonder”, they exclaimed. “Your handbag is as big as your overnight bag. You are keeping half your stuff in that”. The bigger my bag gets, the more ambitious I become with my stuff and eventually, the bag falls apart. I never learn, and I do get a new bag at the end!


Coming back to my happening weekend story, I also went to Crossword (yeah, even after buying 10 books just a couple of days back!). This time they have a really good Sale, 15% off on all books and extra 5% if you are a member….needless to say that I am! So, I picked up 2 books – Braking News and First Proof. It was not an impulse buy. I had been eyeing these 2 books for sometime now!


Sunday was fun too. I was totally hooked on to FRIENDS the entire day, and I have completed Season 2. Nothing works better for cheering me up instantly!

Pssst.... For people in Pune, there's a fabulous Sale going on at College of Engineering. Books are available for as low as Rs 50. I bought 5 books (including hardbound) for Rs 300 only. Quite a steal!

Image Source: Chumbak & Either Or

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Social Networking!

I think I am done with Social Networking sites. To begin with, I am not at all ‘social’ and I don’t ‘network’. I am happy in the place I am, with the people I am! But I do still love blogging. Blogging is one of the very few things that has been able to sustain my interest for so long (yup, I’m in blogworld since 2004).



I read about blog or weblog in paper, and was thrilled by this online diary which can be accessed at anytime and can be shared with everyone. So, of course, you need to be careful on what you write there.

I was introduced to Orkut somewhere in 2005 and got acquainted with Facebook quite recently. Since Orkut was my first brush with networking with friends, I always felt more comfortable there, but soon I realised, everyone moved to Facebook, so I moved too. Well, I’m not really active in either of them. I have a presence in LinkedIn, though I hardly ever log in. I am there on Twitter also, but it is really too much to update status frequently. And anyways, whatever I update will invariably about or around books. I don't solicit or encourage friendship with total strangers, so I neither accept, nor deny "frandship" requests. But I love blogging, it is the only thing which I have enjoyed so much to have continued doing! Especially, when I started my Book blog, because I love books, and I can blabber quite a lot about them.


Wait-a-minute....so while I am blogging to glory, I hear some voices in the background. I hear closely,guess what! it’s my father-in-law cursing the director of a particular TV serial of fooling us with stupid, illogical sequences, wherein people take a good 15 minutes to complete one sentence, and everyone encourages and contributes to confusion and misunderstanding. I hate TV serials, they just make me agitated and restless.


So well, coming back to Social Networking, I read in newspaper recently how putting any work-related status update is poor etiquette, things like how you are toiling hard at work, how you are staying late …getting it? Apparently, that will not go down well with your colleagues, when you are trying to befriend the senior management on social networking, and positioning yourself as a hard worker! See, exactly the reason why I just refrain from writing anything about work.


But I do love looking at updates of friends, of people I have lost touch with, how they are, what are they doing in their lives…looking at their pictures…..its nice :-)


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I also wanted to share something completely unrelated to the post above. Two days back when I was going to office, I read this cheeky message at the back of a gypsy:


“You can go fast, I can go everywhere……..”