Birthdays and things giving me warm fuzzies lately: Pt I

 It's my birthday

I'll get high if I want to

Can't deny that I want to

But I'll lie if I have to

(Florence + The Machine cover)

Nothing like a bit of Florence to liven up, angst up things.

 Birthday!!!

Ok, first off I'll calm down. Next, I'll tell you all how I'm not exactly pro-ceremonies. I'm the kind who skips all sorts of ceremonies That includes birthdays. I don't really care about birthdays any more.

ONLY, I have an amazing set of friends and family, {and since recently, one adorable fiance}who have been showering me with birthday wishes, lots of amazing surprise gifts and hugs. Maybe that's why we should get into the birthday spirit. It reminds us of all the people who take the time out for us, spend days thinking what would be the awesomest gift to give us, and in the end? I'm a radiant being, happy and once again reminded of how blessed I am.

Le blessings =)

• I'm thinking I must be a known, certified, chocolate-addict; considering all the chocolate gifts I received. And all I have in reply is, "Yessir!".
• One buddy sprang a surprise on me, giving me an IIMK souvenir coffee mug. Hurray!
• But I must say the awesomest of all the awesome gifts I got was definitely what my techie-minded platonic got me. An app! Designed especially for me! Of my blog!! That's like awesome of epic proportions! You're perfect bro!
• God Almighty was super considerate and for my birthday I had lovely, dark climate, no heat, mild showers. Love.Love.Love. =)
• I've been listing my gifts (aka additional blessings) and I'm STILL going to do this one tiny gripe here, IN SPITE of everything. Beloved everyone in my life, for my next birthday or anything important in my life:
  Gift me books. Books and more books. I can NEVER have enough of books. So.. in case of you find this annoying, you can instead just take me out on a platonic book shopping date. I'm super-easy to please! You don't even have to spend a dime on me! 

Platonic book dates
 And that last thing about platonic book dates reminded me. I just went for one two weeks back with an equally book-crazed soul. That was so much of amazing. We scouted out this second-hand book store. And ohmygoodness. They had piles and piles of great books, popular books, unheard-but-sounds-thoroughly-interesting books all stacked up in rows and rows. The pair of us spent a good part of an hour digging into the mounds of paperbacks and by the end of it, I had decided on 3, he had decided on 2.

• AND I was acknowledged for my talent/knack at finding the better books.

But seriously, it's more of a thing like how desert animals can sense water from anywhere. It's a sense thing. And I'm so not showing off that I have a talent at these things. ;) *wink-wink-nudge-nudge
Haha. Jokes apart, thanks Rahul dude. You're a friend indeed. You got me to overcome my inertia about exploring the better parts of the city where I've spent a whole year doing nothing much but just work.

Anyways, presenting to you, my haul from the adventure. May such fun repeat themselves ever and ever on.

My year at IIM is almost over, so I'mma be returning home. Take at the least a short sabbatical, read, read, read, watch movies, do stuff with friends.
And erm, will be getting legally married by the end of this month.
Hahaha! Was that a total mindf**k hiding subtly in between the lines for you?

My Niqah
But yeah, true. Technically I'll be married on October 31st of 2012 since we're doing the Niqah on that day. But no major change really. No moving-in, no nothing of the sort for now. The wedding will be only next year. So yeah, I'm getting married, but mostly it will be like an engagement period. Even though Niqah is what's important in our faith. Wish me luck for that day though! I'm totally socially awkward, tend to be foot-in-mouth most of the times and occasionally publicly weird as well.

City tripping
Went a bit footloose all over Calicut city (mall hopping mainly), and guess what I found and bought at the mall this weekend?
Jenga!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, for those of you who don't know;

Check from 6.49 mark of the video. This clip is from my ALL TIME favorite reality program "One Night Two Days", a South Korean chunk of awesomeness where 6 celebs go tripping, solving missions, just being them dorky selves and in between- like here: Playing StarCraft like nerds and then, Jenga!!
That's how I wanted to play Jenga and ended up buying a pack for myself.
I know most of the world knows S.Korean pop culture only as Gangnam Style. But seriously, there's a whole alternaverse of friggin' awesomeness in South Korean pop culture.And this clip is one of them being much tamer than they usually are. And they usually are dorks.

-Spoken like a true, devoted fan of 4 years and counting.
Take care!

PS- I definitely need a tag for pop culture.