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.

Lyrical videos!! (and then I meander into covers territory)

Aw man,
I've been wanting to talk about them since ages. Ages! I mean, c'mon, what's not to like?

More and more artistes are turning to releasing lyrical videos initially and building the hype up thusly, getting viewers wanting more- and bam! comes the real deal. Only, for me, I'm more vested in the lyrical video than the actual music video of songs.

Usually you get so caught up in the video, that you wholly or at least partially get distracted from the music.Seriously, check out most of the m/vs. They spend like pots of gold and churn out the flashiest scenes for the single. Result? Humungous dollops of eye candy (which is always nice!), but makes the music secondary.

Take "Payphone" for example. It's so frikkin' movie-like, that I didn't notice the music,

UNTIL Julia Sheer came up with the loveliest cover of the single. Then I was hooked on to both the cover AND the original for life. Luff.

WHICH is why "Someone Like You" is awesome. Also "Rolling in the Deep". Ok, both are different in tone, but BOTH focus on the singer and the music. (And duh, I'm an Adele fan, which probably became obvious with this one sentence).

Y'anyways, I'll try to stop the veering off the topic, and steer us back in. Lyrical videos. As in, the whole lyrics of the single showing up all over the video instead of sexy, almost-naked ladies and just as nonsensical stuff. So awesome! I mean, this is how music videos should have been since the beginning. Yeah, I know how most videos have chyrons and important words from the lyrics showing up anyway. But lyrical videos are a different planet. Just love! Here are three of the lyrical videos I loved. This one was the first lyrical video I noticed as such. Which isn't ancient and is kinda very recent, in fact.

Katy Perry's "Wide Awake" lyrical video was adorable. For me anyway. I cherished it even more when I realised what crap the real music video was. Duh. Katy Perry, are you pretending to be a witch in that video? Is that a reference to Omen I see in it in between? Is that the Cheshire Cat? Have I gone mad? Way too many questions and swear words rushing all at once within my head. Not good.

Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years": That song was so sweet. Saccharine. I just wish it weren't linked up with THAT dreck movie. If you know what I mean. And then last week or so I met Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together". And again, it was the lyrical video that won me over, more than Taylor in a platinum ponytail and is that a 60s era scene you guys are grooving to?

OoooooooooooOOOOOoooooOOOOOooh, we called it off again last night, But OoooOOOOOOOooooh! I LOVE that Oooooh part SO much!

The post about the fact that I've put a ring on it. Metaphorically =)

Yes ladies and gentlemen and the wookies all over who bother to check up on my blog. Back with apologies for not blogging so long and happy news!

I'm engaged.
Cue squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and in case of friends you-gotto-be-kidding-me. (which i can totally understand considering what kind of weird nut I are.)


No seriously. I'm engaged. No longer single (that was awesome while it lasted =) ). Will be married next year and then moving to Mohali to boot. Lol.

Quite a huge much to take in i guess. Anyway, he's from the same profession as me (Libraries you nerds!), which means we've loads of common ground in between. But no, it's actually an old fashioned arranged marriage, even though everyone's second guessing considering we're both librarians. Gah. Doncha know I never was a romantic? Well, ok, sure that's going to change now though. *Giggles!

Righto then all. I'll be back with a more proper blog post later down the week.Otherwise I'll be getting killed by a dear friend who has promised to do the deed if I ever stop blogging. Where'd I be if not for such awesome friends?? And now, signing off. and taking my fiance with me. neener!

Annyeong! 

The Happy Drug =)

Aloha!

Back after lightyears and I'mma jump straight to the point. This post is poetry; inspired by a sweetheart buddy. So I take this occasion to dedicate this poem to her as a belated engagement gift. Congrats love! On the other side, this post inadvertently also works for me in the anti-drugs cause angle of things.

So here's the deal: It's part love, light, joy, friendship AND it's partly say-no-to-drugs-and-get-high-on-healthy-things.

Off you go!

***

Drug me out of my depression,

Sing me out from my frustrations,

Hug out the tears I've been fighting back,

and hit me if I ever switch to drama queen mode.

Like this and more,

be my drug,

my song,

teddy bear,

bitch for life.

Love you!

***

-and smiles, and support, and music, and books, and maybe a happy dance =)

Mascot of the anti-drug cause =P

Get the drift? Love and support are the best drugs. Oh, and music, books, wacky friends (but that comes under the "love" dept already) and all other good things that don't require you to stick needles down your flesh and  snort artificial stuff. Keep it real people.

Keep it really real. You don't need to get high on chemicals to be happy. Get yourself some proper friends and work on building up joy. Stat.