Summer of 2009

The last couple of months have been hectic in some sense. Had been volunteering for a fitness program in the Centre of Physical Fitness and Sport Sciences in Hyderabad Central University for about 2 months. It was quite an experience in itself. Had to wake up at 4 in the morning and drive 10 miles to reach the university and it was really good to get a first hand experience of the kind of training that professional sportsmen under go.. Just the early morning ride is worth it. The scientific approach was much effective than pumping iron at the gym. Hope I'll continue this.

Attended a 7 day yoga program by Isha yoga center couple of days after the fitness program finished. Was worth the time and effort and would definitely recommend it to friends. Went to B'lore for the weekend of 05/30-31. Its more of a (bike) trip to Hogenakkal than to Bangalore. Hardly stayed for 5 hours in B'lore over the entire weekend. I was cruising at 120 km/hr without any helmet(the helmet was too small) and it was great to feel the wind blowing all over your face at such speed. This is my highest speed on bike(previous one was at 95 km/hr) and also my first bike ride in a hilly terrain. Friends at work say I am tanned to the maximum. Had loads of fun in the waterfall, driving consistently at 90+ km/hr, driving in the middle of the night with heavy downpour hitting on your face and blurring the vision in a region where elephants frequently cross. We went as a group of 18 ppl on 9 bikes. I never thought such a beautiful place existed in Tamil Nadu. Will post the pics as soon as I get hold of them.

The Chennai urge, resolutions & other musings

• In recent times, I have got this great urge to go to chennai to just idle my time there. After I joined the firm, I visited chennai either to attend friends' marriage or send-off/visit friends. And the schedules in most of these trips were tight and may be I missed the Chennai I am used to. Idling away time either chatting with someone on the phone in the middle of the day or listening to those FM channels or an evening spent in besant nagar beach doing nothing but to just stare at the sea and the horizon or to read a book in half a day to one day. Think a  weekend trip to chennai is long due now. 
• I'd love to start reading books again. The last one I read was "Almost  Single"  by Advaita Kala, about a month back. Turned out to be a bit girly book. Was good in general. Had read "Catcher in the Rye" before that. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Have been doing a lot of reading lately -  the article types mainly and I can say with good amount of certainity that almost all of them were in one way or the other related to finance industry. I never thought I would crib on this because wanting to know about the finance industry was the major reason for me to join this job. Also, I am pretty much sure that I would have got bored out within 6 months if I had joined in some other industry.  If you know some good books, do drop me a mail. 
• Not into running for the past two weeks. The runners' club has got a 24 km run tomorrow. Think am going to skip that. I should pretty soon get into the groove if I need to do get  anywhere near the 2 hours mark  in the Hyderabad half marathon coming up in August.
• The itch to buy a good mountain bike is increasing with every passing day. But I am not really sure whether a guy like me who wakes up at 9/10 in the morning and reaches to work at 11 is ever going to go in a bicycle. Still the temptation is irresistible.
• I had a look at the resolutions that I took at the start of the year to assess where I am at the end of Q1. On the half-marathon front, I think I am on schedule. Most marathons are scheduled in winter.  Dropped the CFA thing because of logistic problems. Though I am not blogging once in a week, I would like to believe I am more of a regular now than before. Planning to take the 4 -wheeler license sometime in july/august(Planning to enroll for training after may/june). And the *task* still awaits. And I am for sure to lay that to rest by the end of this year, either way.

That's it for now. BFN.

PS: Couple of good articles that I read can be found here and here.

The week that was

• Been on a 4-day trip to kerala. Had a much needed break. Will post the snaps and if possible the travelogue soon. 
• The recent Australia - South Africa series was breath-taking and might well be the start of a new epoch. It was one damn good series that I was ready to wake up each day at 5-5.30 am IST and never grizzled about the time zone difference. Smith was dazzling in general and what stood out was his tenacity to come and bat at No.11 on the last the day of the match (with broken hand and injured elbow), given the fact that SA had already wrapped the series. The next 8 months of test cricket I guess would be sufficient to know how the teams would be ranked for the coming 4-6 years.
• I have just about a month left for the Auroville marathon and do need atleast 100 kms under my belt before the D-day. Hopefully I can get some mileage.
• Read a great article by Marina Krakovsky on "The Effort Effect". The article postulates on the kind of misdset people have and how labelling is harmful. A must-read for everyone. 
• Saw Slumdog millionaire. The movie was gripping and riveting. AR was mesmerising. Congrats and hope the movie gets nominated for oscar. 

Au revoir!!

Resolutions for 2009 and looking back at 2008

2008 was good in general. To me, it seems like 2008 ended before it really took off(and I don't like that). Looking forward to 2009 with lot of zeal and anticipation. Guess after almost 3-4 years, I am starting a year with some realistic resolutions. Hope I can keep up with them. Listing a few below.

• To run atleast 4 half-marathons this year. Starting off with Auroville Marathon in mid-Feb. Have Hyderabad HM at the end of the year. Planning for 2-3 from Bangalore Ultra, Rajasthan and Leh-Ladakh/Tibetan Plateau. Have been running for the past one year as part of Hyderabad runners' club and an HM has remained something that needs to ticked off for almost a year now.
• Writing CFA Level I in june. This is another thing that has been pending for about 2 years.
  
• Blog once a week. Well, this one seems easy. It did seem easy last time too :P. Have been meaning to write on a lot of things but nothing significant materialized except for a few mail drafts. Hope that's not the case going forward.
• Get 4 wheeler license in the first half of the year.
  
• Planning to take up a *task* that I have been trying since 2004. Was lacking in application each time. Think I deserve one final shot.
• Would be great if I go to work before 10 in the morning(fingers crossed on this one though).
  

Guess that's pretty much every thing I want to do in next 6-12 months.


Happy new year to all!!

Writer's block

I have been meaning to write for a long time now. And I do have thousand things going on to write(ranging from all good movies I saw in the last couple of months, work, people at work, good old friends, Sachin, Sourav, couple of amazing books that I read recently). Had got myself into a comfort zone and it did take a long time for the fact to kick in. I do sincerely hope that I would be more regular with my posts.