A walk down memory lane!

I have not updated the blog in quite sometime. I think I am having some kind of a blogger’s block or something. (Ah! I finally get to say that…;) ) Anyways, I got this very interesting questionnaire thru’ email today. When I tried to answer these questions, I had a wonderful trip down my memory lane to my school days. I should say it was really gr8. Most often, if we sit back and think of friends and teachers, I am sure many of us would be reminded of college days only. But these questions made me think of my school days and all those wonderful memories came gushing out from deep within. It was really fun to think of those days again. I wish I could re-live those days again…..*sigh*

Ok….so after I answered these questions, I thought why not start a tag on this? I am sure many of you would be really happy like me when you think of those days too…..so here it comes!

1. 1) Do you remember the name of your very first school?

Chinmaya Vidayalaya, Hindupur, AP


2. 2) How about the name of the first friend at school?

Aishwarya


3. 3) Who was your favourite teacher?

Hmmm….I think her name was Nandhini…

4. 4) Which house did you belong to in school?

Pansies


5. 5) Which subject did you dread the most?

Botany…..wait a minute….its Geography…….I guess, its both


6. 6) Did you participate in co-curricular activities?

Yup, Elocution, debate, dumb charades


7. 7) Which was your favourite sport?

Kho kho, Kabadi, Basketball


8. 8) Which places did you visit on a school trip?

Madurai, Kodaikanal, Trichy, Kanyakumari, Chennai, Hyderabad, Puri, Konark,…


9. 9) Now, there must a boy/girl whom you hated the most and never wanted to see again in your life, who was it?

Well, I definitely had so many names on that list…but honestly can’t think of anyone now


10. 10) You must have had a close friend, without whom you thought you could never live and then you both moved on, lost touch and now only wonder in which part of the word he/she must be in…who is it?

Subhashini…

So now is the time to nominate people for the tag….

Filbert

Rama

Amar

Aatma

Venkat

Have fun guys!

PS: If you find this stuff childish, you are welcome to ignore it!

Interesting Facts – Dogs

Its time to come with a new post in the “Interesting facts” series and this time I chose to know more about my favourite pet animal. I had a liking towards dogs from when I was young and I also had a pet dog for almost 10 yrs. So here are a few interesting facts about them,

• Dogs were the first animals domesticated by people.
• There are 701 types of pure breed dogs.
• The fastest dog, the greyhound, can reach speeds of upto 41.7 miles per hour. The breed was known to exist in ancient Egypt 6,000 years ago
• The average dog lives to around 15 years of age.
• The smartest dogs are the Jack Russell Terrier and Scottish Border collie. Dumbest: Afgan hound.
• Dogs hearing is very acute. They can register sounds of 35,000 vibrations a second (compared to our 20,000)
• Dogs usually have 42 teeth.
• Dogs have three eyelids - They have an upper and lower eyelid and a third one inside of the other two. It helps protect the eye from dirt and dust. It is also called a "haw".
• Dogs can learn up to 50 words of any human language.
• Dogs are not color blind. They can see color but it is not as vivid a color scheme as we see. It is much like our vision at twilight.
• Dogs naturally have a wonderful sense of smell. They have many more sensory "smelling" cells than a man's 5,000,000. An Alsation (often used as a 'sniffer" dog) has 220,000,000.
• Dogs, like humans, are either right or left handed... or is that paws?!

A Dream combo!

This definitely is a dream come true for every “Thalaivar” fan. To me, my favourite Rajni movie till date is “Thalapathi”. It’s mainly b’coz Manirathnam introduced us to a new side of Rajni. The only other director who could even think close to that is Shankar. Just like every other Rajni fan, I was very disappointed that he missed Shankar’s “Mudhalvan”. Though Arjun did a great job, I think its b’coz the story was formed with Rajni in mind that the character had Rajni written all over it. I hope Shankar comes out with a even better script this time for him and introduce us to yet another interesting aspect of Rajni. After all, the movie would be crucial to both after the mega success of “Chandramukhi” & “Anniyan”. And with the famous AVM banner, I am sure the film will be a guaranteed entertainer.

Check this out - A die-hard cricket fanatic took everyone by surprise and forced officials to conduct an enquiry. Truly, A devoted cricket fan!

Caught in the Harry Potter Trap!

Yup, it’s official now. I am finally caught in the Harry Potter trap. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I decided to check out Harry Potter as I was very much provoked by the hype created by the 6th book. And I am so glad, I did. According to me, there is nothing fascinating about the story of Harry Potter. It is just like some black & white “mayajalam” movie. But what is great about it, is the imagination of the author. J.K. Rowling has etched every scene with wonderful creativity. It is b’coz of that you instantly get acquainted with the story and the characters. The narration is also very racy that you hardly know when you got hooked on to the story. I can only say that you have to just experience the fun!

Once I finished reading the book, I wanted to see the movie immediately. But I was very disappointed when I saw it. It was not even half as interesting as the book. When I saw “Lord of the Rings”, I became a great fan of it. But people who read the book told me that the book was amazing and the movie was not even close. I completely agree with them now. Some stories are best READ than seen.

I have heard Harry Potter fans say, “The world is made up of just two kinds of people: One, who have read the book and are fans of Harry Potter and the other, who have not read it yet”. Now I truly understand the meaning. And I am so happy to have moved to the other side of the world.

I have already ordered the next book…Chamber of secrets! Again, some people reading this may say, “What?? Next book, already?? You have gone mad.” While, there may be others, who would just have a smile on their face and say, “Welcome to our world!”.

Proud owner of an Ipod!

I fell in love with it, the moment I saw it for the first time. From then on I have been longing to get one. Finally, I got it as a gift for my B’day. Yup, I am now a proud owner of an Ipod Shuffle. The first thing that attracted me towards the shuffle was its sleek design. It is such a cute little thing. Not to mention, the quality is awesome. I have to admit, the best quality I have heard so far. And finally, the lanyard. A cool accessory to carry the gadget with ease. Like the caption of the "Hero Honda" ad, "Load it with songs, fix it to the lanyard and forget it!". I am sure I am going to have great fun with my new buddy!

PS: Currently listening to “Oh Vennila” from Kadhal Desam...a wonderful melody from ARR...totally mesmerizing!!!

Niagara Falls, Harry Potter & Technology

The title does sound really weird. But I promise, this post is definitely related to all the three.

I went to Niagara Falls this past weekend. I had been there 2 years before and yet I was very excited this time too. It’s an amazing natural wonder. The gushing water, the mist, the rainbow…there is something special about it which makes heart lighter. I think its going to be a new experience, every time you see it.

Right now, I am reading the first book of the Harry Potter series, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone”. I am sure some would say, “Just starting the first one? Which world were U in so long?” and there may be others saying, “U too?? What is so good about it? It’s just a children’s book”. To tell the truth, I have never heard of Harry Potter until I came to the US. But even after I heard about it from some friends, I was never really interested in it b’coz magic and wizardry sounded too childish to me. But after all the hype over the 6th book that released recently, I was definitely provoked. So at last, I decided to try the first one and to be honest “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry” is really fun and interesting. It’s going on good and I’ll post an update once I am fully done with it.

And finally, this new technology sounds really interesting and wonderful. A wrist band has been developed by a London based design graduate, that stores information about the medication requirements of patients. It communicates with the chip on the medicine packaging to verify if it is the right medicine for the patient. This device is expected to put a stop to the drug errors. Definitely an amazing invention!

A Blog every second!

Isn’t it amazing??? This statistics was collected by the blog tracking site Technorati's latest research. They have found that 80,000 new blogs are created every single day. That’s definitely a figure I never imagined. A Blog consultant has said, “you meet the person's mind through their blog". Now, that’s scary. So far, I thought Blogs were just a hobby. But someone judging you based on your blogs, is something that I have never thought about. Anyways, it makes me happy that I am also a part of this fast growing community. Read the complete article here.

PS: I am done with “The Da Vinci Code”. Though it was great, I feel “Angels & Demons” was far better. I am not sure if it is b’coz I read that one first, totally new to Dan Brown and now kind of know his approach. Comparisons apart, “The Da Vinci Code” was definitely impressive and well written. Some of the facts revealed in the book totally took me by surprise. Another example to prove that there are so many things in our history for which we still can’t find answers.