Best of 2007!

My first post for this year; paying tribute to the last year, its blessings and mis-happenings.

The Best Compliment:

You were so persistent that I had to take you.

My boss at Merc who offered me an internship after pursuing him for ten months. The stint was rather a honeymoon period, which turned out to be a wonderful exercise for exploring features and applications of various social networking websites.

The Best Feedback:

This is goldmine.

By my boss on my Art Funds research, during my stint at one of the law firms in Bombay. Though I did not work that great to secure an offer from them.

The Most Memorable Weekend:

Well, I should say the entire week I was at home. I saw my folks after a year and half. I had to go; else they would have disowned me from whatever small assets my father has bought in his lifetime.

The Most Blessed Time:

The job offers. The most sought after. The most awaited. And the most needed.

I AM blessed.

The Biggest Noticeable Change In Perception:

• Women can be wiser.
• Code of Civil Procedure is actually interesting.
• Aerated non-alcoholic beverages though seem to quench your thirst; however, it eventually de-hydrates your body.
• I would soon love Dilli for its finger-licking Chicken Tikka Masala.

The Best Movies:

• That Thing You Do
• Dr. Strangelove
• Bourne Ultimatum
• I Am Sam
• The Good Shepherd
• Twelve Angry Men
• Thank You For Smoking
• Blood Diamond

The Biggest Influence:

• Professionally: For all the previous years as well, my Boss at Coke.
• Personally : Myself. For the way I have been carrying myself since last couple of years.
• Economically : My friend Rahul Kochar. And to quote him, “Tito, when you can’t stop spending money, then start making money, earning money”.
• Emotionally : The person for whom I started blogging.

The Most Heard Songs:

• When She Is Gone (Spock’s Beard)
• A Day Without Rain (Enya)
• That Thing You Do (OST- That Thing You Do)
• Trouble, Warning Sing, Crest of Wave and Pour Me (Coldplay)
• Aeroplane (OST- American Pie- Band Camp)
• Breathe, Great Gig In The Sky and What Do You Want From Me (Pink Floyd)
• Pulling Teeth and Fade Into Black (Metallica)
• Wasting Love and Hallowed Be Thy Name (Iron Maiden)
• Way Back Into Love (OST- Music And Lyrics)
• First of May, How Deep Is Your Love and I Started A Joke (Bee Gees)
• You Know You Are Right (Nirvana)
• Piano Man (Billy Joel)
• Last Request (Paolo Nutini)
• Something and While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Sir George Harrison)
• Extreme Ways (OST- Bourne Ultimatum)
• Stay, Seek You Out and Carnival of Rust (Poets of Fall)
• Solitude (Ozzy Ozborne)

The Best Books:

• The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini
• Ninety Minutes On Entebbe- Dan Stevenson & Uri William
• Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance- Robert M. Pirsig
• Half A Life- V.S. Naipaul
  
• Interpreter of Maladies- Jhumpa Lahiri
• Notes To Myself- Hugh Prather
  

The Best Surprise Package:

• The Job offers.
• My father’s superannuation benefits.
• Religare’s listing at Rs. 601, against the issue price of Rs. 160.
• Realization of my Provident Fund money within two months.
• The winters in Poona. I had the opportunity to wear my best sweat shirts and pullovers.

The Biggest Investment:

• My New IBM.
• Jaiprakash Hydro BSE: 532627 | NSE: JPHYDRO | ISIN: INE351F01018

The Greatest Quotes’ Of The Year:

• “My work done my way. A private, personal, selfish, egotistical motivation. That's the only way I function. That's all I am.”

Fountain Head | Ayn Rand
Part 4, Chapter 8, pg. 580

• “To a woman in love, loving too much is not loving enough”- Oscar Wilde

• "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

William Shakespeare | Hamlet
Act 1. Scene V abt. 1601

• “Success is like masturbation, only your own hand can let you achieve it.”- Anonymous

• “Silence doesn't mean your sexual performance left her speechless.” – Anonymous

And

• "It is not easy to live with things that do not fall in line with your ideologies, but at least one can choose to accept the differences. Maybe we can’t find solutions all the time and its best to part ways." ||SA||

The Most Precious SMS:

Even this year

“Take care of your self. You know something… I miss you.”

Date: 09-08-2006
Time: 11:30 PM

The Happy Discoveries:

• Hotel Radio- For its seekh kebabs
• www.piratebay.org- For the best torrent files
• Javascripts- For unlocking Orkut Albums and Scrapbooks.
• CIA- For offering internships to law students.
• Duty Free Shops- For cheap availability of Scotch Whiskey.
• The benefits of mustard oil massage during winters.
• The pleasure of making a fake profile on social networking websites.
• My willingness and actual act of attending my college’s batch get-together.

The Remarkable Differences and Their Figures:

• My music collection (including videos) has surpassed 100 GBs.
• My vice crimes are standing at a staggering 52 GBs.
• My debts have been substantially paid off and my current standing is only Rs. 37, 000.
• The number of women with whom I am talking through my fake profile has crossed 50.
• I have gained an obnoxious amount of weight and I am currently weighing 94 kgs.

• I would be earning 160 times more than my Father, 120 times more than my Mother and 7 times more than my Sister, when they had started earning for the first time. However, their love and affection, that would be for eternity and infinity. (Thanks to Vineet a.k.a Bakri for suggesting this particular contrast.)

• My appetite for alcohol has increased and I can stand straight even after four 60 ml pegs.
• Thankfully, quite recently my nicotine intake has diminished considerably and I am smoking less than 4 sticks a day.

• My work experience in my five years of law school stands at 27 months and which fetched me 3 job offers.
  
• My academics are still a disgrace. I was among the two guys who re-appeared for Code of Civil Procedure in the entire batch for the fourth time. My scores are still below 55%.
  

Hmm.. so far so good. Hope to have more experiences, more learnings and more growing-up in the coming years.

Cheers!