Fountains of sparks

I hate it when things begin to happen all at once. Ok, let me rephrase that, I get annoyed when things I don't care about in the least, start intruding on time I'd set aside for other things. Like sorting out my coin collection for instance. Something I haven't done in years! The fact that others may find the priorities precisely reversed doesn't really make it any less annoying :|. I guess that makes me a selfish person. Oh well.

Anyway, a rather belated Happy Diwali to all! As it turned out, this was the first time I was back with family and celebrating the Festival of Lights with fireworks in a decade! (I hate round numbers like that. Seems made up. Nonetheless, it is actually true in this case. I checked :|.)

Of course, that merely meant that I was hanging around the fringes, trying not to choke on the concentrated fumes of spent fireworks while grinning profusely as the often unpredictable, occasionally belligerent but always delightfully colourful and bright fireworks worked their magic! Ever since a misguided rocket had charred some of my clothing back in junior school, I've been rather circumspect about these things. It was endlessly amusing however, to see my mum join my aunts, uncles, neighbours and some completely random party crashers in having an absolute blast :D.

Around the same time, I decided it would be a good idea to get some serious reading done. I'd started with Sea of Poppies sometime during my flights back home. Somehow, the story, almost from the beginning, caught me a little unaware, beginning as it does somewhere in the middle. But it might also be because being settled firmly in a reality quite familiar to me, it was at odds to most of my reading of the past few months.

The familiarity, however, was riddled with such a profusion of languages (or rather variations thereof) that it added a whole sub-plot by itself, it seemed to me :). Thing with reading a book quickly is that the days seem to intertwine with the story. I was so immersed in the goings-on aboard the Ibis that the end came upon me quite suddenly!

One might say the book begins and ends somewhere in the middle. We are left to devise any future we wish for the protagonists. But such is life, I suppose, and any tale can merely touch upon some small part of its flow. I couldn't really have asked for a better break from my immersion in fantasy :). But now, as I prepare to run away again, chasing haphazardly made plans towards a dubiously diaphanous kind of joy (hopefully, that is, and no broken bits), I've got the next two Artemis Fowl books to keep me company :).

Currently: looking forward to the next fortnight!
Listening to: KT Tunstall - Uummannaq song

Zig zags

It's shaping up to be something of a busy break. Already! Ah yes, I am on break :). Got off on time too! Despite the weather throwing more last minute curve balls.

Anyway, like I said, busy break. Within five hours of landing up in Cal, I was off already. And within 48 I was back again! Incidentally, as it turns out, the name of the state has changed since I'd been in country last, and no one seems absolutely sure as to how it is spelt any more :|.

Not that I particularly mind spending all of six days in town, in three pieces. It's Diwali time, and the thunderous fireworks have begun early! Can be rather uncomfortably startling when one goes off particularly close by :(.

To top it all off though, there is that diving trip to look forward to!! Right, I've had enough of trying to type sensibly on this stupid keyboard in the dark, so I'm just gonna stop.

Currently: sleepy :)
Listening to: KT Tunstall - The entertainer

Mighty rollers

Data, I suppose, is only as good as one's ability to interpret it. Happily so, in this case :).

The weather is awful! We are sitting around twiddling our thumbs at the moment. But at the same time it is benign enough to render all the doubts and drama over crew-change completely unnecessary! I shall not bother explaining how that is ;).

Having said that, of course, we are not off the boat yet, so I shall not get too carried away.

Currently: counting down hours!
Listening to: Black Eyed Peas - Just can't get enough

Blow

It was all going so well :|. Well, nothing earth-shatteringly awesome or anything, but things were definitely not going terribly. I'm almost done with Season 5 of NCIS, slowly warming up to the new book. Quietly slipping into the last week rituals... Not any more!

The bad thing about 5-day weather forecasts is that you know what's about to happen, but can do absolutely nothing about it :(. (I suppose one could choose to ignore the info, but thus far the thing's never been wrong. :S)

Just when I'd started making more last-minute(ish) plans too!! I could resort to the usual 'why me?!!' type rant I guess, but why bother? And no, I have to admit, this doesn't happen all the time. Come to think of it, working where we are and the time of the year, it would've been nothing short of miraculous if we didn't have at least one or two crew changes blown off the tracks by the weather.

That, and the dozen or so days of buffer time is currently keeping me from going completely ape shit. I mean come on!! I haven't been diving in like two years!!! And now that I have a plan, things have to... Okay, I did say I wouldn't. So I wont. For now. And maybe, they've got it wrong! (I know, even I don't really believe that :-<.)

Currently: grrrrr
Listening to: Radiohead - Bulletproof... I wish I was

Experiments in nocturnal illumination

Ever follow a train of thought till it makes absolutely no sense?

Here's an idea, the devil in the details. The small, everyday, supposedly ordinary details. There appear to be in most of us a number of idiosyncrasies that masquerade like any other completely natural thing to do. Music, or rather the ever-growing confusion of random favourites. Shifting priorities on things that do or do not happen while you are sleep... (I mean, why even bother?! You're asleep!) Anyway, you get the idea. Or not.

Which brings me right to something that's been at the back of my mind for a while now. Assumptions, the really basic ones. For the longest time I held the notion, probably like anyone with a reasonably developed ego, that I know best what's going on inside my head. After all, it is, in fact, my head. Or rather, that if I were to make an effort, put some work into it, then I'd most likely be the one with the best chance of figuring things out.

And then someone I have infinite respect for literally laughed to my face. Well, didn't laugh out loud. More like an amused sigh while muttering under her breath something to the effect that there were whole books that proved me precisely wrong. And that it had nothing to do with one's proficiency in psychology. After the customary initial violent indignation subsided, I decided to take her word for it.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Of all the things that we take as self evident, with or without proof in any form. Foundations for our very lives. Built slowly and probably (although admittedly, not necessarily) meticulously. How much of it is really just hollow? About to crumble at the slightest test of real weight.

Damn! Right? Or maybe, who cares?! But shouldn't we? Care that is. And that's just one thing. You see what I mean?

Currently: weathered down
Listening to: Red House Painters - All mixed up

Randomness

There has appeared on our boat, quite recently, a person who looks almost exactly like Hugh Jackman's Wolverine! He had a full beard, and then I suppose he took it upon himself to experiment with facial hair for want of anything better to do... Why is that worth the time it took to type it? Dunno, I was just sufficiently amused to make the effort :).

I have long had a grievance against browser sourced geographical info based advertising. But this I thought was really quite annoying. I was immersed within the pages of IMDb, as I often am, poring over new releases I won't get the chance to see on a proper big screen. Which is when I noticed a new innovation. Well, it might not be new, but I only just noticed. Anyway, down one side there's this whole list of movies 'in theatres near you'. Or so they say. Only, I find it irritating in the extreme when someone (or something) tries to tell me that there are at least a dozen films I want to watch 'showing within five miles' of me as I sit on a boat, sailing around in circles, half a day's ride away from the nearest point of land :|.

Yes, this title was more to the point than most. On other fronts, this year's Durga Pujo is halfway over by now I suppose. So is this trip. Yay.

Currently: bored, kinda
Listening to: Skunk Anansie - Search and destroy