Friday, April 22, 2005

Day 56 - The beauty within...

It's been three weeks since my last post and it's been a real busy three weeks. It's been three weeks of ups and downs, three weeks of fun and distress, three weeks of ectasy and ruefulness, well...it's been three weeks of practically everything under the sun. And it's been three weeks of spring in NY !

The very advent of spring has brought in a welcome change in the air. It's as if fresh life has been infused into almost everything in the city. The days are long, bright and lively; the parks are lush, green and full of flowers; the cherry trees are in full bloom, the water fountains have come up everywhere, the glass facades glisten along the skylines, the crowds have started filling the streets, and well...everyone has got a spring in their step too (no pun intended ) !

Life, as tough as it might be, it's just become so much more beautiful. It's a blessed feeling to be walking along the pathways in the evenings, the cool breeze invigorating your senses, the wonderful sights enlivening up your very souls, the multitudes of people adding to the delight with their colorful attires and joyful strides.

Well, New York is a real sight in spring. But then, I guess that is true of most of the other places too in the US of A. And for someone, who has been here all the time, the changes might not look something out of the ordinary. And in fact, it might not really be as beautiful as it appears to me. But then, when you have had three real busy weeks staring a monitor at work, it always feels nice to think of all the beautiful sights that nature so freely offers all the time, doesn't it?

Sunday, April 03, 2005

Day 37 - When time went poof !

On a day when Pamela Anderson visited the NYSE, I ended up watching India beat Pakistan comprehensively in the first ODI at Kochi. It was another night-out, the only difference being that this was for watching cricket streaming in on the Net ! And yeah, instead of office, this was at home. Sehwag's century made it worth the 10 dollars spent on getting the coverage on our computer. :)

Well, that would explain why most of my Saturday went in a nice siesta. :) Still, had enough time to watch four movies in a row, on tape. And yeah, all of them for free thanks to the Queens Library ! :)

This Saturday's been a rainy day, wot with non-stop heavy rains all through the day, killing all our plans of roaming around. Add to it winds blowing at around 30 to 40 miles per hour and being outdoors was an 'experience' of its kind today. So, we got some tapes and DVDs from the local library and spent the day watching them. A Perfect Murder was the best of the lot and we also realized where all the twists and turns in Humraaz came from. :)

The most weird experience, though, has to be the case of the missing hour. Well, Daylight Saving Time came into effect a few minutes back and I was pretty much flummoxed by it. With a couple of minutes to go before two, I started scribbling on this blog and well, when I see the time now, it's 3:20. From what I have heard, the clock is moved forward by an hour so as to make more use of the daylight. Whatever on earth does that mean? From where I see, daylight remains daylight at any hour of the day. I somehow don't understand how moving the time ahead at 2 am on the first Sunday of every April and reverting it back at 2 am on the last Sunday of October helps.

Well, it might help for some, but for me...it just means that I have to wake up an hour earlier now. As if anywayz, 6.30am was not early enough. Hope that I don't start suffering from Daylight Saving lag now(on similar lines to jet-lag). Maybe, they should have a provision for giving a holiday the day after the time change to allow everyone to sleep and get in tune with the time. Or maybe, they are doing just that by changing the time on a Sunday. Whatever the case is, I seem to be at a loss here. Especially so, coz I have lost an hour from my life for no fault of mine ! I didn't travel across any timezones, in fact I didn't go anywhere at all. Here I am sitting on my couch and somebody has just taken away an hour of my precious time! And they tell me that I have to wait for six months to get it back ! With no interest too, at that. Now, who calls that a fair deal?