So long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye

Announcing, even lower frequency of blog posts, till madness dies down.
Till then, so long, and thank you for all the fish :)
(PS--> The other realm shall be updated as usual)

One would think that when it comes to "marriage" - the bride and the groom were the least important people in it. I think I'm going to start a new series, till September talking about every little thing which is blown out of proportion during wedding planning - maybe on a different blog, because I guess I really might have to move out of this space. The cobwebs here are beginning to annoy the hell out of me.
In any case, I'm one of those girls who knows exactly what she doesn't want in her wedding, and doesn't care much about what she has; Apparently the things she doesn't want are a huge deal. I wanted to be remotely involved in personal things, but now I'm involved in every single small nitty gritty of it - really? I want a vacation. From work. From wedding planning. Argh.

First, Then

First I wanted to write. Then I didn't want to write.
First I wanted to click. Then I didn't want to click.
First I wanted to call. Then I didn't want to dial.
First I dialed. Then I hung up.
First I hardened the fuck up. Then I shed a tear.
First I gave in. Then I gave up.

I'm glad.

I'm glad I won't remember my 20s as one big drunken haze.
I'm glad I did all I did when I was in my teens.
I'm glad I grew up, and out of much and that I have my priorities right. Ish.

This isn't a mega rant or even remotely on those lines. I just woke up today as usual, and decided I'm going to sleep in for forty five minutes more. And I didn't feel guilty. I work my ass off, trying to make something of my science. Why do I do it? Because in a way, I'm a geek. It makes me warm and fuzzy on the inside when I see a graph I generate from my data, with a R squared value of 0.97;
I was looking through some pictures on Facebook, and I wondered - have I un-funned myself? I'm not what I was six years back. I was totally a pouting, flying-kiss waving, funky clothes sporting, whiskey swilling, high volume swearing Fraeulein.
I have sobered up much since, and realized that while those things were all fun, coming out from a weekend, *every* weekend not remembering much about Friday nights and Saturday nights wasn't all that fun, really. In contrast, (attempting) to play tennis and Pictionary with the ones you love and care for seemed like nicer alternatives to my other friend Jameson.
Have I stopped buying shoes? Hell, no :-)

Change we need - but how?

I recently came across a Q&A session by Arvind Adiga on the Freakonomics blog. I certainly wouldn't be blogging about it, if it didn't hit home hard - but there are things I'd like to highlight; things that bothered me; somethings I want to do something about but don't know where to begin; somethings I am completely helpless as to where to even begin.
In response to a question on eradication of poverty, Adiga writes : " I think young Indians want real change and are determined to reduce the corruption and misgovernance that are the root causes of poverty in India."
It's true that young Indians want to make a real change, but the challenges of poverty may not really be to eliminate red tape and vote someone into power who cares about such causes. Any half decent human being would care about poverty, of course - but the lobby pressure a person in any kind of government incumbency faces is enormous; Recently, as a part of a Pudiyador presentation, I was doing some research into numbers - the United Nations Development Program estimates the size of the urban slum population in India to be equal to the population of Spain. I, as a small section of the young Indian, am not the face of Incredible India! - it is that child in the slum who goes to corporation school and picks up a vocation to break out of the cycle of poverty that is.
In response to where he sees India in the next 25 years, Adiga writes passionately, optimistically and perhaps with the right amount of faith that "India can do much, much better than this, and I hope that its citizens force its government to give them this better future." - as a segment of citizens passionate about my country, and my country's growth (and not just the spread of cell phones, like Adiga puts it) - what can I do? I certainly cannot remote control anything, let alone a small thing that makes a microscopic difference in the minority I already form. But I certainly can try. While Adiga's faith comes from an observation of facts, a knowledge of the realm he's talking about - mine comes from naivete, fueled by ignorance. It is my involvement with Pudiyador that has opened my eyes out to bare realities and necessities. Before that, my contribution was to buy UNICEF greeting cards.
Adiga goes on to write about the Indian government system, and these are my favorite lines from the article
"My point in The White Tiger is to puncture the sense of complacency that too many Indians have — this feeling that, oh, we’re a democracy, all our problems are fixed. Democracy isn’t a panacea. Corruption and misgovernance can thrive within a democracy, as India’s history shows; they have to be addressed before democracy works for the poor."
He also goes on to answer questions about class and caste, and India's ties with the US. All this while, I hoped that someday, as a country, India will transform itself - then I opened reader towards Google News India, and started reading the joke that is the Gandhi battles.
Anyway, you can read the full article here.

Reporting Lab Rat

I feel like the only thing I update on my blog these days is the "Soul Food" column - it's probably because I'm drowned up to my eyeballs in work, and the free time I get - I'm traveling, taking in spurts of good weather or reading all the books I wanted to read (enabled by a membership with AADL);
I have also finally discovered the joys of Google Reader, it's possibly the best thing since buttered toast. (I insist)
I've recently re-discovered Lush, a handmade cosmetic brand which I was too poor to buy when I was still in school. The only things I could afford was the Lip Balm and a sliver of soap as a treat (or a tax refund celebration). Off late, the money given to me by the state of Michigan has been put to good use buying Lush Cosmetics - I took the pains of making a rather ugly montage of my favorite lush products on Paint because I couldn't wait for the forever-ages-so-much-time Photoshop takes to load;

I used to think I was chained to Head and Shoulders for life and that I had no other shampoo option simply to avoid flaky scalps - but Lush made it possimpible. (Barney Stinson word, yay). The ugly white cakey thing you see is the Lush Soak and Float shampoo bar, with Cade and lavender oils - and it works wonders, like wonders(!).
To the boys intense amusement, my bathroom is lined with a mini-Lush store - and if you know me, and have seen my bathroom - you'd know by now that I can't rest in peace with one product of a kind - I have to have six different face washes for six different scenarios (After work strawberry smells, chamomille beeswax before I go to bed, Minty fresh to wake up after a mid-day nap, and so on and so forth); Shower gels are an altogether different story - it's true I don't feel like smelling lemony one day and it is entirely possible that Pearberry scents are once-in-three-weeks-only kinds; And do not even get me started on Conditioners;
But for anyone who thinks they need to break free from Head and Shoulders, but is worried that they can't really - this is a mildly pocket-friendly option.

Footprints

The first time I'd heard of the term carbon footprint, I was in third year college - 2005. It was in the middle of YES+, where Rajesh asked us to go look it up; I was pretty sure it was some weird wiki page like Madras bashai (which Ne, Savi and I generously contributed to) - I didn't bother looking it up, till I was explained to that it wasn't a farce.
In Fall 2006, when I first got here - I used to think all stores were open 24/7, and that life as I know it couldn't get more convenient than this; Only to realize that most of the lights were never turned off post 5pm when businesses and stores shut shop for the day as a "safety measure"!
According to the UK Carbon Trust, a carbon footprint is
"the total set of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event or product"

To give you rough ideas of energy usages, an average adult needs about 8000 kJ (kilojoules) of energy a day from food;
Google uses 0.0003 kWh / 1kJ of energy per search,
(Numbers are from CNET's Green Tech News desks)
The world as we know it, including me has the following numbers:
(From the Nature Conservancy Climate Change Initiative)
I am not advocating giving up on life, love and everything else if it can reverse climate change - but it seems like even an hour of energy conservation goes towards making an enormous difference in escalating the desire for "unified and urgent action on climate change"; I wanted to google the amount of energy saved in Earth Hour 2008 and 2009, but in the spirit of the article - I chose to conserve that energy. (read: laziness);