Mixed Bag

Today I feel like writing a little bit about a number of things, but there's no one single thing I can write an entire post about. So this one is going to be a mixed bag of thoughts, or a cornucopia of gobbledygook, if I may use the phrase. I hope Chaya doesn't mind.

This was our first day at work without Akash. Bhatti is apparently well-prepared to keep his promise to irritate me in order to make up for Akash's absence. But maybe he needs to be reminded that he needs to be prepared to face my counter attacks as well. And hey, what's going to happen when Bhatti moves to another team? He'll have to hand over the responsibility of handling Akash's share as well as his own share of things to somebody else. I don't really think that there is a pair of shoulders strong enough to carry that responsibility! What do you say, Bhatti? Are you training anybody to do that?

It was also Sumit's birthday today. Spoke to him for a brief period of time when it was midnight in Melbourne, and called him again in the evening to talk to both him and Aditi at leisure. There was a time, a few years ago, when calling long distance within India seemed to be a great big deal to me. When these very friends of mine moved to various cities, I gradually got used to the idea and stopped bothering about how much it was going to cost me. It didn't really cost all that much, now that I come to think of it. But this was at a time when I was still doing my post graduation and not making any money, whereas my friends had all earned professional undergraduate degrees and started working. Now that I make a decent amount of money for myself and call rates have dropped, I never have a reason to think about that kind of thing. But international calls still seemed to be an expensive proposition. But today, it just felt so great, just to hear my friends' voices after such a long while, that I forgot all about it. I forgot that I was at work, and I did need to go back to my beloved keyboard and monitor and do something to justify the money I make. Aditi had to remind me that I was on an international call, and then Sumit had to remind me that I should probably go back to work, before I actually went back to work.

By the way, I dressed in all-black attire to commemorate the occasion.

Oh, and we had a little team party this evening. We celebrate all the birthdays that occur in a certain month together at the end of the month. Today was that, and the Christmas party. I totally forgot about my diet and had two and a half doughnuts and a significant amount of Christmas cake. But hey, the rules of the diet always clearly stated that I always allow myself to eat whatever I want on weekends and special occasions. And Sumit's birthday is a pretty special occasion to me.

This day just did not feel like Monday at work. You see, I have to work (okay, go to work) for another two days before the eleven-day shutdown. Go to work, because my boss has already made plans for everybody in the team to enjoy a day of no work and all play on Wednesday. So basically, I have to work only tomorrow. Hence there is no reason for this Monday to feel like a Monday. It actually felt like a Friday. Add to that the team birthday bash and Christmas party, the prolonged discussion on how to enjoy ourselves on the last day before the shutdown, and the phone conversation with my friends which made me forget about everything around me for a while, and what do you get? That's not the kind of atmosphere in which one can fix bugs, you know!

And now I want to sleep. I won't necessarily be able to fall asleep just because I want to, but I guess I need to shut the laptop's lid and then shut my eyelids and put out the lights. Had a good day. Nothing to write home about, but something to blog about, so I'm not complaining.