Pre Thanksgiving Christmas Spirit

I couldn’t sleep again last night. I was up from about 2am to 4am. I can't imagine why I couldn’t sleep since I had not slept/napped at all yesterday, which I normally do. So I decided to listen to some songs. I wasn’t in the mood for Spanish. Too much Spanish these days. No Tamil - didn’t feel like it. Hindi, I started playing Hum Tum which I stopped since it was too enthu for that time in the night. English, I started looking in my folder and I ended up in the Christmas songs section. So I decided to get a head start on this years Christmas spirit. It wasn’t too early or anything. I have been noticing some people already putting out their Christmas lights this year. I know that typically it starts with thanksgiving but some people are just super enthused about their Christmas spirit. But then thanksgiving is tomorrow. So what the heck!

Yes, it even snowed about an inch or two last week. I went out on my way to the gym and saw the ground covered with snow. I have never been a fan of the cold or the bad side of snow, but the first snow every year is something that gets me all charged up inside. Something inside me just lights up. Everything is so clean and perfect. Perfect bliss. Moreover where I live, it is simply too cold for the snow to melt and make things bad. It just stays frozen until Springtime. So I have never minded the snow much as long as the roads have been cleared by the city officials and I don’t have to worry about it when I drive.

My fishies gave birth again. Eighteen of the tiny ones this time. But I have never seen them as small as this time. I guess there is a relation between the number and size. Only so much volume in the mom’s stomach. I woke up in the morning and noticed two little fishies. I was too lazy to get the net at that hour and so I simply went after the little ones with sudden dives from a smaller jar. The more I caught the more I saw. Finally I counted them to 18 when they finally stopped appearing. Its mornings like these that the day seems so right as soon as it starts. It’s wonderful isn’t it?

My home computer was back up but unfortunately I couldn’t do much with it since no matter what I did, the computer simply told me that it was out of system resources and it wouldn’t even let me shutdown. Apparently shutting down took too much of its resources. So I installed the anti virus software on my home computer (finally!) and noticed about 2 viruses being blocked every second. I could not keep up with the messages and finally just turned off the computer. I am yet to turn it back on. Left it for a later time (yeah, there is another one of those). I have to run it right after boot up or something. Let’s see. But as long as I have my laptop I guess I really don’t have much use for the home computer and I can still check mail and stuff. It’s just that the laptop is tiny and I’d rather use a standard desktop when I can. But right now, the home computer seems too much work to fix.

Carol singing has always been a happy memory from childhood. By the time I was 8, I could sing all the carols in perfect tune without having to read sheet music at all. In fact, a lot of the songs, I knew even before the words actually meant something to me. I think some carols in Tamil I still don’t know what they mean but I can sing it phonetically. This would explain why being brought up a Christian I never learnt to read music. Never had to since I knew most of the songs. It’s quite sad though that I don’t play a single musical instrument. Oh well there is still time.

Anyways, here I was singing “And can it be..” in perfect unison with the singer at 3:30 at night and my fingers and toes were feeling cold, so I raised the temperature in the room and raised the blinds and it was just starting to snow. A second snow in the same week? It seemed odd to me. My nose started to feel cold from being so near the window. I made myself some hot decaf tea to drink. I just lay down on my bed looking out of the window as the snow slowly covered the lawn. Somewhere between humming “Silent Night” and “Gloria in excelsis Deo” I went to sleep.

Song of the Day:



Carol of the Bells Click here to hear the music

Hark how the bells,
sweet silver bells,
all seem to say,
throw cares away

Christmas is here,
bringing good cheer,
to young and old,
meek and the bold,

Ding dong ding dong
That is their song
With joyful ring
All caroling

One seems to hear
Words of good cheer
From every where
Filling the air

Oh how they pound,
raising the sound,
o'er hill and dale,
telling their tale,

Gaily they ring
while people sing
songs of good cheer,
Christmas is here,

Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,
On on they send ,
on without end,
their joyful tone
to every home

Dong Ding dong ding, dong Bong

Click here to hear the music

My First Week in Hawai'i

An account of where I went and what I saw. Firstly, I missed my plane to a connecting hub city. My friend who was supposed to pick me up showed up a bit late and then we got stuck in traffic. Mind you I was there about 45 minutes before flight time but by the time I got to the front of the check in queue there were 29 minutes left and northwest has a policy of not checking in anyone before 30 minutes of flight time. Oh well, I though, the vacation is normally full of drama but that was typically with family. Here I was traveling alone and still drama. While I shook my head to myself, the lady at the counter checked me in for the next flight 2 hours later. Lucky, I had 4 hours stop at the hub and was still able to make the next flight.

Anyhow, now that I was flying, I got my books out and started reading. When I say books, I mean the Spanish book I was reading and the dictionary. Yes. I did get a few looks from people. On one of the segments I even got a first class upgrade and the old lady next to me was chatty and went on and on about how the locals in Hawaii did not care for foreigners (turns out they don’t really care for white people, but that’s just indigent dissent and is the same as some Indians hating the British since we are taught to hate them in all our poems and literature.).

I just sat there watching the clouds. I have always liked to do that. There are so many things just beautiful that you see peering out. I landed in Honolulu at almost twilight. It had really low clouds just above the ocean surface and the landing kinda felt like a horror movie shot. Dark, broody, thundering clouds, and the lights of Honolulu had little effect on the clouds except to give it an even sinister look. My friend came to pick me up along with his roommate. He has been friends with me since I was 17 and I hadn’t seen him in almost 5 years now though we talk to each other about once a month. So it was good catching up.

Next day morning I dropped the bombshell on him that I was gay quite abruptly. He wasn’t sure what to say. He looked at me really odd and told me that he’d fix me. I told him that I didn’t need fixing and I was quite well, thank you very much, with a smile. He began to smoke. I didn’t know he smoked. So he asks me what I want him to do. I said, “Nothing. It doesn’t affect you at all. It affects me and just wanted you to know.” So he says, “Oh. Ok”. And smiles. I smile back and its horribly awkward. So I keep talking to him about how I was in love with this guy and that he got married and I got pissed off and then I got married and then I got divorced in a month when we found out that each of us were in love with someone else and had gotten married just because we wanted to show the persons we were in love with that we did not need them. Anyways, and now I am here, I say. So he says, “It’s all like watching a movie”. Being in love makes you do crazy things, I say, Losing the one you loved, makes you do even crazier things and at the time it seemed the most rational thing to do. I had so much spite in my heart that I had no idea how grave what I was doing was. He is quiet. He doesn’t quite buy the argument but he nods and says, “Are you ready to go?” Yup!


Off we stroll on to Waikiki beach’s diamond head park. Beautiful place. Its like seeing Waikiki from the a tower. It has a panoramic view of the whole waikiki area, the ocean, the coconut trees.

Finally, we come to a park where we sit after a very long walk and then pause to eat something we had bought on the way. He asks, "what would you have done if your wife was not in love with someone else?". I've no idea freaking idea. maybe I would have stayed married. "Then there was nothing courageous about it". I never said I was. You know me. Have you ever thought of me as courageous? "Then why did you decide you were gay now? you could still be remarried". I know what I am. I'm tired of trying to be who I am not. I'm tired of catching up with life thats not really mine. My life would hardly be normal any direction I go now. so I might as well go the direction I like. Life gave me a lucky break that doesnt happen to too many people. I intend on taking that break. He smiles. "I remember you being stubborn though", he says. That I am. I wont deny it. So are we good? "Yup. Do you want to see the sunset?", he says. Yup.


Sunset at waikiki Beach followed by dinner at a Thai restaurant and a piña colada somewhere in between. The piña coladas in Waikiki were to die for. They were the perfect combination of pineapple, coconut, sugar and whatever else they add. We talked for a long time about things long and short and about the fun times back in college. Life is good again!



Next I have some pictures for you guys, of the days spent on beaches and around the island. The first is Waikiki beach.


This is Sunset beach on north shore.



Hanauma Bay here on the left, is so clear that you can see turtles and fishes just by looking in the water. You can actually make out the reef by looking at the water in the snap. Cant you?


On the right, is Laie point.


Random snap here. Some seashore scene that I thought would make a good picture.

On the right, man from Aotearao (New Zealand's Native people call it that)


The rest of the pictures in this blog are all of the polynesian culture center(a huge cultural display theme park, run by a mormon college next door to pay for the tuition of the students who are from polynesian countries and cannot afford to pay. So they dance their way through college).

This is the entrance where you are in a rowboat and they take you across the villages.



Welcoming visitors.





Learning to do the Hula.




Tahitian dancer who asked me to volunteer to learn to dance the tahitian dance.

The entrance to the River Show. -Also a Fijian Temple

The "Hawaiian Royals" enter at start of ceremony.

Hawai'ian Dance

Fijian.

Samoan.

Tahiti!! Rotating the hips very fast is the main thing for the females while men rotate slower but move their knees at a very rapid rate.

Tahiti again.

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A sneak peak of the next edition. Trip the the big island of valleys, rivers and volcanoes.

Blue Life

I’ve been a bad bad blogger. Ok, enough said about that.

I am about to make my usual fish curry this week, but decide that week after week of the same thing might be a bit too much. So I am wondering what to do with my fish that I have already bought. Wonderful idea strikes and I dial my mom in all haste. “Mom, how do I make the fish fry that you make?” My mom is taken aback a little bit but decides not a let on too much and simply asks me what I have in front of me and then tells me to add the masala to the fish and let it soak and gives me instructions on frying it. I say bye and get on with the whole thing while watching TV. Saturday nights are British comedies on PBS and I had also recorded some of the mystery series from last week. Good stuff.

My fish fry came out great exactly the way mom used to make it (now if only i could make sambar too), but unfortunately the whole house now smells of fish oil. I hadn’t counted on that. I decided to let the exhaust run for the whole night and then went clubbing. Jerry immediately took pleasure in telling me that I smelt of fish in spite of my perfume and deo. It’s the jeans I told him, it’s the jeans. Jerry himself had some female pour beer all over his shirt and jeans and smelt strongly of beer. And after that he couldn’t smell any more fish. * smug look*

Jerry was a little pre-occupied. This woman he had dated when in high school had died and he wasn’t sure if he should go to the funeral. She had died of brain aneurism and died in her sleep while only 43. This kind of seemed to have shaken Jerry. hm.....But oh well, everybody stops and thinks for a moment, before going on with life without doing anything more when something like this happens.

I came home to a strong smell of fish. I decided that to smell fish was better than freezing myself by opening a window. 17F this weekend(I'll tell you about the first snow of this year tommorrow. - It was Awesome. Beautiful). So I just went to sleep.

My home computer had crashed last week and I had finally fixed it on Friday night while talking to my brother on the phone. It’s up and running, but as usual I decided that I would make a recovery CD so that this doesn’t happen to me again, but I haven’t done anything about it. I think its about time I did something about things like these that I always want to get done but I never done. The first step would be to come up with a list. I’ll do that later then! :)

Am I just going through post vacation blues as somebody at work had mentioned to me? Why do I feel that I am drudging through life and that I would be unprepared if something really were to happen. Was my computer breaking down a sign. A sign from someone above. A sign of my stupidity that I still think like that. Do I even believe in stuff like that? I don’t know. I’m just confused. Heavens help me! Is that a theist statement or is it acceptable? Whatever!

Emotion of the Day: Life = Drudgery! Urgh.

Home sweet home

It feels wonderful to be back in your own home. In your own bed. I read in the airport that home is not a place but a feeling of belonging. My bed is definitely where I belong. It’s the coziest, warmest place I can think of under the covers though the outside temperature dipped just below freezing yesterday night. It’s almost magical.

Now I am not sure where I should start and how I should really approach my vacation. Hawai’i. It’s apparently pronounced as huh-vei-ee by the locals and not with a big aah sound. But not being local, I decided not to care how it was pronounced by the locals. It’s a group of islands in the middle of the pacific with almost nothing in 2000 miles of any direction. The closest islands are the Marquesas Islands which are about 1500 miles away towards the south. The islands themselves were (are being) formed by volcanic eruptions caused by a hot spot in the middle of the pacific plate. This over time has resulted in the islands being formed with the hot spot moving towards the south east slowly over millions of years.

I spent my time between three of the Hawaiian Islands. So I spent one week in Waikiki (in Oahu) followed by three days on the “Big Island” (Hawaii) and then three in Maui. This was then followed by a week of maximum relaxation and lot of shopping in Waikiki and Honolulu.

Things I did
Waikiki
1. Took a surfing lesson on Waikiki beach.
2. Went snorkelling in an aquarium like bay called Hanuama Bay.
3. Went on a circle tour of the island of Oahu.
4. Went on a day trip to the Polynesian culture center which I absolutely, absolutely loved where I learnt to do the Hula and fell head over heels in love with Tahitian dancing. (It had something to do with the guy on stage – who had the cutest smile - coming up to me and asking me to dance and me mumbling something to him before following him on stage and trying to follow him in the dance.)
5. Attended a Hawaiian Lua’u feast.

Big Island
1. Went hiking alone in absolute pitch darkness with a flashlight in hand for two hours in the lava flows. It was an experience. The sound of the lava flowing into the ocean, the sound of ocean against the rocks, the sound of the wind blowing hard in my ears, the sight of the lava glowing orange in the dark, the sight of the night sky that was so clear that the milky way was seen so clearly.
2. visited rainforests and waterfalls.
3. Went hiking down pololu valley all by myself and realised that I was all by myself in the entire valley. An amazing feeling. Also went to waipio valley which was very touristy.
4. stayed in Hilo and went driving around the rest of the island.
5. Expedition up to the summit of Mauna Kea at 13000 feet, where the worlds best telescopes are located due to the lack of light pollution there. Also a star/constellation show there.
6. walk through a lava tube.

Maui
1. went to Lahaina and did shopping. Beautiful town.
2. Saw a sunset in Maui with the wind blowing through the valley and was almost strong enough the blow me off balance. It was just so awesome to just stand there.
3. Saw numerous rainbows. In fact I am sick of ‘em now. It was so common.
4. Went Snuba diving in the ocean. One of the highlights of the trip. How the ocean can be so pristine, clean and clear is beyond me.
5. Went chasing dolphins which seems to be chasing out catamaran more than us chasing them.
6. Went to a show called Ulalena. Good drum beats. It was an artists rendering of the mythology about the creation of Hawai’i.
7. Road trip to Hana.

Back in Waikiki
1. Shopping, shopping and more shopping.
2. Visited Honolulu downtown and Chinatown.
3. Walked from Honolulu downtown to Waikiki along Ala Moana beach.
4. Saw numerous more rainbows. In fact I saw a double rainbow once.
5. Revolving restaurant in Waikiki.
6. went hiking and came back covered in mud and slush and maybe a little bit of blood too, but felt happy that I was the least muddy of all the hikers there AND I came back without getting my shoes wet even after so many falls and slips on the streams. Dancing helps to balance well on rocks when you are crossing streams. My friends with who I went hiking had water oozing out of their shoes and I had a smug look on my face after the 14th time we had crosses the stream.
7. went to Kailua beach and lanikai where all the modelling happens.
8. Had shave ice, visited a macadamia nut farm.
9. Went to the valley of temples to visit a Buddha temple and fed food to giant goldfishes. One of the most serene places I have seen.
10. Learnt to navigate using stars in a planetarium.

Anyways, after all this I also did have time to relax a lot during the last week. The internet capability in the hotels was surprisingly bad and I had to hunt for coffee houses to check email even though I stayed in pretty good seaside hotels which I would think would have connections for the money they charge.

Took about 1500 pictures, 50 video clips, the dolphins, Tahitian dance and a complete 2 minute clip of a sunset from beginning to end are the highlights.

Last night I talked to my friend for an hour about my trip about the not-so-USA feel in the big island and maui. The mythologies and religious beliefs. The politics of becoming the 50th state. The wave theory behind the sizes of the surf and the waves. The volcano formation theory. The wonders of diving and how you have to adjust to the pressure every two feet. I heard a lot of local radio and Hawaiian songs are truly melodious and charming in their own calm way.

I could talk for about half hour on each of those activities that I have described above but its hard to really put down how you feel when you do each of those things. I will probably touch on a few of those things in the next couple weeks whenever I can.

I don’t think I will be going out to restaurants for a while though. I was just catching up with emails at work today. People seemed happy that I was back. I take that as a good sign. My fishes have been moved back into my house. I have stocked up my fridge again.

Thought of the moment: Dwelling, dulcet dwelling.

Vacation Break!

Aloha to y'all from the rainbow state.

No,no, my vacation is not over yet. I have just wrapped up the touristy part of it and am relaxing now. I still have a little less than a week. I was planning to blog once a week, but connectivity seems to be hard here.

I am in honolulu and have just come back from Maui. I also visited the big island of hawai'i earlier this week before proceeding to Maui. I had a ton of fun travelling alone except for the part where people kept asking me if i was all alone. Maui was full of honeymoon couples you see. I saw both 20 year olds on their honeymoon and 80 years olds on their honeymoon. The 80 year couple were a rather cute couple. aparently they met in a retirement home.

Anyways, I am taking this week to watch movies and just walk around honolulu. I will be back home on saturday, but I probably wont be blogging until monday the 14th. I just wanted to write this post so people who seem to be checking this site regularly would know when to read my next blog.

Alrighty,
Boy, do I have so much to tell you guys!
Duncy!

Quote: I miss home. (Note that I said home and not work)