Ambers and Reds

0 days till my favourite month!
4 days till Sonu's birthday (yayyyyyy!)
6 days till our 'Perfect Competition' Econ test (oh blah!)
9 days till Niru comes (wow, time flies!)
13 days till I turn twenty (ahhhhhh! that's a bad ahhhhhhh btw. I'm getting old.)
14 days till Valentine's day (whatever)
hmmm, what else?
It's still very cold in Bombay. It's been down to like 8 and 9 degrees which is totally abnormal.
A lot of stuff is happening in the hostel. Not pretty stuff. I'm great with everyone except for the you-know-what.
I dislike hypocrisy. I wish I could say that I am devoid of it.
I really don't understand some things.
I'm trying hard not to think about some things.
I'm very grateful for a lot of things and I'm trying to learn to be just grateful for the times I spend with some people, or knowing some people and moving on...
I finally apologised for something today and I'm glad to have a friend back
I STILL haven't started studying, I'm just too tired in the evenings
I LOVE my friends
That's all for now.
(I'm really sorry this is such a vague post, but if I started going into details, it'll go into pages and pages and there's no real point half explaining things cause they don't make sense)

P.S. Sharan told me to remember this psalm today so I'm going to put it on here...
Psalm 23
A psalm of David.
1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Caramel Pudding!

I'm very proud of myself today... ahem... I had a cooking class and we were supposed to bring whatever recipe we want and execute it! So I made Caramel Pudding (thanks to my darling mother and Jo and her mother for all the advice and tips and recipe!). It turned out great, although I had a tough time trying to make the caramel but it's all a learning process and thus, I learned that you should never try to caramelize sugar in a non-stick pan... it just sort of goes from sugar granules to liquid to back to hardened sugar...
It's all disappeared now...
All the other stuff the others made in class was really yum too. From chicken curry to cheese and corn cutlets to a salad to pasta....
Anyway, I have to have dinner now...
More later,
Toodles.

Behold I stand at the door.........

Peter Pan pictures. This was our drama production in Std. 13 - another Hebron tradition. Click on the picture to make it bigger. Oh and in the picture where Peter is flying the caption is wrong.... There's a line in the play that goes "I flewed, I flewed!" which is Michael's line (who I played and had a blast doing may I add!) when they fly out the window together.

Anyway, I wrote another post yesterday but I don't want to make this too long and anyhow the topic is more fitting for the other blog on wordpress cause it's something from a magazine that I read on the weekend... You can read it here.

Tired... type.

I am too tired to type is what I was trying to say :)
But I have SO much to tell you! The highlight of my weekend was a Jazz Concert at the Tata Theate at the NCPA. I have never heard anything like it - it was awesome! All thanks goes to Neville (friend from school) who treated me to the concert which had performers like Bob James the pianist, Earl Klugh (amazing, amazing guitarist) and Patti Austin (singer). All names I had actually never heard of before but oh my gosh, I am now a fan! Especially of Earl Klugh! If you can, get a hold of the song calle 'Kari' (!) and 'Dr.Macumba' (will make you want to get up and dance) and 'Maputo' by Bob James. I am so grateful to God that I was able to go for this concert! :)
13 days till Niru comes! Less than two weeks! yayayayayayayay! :)
(what's with the smileys, tina?)
It's COLD in Mumbai! Seriously! Like 10 and 11 degrees cold. Okay, so that's nothing compared to you people in N. America but you see this is a BIG deal for Mumbai and the likes of me who never came prepared for this sort of thing and whose wardrobe is half filled with sleeveless clothes and nil jackets or shawls! I'm surviving off borrowed warm stuff. I like the weather - it reminds me of Ooty (sigh. Ooty my beauty!) but I just wish I was more aptly prepared.
Okay. I'm obviously not going to get any studying done today but I really NEED to study!
Econ test in less days than Niru's arrival. Bleh. I hate Econ :(
This week should be less busy. No, what am I talking about - I have Akanksha Centre Meeting on Tuesday and a Quiz to prepare (or finish preparing before thursday). Ahhhh.
More as and when.
<3

Avalanche moments...

This is Avalanche! A 'SU' or Scripture Union camp in the wilderness of the Nilgiris. At Avalanche, you seriously "rough" it... There's no electricity, you sit around a campfire for warmth, sleep in tents, drink stream water, stargaze, go abseiling, kayaking and gorge walking, jump off waterfalls, dance under waterfalls and sing "dil hai chota sa, choti si asha..." hee hee - that was Sushi and me! To get close to civilisation you have to walk a couple kms uphill and downhill through mud and sand...
This is where we had our Prefect's Weekend and spent many other memorable weekends. This is one of my other favouritest places in the world...

And they all ran...

Pictures from the Mumbai Marathon 2008. Read more about it here (Sharan's blog).
40, 000 people on the streets for what's supposed to be the 10th biggest marathon in the WORLD - young, old, rich, poor, middle-class, handicapped, with baby, students, big shot business men, celebs... you name it. It's a great concept. Goes to show - we CAN be united. It's not just a Utopian idea.

Have you had your run today?

This one's called... "Mallus on Camel back" (Meg and Tashu, in case you were wondering...)
Rajasthan (Jaisalmer, more precisely) on the Delhi trip in December 2004 (??) We all had a ride across the desert around sunset. It was good fun, but I think a little painful for the boys ;) The 'Delhi Trip' is a tradition in the 'A' levels. It's a trip that happens every two years and the whole of 'A' levels (that's std. 12 and 13, we were in Std. 12 when we went..) goes for ten days in December before the Christmas holidays start. The Itinerary included Delhi, Agra, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Jaisalmer (have I missed any?) and we travelled by bus most of the time and it was SOO TIRING! We spent pretty much every night on the trip sleeping on the bus and we'd check into a hotel for a couple of hours to freshen up and eat... But it was fun. LOTS of fun. We should totally do it again.
I think my camel's name was "Hrithik". After the camel rides, we sat around in the desert for a while watching the sunset and then we sat around and watched folk dances and music and ate Rajasthani food. Damn, Rajasthan is GREAT. MUST go again.

A big *THUMBS UP* to Sharan (and her parents and all the thousands of other Mumbaikers) for running in the Mumbai Marathon today!! :)
More on that (and pictures) tomorrow!

क ख ग घ ङ
(k kh g gh ung)
च छ ज झ ञ
(ch chh j jh nyuh)

progression!

That's all,

Tina

Where it all comes from...

Matthew 7-11 "Don't bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This isn't a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we're in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn't think of such a thing. You're at least decent to your own children. So don't you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?

12"Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God's Law and Prophets and this is what you get."

It's been a busy couple of days.

I went for Delirious?/Hillsong concert last night - they were GREAT!

We've been having a Literary Conference for the past two days and my brain is at saturation point now! But it's been good. See Sharan's blog for more.

The touchpad on my laptop is not working. Argh! It's all falling apart!

Our hostel warden, is driving me crazy. I do not like her one bit and I hate that.

I can't wait for Niru to come. Like Sonu said, "it'll do me some good." 20 DAYS TO GO! (btw, where on EARTH are you Dotty!?? Haven't heard from you in a while... call me or something!)

I miss Hebron. I miss the people from Hebron. Especially the staff, thank you for the way you are. You made school FUN and HAPPY. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the idea of dorm-parents. For your actual concern and love and all the hugs...

Flashback part.... I dunno...

This was taken very very early in the morning on the day of the annual Flower Show at the botanical gardens in Ooty. Our school was like IN the botanical gardens so we used to get free entry in the early morning and we were allowed to pick up the extra flowers lying around... which is cool but as I said, it was very EARLY in the morning! Therefore, as you can see Meg and Niru had passed out on a bench at the gardens!

Get Dinner or Get Out! (hee hee, oh! the slogan machine)

अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ऋ
ए ऍ ओ औं अं अः

Man, alive. Computers really drive me crazy sometimes.

I am learning hindi. I know, I know... you're thinking, "she said that once before" but this time it's serious! :D I have like a book and a teacher (Vini) and my aim is to be literate in hindi by the time I finish college in the next two years. So i'll show you then! What I have written above are the vowels in hindi and is my first assignment. *claps hands* it's quite exciting!

Photo time! (It's like "show and tell")This one is from 'Prefect's Dinner'. Hebron had this system of choosing a bunch of Prefects from students in Std. 13 (well actually we'd be appointed at the end of Std. 12) and our duties ranged from making announcements in assembly, putting kids to bed, making kids eat their fruit at lunch time, giving tuck, ushering at important events, and of course attending daily prefects' meetings with Mr. Reid (principal) to discuss "shtuff" oh yes, and we also got to attend this mega-cool prefect orientation camp in this amazing place called 'Avalanche' where we have all these Leadership talks and games and getting lots of advice from the former prefects and playing the 'animal game' (ahhh, SO MUCH FUN!) Anyway, so at the end of the year, Mr. Reid takes the prefects out to a fancy dinner and we watch video clips of the year (as prefects) gone and if I remember correctly he also wrote a poem about us... fun times, fun times.

So here we go...
L-R (sitting, kneeling): John P., Grace, Me, Niru, Abi
L-R (second row): Anjali, Catherine, Alva, Meg, Tashu, Anna
L-R (boys in the back): David, Peter, Gavin, AJ, Jugal, Sam, Jonny, Orville, Deepak, Abhi, Vikyath

You know us!

Better ingredients, better memories...

A personal favourite! This one was taken on the last day of classes in Std. 13 when our whole class dressed up in Indian clothes... We had a different theme for every day (just the girls that is, but the boys, very nicely showed up in their Indian clothes on the last day which was great!)
From L-R (kneeling) Meg, Sushi
L-R (back) Abhi, Niru, Grace, Alva, Tashu, Me, Orvi
P.S. If you're wondering why I'm wearing a shirt, I was trying to do Soha Ali Khan style in RDB ;)
Don't we all look happy. I love these people. :D

I will sing and dance, for You, for You...