Va Va Vrrroooom!

Just trying my hand at panning.

What goes around REALLY comes around

So, last week I found this wallet on a bus on campus. It was wedged in the space between two seats. The student card in the wallet indicated that it belonged to a student of the same university but from a different department. The wallet had plenty of cash, his IC, some credit/debit cards and other miscellaneous stuff that people usually put in a wallet. My first thought was to call and hand it over to the campus security or the lost and found section in the university. But then I realized if I did that, it would probably take a long time for it to get to the owner. He must be frantically looking for his wallet. So I plumaged through his wallet and found this receipt for a badminton court booking, and in that I found his telephone number. I called the guy and told him that I had found his wallet. He said he would come to my lab and pick it up.

After a while, the guy turned up at my lab. He told me that he had in fact lost his wallet a week ago and he had decided that he would not get it back. It was lying in that bus for a week. Since it was stuck in between the seats, no body had noticed it. He thanked me profusely for returning his wallet and left. After that, my day was really busy and I forgot all about the incident.

That day evening after I left the lab, R and I went out for dinner.  Since it had been a long day at work, I came home and went straight to bed. At 11:30 p.m., my phone rang. The guy on the phone introduced himself and asked me if I had lost a laptop, a Mac book pro. It was then that I realized that I had left it in the restaurant after dinner. I had not even realized that it was missing. At that moment, I had a panic-attack. He told me he had found my laptop at the restaurant and he did not want to give it to the police, as he was not sure if I would get it back. He asked me to come and pick it up whenever I could. I left immediately and went to get it. On my way to meet him, it struck me, how had the guy found my number? When I asked him, he said he had used my computer to log in to my face-book account (it doesn’t need a password as I am the only one who uses it). He had instant messaged one of my friends who was in Australia to get my number and called me. Later my friend messaged me to tell me “ I can’t believe you lost your computer and a weird guy just asked me for your number”. It seems that the guy had pretended to be me, to ask for my number and only later admitted to being someone else.  God bless that guy for returning my laptop. I shudder every time I think of the consequences if I had not got my Mac back. So much of my work would have been at stake among other things (I don’t back up very frequently).

Lessons learnt at the end of an eventful day:

Be more careful with your stuff

Back up your computer more regularly

What you give is definitely what you get in return!

Raindrops keep falling on my head

So,  I was trying to get out of lazy mode this afternoon. But it was raining and boy, was that some rain. But I did get out my camera for a while. And I think it was so totally worth it.

What goes around comes around

I’m having trouble waking up in the mornings these days, which means I’m always late to work. I should have known this day would come.

You see, I was on vacation in India for the last couple of weeks. It was almost an evil pleasure to watch people hurry to work in the mornings (especially on Monday mornings) when I could choose to stay in bed or laze around. And I reminded everybody I met that “You have to go to work and I’m on vacation!!” It was such a sweet feeling. I could see the jealousy in their eyes and hear them quietly hurling curses my way.

And now Karma is biting me in the ass.

Feeling blue

The color of the sky matches with my mood today. But the star twinkles on.

Looking for the pot of gold..

Under this rainbow.
Spotted my first one this year ( the rainbow, not the gold)! And I thought it would make a good start for my first blog post this year.

2011: The year that whizzed past

I’m writing this post to keep up with my tradition from the last two years. I was just reading my post from last year. I think that the issues I had last year are not major issues anymore. So I guess it means I have made some progress with my life. Or that other issues have taken precedence.

I prefer to do my stock-taking-on-life at the end of the year. As some of you will know, I am ..erm.. lets just say…. not a very happy “birthday person”.

Made fewer trips this year, compared to the last. The major one to USA happened (thanks to a conference again), the highlight being the trip to the glorious Yosemite.

Travelled home to India not once or twice, but thrice this year. Not to mention, I am here at New Year’s Eve. Now, that must mean something, right?

Caught a few good concerts in 2011, Shaan and Raahat. Sadly though, I’ll never be able to witness Jagjit Singh and Bhupen Hazarika, live in action.

On the professional front, the research is going somewhere, I think. Presented my work at the conference this year. Took my Qualifying Exams and actually passed them. Hopefully, I finish in a year and half. Fingers crossed!!

But mostly, this year sucked! Really. I can think of more unhappy things that happened than the happy ones. And yet, I will choose to remember only the happier moments.

2011, I’m happy to see you go.

I hope the one coming up is a better one.