break!!

Haven't taken a break for even a single day since Aug 15 including weekends. So, when the doctor asked me to refrain from going to work as I had flu symptoms (no, not H1N1), I thought that the flu is God given, not just literally! Only negative is that Suresh is out of town and hence can't order anyone , even under the pretext of flu, to fetch me some rasam!

Right break, wrong timing!

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The Goal

For a business book and that too one on operations management, 'The Goal' turned out to be an interesting one. No one can teach concepts like bottleneck and constraint management any simpler than does Goal. Except that I quickly skipped all the personal confrontations and souring married life of the protaganist, Al!

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A perfect round number

Being a fan of Mr.Monk, I have an obsession for round numbers...I used to hate when someone asked my age - because I had to calculate mentally and arrive at some odd number - 26,28,29 and the likes! yuck!!

So I am naturally glad that finally I will turn 30 when the clock strikes midnight. 30 is a very good age because of several reasons. People have no choice but to start taking you seriously when you are 30. You dont have to go through the pangs of being a fresher or searching for the Mr. Right most probably! And, whats more, You dont have to wake up to skin breakouts or cry about not having the latest smart phone!
You have better things to feel envious about your neighbor, such as her diamonds and her Louis Vuitton bag !

So, Goodbye to acne creams and welcome to age defying lotions!!
Here's to 30, the new 10(he, he!!)

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Miss goody two pointed shoes!

I have been looking all around the city for a good pair of pointed shoes, but everyone from Daffys to Payless only sell round toes these days. Suddenly it looks like someone has made all pointed shoes vanish from stores. Unbelievable that all of a sudden everyone thinks pointed toes are not in vogue :)

Gonna check at Macy's tomorrow. Keeping fingers crossed!

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Louvre - The beginning of a series: Milo De Croton by Puget

Let me confess, I am no grand connoisseur of art, but I love art and the stories behind a sculpture or painting. If I understand a tiny aspect of art, my joy knows no bounds. The following is my humble attempt to document what I cherished during my visit to Louvre.

My last stopover was the spot where Puget's world famous Milo de Croton is kept. Greek legend has that, unable to come to terms with his age, the former Olympic champion tried to split an already half-cleft tree. But his hand got stuck in the tree and he was eaten alive by wolves.

The liveliness of this sculpture mesmerized me. If you look closer, you can notice how Milo throws his head back and crunches his toes. You can feel the scene happening in front of your eyes. My heart went out to Milo and my eyes were filled with tears as I watched him moan due to the bite of the lion (Puget was gracious enough to replace the wolves with the nobler Lion).

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learning never stops, not even during vacation...

Somehow France and Spain had always been my dream destinations, but never was Switzerland. I am a museum and buildings person who can wander in closed spaces like museums and churches for hours without a sign of fatigue, but a simple hiking wears me out. So, when my husband and I ended up taking a trip to Swiss and Paris, I thought the best was reserved for the latter part of the journey. And boy, how wrong I had been!

The beautiful villages of Swiss, the cowbells, the rapid breaths after hikes, the profuse, the suntan caused by the snow capped peaks, the wallet-burning restaurant checks - I started missing Swiss as soon as I left Interlaken to Geneva. Geneva was more French than Swiss. After a boring trip (the only boring train journey of the many train journeys we had) from Geneva to Paris, I realized that this is a different Paris than the one I had always fantasized about.
But eventually, I started liking Paris and gorged on sugar-laced donuts and coffee (yum!). Tirelessly we walked, almost 12 hours everyday, across the city and went to all the famous and beautiful churches - Notra dame, St. Chappel, Sacre Couer and several other..Icing on the cake was that we were able to instantly recognize Sacre Couer as the location in which the french movie Amelie was shot (remember the scene where Nino is led by blue arrows to the binoculars!). Louvre justified all the fatigue of the trip and was spectacular, to say the least!

A side note: How come songs of all Vijay movies are shot in Mt.Titlis or Jungfraujoch? Why does the song picturized on Surya and Jyothika go on like "New York Nagaram urangum neram" when the song was actually shot in Lucerne?

Will post some pics later. Now come the top 3 lessons from the trip:
1. Never mix business and pleasure: I ended up working late nights on my take home exam for MBA and that too in Swiss. What a loggerhead!
2. If you have the real conviction, the more challenge it is to do something, the more certain it is that you will do it. I managed to continue to be a strict lacto veggie in Swiss and France despite challenges
3. Thou always wear sunscreen: Need I say more!

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