peanut, peanut butter.

me thinks i dost protest too much? hmm...i dont know. maybe, maybe not. i don't know. its probably both worse and not as bad as i describe. as i said i was hungry yesterday. i bought a small chicken pita wrap from a street vendor (halal) on my way home. it was meh. I got home and my stomach felt terrible. i layed down and almost went to bed. But i had laundry to do. I battled my stomache ache and finished the laundy. it was a small sandwich and by 11 or so i was feeling better, but i was hungry as i still hadn't ate much. i just had a peanut butter sandwich and went to bed. After beating Saara at a game of minesweeper flag (haha below 40!, i'll get to 70 myself soon!). So sad, i live online more than anywhere else. I talked to john online for awhile too. That was nice, hadn't spoken to him in months. Today got to work and crazy busy from 930 onwards. working with the ukraine guy straight til about 2-230 on some database schema while inbetween notifying romania guy about bugs. it wasn't til 3pm this afternoon i finally got to try and do some of my own work i'd planned for today. but first i figured i should eat something. i got a slice of pizza. it actually just made me hungrier but i needed to get ready for a marketing meeting (which ended up getting postponded, thanksfully causei 'm not ready yet) til tomorrow. i'll email myself the files for that and this time for sure get it done at home! shouldn't be too bad. just playing with some figure in excel. a nice simple task actually compared to other things, heh sort of like a cool down excercise for the brain. i said i was going to go out to eat yesterday, that didn't really happen. not sure if i want to give it another go tonight or not. i think i'm just goign to pick up some cereal for tonight. maybe something else, but right now cereal is looking good. i just want something refreshing, i'm tired of food in generall right now. there was this whole funny thing about darrin, emails and the OC. but they are coming to take my desk shortly so i'll leave that for tomorrow or another time. i find myself writing more, blogging more and writing more. its like speaking in a sense. so in a sense i'm talking more than ever? all over the place. at the same time, i think i'm getting weirder (if thats possible). to demonstrate below, for some odd reason, is what just popped in my head. dah well. nick nack paddy wack give a dog a bone this old man went rolling home...

my desk? my stomach? my arm?

They are taking my desk. My L desk. I don't know exactly what I'm getting back. But my desk is gone. Forever. I don't want a regular desk. I need the desk space darnit, i have too many notes and stuff as it is. Ive finished almost 2 pads and already finished 1 pen off. I am now working with all 3 outsourcing guys on various projects. Romania, Ukraine, and India. Kind of cool, hopefully not too much though. But then, only the romania guy seems to need babysitting. I'm really hungry. I haven't ate anything more than a muffin a slice of pound cake today. And its nearly 6pm. I didn't have a big dinner either...Actually yesterday all i had was a croissant, soup, and a small sub. oh and ice cream. yeah, i'm definitely not eating enough. Maybe i'll pick up something from outside instead of just having fish sticks tonight. Tonight is laundry night, thats my plan for tonight.....yay. I'll take the market pricing stuff home i guess and work on that. hopefully. I need a new book too. Something was on my mind, I can't recall what. This will bug me. yes, really hungry am i. seriously, what did i forget? my knees hurt. and my left forearm hurt yesterday. i dont' know why. i push myself up off my bed sunday and it just hurt like mad all of a sudden. But that was just for a minute. The knees? I don't know. That comes and goes. I'm aging too fast. Another reason I need to join a gym.....tomorrow, hopefully. I plan on being active even when 120-122 years old.

boredy boredy boredy

This weekend was dull. Friday I can't even recall. Saturday, I went out to look for a gym. I walked in and 2 of 3 gyms could not be found and the last one was 98$/month which is much too much. I just walked around the local neighbourhood just looking around cause i literally had nothing else to do. 3.5-4hrs later tired and now dark outside I came home. Ate some ice cream went to bed. Sunday, my feet were tired. I stayed home. Ate ice cream and watched random junk on my laptop. I am going insane from boredom. I bug people online to talk. I talked to Caitlin on the phone for about 40mins. I think outside of work (maybe inclusive) that was my longest conversation or actually 2nd longest in about 2 weeks. So sad. I need to find things to occupy my time. I think I'll just swallow the cost and join the gym anyways. I feel like I could easily go days without talking (outside of work) with no problem. Well any real conversation anyways. I think caitlin is getting bored too cause i keep bugging her. Well not really, but she has her exam coming up for actsci so i can't bug her as much right now either. Today at work though was awesome. Seriously, today went faster than the entire weekend. well technically it was shorter than the entire weekend...hmm...be quiet you! I finished 1 spec. Followed up with Romanian guy on another spec. Had a meeting with Aaron to discuss some functionality and then sketched up some quick screen designs. Then was the marketing meeting with Tom and Brian. Discussing how much we should price some of our products at. Coming up with pricing models. What market we want to target ourselves to. What we want to develop next to meet those goals (what i need to spec). And its just cool to be involved in all that. And then still on the technical side design it and determine what should happen and how they should happen. BUT then not have to do the actual grunt work in implementation. Not that coding is grunt work. There are still a lot of cool things to be determined by the programmer. But I get to design the high-level and just having a hand in determine the shape in which the company grows and then actually seeing it happen. I don't know, i find it cool. So work just flew by today. I'm looking forward to tomorrow, particularly after such a boring weekend. But I think I will also join the gym tomorrow. Its crazy expensive, but still, I don't want to sit at home doing nothing anymore. I can't do that. My sister just said she wanted to buy me an mp3 player or ipod and some movies to help my boredom. I thanked her but said no thanks. I don't really need it.

survey

I'll fix formatting on this later. I'm tired. I got into work at 815 today. Thats not early really, but its really early for here. Like 1hr early. And I'll probably stll stay late. And I was up late last night too. So simple mindless survey today. I don't want to think too much. Thanks to Benson, thats where I'm stealing this survey. Name: Ahmed Age: 23 Height: 5'10" Eye color: brown Piercings: None Tattoos: Never Natural Black Status: Tired FAVORITES Color: this varies...today I'll go with goldish, yellowish, mustard Band: I don't know, first bands coming to mind are Jackson 5 and Boys 2 Men TV show: OC, Survivor, Desperate Housewives, Star Trek! Movie: Stand By Me Flower: Either Tulip or Rose Cereal: Honey Nut Cheerios HAVE U EVER? Snuck out of the house: Yes Cried to get out of trouble: Yep Been in a fist fight: Nope, well does it count if someone punches me and I just look at them in laugh? Burped in someones face: eeew no. Broken a bone: nope Pushed all the buttons on an elevator: yep Gotten stitches: nah, it'll heal by itself Hugged a random stranger: yep THE LAST PERSON You IMed: Odie, Darrin You Talked to: Aaron You made fun of: Caitlin You tripped: probably Rabia THIS OR THAT Pepsi/Coke: Milk! Black/white: black Rock/Pop: Pop Pop/Rap: Hip Hop? Rock/Rap: Rock Rain/Snow: Rain Clouds/clear sky: Clear, especially at night. Let me see the stars. Pants/shorts: pants French toast/french fries: French Toast Chocolate/vanilla: obviously, Obviously! Chocolate, or sometimes a swirl Britney/Christina: neither WORD ASSOCIATION House: mates Love: hate Heart: attack Hardcore: nerd Head: ache Break: dance Knife: spoon Taste: food Space: black THE LAST Song you heard: Anojan singing Twinkle Twinkle little stars CD You bought: I've never bought a cd... Thing you ate: Tuna sub from Quiznos Thing You Drank: water Time You Cried: i forget Thing You said: No thanks - to Andrei upon him getting new business cards and offering me 1 Time You Yelled at someone: in person? I don't remember, maybe at my sister back in August before I left but I argue, I dont' really yell. FRIENDS Funniest: I dont' know. Darrin's a good story teller. Silliest: Alia & Umber Quietest: Seiji and Jenn Loudest: Jenise. Oh and Anojan, guy keeps waking me up in the morning slamming cupboards Craziest: Omar? well he's more weird but ah well Best Secret Keeper: Oh they're good, but I'm still not revealing who has my secrets Most Hyper: Farooq and Umair when they are together. WHO IS BETTER Good Charlotte/Simple Plan: don't know, don't care Emienem/50 Cent: Eminem, hands down Nsync/Backstreet Boys: New Kids on the Block! They had their own cartoon! My Chemical Romance/The Used: haven't heard of them SugarCult/Yellowcard: who? Story Of The Year/Smile Empty Soul: are these bands? Nickelback/Puddle Of Mudd: Nickelback Hot Hot Heat/From First to Last: i've at least heard Of hot hot heat, so them i guess. A-Z A - person u ADMIRE most: I admire a lot of traits in a lot of the people i know. B - favorite BAND: i think i answered this already C - favorite CLOTHING store: dont' have one. i don't shop a lot. i buy books and dvds. D - best DAY of the week: Friday, Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday, Monday E - life ESSENTIAL: family & friends F - favorite FOOD: shrimp and chocolate are a tie. G - do you belive in GHOSTS: I ain't afraid of no ghost, ghostbusters! H - You call this place HOME: Home is New York (Brooklyn), but HomeHome is Mississauga I - INSTRUMENT you play: over the years i've played recorder and trumpet but don't remember anything now, sadly. J - dream JOB title: Emperor of Earth K - number of KIDS you'd like to have someday: 2-4 but more would be ok L - do you believe in true LOVE: yes M - if I had a MILLION dollars....: travel, buy stuff for my parents and friends, learn everything i've always wanted to learn. N - NUMBER of siblings: 1 O - ONE wish: its a secret P - PHOBIAS: dogs, people i care about dying, hell, deep bodies of water a bit (i can't swim), other things but those are the first ones that come to mind. Q - QUOTE that you live by: For I 'shall not go quietly into the night'. I shall succeed, and no battle will be won until I've had my fight. R - something RANDOM about yourself: I like a couple of songs by Korn and Rob Zombie. S - favorite SONG: Currently the Prince of Egypt song, If you Believe in miracles...you can acheive, is stuck in my head. T - TIME you usually go to bed: weekdays, between 1230-130am. Weekends, it varies U - most UNUSUAL thing you've ever eaten: my friends are so diverse nothing is very unusual. goat brains i guess? V - most VIVID memory: too tired, cant think. W - WEIRDEST thing you've ever done: ppl say a lot of the things i do are weird X - Uhh...Just Write something: booga booga Y - YEAR you were born: 1981 Z - ZODIAC sign: Scorpio

How did Jerry do it?

I said, I'd write about Shyness. Not really in the mood though. So let me just quickly say, I think shyness is sometimes a cop out. What it really is, is fear. To say you're too shy is to say you are too afraid. Not always, but many times anyways. Really what this is all about is, I'm going to go out and do things and join clubs or go to events or talk to people or force myself to try karaoke (if it doesn't conflict with my schedule for other things) and not let myself be too afraid to try things. I've stated I'd like to be more outgoing a few times before. With...limited results. I guess this is just part of that as well. I spent all morning verifying the bug fixes of romania guy. tiring. i still need to get my own work done. Remember that Seinfeld episode where Jerry is trying to figure out how to breakup with another guy? ......ok, now remember that doorman, Michael, that always talks to me....yeah.....I have no problem talking to the guy. Its kind of interesting. But at the same time, I don't want it to be an obligation that I have to talk to the guy every single time I pass by him. Plus he does most of the talking. And its always about life and faith, and god and beign about others and not oneself and its too much. i agree with a lot of what he's sayign but must i talk about it everytime. how about just a conversation that goes, how about that local sports team eh? i dont' know, something more basic. though we did talk about food and pool once. and now, i'm roped into going to play pool with him next week. i like pool. but. ok, he's a nice guy. but some people are people you talk to when you see them. and other people are your friends that you talk to regularly and the conversations with him just dont feel natural. its too forced. such irony. i complain that i dont' have many people to talk to or hang out with and this is what happens. stuck with someone that keeps talking to me and wants to do something but i just don't feel a natural friendship with him. sigh.... i'l go play pool though still. i said i would and its the nice thing to do as well. plus i haven't played pool in ages. don't know how good he is, but i want to just smoke him. not cause its him i just want to play pool and play some good games. Darrin's not here and usually i'd just play and beat him (hehehe) so i'll have to settle for beating michael. I think i just need a way to end the conversations with michael. an escape. Where is that made up conversation escape device Brent wanted to invent? Yesterday, I got saved after 25!mins, by Hemayna (not sure if thats how she spells it). Girl on the 9th floor of my building, asknig if she could borrow my laptop for 5mins to download her assignment. She's in econ or something I forget. Even after she asked and I said yes, I still couldn't get out of the conversation for like another 10mins. He's off this weekend though, I think Kevin or Riccardo will be working. Thank goodness. I need my weekend to be a break...although the way work is lately...it might not be...k, back to the grind.

Today I am SleepiSiddiqui

I don't think I like my blog title anymore. I like the name, GeekiSiddiqui. But my life a work in progress? how blah! Any suggestions for something else? I've discovered I can rhyme (sort of) things to my last name, Geeki. And today Sleepy or Sleepi. Also....well thats all I've though of so far. But yes, today I am SleepiSiddiqui. Its only 1220. And I came in today thinking all rearing to go. I'm going to get this and this and this done. And I'm going to stay late (coudn't get in touch with Danish or Moshin so no reason not to just keep working). But I come in and I spend almost all morning reviewing work of Romanian guy. Then just as I'm done, meeting time. then meeting done and more stuff to review. But his day ends anytime now (in Romania) so then I can get back to spec'ing my latest project. I'm enjoying work. Its definitely a lot of work. But I am enjoying it. Omar just gave me another one, Freaky (freeki). And another one, that I'll ignore for now. I'm thinking of adding google adsense to my blog, opinions? yes/no? Yesterday was Darin's birthday. Happy Birthday Darrin! I'm feeling quite tired. This is when some music would be nice. To wake me up or give me some energy. I don't drink coffee. I like tea, but I'd rather not be dependent on such thigns. And never needed them before. Water, music, or a nice chat with someone has always been enough to wake me up before. K, enough of a break. I think I'll go do my visio work. Thats fun and maybe wake me up some more. Todays goal. Work until I finish the initial draft of this spec.....or 9pm. Whichever comes first. Survivor started. I downloaded it last night. Will actually have something to do when I get home today! How .......sad.

who wants a coconut? hehehe

I saw a rat the other day. But I was too tired to care. Well I think the fact that I was at least 50-60 feet away helped too :). Any closer and I would have freaked out. It was on the subway tracks, so that far away and a good number of feet down as well. It wasn't big either. Not as scary as I imagined. But still, thats about as close as I care to be. And I don't want to see anymore. I describe myself as shy. I think that is descriptive of my behaviour yes. I'm shy until I start to get to know people and then when I'm comfortable I'm fairly outgoing with them. But sometimes people say they are too shy to do something. I say that myself. You know whats another word for shy? Afraid. Today, is just really crazy busy. Its actually quite cool when I think about it. Finished 2 specs but now doing some verification on some other work, while starting work on 2 new specs, and 'managing' the developer in india for 1 of the specs if finished. And they want me to start handling the Romanian guy who will start work on the other spec i finished after finishign up the pervious versions a bit more (which is what i have to do verfication upon). And then on the marketing side i have to come up with the pricing models for the web services we're offering, researching competitors and stuff. So pretty cool, but pretty busy. I'll finish the shy = afraid post later. plus i want to do Benson's survey as well that he posted on his blog. oh and i heard Danish and Moshin are in town from Omar. Punks never even told me they were here. So i'll have to call them up and see if we can meet up. all out of coconuts, Ali took the last one......um....don't ask. its just randomness. Random!

the weekend

Friday: Came home from work late. Had a tv dinner. Went to bed by 8pm. Woke up around 1130. Spent some time online, chatting, checking email. Talked to a few people. Went back to bed. Saturday: Went to CitiBank to open a bank account finally! Stupid counter lady spends forever and a day with 1 customer. It was stupid. You can't spend that much time with 1 customer when there is a line. This is not a teller line, nor even the waiting area. This is the line of customer assistance where I'll eventually get to sign-up my name to sit in the waiting area to get help. I stood there forever! (30mins-40mins I'd say) without the line moving! Finaly one of the other workers that works in creating new accounts came and went through the line asking what people needed. And she talked to the customer assistance lady. I went to the waiting area. Darn people didn't even use the list. I think people bypassed me. Eventually i just walked up to a desk and sat down infront of someone so that they could/would help me. I contemplated just leving and going to another bank. But my company has an agreement with the bank so my services and stuff are free. Anyhow, the person I dealt with was very pleasant and helpful so the service staff is probably all very nice, just waiting time was terrible. oh well, everything will be online from now on. I opened a chequing and savings account. Never had a savings account before. Never any interest in well...interest. I had my chequing (americans say checking?) and investments in canada but never a savings. oh, still not interested in interest btw, just more for safety reasons to keep money out of checking in case of lost card or something. cause here you can use a debit card like a credit card, money goes straight out of account though. so like debit, but you sign instead of punching in a code. Everyone at towerdata (afaik) uses direct deposit. i didn't have an accout set up so Tom gave me a cheque. He forgot to sign it! haah, didn't even notice til i got to the bank. oh well. There was an event I heard about this night. A bunch of muslim kids (kids i mean ppl relatively close to my age) meeting up for bowling and dinner. Seeing how I knw all of 3 people in this city I decided to forget about my shyness (more about shyness in another post, this will be long as it is) and go. I need to make more friends. ha, forget more, i need to make friends. seriously, its quite boring here, even in ny, when you don't know ppl. So I was kind of nervous, but I decided to go anyways. For bowling we had a group of 8 people. Romana (event organizer), 2 girls with names staring with S, sadiyah or something like that was one them, i don't know. it was teacher and med school girl. Then there was a 2nd romana and her husband...irfan. also, camera guy Ali and conneticut guy Raza. Bowling was fun, but i bowled pretty badly. 103....sigh, but i still won? hehe, got to represent for Canada eh, lol whatever. i couldn't really complain about my score when i still won. Then off to dinner. Some italian place of which the name escape me. Another guy joined us there, forget his name...meh, amersterdam guy. and 2 girls, Darya and Darya's friend. Dinner was good. but romana#2 found a roach in her glass! Ewwwwwwwwww!!!!!! we almost all left right then. had it been my glass, yeah i'm out of tehre. we complained but everyone was kind of lazy or indecisive i think. we complained and got a free desert out of it. not much but at least something. the food wasn't great. i had better at another place in brooklyn, cheaper there too. but desert was good. mmm...chocolate. we then decided to go for a movie. a subset of us only though. well the same ppl that went to bowling plus amsterdam guy minus Ali. after much debate, we decided on skelton key. we went to the AMC at Times Square. The AMC here doesn't use Movie Watchers? weird. The movie theatre wasn't big. i mean the screen upon which i watched it. the place itself was huge. i had to go up 5 escaltors to get to my screen, #24. The Movie was quite good. Better than i expected for sure. still dumb at times, not really scary. but plot twists weren't bad. i liked it. i never really get scared in movies. not really. things may make me jump, but they never really 'scare' me. like make me fear. i do find disturbing images scary though. but movies as a whole, dont scare me. but then i haven't seen the classic horrors like exorcist or anything. Movie ended at 3am. Coming out and walking down times square at 3am and it still having a lot of people and bright lights everywhere. and i just thought to myself, i'm in new york, times square, 3am, goign to take the subway home to brooklyn, this all feels so sureal. kind of scary too cause i could be out this late, or not come back at all. and no one would know. people wouldn't know i'm missing for quite some tiem if i just disappear. sure there are my housemates, but conceivably i come home late and leave early in the morning. so days are gone before they really know. at least. our schedules are kind of different too already. so yeah...its a bit scary to think about. walking around at 4am in downtown brooklyn/ that was also a bit scary. but not as bad you may think either. its all in your/my head. Sunday: um....did my groceries. found out where the mosque is (20min walk away roughly). thats about it.

naps are good

Had a meeting with the whole team today. Discussing frame work for the system. Like new projects that would be worthwhile pursuing. I was so LOST. I don't know their internal systems that well yet and I felt just lost everything was like huh. Oh um...huh? I'll have to step up on the learning of that stuff. Had a second meeting on a new project that I will be doing some work upon. It went much better. It was 1on1 with Tom and I was able to understand what was going on and give ideas and well, just much much better in general. I'm so glad today is friday. the week really flew by, but at the same time, wow, so tired today. came home from work, had a small tv dinner. went to bed by...8? woke up just a little while ago at 1130ish. nice 3.5hr nap...hopefully i'm not up all night now. finally got my ssn. i think i'll have time to go to the bank tomorrow finally which is also good. need to go grocery shopping too, i'm almost out of food. just checked my work email. got a compliment from Tom on an email i sent him on soething i noticed on the corporate site that could be improved. He's putting the Germans to work on it. hehe, the Germans, its funny to say that. dont know why. We outsource to several people. People in Ukraine, Romania, India, and Germany. Why so many places? Well thats a long and well rather unintersting story. um...nothing interesting to put today. perhaps tomorrow or after the weekend.

hi ho, hi ho, hi ho hi ho hi ho

I remember! I was thinking, after talking to some co-workers (I say some as if there are so many, after talking to Aaron and Pete yesterday) that even when I get to NYC I can't escape co-workers talking about hockey before basketball. Just my luck eh? Well they are, are at least it appears, not huge sports fan in general, well not die-hards. but still sports fans. but first is football and then well not sure what else. but it seems like hockey is 2nd. dah well. Only 1 more month til trainng camps start! AAHHH! phew....whoa! Theres construction on my floor. some guy brought their dog. I don't like dogs. I saw something in my periphial (yes i know thats spelled wrong) vision looked to my left and Dog! right beside my chair! But you know what, i'm much better than before. I think India helped cause there were a lot of stray dogs I had to walk by. And they didn't do anything to you. So I can walk by dogs with little to no problem at all now. When I don't see one and it pops out of no where I still feel a sudden urge of...i don't nkow, my heart skips a beat. but its only for that second. i think im good enough to even pet it now. stil would depend on the type of dog though a bit. A dobermen, i'm still keeping my distance. eating quiznos sub for lunch...ooh soo full, my stomach has shrunk. internally, externally bigger than ever :( i need to excercise again. i need a cheap gym. India was such a huge experience for me. I feel like I refer to it fairly often. I think I bore ppl. But there is no way to impress on people what it was like, what i went through, what i experience, what i saw, etc. I think that term and my 1st co-op term are the ones I refer to the most. Probably cause india offers such a contrast. This week has really gone fast. I'm meeting some new ppl this weekend aaaah, oh man. dog just crawled from out under my desk. freaked me out. i'm meeting some new ppl this weekend for bowling and dinner. that should be fun hopefully. they can all laugh at my man that dog has got to go, or at least not look at me. dont' look at me dog, go away go away shoo. they can laugh at my unique bowling shuffle walk thing i do. k, lunch break over. back to work, hi ho hi ho, its back to work i go, hi ho, hi ho hi ho hi ho don't think tahts how the 7 dwarfs would spell it but you get the point

oh captain, my captain

Had 2 more spec reviews with Tom today. They're going better. I'm not as nervous as before. Slowly getting the hang of it. I'm not blowing him away with my work (yet! hehe). but its not as scary as before. And although I get criticism, its just constructive and it doesn't get me as down as before. AND I (well I got it before on the first one but now I'm getting more) compliments on my work as well. So thats cool. The day is freaking long though. I'd much rather start earlier than continuously end my day close to or around 7 cause it still takes me another 40mins or so to work. Oh today was stupid 1 hr on the way to work. man, and i had got up early and everything. stupid R train took forever. I'll try the F tomorrow me thinks. you never know what could happen. thats my random comment. i keep looking both ways on 1 way streets. i finally heard back from waterloo about my degree. i told them forget about mailing it. i'll just pick it up at convocation. i don't really care about crossing the stage. maybe the excitement will come closer to the event. its more for the parents anyhow. i kind of want the degree just in my hands. and well thats about it. i'll go just to see ppl again. that will be nice. i know i had more to say. i was thinking about it at work, but i had work so i didn't then. can't recall now...hmmm....hmm...oh well. i guess i can blog later tonight or tomorrow if something pops to mind. something always does. whether old or something new. oh i watched Dead Poets Society again last night. Good movie. Not great for me as it is for others, but definitely good. Makes me, reminds me not to waste time. To do now rather than later. its funny how things like that occur to us sometimes. and then it hits you in not 1 thing but multiple things. all telling you not to wait. not to waste time. i bought a box of chicken strips. i finished it in 2 days. so small. today is fish sticks. bagel and fish sticks. i should probably eat more eh? i'll go grocery shopping again this weekend. i didn't go last weekend.

Pictures

Alright, so finally, I'm putting up some pictures! So this is me and Caitlin at my apartment in Brooklyn. My eyes are closed, as you will see, my eyes almost always end up closed. grr.. Caitlin and I at the Apartment, in Brooklyn. Caitlin trying on my Kurta Pajama, sadly she forgot all the bhangra we showed her in waterloo Me at the Statue of Liberty. mmm....chocolate.... Anojan (one of my housemates) & I after watching RENT Random shot of Times Square Alright, thats all for now. I'll try to show pictures of my place and my other housemate Punit next time. We'll see. I think the formatting will look terrible, next time captions above pictures, just easier that way.

weekend recap

This weekend seemed more like a long weekend than last weekend. Perhaps because I did more this weekend? Friday I finished the first draft of a phone web service spec. Handed it over to Tom, the president. We'll have a spec review on Monday he said. Thats not an evaluation no me, not technically. Just a review, cause well all specs have to be reviewed. Still first one to be reviewed by him...scary. More on that later. Caitlin was coming down to hang out for the weekend. I gave her my work number and extension. She called but apparently it didn't work. She ened up pressing randon numbers for extensions and got Tom. The president. Transferred back to the operator she then got Aaron, he would be the #2 guy in the company. He just transferred her to me. I meet her at Grand Central Station. We head back to the apartment in brooklyn. Caitlin kept a look out for rats. I use to do that too. Like I keep expecting to see them (not that I want to, i'd totally freak out) but i haven't seen any yet. thankfully. Anyways, we drop off her stuff and then go back to manhatten to meet anojan and noah for dinner. A mexican / moraccon. Wasn't mexican enough, but the chicken was great. Then went to a nice desert place. Went back to brooklyn after taht and just chilled at the apartment. Saturday Caitlin went to see some other friends. Anojan was feeling lazy. Punit went for groceries and I not wanting to just sit at home went to the Statue of Liberty. Its much smaller than I imagined. But it was nice. You have to book a reservation or special tickets in advance over the phone or online. so i couldn't go up. but i went to liberty island and walked around the base and it was nice. the weather was great that day and on the boat ride it felt even better. Battery Park (where you grab the ferry) was really nice and I stopped and watched a few busker shows (street performances). That was cool. Later myself, anojan, his cousins and his cousin friend and punit had dinner at a nice italian restaurant in Brooklyn. Seafood pasta..mmm...shrimps are always good. Then went to a comedy club in East Village I think it was. The show was really funny. 6 performers plus an mc lasting for about 1.5hrs. 2 were really good, 2 were good. 2 were meh to bad. and the mc was really good. So good times. Sunday Anojan and I met up with Caitlin at Times Square area. They had closed 7th avenue and had all these stalls and stuff up and we wandered around looking at stuff. Then we bought tickets to the show RENT. The singing and performances were all excellent and entertaining, but overall the show was just lacking. It didn't have enough story. It didn't draw you in. Mamma Mia, Lion King, etc are much better in my opinion. Next time, its The Producers inshaallah. Or phantom, or beauty and the beast. so much to see! but in time, can't go crazy with the spending. After the show we just walked around Times Square looking around and then Caitlin had to go catch her train back to conneticut and Anojan decided to go to work? at 7pm? on his bday? oh well. And I returned home to brooklyn. All in all a fun weekend. Expensive, but worth it. Today (monday) Had the spec review with Tom. It went alright. I have some things to change but it wasn't the huge disasater I had anticipated. But then maybe he was jsut being nice. Pictures? I have pictures now! but they will go up tonight or tomorrow, im updating while on lunch, and obviously don't have the pictures here. boo, agassi lost. but i like federer too.

work...zzz....work

Thursday means, OC! Its back! Today and yesterday, and the day before and tomorrow, all so crazy busy at work. so so tiring. if so busy you say why am i taking this break to write a blog? well we all need breaks. and i skipped lunch and it would look weird if i disappeared for 30mins now in the afternoon so i'll just take a 10mins break and blog and surf for a bit. i stayed fairly late yesterday. and emailed myself some files home to do some work. i got home. checked my regular sites. then decided to take a nap and wake up at 9 to work. I got home around 8 btw. so just a short nap, 30mins or so. i hit the alarm once, i thought it was once. to snoze. just 10 more mins. it never went off again. or i slept through it. next thing i know, its 1130! just slightly overslept eh? i eat dinner and go down stairs to use the net. we live on the 6th floor. but we leech internet from some guy (or gal) that switches it off at night. but we go down to the main floor tv lounge area and we can leech from the 2nd floor ppl and thats always on. so i go down at 12ish after eating. knowing full well i won't get much down now that its this late. but i should at least open it up and see what happens. i get downstairs and its Agassi vs blake, 3rd set, agassi down 2 zip. and down a break. and then the comeback begins! awesome match! so good. i love agassi. best returner ever for a reason. it was very close. blake looked like he would just end it and win a few times but must to chagrin of punit agassi kept coming back. match ended around 115am. i emailed out a spec i was working on and went to bed. not a very productive night. i did wake up early though. and got to work early. relative to everyone else here. ppl come around 915ish and stay til 630-7ish. i got in around 830. though i set off the alarm. oops! it turned off by itself eventually though. anyhow tonight i'll be here til 7 working then off to go watch OC and maybe this time do some work from home. tomorrow, well tomorrow depends on today. but tomorrow Caitlin is comign down. and we'll all (her, anojan, punit, and maybe noah) go out for anojans birthday day. poor guy, celebrating his bday on sept 11th in nyc. we'll see how that goes. no real plans for the rest of the weekend but i'm sure it'll still be fun. and i will take pictures and put them up. no doubt this time. but it will be after the weekend. so if i blog before then. no pictures! too bad! mouahhaha

i'm hungry

alright, so weekend is over. i got my lamp! i got some hangers! and i got my groceries! and that took well most of my weekend. i got my desk last weekend from the pharmacy. its like a pharmacy slash grocery store slash convenient store slash general store. desk was only $20! was a pain carrying the box all the way home though. my arms/muscles were shaking from the effort afterwards. and then putting it together was a pain too. i got my lamp from staples, that wasn't so bad. for groceries i go to this store called pathmark, about a 20min walk but i took the subway there and bus back. otherwise carrying the groceries would kill me. even carrying them on the bus and stuff is a lot of work. seriously, i expect to have some strong arms and shoulders if i have to do this every weekend. i then went down to Queens, cause anojan wanted to get a haircut there and also groceries are cheaper there. or at least fruits and vegetables are. punit, my other apartment mate (can i say housemate? or flatmate or ?) knows like where everything is cheapest. anyhow, so i went to Queens. its interesting. i was like wow, finally i see some brown ppl in this city. otherwise, everywhere else i go i see one here or 1 there, but nothing much. everywhere else its basically everything else. but few brown. Queens is kind of far from Brooklyn though. takes about 40-50mins by subway though. so too far to go often. but i can buy a lot of halal food there. like halal chicken fingers and beef burgers and hotdogs and stuff. there is probably something closer to me, but so far i've only seen halal buchers nothing like...student food hehe. and yeah i got my hangers there cause well i saw them and i was there. i only got 16 though and that was a mistake. should have got like double that. now i still need a chair and a dresser but that can come later. next weekend caitlin is coming down and we'll do something to celebrate anojans' bday as well. that should be fun hopefully. so what else did i do this weekend? anojan and i were suppose to meet up with Noah, one of our waterloo friends from a couple years back. he's graduated about a year ago and has been working here since. anyways, we were suppose to meet him for dinner at an Italian restaurant called Max. Now anojan and I are running late, and we want to get of on 51st street. we're talking on the subway and next thing we know we're at 59th! we jump off and get on a subway going the other way, but it doesn't stop at the 51st street station but continues to 42! oh no! so we get off there and power walk / run to 50th street. and then start heading down to 2nd and 3rd avenue. and we look and look but can't seem to find it anywhere. we ask some strangers. and then finally call 411. oops, it wasn't 50th at all. it was 50 on Ave B! we were totally off. walking around manhatten (midtown area i think) but we were suppose to be in east village! so yeah, we didn't make it. not only that but we walked around for a good 75mins or so looking for it and then forgetting about it but trying to find a restaurant we did want to go eat at. we eventually settled on this indian restaurant and wow, it was awesome food. so soo good. i had chicken with mushroom and some naan and then gulab jamun for desert and it was all wonderful. came home and ate some watermelon and i was too stuffed that i gave myself a stomach ache. but i could easily go eat there again. but then, i'd want to order the same thing. thats the trouble sometimes. you find something good and you want more but you want to try new things as well. its a difficult balance. i need a bigger stomach. hehe and a bigger wallet as well. though this place was fairly reasonable. well reasonable for new york anyways. um, what else. i came to new york. and you have a lot of conceptions about it. like its scary and violent and stuff. and yeah, at the beginning you walk around and you think does that person have a gun. and you are very careful. and thats true to some case still. obviously i'm careful in certain areas of the city but i don't think everyone has a gun. still, you don't make eye contact with some ppl. and even other ppl, when you do make eye contact they look away right away. another thing is i keep looking out for rats. i saw 1 huge huge one, but it dissappeared now. thankfully no where near where i live. but anojan said he saw some walking back home late at night a couple blocks down near some garbage and subway vents. i keep looking in the subways, by the tracks, but i never see anything. which is great. they would totally freak me out. i saw some rats in india, man, scary stuff. it was in the parking lot, outside the partment i was staying at there. i just ran up the stairs to the apartment as quickly as possible after that. but they never came in the building, thankfully. i'm hungry again. i need to excercise more. i'm walking so much everyday, but i'm not eating the healthiest foods. so i got to make sure i dont' become a fat american. oh yeah, i can't believe i got a spam comment, never even heard of that before, though i have now noticed in other ppls blogs. still. how odd. its also odd the ppl that read this blog. some ppl that i just go, really? they read this? i'd never have expected that. its cool that they do. it really is. don't be shy though ppl. feel free to comment to me, by msn, email, or by comment. you could call me too. i'd put my number down here but i don't know wht it is. haven't memorized it yet. that was a problem the other day too. coudlnt' call noah to say we were lost. couldn't even call home to tell punit to call noah for us. anyways, this is getting long.

long weekend

The long weekend is here. I've been here for 9-10 days so far. I'd have to say, when I first got here. I did not like it. But I'm slowly adjusting and I'm warming up to the place. Work well I'm still quite lost but I'm not as worried about it as before. A false sense of security though perhaps? Pictures? I'll get around to it. I've walked a little around the local area. Not too much around nyc itself. but then its huge, i could walk several weekends and probably still be able to say that. but really, haven't done much exploring yet. punit and anojan are fairly busy. weekends are when we do grocery shopping. i still have to get an ssn and bank account and well everything takes time and before you know it, time is gone. the doorman at this place are quite friendly. i just had like a 15min conversation with michael the french doorman guy. about life being about relationships and happingess and giving to others and not materialism and whatnot. i'm not quite sure how i got into that conversatoin. i think he might have had things on his mind cause i kind of just wanted to go upstairs cause i was tired. and carrying some heavy bags. but when you talk about such things. you have to pause and listen. and realize. because otherwise you're doing exactly what you yourself talk about and say is wrong with the world. even if i'm a bit tired. there is no harm in stopping and talking to someone for 15mins. otherwise, what? i go up and blog 15mins earlier? meh. i feel like i need more friends here. i dn't like having a small network. and this is quite small right now. i'm at work a few days ago. tuesday i think it was. mark (my would have been supervisor who is leaving for toronto to pursue another job and whose duties i am now sort of taking) and the president ie. bossman, tom and i were in a meeting. oh and mark will be available for some work in toronto for a week or 2. anyways. oh and tom is going on vacation. and mark is leaving. and mark asks tom who should be my contact point if i have questions, yourself? or aaron (another guy at the company). and tom is like, you should be (to mark). and mark is like, alright. i better get a phone soon then in toronto. and you should have seen toms face. hehe so funny. ok, i'm telling the story badly i think. oh well, it was funny to me. i think you need to understand the situation better. i've had little time to get up to speed on things before marks leaves so tom is a bit concerned about all that. so what will i do the rest of the weekend? you know i have no idea really. probably not too much actually. i bought a lamp today. i haven't got my first paycheque and wont get it for a couple more weeks so...can't go crazy with the spending yet. though i really want to go see some shows. really really want to go see some shows. but soon enough. k, next time i'll at least try to get some pics of the apartment or something up.