Going back to the motherland

India 2.0 by Mick Brown

Returning to the land of opportunity: Over the decades millions of Indians have emigrated in search of a better existence. Now increasing numbers of their descendants, born in the West, are heading in the opposite direction and establishing exciting new careers in the land of their forefathers.

A very interesting article by Mick Brown, link: http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/india2.0/part-two/index.html

I’ve always thought about what it would be like to go back for good, but I’m just not sure I could do it.  More thoughts on this in another post.  Enjoy the article.

An A+ student regrets his grades

 

Education is not confined to the walls of a classroom

 

Product placement in books?

I just finished reading “The Red Pole of Macau” and was surprised or more like confused at first.  First of all, this is not a review, I’ll leave that for another post.  The book was not half bad, easy light reading with a Chinese female superhero, channeling Chung-li.  Just a little bit.  This is not a porno book, not that i read those kind of books, no matter what the title says and this is a family blog hahaha.

What got me was how detailed the author was in describing clothing or coffee, maybe detailed is not the right word, more like the brand is always mentioned.  She slipped into her Giordano shirt or she put on her adidas track pants or she drank her Starbucks instant coffee, among others.  Those were the ones that stuck out at me.  I was thinking why do these labels keep on recurring? If I got a £1000 every time I read those brands in the book, I’d probably have £100,000.  I thought it was weirdest thing.  It didn’t click until towards the end of the novel, when product placement went through my mind.

That couldn’t be it, could it? Only rappers and TV shows and movies did that sort of thing.  Only when I went to leave a review of this book on the library website did I discover the truth.  Other readers had noticed it as well and that’s not all.  In reviews of his other novels, product placement is front and centre.  I was pretty shocked.  When did this happen in literature? Is this a new trend, cause this is the first time I’ve noticed this.  I don’t know how I feel about this, fine I do know how I feel.  I weep for the written word and I will burn all novels.  OK that’s too much, I take it back.  I guess this has turned into some kind of book review.  Not my problem. 

Have any of you read books with product placement?

2nd but really my 1st post of 2013

What’s happening people.  My blog is back from the dead.  This is also my first post written on my tablet.  It’s not the same as writing from my phone which I enjoyed and actually produced more posts.  The reason: a physical qwerty keyboard.  But since wordpress decided to stop supporting my phone, this nexus 7 will have to do.  I hate touch screen keyboards and don’t think I’ll ever get used to them.  Oh well, first world problems I guess.

So it’s 2013 and everyone comes up with resolutions that they eventually break.  I’m going to try a different tactic this year and take a tweet out of Jack Dorsey (@jack) timeline:

My guideline: simplify.  I’m going to try and simplify my life.  Get rid of the things I don’t need.  Get rid of all the junk (the physical and mental) in my life.  Focus on what’s important, sometimes it gets lost in all the noise.

Lifestyle change: eat better and exercise.  Reduce the amount of junk food I eat and join a sports class.

Achievable milestones: average an A this semester.  Learn a language.  Find a job.  Write at least 1 blog post a month.

So there you have it people, my resolutions for the year.  I’m going to do my best to keep them.  They’re very doable, they just require some hard work.

What are yours? If you don’t have any, follow this guideline.  Good luck!

PS: my blog redesign is complete. I oversold it haha. It was just a theme change, but my header picture will change once I take some photos and learn how to use gimp

2013 – Happy New Year

Bear with me folks, my blog is being resurrected, new year and all.

Mangoes Mangoes Mangoes!

 

Finally a decent internet connection, though still slow as @#$%, even though i have to “borrow” it from my neighbour.  So what have I been doing all these days? Eating MANGOES! I’m on a mango diet, I have a mango at every meal.  There is nothing like a Goan mango.  It has just the right amount of sweetness, very juicy, fleshy, it puts all the other mangoes to shame.  Everyone should try a Goan mango before they die.  This one is called Musrad/Monserrate (not sure about the spelling, but it’s pronounced “moose-raad” ) These are my favourite because we make mango jam from these.  Last time we came, our tree was full, about 200 mangoes or more, we ended up giving a whole bunch to our family and we took 2 extra suitcases full of just mango jam !

And this one is called Malcurad/Mankurad (pronounced “mul-coo-raad).  This one really sweet as well.  I’ll take a picture of my own once I go to the market, for now:

I’m making plans to grow an orchard full of mostly mango trees with a mix of jackfruit/cashew/custard apple/coconut trees!  For now, I’m off to eat another mango! bye.

Crap that annoys me

Why isn’t there a decent wordpress app for nokia? OK there is, just not for my phone, they had one before, but now it doesn’t work.  My phone isn’t even that old, just 4 years old, fine, it’s ancient but that’s besides the point.  I used to blog like crazy from my phone, late at night in my comfy bed, before I created this “new” blog.  It was convenient and really easy, no need to transfer photos to my laptop, just upload directly.  Nokia, you disappoint me.  Next phone is an android.  So long S60.

A Post About Posts

 

I know I know, I’ve been MIA, but I’m back! at least for the time being.  I’ve decided to write more since I was harassed by Red about my lack of content, and that’s putting it mildly.  You should have seen the scene she made when we met!  So to pacify her, I’m creating a blog post about writing more blog posts.  Hey, they say if you want things to happen, write them down.  Don’t shoot the messenger.  OK, so my upcoming posts are going to be travel related, in light of my upcoming trip:

• What’s on your travel bucket list?

List 10 destinations, with 1 photo to represent each place, that you want to visit in your lifetime.  RANDOMRED, I challenge you to do this as well, ok fine, even 5 places is “adequate”

• A review of the thai restaurant I visited the other day, It has a very thai name!
• A blurb about my upcoming trip, I don’t think I’ve ever profiled where I’m from.

Stay tuned.

Body checked in the food aisle

Ok, I finally have some time to write.  By the way, did you see notice something new about my blog? hint: ^^^^^^^^^ its my new header image!!  It’s my first time making one and I like it! I’m so proud of myself :P  The images are from my time in Europe last year.  Free candy if you can guess all the places.

So a little bit about last year.  As my faithful reader knows, I was living in Denmark, beautiful country.  It’s so laid back for a western nation, people are so calm and relaxed.  It’s definitely not the go-go-go mentality like here.  I feel like they really enjoy life there, it’s not all work and no play.  And the work culture, amazing.  Once it’s time to go home, they go home, none of that staying late business.  Here, staying late can mean the difference between being promoted or not.  There, it means you can’t get your work done and are lazy/inefficient.  And they get five weeks paid vacation. Even entry level staff! O_O  The transit was awesome, driverless trains, 24/7 metro, indicators of when the next train and bus will arrive (yes, all most of the bus stops have real time bus timings, all the subways have it), being able to bike pretty much everywhere.  Cost of living is high and so are the taxes but they do get a lot back.  No wonder they’re the happiest people on earth.  And not a single fat person (ok I did see some, but they were north american tourists) 😛 so no more worries of being body-checked in the food aisles just cause you took the last pack of bacon or being impaled by a pole on the subway because someone decided they would squeeze into the middle seat or even being pushed onto the street cause the sidewalk ain’t big enough.  And the amazing race was there! I visited the places they went to, too bad they weren’t there when I came, I would’ve have died (actually I would’ve stole a clue).

I loved living in Copenhagen.  It was a completely different experience and I lived in the coolest building, they spent more money on my building than some of the tourist sites in Copenhagen.  I lived with a great group of people and learned how to cook! Not instant noodle, ready-made stuff, but real food like thai green curry, garlic roasted chicken, rice :D, homemade spaghetti sauce (not the can bought stuff), etc.  The kitchen was great, very high tech, all touch screen stuff.  Part 2 to come.  Stay tuned.

The cleaning never ends…

But I think I’m finished! My first post of 2012, Happy New Year!! woot woot, the year’s still new so I can still say it. Right? So I finally cleaned up my blog and made it new again.  New Year, New Blog.  I re-read all my old blog posts and can not believe how much I wrote.  And I wrote some really good stuff! 😛 I hope I continue that trend this year.  Last year was amazing, I haven’t had fun like that in such a long time.  I know you’re dying to hear all about it, especially Red (:  My next few posts will most likely be of that.  I’ll try to write a bit more later today but I’m hungry now and that could take a while.  So how’s the new look? I still need to find a good header image.