Yes, I've moved

I got a comment on my previous post asking if I'm still blogging, and mannnn am I surprised!

I didn't think anyone actually read this blog, other than my rant about Kerala on which I still keep getting comments. God knows where the crazies have put it up that it's still being read!

Anyway, for the ONE reader that's still following this blog, thank you! I'm touched! (really!)

I am fine, and alive and all that. And yes, I do have another blog where I am more active, and yes, I will mail you the link.

I'd have put it up here, but I'm using my real name on that blog, so I need to be more careful about people linking that one to this blog, as this one is generally a sad little blog, and I'm not actually so sad all the time! You'd like me if you met me! ;)

So anyway, adios and all that! I will not be posting on this blog anymore.

If there are any more lurkers out there, leave me a mail and I'll lead you to my new blog.

Cheers!

The Animal Farm

So this animal shelter I volunteered at... turned out to be a lady’s HOUSE!

She’s a local, and she’s got a massive house where she takes care of abandoned animals (although the idea of someone taking the trouble to bring Shetland ponies to the country and then abandoning it is just preposterous!)

I had to clean out the guinea-pigs’ pen, and though it was hard work, I enjoyed it!

I had to rake out all the old hay ( I ended up with 3 bags full of it!) and then replace it with fresh hay. And then I refilled their water and food bowls.

The guinea pigs shared their pen with reallllly fluffy rabbits (maybe they’re not rabbits, cos they had another enclosure for regular rabbits as well, but I don't know what else to call them) and were adorable!

I put in a hour’s worth of hard work, raking and scooping the poop out using a little blue spade the lady gave me.

As I was putting in the last finishing touches of fresh hay artistically around the nice big stone vase they had inside the pen, I heard someone behind me.

Or something, rather.

It was a Shetland pony! Black and absolutely adorable looking! But the naughty creature had tipped over one of my filled-to-brim bags of old hay and was contently chewing it up!

Another one of the volunteers came around and shooed the pony away, after which I had to clean up the mess.

I was free after that though, so I spent the next hour just walking around checking out the rest of the animals and taking to the other volunteers.

Most of the people I talked to had been volunteering for a while and knew all the animals and their names.

This one Jordanian guy (Hazem) I met was talking to a cockatoo and teaching him to click his tongue! The little guy could already say Hello! and was adorable!

I loved the fact that they left their flying birds free to fly around and yet the birds never flew away. This was their home.

The cockatoo liked it when Hazem scratched behind his head, like you would a cat. In the beginning, the cockatoo wouldn’t let me touch him and would snap his beak at me if I tried, but within 10 mins of me chatting with him, he relented and let me scratch his head too! Women's charm? I think so! ;o)

Hazem took me around and introduced me to the other animals – other than the numerous dog and cats running around there was also an African gray parrot, peacocks and peahens, rabbits, owls (who were asleep), pythons, a family of llamas (the baby llama was named Valentino cos he was born on the 14^th of Feb *grin*), deers (one normal spotted kind and another white one) who were sharing their shelter with a friendly goat, a huge Alsatian (whose enclosure was the only one that we didn’t venture into), iguanas, porcupines, maras (before last Saturday, I didn’t even know there existed such a creature!), Minky the monkey (who unfortunately didn’t warm up to me as quickly as the cockatoo) and a regular green parrot that was missing for a while until we discovered that he was sneakily chewing up some cables and had almost exposed the copper wires within! As soon as Hazem called out his name he stopped what he was doing and looked away guiltily! He was scolded by Hazem and I found it so hilarious that the guy was scolding the bird like you would a child and the parrot actually seemed completely aware of his actions and looked guilty!

I didn’t take any pictures this time as I’d started with work as soon as I got in and didn’t have a chance to go back to my car and grab the camera afterwards.

But I’ll definitely capture this wonderful place on film (can you still say ‘on film’ when you use a SD card?) when I return next weekend!

If you're in Dxb and would like to volunteer as well, please mail me.

Random Saturdays

I'm always on the search for new experiences, new people to meet and things to do.
I'm interested by people, humanity, the way we are, so to speak.

I've joined this group called Volunteer in Dubai, and they do a bunch of different things to help make lives better for different people. They organize clean-ups, meetings for autism awareness etc.

So today, I'm off to help clean up the animal shelter.
I've been warned that there are quite a few "very friendly dogs" roaming around freely at the place. And I love dogs! I think I'm more excited about meeting the dogs than the people this time!


At least with dogs, you know exactly what they're thinking!

==========

On a different note, I've decided that I'm going to give up on smileys when writing.

I'm going to try and express my emotions the old-fashioned way, with words!

I find myself constantly using lukewarm language and substituting smileys to represent what I'm actually feeling, and while this is okay in chat (where tone is impossible to explain and emoticons are required) in prose it should be different. Newspapers and magazines don't have smileys in their articles!

And if I hope to be in that field of work, I should work on improving my skills as well right?

So there!

Oops, I think something's burning in the kitchen!

Laters!

So yeah... I've rearranged my resolutions a bit.

Career comes first. So I'm working on getting a job in a field I'm more interested in.

Then I'll work on saving money and changing house.

Practicality brings me down from my lofty castles in the air I suppose.

But I'm not giving up on anything, they're still plans that I give myself a year to bring to fruition.

I'll also start another travel-blog, with my real name, and maybe more pictures of the places I've been to. This is my bid to get closer to the job I actually want. This way, I'll actually have something to say when I tell people I like traveling and writing.

I'm going to make it like a column, I will update it weekly and all that!!

Ooh! I'm getting more excited by this idea by the minute!

Cool! So adios Iwishiwaskidding and Hola .... hmm... I'll have to think up a name for the new blog!

I'll come back to this one once in a while I'm sure! Whenever I feel down and out and know that I can post stuff in here without it linking back to me.

Ok then, I'm off, to grab Life by the horns! :D

NYE 2011

NYE 2008 was the best party I ever had. Even though I'd passed out by around 12:30am, it was the beginning of my friendship with the people I spend most of my time with now, my friends that have made my life so much happier and better. 2008 was a fantastic year.

My only resolution for the year was to travel, and that's something that I'm still doing(and will hopefully continue to do)!

NYE2009 was terrible. I was in middle of a very damaging, and what now seems like a pointless, relationship. The party that was scheduled didn't take place as we'd expected. About 2 hours before midnight, there was a death in the host's family and we had to shift locations and were so busy finding another house and transporting the drinks and food there that we actually missed the clock striking midnight. Plus, the death of the relative (ailing grandmother in India) put a damper on everyone's spirits even though we didn't know her at all.

NYE2010 was a big party. We'd decided to host one at a hotel, hired the poolside area on the rooftop, decked the place up all nice, sent out invites, charged for entry.. complete club-scene! The party itself was a huge success, but I was in a terrible place in life. Above mentioned damaging relationship had ended, and badly at that. At the stroke of midnight I broke into tears and just stayed that way all through the first quarter of that year!

But 2010 was the year of healing for me. I'm over the relationship, done with it.

I'm still traveling, for which I'm thankful. I feel more mature, but I also feel more weighed down, by responsibilities (mainly bills. most of which are speeding fines. ok, not so mature :P)

I'm burnt-out at work though, and am passively looking for a change, and not liking any of the offers coming my way (obviously!). I'm constantly broke, and constantly worrying about being broke and how I'll be able to afford my next vacation.

So this year, my resolutions are a bit more sedate. (see, I knew there was a reason I felt mature!)

Resolution#1 Save money! Save enough money to have 6 months worth of salary in the bank account by my next birthday.

R#2 Move to another place. I hate the house I'm currently living in. Plus, I think the vibes are bad for me. I need to change.

How I'm going to achieve resolution #1 when I have to do resolution #2 is something I'm not thinking about right now! I know it's going to be challenging, but we'll see where it goes eh?!

#3 Work towards changing my career, start following my passion.

Again, how I'm going to achieve resolution #1 and #2 when I have to do resolution #3 is something I'm not thinking about right now! :P

#4 Fall in love.

I know #4 is not exactly something I can resolve to do, but I just want to put it out there to the Universe. What if something like what SRK says in that movie Om Shanti Om happens - Agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaaho to puri qayanaat usey tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai.

;)

I know it's taken from The Secret, but it sounds so much better in Hindi (urdu?)

And then, if it happens, I can say " Itni shidatt se main tumhe paane ki koshish ki hai, ki har zarre ne mujhe tumse milane ki saazish ki hai"

:P

And then you can say wah wah wah! *grin*

Anyway... that's my resolutions list! And it looks like the toughest one I've given myself yet! (even without me having to actively do anything about #4!)

I'm looking forward to new year's eve, and I'm looking forward to the new year.

It's been a difficult year, this 2010, but it's been good too.

So I'm thankful for the good that happened, and I'm hoping for the best for the future.

So cheers!

To hope, love and potfuls of gold! ;o)

Qatar - Do you have what it takes?

So Qatar won the bid to host the World Cup in 2022.

Which is great news for me, as Qatar is one of the territories I'm handling at work and it looks like business will soar for another decade till they're ready to host the world cup.

But what I'm wondering is... will they be able to handle it?

The infrastructure development alone will be a huge task, and while the country is developing in leaps and bounds ( Qatar did quite well this year, I've achieved my sales target!), they are still a long way away from being world-class.

But the other point I'm wondering about is, whether they'll be able to handle the culture-shock they're going to be facing. The World Cup is going to be one Big party. And though the Middle East loves their football, we all know they're not the best party-people.

I was at the F1 races held in Abu Dhabi this year as a marshal, and the people who came to see the races were uber-rich people just looking to show-off and have a good time. My post (from where we monitor the race) overlooked the marina, where all the luxury yachts were docked to watch the races. The party would start in the morning, with music playing, men and women drinking, topless women sunning themselves etc.

I was also at Vettel's after-party for a bit, where they were basically spraying everyone with champagne (even the reporters and camera-men) and just going crazy!

The folk from dxb and Abu dhabi were able to handle this, and though the guys went nuts for the women, they did take it in their stride and obviously, enjoy themselves thoroughly. But the marshals who were flown in from Bahrain almost had their eyes popping out of their sockets with shock and wonder. *grin*

So, the big question for me is, will Qatar is able to handle their country being over-run by the rich and beautiful who want nothing but a good, long party? Will they be able to handle all the wet-t shirts parties and the drunken people walking around their streets?

I've been to Qatar, several times, and it felt like I was in a small arabic town. (Bahrain was worse)! And it was no place for single women, as I kept getting stares even if all I was doing was walking down the street!

For the F1, Abu Dhabi has a different island altogether, away from the city, called the Yas Island, where all the action happened. Not that the city was devoid of action, but it was nothing compared to what was happening at Yas Island itself. And Abu Dhabi is a lot more cosmopolitan than Qatar (though it doesn't hold a candle to Dxb! Dubai rocks even though Abu Dhabi is the capital! :P)

Will Qatar do something similar? Will they build an island and separate the party-place from the prop room? Or will they slowly get their country geared up to face the rest of the world?

What do you think?

Money money money, must be funny.. in a rich man's world

Round-trip ticket to Cape Town - 3k

Accommodation in CT - 1.5k

Activities (including abseiling, wine-tasting, white-water rafting etc ) - 2k

new Camera, shoes etc... $$$$!!!

They say that for everything else, there's MasterCard.

I'm maxed out... so what now?!

:P

I'm leaving for CT on Thursday morning, and in spite of the way expenses have climbed astronomically for this trip, I'm suuper excited about this vacation!

Of course, when I'm back on the 13th, I'll have to survive the rest of the month on just air and the memories I suppose!

But it'll be worth it!

*fingers crossed*