What a day! what A day.. really.. when I'd planned this blog in my head, i had thought of so much to write about, but NOW, I'm just plain speechless.

Well for over a month I'd been screaming and announcing my birthday to anyone and everyone i knew but the excitement had died down thanks to the exams nd all i wanted to do on the 23rd was SLEEP. But then again, nothing charges one up like the love from one's friends.

At the stroke of midnight the calls and messages just started pouring in. 33 calls in all!  and I don't know HOW many messages. 

i know I'm probably bragging or showing off but honestly i don't care cos only i know how wonderful it felt.

The rest of the day was no less fabulous. Spendin the morning with the guys, raggin abii, the cake the photos.. everything was jus so much fun!

And then for the next session of "treating"- LUNCH with my lowes from college!

oh man nd all the unwrapping i had to do to finally get to my gift.

(I'm pretty sure we were the noisiest people in the city centre food court that day)

But more than any gift, it was the time spent with all of them that truly made my day. May it be the warm hugs, arun's 100 watt smile, supri and vedha's PJs, maha nd harini's nerdism ( is that even a word) 

oh and how can i forget? our analysis of the crowd. the "HOTTIE" with a pink shirt nd stick like hair. The gold chain guy who kept starin at us and of course darling lil SENBAGA nd her passe.

And the BEST part of the day was coming back home and being recieved by dad's hug nd mumma's amazing chocolate pudding.. wat more could a girl ask on her birthday :)

before i end this post, here's a lil dedication to my friends who make my day everyday

"you know the secrets i could never tell,

and when i'm quite you break through my shell.

I don't feel the need to rebel,

cos you keep my feet on the ground.

You don't get angry when I change the plans

Somehow you're never out of a second chance

And Won't say "I told you" when I'm wrong again.

I'm so lucky that I found you.

True friends will go to the ends of the earth

Till they find the things you need

Friends hang on through the ups and the downs

Cause they've got someone to believe in"

TEACHER AMMA

What do you do when you're mom's the teacher in the same school you study???? wait till you pass out of school of course.. lol

OK now there have been good things thanks to amma being in the same school where i studied, but it was annoying being known as the teachers kid.. But know that I'm out of school and into coll, its actually quite entertaining having a mum in the same school i studied in.

Why you ask? well take today for instance..

Apparently some kids in a particular class amma teaches in had copied in their recent tests, Being the harishchandra's reincarnation that my mum is, she decided to make her students feel "guilty" and own up on their own.

At home, whenever my brother or i do something wrong, she makes us sit and analyse our actions (write out what we did even) and judge ourselves on whether we were right or wrong.. She decided to try the same with her students, so she walked into the class handed all of them a piece of paper each and told them she knew most of them copied. She asked them all to write down why they copied and give the notes back (anonymously if they wanted to)

While most of them merely said" ma'am i usually don copy, i merely "help" others when they need it"( one even went to the heights of saying, " i din even know the MEANING of copying till this year"), there were a few that caught my attention and are really worth mentioning

(note these have been copied LITERALLY so the gramatical mistakes are not errors on my part)

1) ma'am i'm a very good student you can ask math ma'am or english ma'am.( not language ma'am becos language ma'am doesnt like me. I dont copy, i only show everything.I'm very generous thats why i show everything. From now on i wont show 

2) Dear respected ma'am, i like biology because it is my favorite subject hence i like it. I dont copy but i've heard other students talk abput copying and i close my ears when they talk about copying. i dont like copying. other students will be talkin about bit nd things like that. i've heard there are different techniques of copying such as diagonal copying, bit copying etc etc. but i dont do any of these becose i'm a good boy

3)i copied in the 1st standard becos i din know spelling of a word durng dictation.. i was a small boy then now i'm a big boy. i know all my spellings.infact in bio assignment when all those big big spellings are ther, everyone copies from me, even the class leader copies from me. i feel pavum for them and i let them copy. if you say i'll stop that also

(there are loads more actually nd if i'm able to save them before amma throws them into the trash, i'll prob scan them nd put them up..)

god save the teachers who go thro this torture everyday!

like some really intelligent person rightly said ENNA KODDUMAI SIR IDHU!

Of mallipoos and Sungudis

Yes you brilliant soul who got the hint from the title, indeed i am refering to the temple town of மதுரை (OK i wonder if that was spelt right!! )

Thats the place where i "celebrated" independence day this year. WHY did we go there you ask? Well simple reason really. ( as my dad explained) We've been to diff places in India, but never really explored our own backyard so of we were to the town of madurai!

The weather i must say was a refreshing change from the scorchin sun in chennai ( Its funny how jus a few lattitudes can change the temperature so drastically)

Compare for yourself. THIS is what the sky looked like in chennai the day we left

and THIS was Madurai when we landed there ( time difference, 45 minutes)

But why talk bout weather and waste time when there are far more interesting things to talk bout!

Well yes Madurai is filled with temples and smells basically of mallipoo but it sure is an enchanting place.

The "travel schedule" was planned by my mum so obviously the main thing on the agenda was go to AS many temples as possible, though i whined at that time, i'm glad i finally gave in to my mom's wishes.

First of course was the Madurai Meenakshi temple, i'd heard a lot about the 4 gopurams ( one for each direction) and was really looking forward to go look at the real thing, sadaly as they were renovating the temple, the gopurams were completely covered in thatch.

But on the bright side, i got a cycle rikshaw ride to the temple :)

The old man who was riding the cycle rikshaw cudnt STOP talkin and it was quite entertaining as he tried to switch between english, hindi and tamil wondering which language we spoke cos my mum nd me seemed to makin exchanges in all three languages.

So went the first day visiting various temples in and around madurai. Oh by the time we went to this one temple, it was awefully late and the main enterance had closed, one priest ( who was done with his work for the day)took pity on us and took us through the back entrance of the temple, by the temple pond, through the temple kitchen and finally into the main sanctum..

The next day was much more fun when we drove to Rameshwaram.The climate was jus PERFECT. the temples THERE, were far more emptier and less noisy ( well most of them) and of course the MONKEYS!

Well though i'm sure there were far more interesting tales to tell of the trip from a travellers point of view, i don recall enough to write about over here.. though there was this temple ( a murugan temple) where a man had a spear through his tongue and was walkin on wooden slippers which were embedded with nails (OUCH!)

Watever said and done, i did quite enjoy the trip, mostly cos it gave me time to spend with mum nd dad( and THAT doesnt happen often)

oh nd the BEST part of the trip? the flight bak to chennai!

the madurai airport is TINY! its like a house, i mean the waiting launge is the size of a classroom.

our flight was wonderfully late by 3.5 hours nd my mum nd i were whiling away time passin comments on how atrocious the king fisher nd deccan crew looked :P

Finally when we were in the flight, there was this COMLETE wierdo sittin in front of us. He was listening to songs (on his i-phone)from all possible sanjay leela bansali movies( not like there are too many) in the loudest possible volume. (TRUST ME! everybody on the flight cud here it!!!)

so there we are, 100s of feet above the ground, in extreeeeeeeeeeeeeemely bad weather with the plane under terrible turbulence, so much so that it feels like the "roller coster" in MGM,with lightning flashing near our windows and all the ladies at the maximum of their bhakthi, when the air hostess walks upto this wierdo and asks him to turn his phone off as it may interfere with the plane's mechanism.

and Mr. wierdo in return argues about the phone being in "flight mode" nd it giving sadass dialogues such as " madam theeese is not JEST ye PHONE yit eees an i- PHONE" for some reason that reminded me of the rajnikanth dialogues( remember the way he says "yen vazhi THANEEE vazhi")

nd the argument continues, nd since the lights keep goin on and off cos of bad weather and i was unable to read a book, i decided to be entertained by them.

so finally after (20 whole minutes) of the lady explaing the plane mechanism and the guy showin of his "not JEST ye phone" and its features, she finally got up, walked upto her bag nd pulled out a rules book. The rule to switch of phones was mentioned in BOLD, nd since Mr wierdo got a bulb, he asked for a complaint sheet ( to save watever lil maanam he had left)

nd THEN ladies and gentlemen, started wat i call "the essay writing competition" no seriously, he exhausted the entire sheet and asked for TWO extra sheets of paper, underlying here and there, writing with 2 colours (alternating with blue and black, black being used for the IMPORTANT words)

man was it fun to watch his expressions as he wrote..