Over the past six months, I have developed an annoying habit. It has everything to do with this blogging fad. Anyone and everyone is blogging these days never mind the content. There are some days when I get fascinated by a blog and develop an urge to blog myself. I immediately go to the blog site, register a fancy name and start blogging. That's it and then I forget all about it. I figure I have done this six to eight times now. That's so Sripathi!! :-D. Hope I can maintain this blog on a regular basis.
Though it's nice to blog your thoughts and experiences, it's a time-consuming process. It requires a lot of effort and I feel that I could be doing something more useful. But I have come to recognize that it might be of some help. For one thing, if I get angry at someone, I could rant here rather than shouting at them. Of course, I should refrain from publishing those blogs. Could be an useful stress reliever. :-)
Right now, I'm at Herbert Hoover Theatre, San Jose CA. I volunteer for South India Fine Arts, a non-profit organization that organizes Carnatic concerts here in the Bay Area. We are currently conducting a two-day music festival comprising of Bay Area artists and a few artists from India. I'm a Carnatic Music fanatic and one of the first things I did after coming to the Bay Area was lookup the organizations that arrange concerts here. I wanted to volunteer for such organizations because of two reasons. One is that these organizations are badly in need of volunteers and two is that I wanted to make up for not being able to perform. SIFA is one of the primary organizations which does that and by happenstance (lack of volunteers) I was elected as one of the committee members.
I have come into contact with a lot of wonderful people during the past few months. Their dedication to Carnatic Music is unbelievable. Some of these people are well above 70 and their enthusiasm and energy at this age puts me to shame. I had the opportunity to deliver a Vote of Thanks at the end of a concert and some people thought I did a good job so I have been made the Official Thanker :-). Though I'm enjoying doing it I have also become wary of overdoing it and becoming cliched. But I thoroughly enjoy all concerts and always have good words to say about the performers. Perhaps that is an important reason why I don't write down my speeches. I have come a really long way from the nervous 14-year old kid that backed out of a school drama at the last minute.
Now that I started writing this, I can't stop. I hope this becomes addictive enough that I'll keep doing it. I'm a very inconsistent person and subject myself to my numerous whims and fancies. Not harmful ones though. I just want to do a lot of things in life and feel bad that there is so less time. I do become obsessed with some things from time to time and tend to habitualize them. Carnatic Music was one such obsession. Programming was another. My latest obsession is Fitness.
I was tired of being overweight and complaining about it. Though I did work out once in a while and play some sport once a week I was compensating by overeating. Also eating the wrong kind of food. I'll describe the whole process in another blog but I have managed to lose around 8 pounds. My goal is to lose another 10 pounds in the next 4 months and then control it from there. I do weigh a healthy 153 pounds right now but I figure I'll get down to 145. I'm well on my way to achieving that goal. Weight loss is not such a difficult thing after all. You just need to become addicted to it. My other obsession with running is also helping me in this process I guess.
All rants come to an end and so does this one. This post has mostly been unorganized but I'm hoping to capitalize on this start and make it more interesting and informative. Stay with me on this one :-).
-Shri