New Year's resolutions

I always try to make resolutions for the New Year. I like the idea of bringing some changes to my lifestyle and I think the resolutions are a good way of enforcing that. This year I wanted to make 3 resolutions which are not related to each other. I have so far come up with two.

1. Read at least one new book a month.

2. Cook at least one new dish a month.

I will try and post about what I cooked, or what I read each month. That way I can try and keep track of my resolutions. And speaking of resolutions, this is what I had resolved to do in the past years

1. 2006 - My resolution was to finish everything I ordered to eat, at a restaurant. Of course, buffets were exempt from this. Getting left-overs was not an option. This turned out to be a fun resolution. For the first half of the month, I ended up stuffing myself so badly. There was one particular trying moment at a Chinese restaurant which was close to Grand Junction, Colorado. This was on my trip from Denver to Salt Lake City, Utah with a couple of my office colleagues. We stopped by for dinner and I ordered Moo-Shu vegetables. Given the price, I expected something small. I was not prepared for the one entree serves three kind of dish! I immediately realized what I had to do. I had to eat before my body sent out feedback saying I was full. I am glad to report I kept my resolution that year!

2. 2007 - Do not eat chocolates unless someone offers them to you. I kept up with this for a good amount of time. I initially thought I will plainly stop eating chocolates or candy of any form. Then I realized there are quite a few occasions when people would offer my candy, and I did not want to draw unnecessary attention. The funny thing about chocolates is that I love them. However, three months in to this resolution, I had no craving for candy. Ofcourse, I am back to devouring chocolates now. Esp, white chocolates!

3. 2008 - Run a mile a day. I like to keep up with my running habits. I started running in Colorado in 2004. After slowly having picked up some stamina, I lost it completely in 2007. I came up with this resolution to get back to enjoying running. I maintained a blog of my running thoughts. I used to run at least twice a week and I ran at least 3.5 miles each time. Towards the third quarter of that year, I started developing cramps in my leg and could not continue this. I thought that doing the elliptical was a good alternative. I matched the number of calories, and the intensity of the workout on the elliptical for a while. I think I accumulated around 310 miles that year. We were building a house in the later half of the year, and I had to compromise with all the work that was going on for that.

4. 2009 - Try at least one new, exotic restaurant a month. I think this was my weakest year in terms of resolutions. I did a poor job of keeping up with this one. Sadly, this was one resolution that my wife was looking forward to. I hope to make it up this year, with my resolution to cook at least one new dish a month. We did try a few exotic restaurants throughout this year, just did not keep track of doing one a month. I think our favorite new restaurant this year was Stir Crazy - a Chinese/Mongolian place where you can pick your veggies and sauces and the cook stir fries them for you.

10 years ago

A small snippet from my life during my Undergrad days. I was thinking about my undergrad friends and got reminded of my first room at Mandakini Hostel - 365 B. I was a very quiet freshman and I tried to avoid seniors as much as I could initially. As I got past the fears of ragging, I developed an awe for some of my illustrious seniors and tried to get to know them as much as possible. By the end of my first year, I had made some good friends. Unknowingly, I made friends with people who were either elected representatives or had ambitions of being elected representatives.

During my first year, I shared my room with two others as most freshmen did. Though I never felt the lack of space in my room, I always wondered what it would be like, to have a complete room to myself. At the end of the first year, the freshmen were allotted single occupancy rooms by a lottery system. Someone (I think usually the Social Secretary) made a list of rooms that would get vacant (as a result of final year students vacating their rooms) and allot them to the freshers. Now, as with most things at hostels, this room allotment is not without drama. You see, some freshmen have favorite rooms - the room that is closest to the stairs, or the room that their favorite senior stayed in, or the room closest to the common room (with the TV), or the room that is closest to the carroms room. You get the point. While some of the lesser fortunate freshmen just pray for getting their favorite room, people with "influence" somehow end up with their dream rooms. This is accomplished by getting to know the Social Secretary or some close friend of his. All this was news to me, and I never intended to use this system as I was not sure I was close enough to the secretary.

One fine day before the room allotment happened one of the guys in my neighboring rooms walked up to me and said "Hey Phani, a bunch of us are trying to get rooms next to each other. I will put in your name in this so that you can stick with us". As I do in most situations that Ia m not prepared for, I froze. However, during my first year, I ended up becoming good pals with a different set of people and I really wished to be located next to them. Amidst all this drama, one of the freshmen announced publicly that he was positive that he would be asked to pick the first room to be allotted. As shocked as we were with his claim, at some level we all knew that anything could happen.

On this particular day, we assembled to see how it all played out. We saw the Social Secretary sit down with a large container filled with pieces of paper that had our names on it. The Soc Sec was supposed to stick his hand into the container, pull out a paper at random. The person whose name appeared on this paper picked a room among the available rooms. I took as close a look as I could at this container and all the folded paper pieces looked identical. I was convinced that the Soc Sec would not be able to pull off anything. There were already people who had got wind of the potential cheating in this process. I assumed that the Soc Sec decided it was too risky to pull this one. So imagine my surprise when the very first name that was called out, belonged to the person who had claimed it would be his!! He walked with a broad smile, pumped his fists in the air and picked the room that he had sought! I turned to see the Soc Sec, who continued picking names with a calm poise. How did this guy do it ?? Everything "fell in place" and we ended up getting rooms next to each other, just like the freshmen said we would. The couple of people who did not end up next to us, swapped their rooms with someone and somehow ended up next to us.

The thought of how insecure we were, in wanting to be surrounded by familiar faces, brought a smile to my face.