Just uploaded some pictures from my new Canon 1000D, and I LOVE the results! A lot of the pictures I took were experiments, just to get the hang of how the camera works, but I did try out a few macros and bokeh. The macros I like, the bokeh I’m not too sure about!
Mom just told me that Mrs. Elizabeth Matthew, the ex-principal and executive director of my school, lost her battle with cancer on Monday. It is the passing of an era.
People who knew her, and all of the students who passed out from school under her care, will never forget this dynamic woman, who was responsible for making St. Mary’s School, Pune, one of the top 10 schools in India.
Mrs. Matthew, you will be deeply missed.
I’ve shared some of my photography here, so thought I’d go ahead and share a few pages from one of my altered books called Life 101.
Dawn
This is the first spread of my Life 101 book, which I used to explore life, its meaning, and its various hues.
A pale pink background, signifying the hope of a new day, a circle punched out of the page with an image peeking out from behind the window, screened with gold thread.
Music is the Language of the Soul
This page combines a Planet M postcard insert and a quotation. Background created with sponge and string.
Maya
This page is a tribute to my favorite poet – Maya Angelou.
Tea stained background with sponged stamping in purple and grey, illustrating one of my favorite poems – Still I Rise by Maya Angelou. The images, which show capured slaves and slaves working in fields, were tea stained and distressed.
Friends forever
Ripped page pockets hold tea bags, postcards, etc.–ephemera that speaks of friendship. Text stamped along pocket reads Memories.
According to Astrology.com (thanks, Avi, for telling me the site was wrong!), based on my birth date and time:
How You Approach Life and How You Appear To Others
You are very strong-willed and proud, but intensely private and not easy to know well. Behind your quiet exterior lies a great deal of emotional depth, sensitivity, complexity, and also fierce determination. When you want something you go after it rather quietly but insistently and wholeheartedly – and you usually get it.
The Inner You: Your Real Motivation
You are a person who thrives on challenge, and you often feel that you must battle your way through life, depending upon no one and nothing but your own strength, intelligence, and courage. You believe in being totally honest, true to oneself and one’s own vision and convictions, even if that means standing alone.
Honesty, integrity, personal honor, and authenticity are your gods, and you have no sympathy for weakness of character in others.
Interesting! And largely accurate!
I watched Revolutionary road recently, and really loved the movie. A didn’t want to watch the movie — thought the story line sounded too morose — but he was around while I was watching it on DVD, and said “Oh my! They’ve been fighting throughout the movie!”
Yes, April and Frank did fight a lot in the movie, and some of the fights were really nasty, but the movie was set in a time when women were supposed to be dutiful housewives and nothing else, and it was about a woman who wanted out of that role.
April:
Just because you’ve got me safely in this little trap, you think you can bully me into feeling whatever you want!
Why is it, I wonder, that I connect so effortlessly with neurotic women onscreen? I’m not suppresed; I have an equal marriage; but I just think that I’m really not what is called “marriage material.” I like my independance and freedom more!Continue reading
…are made of this…Cleo sleeping in my lap as I read the newspaper. What bliss!
Some more moments from our lazy Sunday afternoon….
For more Cleo madness, check out my Picasa album!
It’s been ages since I’ve had any time for myself! Work seems to have taken over my life. I work non-stop while in office; when I’m back home I’m planning the next day and working on providing feedback to my editor colleague; and these days, I’m looking (or trying) to look at a thought leadership report that needs to get converted into a microsite! Fun! I finally had enough, so I’m giving my work laptop a break and goofing off on the internet instead!
As our lives get busier and more hectic, other things take precedence over relationships. While I have almost always relegated time spent with relatives to the backburner, I now find myself spending less and less time keeping in touch with friends. As the demands on my time increase, I’m pulling more into myself. All my walls have gone up…exchanges with people seem more like a collission. And this is leading to the relationship I care most about suffering the most.
We are both in a race against time, our days crammed full of work, with together time relegated to the backseat. It’s a situation that will last for some time into the foresaable future. Instead of trying to fight it, I have to learn to accept it…to learn to let go when necessary so that I can enjoy the limited time that we do have together.
One of my favorite postsecrets says it beautifully…
Ever since I decided to take on a couple of new projects, in addition to the work I alredy do. I’ve had a busy couple of really weeks at work. So much so I’ve had no time for hubby dearest, let alone friends.
So it wasn’t surprising when Mridu, a dear friend and an ex-colleague, sent me an email saying don’t just work hard and ignore the rest of your life, take some time time out to just drop a couple of lines and let the people that love you know that you still exist.
I wrote back to her immediately, and decided that I just had to finish up work on time, even if it ment putting a few not so significant things off for the next day, and going to meet her. So, with Swapnil, another common friend, in tow, I landed up to meet her on Thursday — and it was such a blast! I was at her place for about 3 hrs, but it still didn’t feel like we’d managed to catch up! So, we plan to meet again one of these weekends, put our husbands together in one room, and spend some girl time together. That plan will hopefully materialize soon.
Then, on Friday, Swapnil and I made an impromptu plan to go malling @ Central – a mall devoted almost exclusively to clothes, bags, sandals and groceries. What fun that was! We wandered around the mall, checking out clothes, commenting on bags, trying on shoes, and finally ending up with two pairs of pants for her and a pair of cool sandals for me. I had some discount coupons for the grocery sectio of the mall, so we went and stocked up on some home essentials and exotic foodstuffs, before heading over to the foodcourt for a bite of dinner.
The last two days of the week (which also happened to straddle the last day of the previous month and the first day of this one) have been a high-note of an otherwise dreary month of July.
Girlfriends truly rock!
Seems like it’s the season for pets this January! We got ourselves some pretty fish this weekend, and my best friend adopted a dog!
I’ve been doing a lot of research on the Internet to figure out how to take care of them, since I’ve killed fish twice before. Aquariumfish.net had some of the best information on looking after fishbowls, though some of the things don’t quite apply here, or are unavailable here. Till now, though, they’re doing just fine! Fingers crossed!
