This post was initially titled ‘The year that was’. Once I started writing, I found that most of my experiences in the past year could be better summarized as ‘Shaking my head in disbelief’. Overall, 2011 was a great year for me – read many excellent books, watched some mind-blowing movies, played some awesome video games, learned to cook edible food and ahem, wrote quite a few exceptional blog posts.
Here is the list of my top 11 ‘Shaking head in disbelief’ moments this year (in no particular order):
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After watching our very own Diwali super-hit super-hero movies (7am arivu, Velayudham and of course, Ra-one) back-to-back.1
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When someone saw through my ruse to only find that I don’t watch cricket and couldn’t believe that a creature such as I actually exist.2
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When I told somebody that I read a lot of novels and was replied by, “Oh wow! Then you must have read 5.someone” .3
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During the event mentioned in my earlier post Where am I?
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When I was speaking with Shankar Ramakrishnan.4
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When I was watching the History channel documentary “History of the World in 2 Hours” (Specifics not provided to avoid spoilers).
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When I was reading some books – Avery Cates series, The War Against the Chtorr series, Starship Troopers, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The White Luck Warrior, Childhood’s End, The Last Question – to name a few (Specifics not provided to avoid spoilers. And most of you wouldn’t read such things anyway).
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When I met yet another true Electrical Engineer.5
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Censored
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When I came to know of things I ought to have known earlier. E.g.: Why do we have 24 hours in a day, Why do we divide a circle into 360 degrees, Constantinople didn’t vanish in the sands of time – it is modern day Istanbul, etc.
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When I realize that another year has passed and I’m still blogging.
Lets see what comes next year. Happy new year everyone!!!
1 To think that I travelled 100 miles to watch these movies…
2 If you are in a similar predicament (i.e., you stopped watching/following cricket, but don’t want to stand-out in a crowd), it’s quite easy to pretend otherwise – at least for a few years.
3 A famous speech by a blogger (yeah yeah, that’s me) goes like this: “Never say that a book is good or bad. Let others read and form their own opinion”. So, let me put it this way: I might’ve liked such books if had read them ten years back.
4 I had been trying to reach him for so long that when he finally responded, I couldn’t believe that I was actually speaking with him. The feeling was only accentuated by the fact that he seemed to be affected by some sort of long-term memory loss.
5 This has been my frequent ‘Shaking head in disbelief’ moment for the last 4 years. One of my landlords in NCR (who happened to be an EE) took one look at an Air Conditioner specification and multiplied a few things and divided by a few other things and told me how much cost it can be expected to add to my monthly electricity bill. I desperately wanted to become invisible, but consoled myself that he didn’t know about my Engineering major. I don’t know if the world actually is full of Electrical Engineers or if fate keeps arranging such meetings to mock me.
