Varun Nair’s Personal Blog

Aaaarghhhh!

No comments. Keep wondering.

Cannot sleep

Have you ever had the experience of feeling tired and sleepy but not being able to sleep? I have slept for around 8 hours in all over the past 2 days. I left work a bit early to catch up on my sleep because I was feeling very sleepy.

But bang! The moment I reach home sleep is history and I am wide awake. I try reading, no use. I try listening to music, no use. I chat with friends for a while, no use. Now I am blogging, let’s see if I am able to get some sleep after this. If not I will be walking around like a zombie in office tomorrow. Yawn. Good night.

Where the were you?!?

YOU: I have been checking your blog every single day. Where the <beep> were you? You <beep>, don’t you know that if you have a blog you are at least supposed to update it once in a while?

ME: I am SOOOOO sorry! Life has been throwing lots of things at me and I was busy dodging some, catching some and throwing back some. No explanations, no more apologies. Aren’t you just happy that I am back?

YOU: Hmmm… you are right. OK, don’t disappear anywhere without telling, OK?

ME: Agreed. Btw I will have to edit out all those gaalis you said. This is a family blog (my dad reads it!) and I cannot have all those cuss words lying around.

YOU: What the <beep>? You <beep>, you <beep>, I will <beeeeeeep>….

ME: OK guys, I think I will have to end this post here, this guy is going to keep talking for a long long time. Bye for now and see you soon.

Bangalore weekend - Short post

Landed up in Bangalore on Saturday morning. Met up with Pratik, Gunjan, Moin, Subodh (Potli), Steve and Vineet. Went to a a few good places on Brigade Street (Alibi, Guzzlers and Corner House). Met Pratik’s friends and Vineet’s friends. Then moved onto Palace grounds for the Iron Maiden concert.

Parikrama was nice, Lauren Harris were OK (crowd booed them but somehow I liked their music) but Iron Maiden were awesome. The atmosphere was electric and crazy. Had lot of fun. Was terribly tired with legs aching.

Moved onto Pebbles, a nice pub near Palace grounds. My brother was bartending there… this is the first time I have seen him bartending. Was nice. Felt very proud. Have always known him to be a good chef and bartender but this was the first time I am seeing him bartending. Enjoyed with friends.

Then went to Java City, a nice cafe at the end of Church Street. Met up with Vineet’s gang. Full of nice and weird people. Nice people are always weird. At least in my friends’ circle they are.

Then came back to Pratik’s house. Had a nice hot bath and simply crashed. Woke up around an hour back. Gang is now going to a place called Samarkand on Infantry Road. Over and out for now.

EDITED TO ADD [26 March]: Pic added.

The Struggle

I almost titled this post “The Rat Race” or “My Quarter-life Crisis”.

It’s weird. Each passing day makes me feel that I am in a rat race, not your usual rat race but a rat race with myself. I want to keep doing better, learn more, do more, earn more, become more efficient, in general become more than what I currently am. Is this usual? Is this abnormal? Is this good? I don’t know. On one hand I am not unhappy with the way things are going in my personal life and professional life. On the other hand sometimes I feel very inadequate and unsuccessful.

Don’t mistake it for self-pity, it is nowhere close to that. I am probably too proud to ever have any self-pity. It is more of a feeling to reach the stars but failing and falling flat on my face. Weird, huh?

I am surrounded by superachievers. Well… most of them don’t know it But I _am_ surrounded by lots of cool people. People whose work I admire and whose thought processes sometimes leave me speechless. These people inspire me to do something more something better. Of course I am very competitive by nature so I guess my intention is to surpass them. This feeling goads me on to do something wonderful… something so good and miraculous that it washes away all these doubts. I law awake at night mulling about what I did that day, what remained undone, what remains to be done and how I am going to do it.

However I know that I am no genius and miracles are well, miraculous. I am in a constant struggle against myself, against what I am and for what I want to be.

So what do I do? There is so much to do and so little time. Maybe I should stop blogging and spend more time doing things. Naah… that would be very boring. Let’s see… I have to do something about this, in fact I am already somethings about this. Maybe that should be the topic of another post some other time.

Yawn

Am feeling very lazy today. The weather is also cool and cloudy, the kind of weather and infuses lethargy into you. Wish it were a Saturday.

Power-napper par excellence

That’s me. Since my college days I have a habit of sleeping for an hour in the afternoon usually just after lunch. We usually used to have our lecture from 1 to 5 in the afternoon and since attendance was not mandatory for most of the courses I would skip one or two (at least) and sleep nicely.

However things changed when I left the nice comfy world of college to earn my livelihood. Was it acceptable to sleep in office? What would colleagues think? What would my boss think? But I was lucky enough to always end up in liberal-attitude projects and understanding bosses and so never had to really confront those questions. So my power-napping still continues. The duration has come down to 20-30 minutes but not the effectiveness.

Again things changed when I had to lead a project. When you are a team member you do not have to think much about being a role model or setting an example. You can go where your heart takes you. But is it nice to sleep when you the project leader? Again to my happiness I realised that people usually do not care much about these things. As long as you do the work efficiently, help everybody out and do well in your formal and informal responsibilities everybody looks up to you. In fact catching a few winks makes you look like somewhat of a “rebel” and add to your coolness quotient, an unintentional but not undesirable side-effect

Power-napping leaves me fresh and releases new reserves of energy. It improves my mood and concentration span. And I have managed to regulate the nap periods to 20-30 minutes quite consistently and therefore it does not have any significant impact on my schedule. So my dear friends if you feel very drowsy at work I recommend you try this very effective technique, I am sure it will bolster your energy by at least a couple of hours.

Monday blues

It’s Monday. And I have been bitten by the Monday blues bug. Am sitting here, composing this post but have to go to office in another hour or so I wish I could take a week-long vacation. Just pack my bags, take a few books, con some friends into coming with me and go someplace without any planning. Some place where we can just chill, talk, relax,play and ignore our routines and schedules for a few days. Sigh.

Acceptance Mode is Bliss

Acceptance Mode is when you have 1000 tasks to do and the capacity/time to do only 500. So you “accept” the simple fact that you are not going to be able to do 500.

Right now I am in Acceptance Mode. Aah… it is indeed very peaceful here Am wondering when all hell will break loose. Till then I will enjoy myself.

No Uttarayan for me :-(

No Uttarayan for me this time At least not in Ahmedabad. Lot of work to do and will be working most of the weekend. I would be very very miserable (right not I am just plain miserable) except for the fact that I am enjoying work.

Let’s call that the silver lining in my dark cloud Bye for now.