Time.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
Its good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.

- Pink Floyd

Ever felt that you were identifying a bit too much with a song?

One more day.

A lot has happened over the last month. Usually it's not much coming from me, 'a lot' gets redefined here all the time. But this time around it was really a lot.

I turned 21. Amidst little fanfare, thankfully. Is 21 too early to start feeling too old? Is it? I can see myself starting off on the Gone are the halcyon days of my youth... vein already. Methinks there is something very, very wrong with me.

The blog turned 1. As the author forgot the anniversary himself at the time, he feels large-hearted enough to let his readers off the hook for having done so. 40 posts in a year. Not pathetic, but not great either.

I learnt a lot about myself in these past few weeks. Not things which have irrevocably changed the course of the rest of my life or which have made me an alarmingly nice person, but some obscure, insignificant li'l things that I did not know before. I have also changed a lot in these past few weeks, past few months.

I found out that my Tamil isn't as terrible as I'd thought it would be. I was wa-hay better than the other two in using Tamil in Kodai. And later on in and around Madras when dad and the brother came over. I also found out then that I am far better a host than people give me credit for. (In my opinion, at least.) And my tamil is way better than dad's as well.

I am also fitter than I have any right to be. If one were to go by the time I spend in physical activities here (moving your fingers across the keyboard and bearing the weight of your laptop doesn't count, dang,) I shouldn't have lasted for more than half a day on the trek. Yet I managed the 4 day thing with ease. *Is unbearably smug*

Notwithstanding my own ill-conceived smugness, I should say that 40 year old aunties and 50 year old uncles also managed the same.

At this point I am also incredibly apathetic to just about everything academic. Usually that prized apathy was reserved for courses and classes alone, but now it seems to have spread to lab work, application work, you name it. Extreme apathy and extreme laziness. Frightening combination. Also, I had the good sense to pick up a new vice - DotA. I honestly thought that I did not have enough vices to spend all the time this semester has to offer. Idiot. The only way I am different from all those degenerates who game all night is that I game all day instead. (Good people who will help determine where I end up by this time next year - please don't read my blog. Pretty please?)

I have also forgotten how to write. Let alone write things even remotely funny. This post is so freakin' lousy. But as long as it increases the count...

I've used a record number of 'I's in this post. How kewl is that?
(OMG no he didn't, yes he did, I stooped to the level of using the word 'kewl'. And went on to use lolz 'OMG'. Just when you thought I could sink no lower.)

Everyday this past week I have been telling myself that I'll start work in earnest after just one more day. I really will! God promise. I just need today for goofing off, that's all. You know, to get it out of my system. Only this one day. Just one more.

Friday, January 18, 2008.
Addendum: (There seem to be quite a few of these nowadays.)

I am still following the Just one more day routine. Had a thesis review today. Met my advisor after more than two months. Heck, I hadn't been to the department since the fifth of December. I have vowed (to myself, I make no promises to anyone else,) that I will start work from Monday. Really, I will.

Identification, again.

Ye Olde Vulture is looking much better now, yes? Far more of a looker than some random nondescript brown thing that resembles the end of a branch.

Identify away!

In related news, I went to Kodai for a trek last month. And what a trek it was.
Next up: 'shrooms!

Identification, please.

I clicked this photograph some 3 odd years ago, somewhere in the back-roads of Hassan district. (Handycam with poor still-shot capabilities, beg pardon.) Rather majestic bird, great wingspan and everything.

I've spent the last hour trying to ID this bird, to no avail. Alas, wiki has finally failed me.

Many thanks will be given to the one who can identify this bird.

Psst. Those who get back to me with 'looks like an eagle' will be skewered.


Addendum: (6.55 pm, the same day)
I found it! Looks like wiki didn't fail me after all! (Even though I needed a google image search before that.)

The bird is Neophron percnopterus, the Egyptian Vulture.

Magnificient bird, this. Symbolic of one of the most ancient of the Egyptian gods, Nekhbet.

There were decent-sized populations in southern India at some point in time, apparently. Most of them have died through Diclofenac poisoning. The bird entered the IUCN red list for endangered species in 2007.

I might have caught a glimpse of one of the last thousand or so of these birds surviving in the country.

Death by cancer

DEAD AT 79

cancer

WHY YOU DIE? 56% cancer 24% car accident 13% loneliness 5% drowning of the lungs 2% wounds

You have 21221.0 days left on this earth.

You've already lived 27% of your life.

Hopefully, there would be better cures for cancer by then. That would mean that I would die of a car accident, of course. What fun. Not as good as death by firing squad, but still.

In other news, I'm home! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
That's one 'e' for every day I'm staying here. wOOt!

Bite me if that's one too many exclamation marks for your liking.

Addendum:

I really liked this Lovecraft quote.

" That is not dead
Which can eternal lie,
Yet with strange aeons
Even Death may die. "

Note to self: Pick up one of his books soon.