After a day of subtracting an hour every time I looked at the clock to know the time, I got off my lazy arse and climbed on the only chair in my apartment that seemed like it wont topple over and adjusted all the clocks to revert back from the daylight savings. Its in times like these when one is reminded that having a specimen of the male species in the house wouldn’t really be that bad an idea. That, and when I need to open those impossible-to-open jam bottles.

Anyways, while I was adjusting the clocks, I was reminded of this question someone asked me sometime back,

At what time between 3 and 4 o’clock will the hands of a clock be in a straight line?

Well, you dont get the exact answer by moving the hands of the clock around, like i tried. But theres an answer, I assure you. Try it out!

Love is strange. It makes you feel like there is no one else in the world. And something this beautiful has to be unique. I bet no one else has ever felt this way before.

But then why are there are so many amazing poets out there who seem to have read my mind and said it better than I could have imagined? Why do some songs seem to have been written just for me? Every once in a rare while, why do I come across a story that relentlessly tugs at my heart strings?

Maybe the joy is more beautiful because the world knows it too. When I flit and float happily the morning after and the old lady at the bus stop gives me a knowing smile, maybe I feel happier? Not because the world knows I am happy, but the world joins me in being happy. We all know the same happiness and the same sorrows - and its those connections that we feel - across the borders, across cultures, across languages - that makes us feel at home. No matter where we are.

Came across Jakob Nielsen’s Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (via Ministry of Propaganda). And this is how Dutch Diary fares in the usability tests.

1. No Author Biographies - FAIL.
I don’t intend to put up a whole bio, but I will get down to putting up something abt me sometime in the near future. I guess Jakob Nielsen is right when he says “users want to know who they’re dealing with.”, coz I know that I look for the About page the first time I come across a blog. Coming Soon. Coming Soon.

2. No Author Photo - FAIL.
And thats gonna remain a fail.

3. Nondescript Posting Titles - FAIL.
I tried to pass this on this post and don’t you think its utterly boring?

4. Links Don’t Say Where They Go - FAIL.
I think this one is unnecessary. if you place the mouse on the link and take a look at the status bar, it shows you where its headed. And usually the context gives you the reason you might want to click on it.

5. Classic Hits are Buried - FAIL.
This is a valid point. By the time I have enough posts, and hopefully some classic ones, I will fix this.

6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation - FAIL.
I have categories, but then a whole lot falls under Musings. ButI fail this one because the teacher is too strict.

7. Irregular Publishing Frequency - FAIL.
Something for me to think about. Now I post almost daily or at least once every two days. But thats because I am not in a particularly busy phase in my life. So I am essentially setting up expectations that I know I won’t be able to keep up. Oh what the heck! I will post when I can..:) I have rss feeds, so that should make up for irregular postings.

8. Mixing Topics - FAIL.
And I fail this happily. I think a blog is someone’s journal. And people are versatile and multidimensional. I write about all the interests me and all that affects me. Its like accepting a person as a whole. Accept my blog as a whole, with the range of topics that I write about. I don’t think its necessary to start a blog for different topic you write about. Having categories is good enough.

9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss - FAIL.
A girls gotta say what she wants to say.

10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service - FAIL.

Overall Score : 0/10

During a little detour after lunch today, something pink and something white smiled at me from the window of a shop. Before I knew it, I was at the cash counter and happily handing out my credit card. And guess what I bought! A beautiful pair of ski clothes. I walk back to work, still dreaming of the lovely white slopes, when some inconsiderate soul reminds me that it is only October. And another lets me know that I have no vacation - let alone a ski vacation - planned for a long time. And then a stranger that I meet on the lift is curious about where I am going to ski. Well, I don’t know. And I also don’t know IF I will be skiing this year. NOW listen to the clincher, I don’t know how to ski!!

But people, haven’t you ever heard of love at first sight? Haven’t you ever had a dream? Haven’t you ever come across something too good to be true? Or something that you absolutely must have? Its no surprise to me that the three otherwise-wonderful people who did not quite understand these concepts seemed to be of the male species. Anyways, this post is not about male-female differences in shopping, although that could be an interesting topic for discussion some other time. For now, I am just in a mood to talk about my shopping-categories.

First in the list is love-at-first-sight buys, aka impulse buys. You see it and you have to have it. You just know that if say, a shoe, could be your soul mate, this is the one. You are made for each other. And indeed love is blind, especially if his name is Manolo Blahnik. I may fall out of love later and it may turn out to be a rather blisterful relationship, but the momentary ecstasy could arguably be worth the bread and water I survive on till my next paycheck arrives. Ah! the sacrifices one makes for true love.

Then there are the aspirational buys, things you buy because it represents a dream to you. I want to finally learn skiing this winter and I really hope I will. But for now, its as much planned as my trip to Mars. Except that I don’t have a space suit, but I have my ski clothes. Thats aspirational buying. Although there are times when I wish that I am just a tad bit realistic in my aspirations. Like the time I bought a suit of the exact same design as the one worn by Charlize Theron in Italian Job. Its a lovely suit, and I would love to wear it to work. But the eternal optimist that I am, I bought it with a 24 inch waist. It was a 2003 movie and we will soon be in 2006 and I still cant get into the pants. But the hope remains.

Then there are the too-good-to-be-missed buys, which IMHO are the most dangerous. Thats when that Hermes bag you had always noticed on the shop window and smugly told yourself that rich people have no taste and thats why that ugly bag could hope to get sold for a 1000€, is now suddenly available for a mere 200. Don’t you think it is an awful sin to buyers all over, if one lets go of a 80% markdown? And then you realise that Hermes or no Hermes, you don’t even want to be caught dead in it. Or when you buy an 8-in-1, which is a coffeemaker and an a alarm and a breakfast maker and a radio (and I can’t remember the rest) all rolled into one, even though you have all of them at home as separate perfectly functioning entities. When such a marvel of design and innovation is available for a mere 59.99, its definitely too good to be missed. That is, until it becomes a 3-in-1 after a mere 63 hours. Or when you buy the 1€ T-shirt, thinking you can wear it to bed and then you remain paranoid why it was available for a € - has it been already worn by someone and if so, what do you think think they did while they were wearing it? Well, these buys are usually useless and an absolute waste of money, but many of my too-good-to-be-missed buys have made me a legend in our family book of horrible humor.

Then of course there is the category of this-is-how-you-do-it buys. That is when you recognise your need for an object, you analyse the benefits that you have out of buying it vis-a-vis its cost and make an informed decision on whether you should buy it or not. And if the decision is to buy it, you research about it and buy it at the shop that gives you the best deal. I only have hearsay about this, and despite strong rumours that such buys actually do happen in this world, I remain a skeptic about the existence of such a category.

And lastly, there is the necessity buys category - despite what you might have gathered about my shopping habits so far, most of my buys actually belong to this category. And they happen when I realise that all my half decent suits are at the dry cleaners and I have to make a career-making presentation tomorrow. Or I have a job interview the day after and I realise that the only shoes that match my good luck shirt had a broken heel the last week. Or when it dawns on me that there is such a thing as laundry that one needs to be done regularly and now I have a choice of wearing a stinking used shirt the next day or be benevolent and contribute to the ailing economy - as a responsible citizen, there is obviously only one right decision.

Today, I sat down to write an email introducing myself to someone. While I was struggling to think of some sensible mundane details that define me to the external world, my mind meandered down the memory lane. I was reminded of an exercise I had to do sometime back, as part of a corporate leadership workshop. We had to choose one object from nature that we resembled the most (not physically of course) and describe it. Don’t ask me what this had to do with leadership - there was some explanation about self discovery, which I can’t really remember now.

Anyhow, I chose a river.

A river meanders, yet it knows where its headed.

A river is well aware of its source, yet it can never really flow back - it left its mountain top where it was just a little innocent spring, now it must flow through the many lands until it will end up in the sea.

Rivers are well traveled and run a long way, from the lofty mountain tops to the faraway seas.

Unlike the sea which just touches the surface of every land it visits, a river gets to the know the lands it visits, becomes an integral part of every land if flows through and gathers parts of the land into its own persona.

A river runs deep, and often appears still on the surface. But dig a little deeper and you will be surprised to find the wealth underneath. It carries the sediments from many lands and many lives, yet hides them well and flows its merry way.

A river is usually calm and people tend to take it for granted, but you never ever want to know its wrath.

A river has many different persona and many different names - when it flows through each land, its given a different name. And in some places, its wide and deep. Sometimes, it slows to a tiny trickle. And sometimes it has high beautiful waterfalls. Yet its all parts of the one.

A river sustains life, yet its often underestimated in the role it plays in our lives. Riverbanks have always been the bed of civilisations and almost every big city was built near a river.

Sometimes rivers help people. Yet sometimes, it can be obstinate and difficult. While rivers can provide a fast and delightful way of traveling, they also form natural barriers in a landscape.

A river lets itself be shaped to a large extent by its surroundings. It likes to adapt and to adjust to the environment. Yet, only to a certain extent. No landscape can make a river flow upstream.

Rivers change the landscape through which they flow, and in many ways - they erode the land, they deposit new sand, they even change the way people feel.

What Emerson sings about the Musketaquit could just as well as apply to any other, be it the amazing Amazon, the mighty Mississippi, the glorious Ganges or the resplendent Rhine.

Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
The stream I love unbounded goes
Through flood and sea and firmament;
Through light, through life, it forward flows.

I see the inundation sweet,
I hear the spending of the steam
Through years, through men, through Nature fleet,
Through love and thought, through power and dream.

Go on, give it a shot - what object in nature do you think resembles you the most?

I got my first phishing attack today! Now I know thats nothing to be happy about and it wasn’t even a mail asking for any of my bank information, just eBay account details. But every time someone talks about phishing or I have to attend a presentation on it, I had always felt left out because everyone around me seemed to have some story or the other to relate. And I had never even got one phishing attempt!

So, finally! I have one of my very own too! But a pretty lame attack, actually. Considering the fact that I dont have an eBay account and that the link provided (on the email it shows as signin.ebay.com) translates to some weird domain name, someone has to be really naive to fall for this one. But I have to admit that the rest of the mail looks pretty genuine.

Now that I have one, I just hope that its not the start of a lot more to come. I would rather have no stories to tell than have to scan every email ever so carefully.

I am sad today. Very sad. I am lonely yet again. I sit alone in my unnecessarily and wastefully large apartment, which seems even more so today. The silence is broken only by the sporadic typing on my keyboard and the incessant ticking of the clock on the wall. An occasional car on the street claims to create some noise around me. Yet it is the silence that is deafening.

The simple pleasures of life are the hardest to come by. My mom cooking in the kitchen. My dad reading a book in the living room. S surfing in the study room. I flit and float across the three rooms, happy that the three people I love the most in this whole wide world are under the same roof. And I dont have to worry about them. I know how they are and where they are and I can talk to them, without worrying about the IDD charges or the time zones. In my life, this is a rarity. Almost like once in a blue moon. When it happens, it lasts a day or two. And today, they are all gone again. Back to their own lives.

“Loneliness has always been a friend of mine”. I am too old to listen to Backstreet Boys, yet that line always seems like it was written just for me. But today, even the loneliness is not a comforting friend. He is upset that I had ignored him for the last two days. It takes a while to pacify my oldest friend and remind him yet again that all my life I have always come back to being alone. And that I will eventually find happiness in being alone. And then somehow that pact will be broken again, when people walk in and out of my life. Like there are no doorbells they need to ring. I love them, and I miss them. I understand why they have to leave, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I am angry at the world and at my life. No matter how fast I run, I just never seem to reach my destination. The closer I get to people, the farther they seem to move away.

Tears are flowing down my eyes. I move the keyboard away so that it wont get into the spaces between the keys and ruin the internals. Other than that, it could hurt no one else. Coz theres no one else to know. And there seems no particular gain in wiping my eyes or in trying to stop the tears. So I let it be.

Dont feel sorry for me. Self-pity deserves nothing from anyone but myself, not even the time you took to read this. And from me, I take the time off to recognise that I am sad. That I am not addicted to loneliness. And to remind myself that I am not a loner by choice and thus not a freak.

Now that that deed is done, I get back to do the many things that I have to do and love to do. And then I forget to be sad.

There are things in life which you wonder whether you can do? Whether you are capable of taking that mighty leap of faith?

You look around and you wonder, there are so many people better than me who would do it better than me? Who are capable of it much more than me? Yet, should I just give up?

My heart wants to try, even if I might fail. But then there is a part of me that says, if it all ends in nought, it will be such a colossal waste of time. And then you have to start all over again. Not to mention the heartaches and the shattered self-confidence? Its like standing on the brink of an empty stage, where no one in the audience knows who is coming up next. If you turn around and run, no one will ever know you were up next. If you go ahead and make an utter fool of yourself, the world will be laughing at you. But then, if you do take that giant leap and you do make it big, you will be a star. The shining star.

Someone told me once, that you don’t regret the things that you tried and failed, but only the ones that you didn’t dare to try. I wonder if thats true.

Maybe the people who are better than me never get down to it because they don’t dare to. They might be the ones who will grow old to regret the wasted talents. Maybe what differentiates me is not that I am any better, but that I am not afraid to fall. Am I not afraid to fall? - I don’t know. The world will believe in you, only if I believe in myself. Wouldnt it be infinitely easier if the world believed in me first.

At least, if I try and fail, I will at least know that I tried. That I gave it a shot. I will know that I wasn’t good enough - but that I gave it all I could. When I live to be a hundred and sit by the fire, I will laugh at myself and my ridiculously misplaced confidence. Wouldn’t that be better than not knowing how it might have turned out? Wondering if I would have made it, if only I had tried?

I wonder..

Today, I chanced upon a Jamaican newspaper. As I eagerly and curiously flipped through the pages of The Jamaica Observer, I was aghast at what I saw in the backpage of the newspaper. There were photos of 21 students or ex-students who had been late in paying back their student loans. Well, the paper just said delinquent, so I assume its just a case of late payment and has not yet reached legal action.

I am not sure I can call it an ad - whatever it was, it was published by the providers of student loan, which I have to assume, for lack of better information, is the Government of Jamaica. Along with the very clear and rather large passport-style photographs of the delinquent students captioned with their names, the student loan providers reminded the public how each delinquent student makes it harder and harder for new students to get loans.

Now I know next to nothing about Jamaica and its legal structure and what it says about publishing delinquent creditor’s photos in the newspapers. They could very well be within what is legally allowed. But it really seems a strange and unsettling practice. A loan is a contract, and when someone breaches a contract, you take legal action. Publicly damaging a person’s reputation, especially when he or she is a mere student who more likely than not entered into the contract before they were of legal age, seems rather harsh.

Jamaica is a world away. I am just surprised. And taken aback.

My long train journeys gave me ample time and space to read and ponder over Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf. In the author’s note, Herr Hesse notes that it was written when he was fifty and deals with problems of that age, and he sometimes receives odd reactions when it falls into the hands of very young readers. Now, I am far from fifty - should I be worried that I find the book so captivating and enchanting? And that every so often, I am tempted to say,”Ah, so true!”.

I am only about three quarters into the book, but I want to relish it slowly and ponder on some bits and pieces. The part I loved the most so far is in the “Treatise on Steppenwolf” where there is a discourse on how the notion of an individual is just a delusion. That the supposed unity of the self is just fiction, and that the self is in fact composed of a hundred or a thousand selves. And everyone’s life oscillates between innumerable poles.

We all realise it to some extent in our lives. But often its hard to externalise such random thoughts into tangible words and arguments. Often one dismisses them as the musings of a mind in need of rest. To see them written in such an authoritative manner,in a well-revered time-tested book, is definitely reassuring.

More after I have finished the book. For now, I leave you with some food for thought from the treatise:

And if ever the suspicion of their manifold being dawns upon men of unusual powers and of unusually delicate perceptions, so that, as all genius must, they break through the illusion of the unity of the personality and perceive that the self is made up of a bundle of selves, they have only to say so and at once the majority puts them under lock and key, calls science to aid, establishes schizophrenia and protects humanity from the necessity of hearing the cry of truth from the lips of these unfortunate persons.