Life out of a suitcase

This post is about life in a hotel. In a strange city.
These past few months work has kept me in a new city, living out of a hotel.

Now when I was at a more impressionable age I used to think that living in a hotel was good living. Visions of grand lobbies, people waiting on you came to mind.
Well now that I have experienced it first hand, it's nothing to write home about.

The room seems so constraining, no matter what the size and going out is an effort.. you need to dress decently even to go for a walk after dinner, so mostly the walk never happens.

Then the food. The food in any hotel begins to taste the same after a few days, mostly because of the use of a limited number of gravies for most things.

Little things begin to get annoying, like the housekeeping people knocking on the door just when I'm about to drift off to sleep. And then insisting on coming in when not given any response.

And one more thing. The constant stream of "Good morning" in the morning when I go down to eat. It's just unnatural. I don't like to wish people for the time of the day and I sure as well don't like being wished. Or so I like to think. Sometimes I find myself looking at the staff that hasn't wished, trying to elicit some greeting out of them. Urgghh.. I hate when that happens.

Oh yes the loneliness. Mustn't forget that. Having no social circle in the city can get tough. There's no one to talk to at the end of the day and so unwinding from work is that much more difficult. This is also one of the smaller cities and so there aren't exactly too many places to visit.

On the bright side, you can leave the room in a mess but when you get back it's always clean..

Grrrrrr...

Well its been a while since the last of my inane posts. Here's a bit of a confessional. Work sucks a lot right now. The thing about work is that I have none. This is the worst possible thing that can happen to guy who described himself to prospective employers as 'hardworking and persevering'. I know *choke*, *cough* and all.
The thing is that I am. And just like a motor runs away on no load, pardon the engineering analogy, I have been going crazy without any work.

The boss quit some time ago and now I'm stuck on a job without any idea of what is to be done. The job itself was very vague even when the boss was around, but it was nothing compared to what it is now.

Well move on you say, but it is not that easy (more on that some other time). I feel like quitting straight away but due to some earlier developments not directly to me it might be tough to move back home (more on that some other time too).

A lesson I have learnt is that it is really important to discover what you want to do in life. I still don't know this, or at least I did not believe in myself enough to go do things I wanted to do, and this is what I believe is at the root of my problems. As they say, when you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there.

Here's to better times..

Abort! Abort! Abort!

After fighting an ill fated battle with the snooze button on my mobile early this morning, I finally woke up. Me and some friends were supposed to head for the Sunderbans. For those not 'in the know', (tsk tsk) it is a river delta teeming with wildlife and home of the Royal Bengal Tiger amongst others (not to be confused with the cricketing tiger that sadly got turned into a meowing cat).

So after many attempts by various group members to laze around some more we finally headed out. Armed with advice from home to stay clear of the tigers and various images of the glory of nature in our head, we moved onto the road that would take us out of the campus and onto another great adventure.

Some bright spark then suggests we have breakfast first and we take a small detour to the only shopkeeper still open on campus (who also moonlights as a sort of travel agent). While handing over the ubiquitous noodles (the only thing any old idiot can cook) he suggests to us that we'd have a better chance of seeing stuff by going with a tour operator instead of winging it on our own.

That was enough to set off a mini discussion with other possible destinations being thrown into the mix. After much deliberation we made a U-turn that would have made any motoring instructor proud. Naturally we weren't about to admit our swift about turn so we made our way back looking confident and acting as if we had just returned triumphant from wrestling crocs and riding tigers (or is it the other way round).

Next trip: go-karting!

End of the beginning

It's only a few days before my days of vellapanti (complete and utter lack of having anything to do) come to an end. I then move onto my new (and first) job. Yup it's time to stand up on my feet.

The thing I'm looking forward to most is the money. No more feeling guilty while spending your dad's hard earned money on seemingly (and actually) unnecessary things (woohoo!).

Of course everyone told me before this course started to 'enjoy it son', these are your last carefree days. So I did what comes naturally to me - proceeded to waste these days away worrying about one thing or another. And now I'm kind of glad they're finally over.

Time to reinvent myself in these next few days..