A Great Fortnight

One word to sum up the previous fortnight - Incredible.

My best friend, my cousin was getting married. We share so many things in common. Star signs, birthyears, likes, dislikes and habits. It all started on sunday when there was this Mehndi function. All but the grandparents were dancing like crazy. I did not realise the pain of dancing for close to 3 hours, until the next day morning and I had to go to work. Bunking office was not an option as I had already taken leave for the wedding.

Going to work for a couple of days seemed the most painful job in the world. The thought of the impending vacation for another few days brightened my thoughts, though.

The week started on a hectic note, with my team being put through a totally new set of activities. Each of us felt like fish out of water. I was happy that I did not have to sustain this for long, atleast for the first week as I was going on leave, a good three days. The leave was long overdue and this was the first time that that work was getting tedious. The remaining three days were both hectic and enjoyable. Running around to get things working and making sure that the arrangements are in place. No wonder, there is so much to a wedding than meets the eye. Friday was relatively calmer as we had nothing to do. Come saturday and then we had to go off again.

I was feeling nervous. appearing for a Certification for the first time. It was not only the question of the hours lost in preparing but also the monetary loss that would accompany, if I flunked. Lucky me, I got through and I am a certified MCP (Windows 2003 Server). I felt on top of the world. It gives me the confidence of more certifications in the days ahead. Hopefully I can put them across successfully as well.

The week after that was equally rewarding, though it was a relatively cool week - workwise. Harsha and Praveen suggested in one of the MSN chats a Xperdian meet and we thought that we could meetup on saturday. Plans were afoot for months together, but nothing concrete materialised and they were always going awry with the long pending Team Xperdeus meets and we thought we could meet up and not plan up. No planning and no ideas.

And mighty surprises were awaiting us. From the Fantastic Four(Naveen, Harsha, Praveen and Mush), there were quite a few. We made our way to RR on Church street and when the people in-charge of seating wanted to know the numbers so that they can set the table up, we were apprehensive as to how many would actually make it. Eight was the tentative number we could tell them. Anitha, Pradeepa, Jayashree , Harsha and I, occupied the seats and ordered lunch.

Praveen, whose way of telling people where he is, is to say "I am at a traffic signal". You ask him which one and he has no idea. Somehow, he found his way there.

We were joined by Dot and Anu who came straight from office. After all it is not only the fantastic four plus jayashree who always thought they represented Team Xperdeus. We were soon joined by Mush and his better half Harish. Luckily for us, the next table was still empty and we asked them to merge the tables. Deepa joined us last and then Bindhu was there too (not for lunch). What a suprise???She was, like Dot and Anu was there only to meet us. After a hearty lunch, with the achievers Dot(Best TL), Praveen (Best ST - DMOQ (Simply terrible - didn't meet our quality)) and Harsha (Star of the month), we set off for another of the common Mav meets to Coffee Day.

Harish and I wanted to push off early than usual as we did not expect anyone else to join for the meet. We stayed back for Vinny Honey(Vincy, for some) and thought that a movie would be a good idea. Rafeeq met us on the rooftop near Symphony. Pot-to to Not-to smoke , he has changed into an Angel. Halfway through "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", poor Vinny's nemesis came to haunt him. He was cold-struck. He had to drop me home and I felt goodof not having to sit through the movie.

Saturday was indeed great as I had met up with a cream of my friends all in a single day.

Not too many fortnights have been as happy and exciting as the one just gone by.