If you are following me on twitter, you may very well know the artic-like environment in my office cubicle. Yes, 12 hours of my day, I live in a space where the temperature is near 10 degree celcious. Its known to be the coldest place in our office and matches well with the Bluestar advertisement where unlucky me can be equated to an Eskimo in that ad.

Constant exposure to frozen breeze from the vents made me sick this week. A deep dedication to work (ahem!..Ok! Take it as pressure to save leaves) pushed me to work every day though I was struggling to keep my head straight. In one way, attending office helped me to keep my body temperature in normal levels. This along with my newly caught craze of playing badminton after work took its share of energy from my body and left me breathless at the end of day.

I think my mom doubted me as drunk one night, but in reality it was a not-drunk-but-high-me struggling to frame (meaningful !) sentences while talking to her. She even offered me butter-milk!! Cant complaint my mom as she wanted me to be normal before my dad finds it out!  Thankfully I finally succeeded in convincing her that I am not drunk and its the tiredness making me look like high after a few futile attempts to speak properly. I survived on cough syrups and D-Cold tablets for the rest of the week.

Weekends! It’s my time to balance my sleepless nights. I skipped a movie offer today and slept peacefully until I was forced to go out for a haircut. It was due for a month, but I wished to grow it long and it was ruined by mom’s stern demand to cut it off as she thinks its ‘my hair’ which made me sick! Sad that she doesn’t know about my office climate. After chopping off my hair  and attending a writer’s meet, I went for the now-routine badminton game.

I am not even close to the standards on badminton which I had in past. Not like I was a super pro in it or anything like that , but I was someone whom you can bet on without losing much money. The decision to play, its a shift in my life’s routine – from endless conversations in museum to something sporty like a badminton game. As said in the linked post, the change has NOTHING to do with my fear on cops! The idea was put forward by two fat friends who wanted to shake their ass to shed some weight. Me being some one who maintain a super light frame, needn’t have to worry about the calorie intake-burn ratio. But, the game was something I liked and I agreed to help them by giving a company, or in other words, sharing the expense.

The night was still young for a party. Ignoring my fever and close-to-shivering condition, I went to purple lounge to freak out. A few shots of fire made my throat clear, the dance warmed me up, and the headache was cleared with music.

Ahh! I am lost. This post was actually meant to explain you all how to fight with fever and I lost track in between. Anyway, my point was to tell you, NEVER take rest when you are sick, specifically when you are having common-cold + fever. Take good food, warm up your body, freak out and never ever let the fever to take control on your decisions. We humans are superior to viruses!

Its not that often you want a need to rediscover yourself. I was on such a mood today and was quite disturbed with the recent activities in my life. I was disturbed a lot and wanted to have some refreshment, which made me to be with friends the whole night yesterday. We roamed around the city, often breaking all the limits. I was going back to what I was a few years before. And I was successful in not letting my friends know what I wanted was an escape from my life rather than some quality time with them. Feeling sorry for them.

Back home, everything was routine. Woke up with loud noises from my sisters room where her son was making a revolt against mom for not letting him go out and play with his brother. I used to love watching those fights which I can very well relate to my childhood. But not today. I need some time alone, away from all realities. So I packed my laptop bag, and walked out with bike keys. The day was special for the city as it is reserved for the opposite sex. All roads lead to a single destination where women from all over kerala gather for ‘Ponkala’. I skipped the busy known roads and took a different route. 1 hour ride without any destinations in mind took me to an alternative route to Ponmudi. On any other day I’ll make a U-turn considering the fact that I have been there umpteen times with all of my friends for all kinds of fun.

But today I felt it special. I found it as the ideal place to be where I can disconnect my network with my reality. Roads were pathetic and sun was intense. But higher up it became a heaven for me. Cool breeze and shadows refreshed me. 3 hours of non stop ride took me to the top of the hill. It was almost deserted with a few people roaming with cameras in their hands. Camera, how I missed to take it? Or I avoided taking it?

I parked my bike, and climbed up to a spot where I’ll be sealed from the shouts and howling from the very few people left on hill top. And I slept there. I dont know how long I was there. Woke up all refreshed and burning in sun. The bag which acted as a bed for me had my laptop inside it but nothing happened to it. Thanks for being a light person. I searched for my belongings, and everything was in place except my mobile which was on my chest somehow. I attended 6 calls while I was sleeping, 4 from the single person and 1 from home and 1 from a friend who I was supposed to meet in morning. And there was a long list of unread messages and tweets. I had to answer a few and then moved to a shadow to escape from the extreme sun.

Logged into reality through my laptop expecting some mail. But there wasn’t any. Though I had an strong urge to have some water, I spent almost close to an hour there until my laptop ran out of juice. Meanwhile a few people passed my with suspicious looks on their face. May be they were wondering I was co-ordinating some terror attacks or  a super nerd. Who else will sit with a laptop on the top of a hill with  an out of the bed look and alone? Packed everything back and rode to the KTDC restaurent to have some food. More specifically some water. Only when I was about to order, I found the sad joke that I didnt take my wallet with me. The waiter was still waiting for my order. With a lame excuse that I forgot my mobile on hilltop, I evaded from there after gulping the hot water from the jug on table. The waiter may have got the clue. Anyway, after fullfilling my immediate need – to have some water, I rode back non-stop to home.

Now while writing this, I am thinking why and what I did today. What was the trip for? If it was to be alone, were I really alone today? And why I had to take laptop if all I wanted was loneliness? I am confused. Confused about my mental stability and my life. Or was it a day dream? My dark red tan and google latitude says it wasn’t. I need some professional help.

I believe I live in a city where I am allowed the freedom to meet friends in a public place and have a talk with them peacefully. But what the hell is wrong with police now? They are looking at us like possible murderers and forcing us to disperse from public places. Do they think its us, the youngsters, are behind every possible crimes happening in and around the city? Or are they really concerned about our safety? For the clueless, let me brief my experience.

We, around 10 of us, used to have a gathering near Museum for 8 years. That is right after we got into college. It was a weekly affair and soon turned out into a daily event. So lets say we are meeting daily near Museum for 6 years. All this while, the cops had no problem at all in our meeting even though it was right next to Museum police station. Those were quite productive time for us, as new ideas and thoughts sparked in us, and changed ourselves a bit to more mature and thinking creatures. But our voice never breeched the tolerant level for creating a public nuisance. We NEVER had an issue from the police, and often some of them took part in our conversation.

All of a sudden, for the past one year, the police are on their toes when they see a young gang gathering around. Immediate action from them will be to dole out us as quickly as possible. The question is why? Are they seeing us as a threat to the social security? Ain’t they killing our freedom to be in a public place? I am sure it is perfectly legal to assemble in a public place without disrupting the peace. From next time, I am going to question them. Till now I never got a chance to engage with them. I will sure do it next time. Fed up with how they treat us!

This week was a quick one! May be because I started getting works! Sunday was the shopping day! We went to Meadowhall, a big shopping mall in Sheffield. The prices were sky high so couldnt buy anything at all. But for an avid window shopper like me, price never matters. I covered almost all shops. Only thing I found worthy to buy was a GAP messenger bag. It was good and not costly at all. But the mall was so large that by the time I was back at the GAP shop after having a round around the mall, it was closed. Bad luck! All I bought from there was a Monopoly game set, which I thought will help to pass the boring nights. But none of my friends seems to be interested in playing it at all!

Monday came with a bright sunny morning. We were relieved to see the sun as for the last one week it was raining all the day. One of the friend in Plusnet told me – “If its not raining now, it will be raining soon” . That was proved right to the core with in an hour as it started raining cats and dogs and some water! Lesson number one : Never trust british weather! There was nothing much to do at the office as I was not assigned with any works. I spent time by twittering and some ‘research’ in Android. The research was purely a search for the better Android mobile. Better here means, cheaper.

Tuesday was uneventful. But was not bored at all as I got some spilled out work from Jose. It helped me a bit to understand the flow of a module.

Wednesday was pretty eventful for me as I fucked up my system. Actually its not me, but the ubuntu updates seems to be faulty and it corrupted the GRUB entries. (GRUB = OS Loader for the non-Geeks). I was left without options and was about to start reinstalling the system. If it was my home pc, I would have done that. But here, thinking about the work I have to do after a reinstall to set up the development environment, I asked around for help. Rowan was the immediate guy who I know to be a linux pro! But even he dont know what was the issue.He said to post in the internal forum as someone may be able to help.

Thursday, I went to office hopeless as I knew I will have a tough time ahead to fix my machine. But Riz, another linux guru swept his fingers over my keyboard and the issue was fixed!  He saved my 2 days work in 5 minutes! I got my first ticket and started working on that. It was pretty simple (obviously! Other wise no one will give it to a starter like me!) and was fixed by evening.

Friday came with chilling sprinkle. I forgot to take my jacket also. That happens everytime with me, even in India. Whenever I forgot to take a jacket it WILL rain. Even in summer! Today I got another ticket, which later turned out to be not meant for a developer. I made a big mistake by asking for ticket! I thought it will be better than sitting idle as I was too bored. So I picked a ticket from the pool which seemed to be a simple one for me. Only after I started working on it, I realized that it was a complicated one. The fix was not at all complicated, but to know where to place the fix took some time. I need to get more acquainted with the code flow here. Anyway I finished before I left the office. As with every friday, it was a party day! Plusnet guys invited us for an evening at the nearby dograce field. It sounded funny, but the place was really nice with drinks, food and betting. I am really addicted to gambling. I know it for long and today also  I went on a betting spree. We were there for 10+ race and I betted for 8 or 9! I won one though! It was a freezy night and to double the terror I missed the tram. All the other guys got into it before the automatic doors closed. I was left out with Anitha in a chilling rain. Got into the next tram soon before I freezed to death. So that made a chilling end to a great week!

Thats all for now. Its Pratheesh’s birthday tomorrow, so for the next update here, I am sure there will be something creaky to post! Yes we are planning to make him spend for us!

Officially this is my first post from UK,  ignoring the daily updates from Twitter. Even though I had made promises that I’ll make a post a day detailing my UK experiences,  my experiences kept me too busy to full fill the promises . Completing 10 ’successful’ days in Sheffield , I learned how to

*  smile at every other guy I see in streets

* eat three times a day

* make the most out of a 4mbps uncapped internet connection

* convert a 5000 bucks shoes to a shrinked mess by washing and drying it an washing machine

and much more.

The most I like about UK is the attitude of the people here. They dont care about what others think of them. But at the same time they care about how others will be affected by their actions. For the souls who didnt get what I meant, (that is for all of you! ) let me make it simple. The people here dont bother about having a funny dress outdoor or even a public smooch ( Ofcourse for us its not a distraction! ) . But they do stop their cars for us to cross, and give us the last bread left in the shelf in a shop even if they are there for it. They are super friendly and they make us smile at them even if its a random guy you met in the alley.

But still  I think at any time I’ll like India unless I am paid a hefty amount to be here. But as the master card says there are some things which money cant buy like the friends and relatives I have back home. I cant miss them for long. A month and a half or three months will be perfect. Anything more than that, I would say no!