Birthday Wish List 2014

I have often heard my friends say that they have never met anyone else who gets as excited about their own birthday as I do. They can’t decide if it’s childish or narcissistic. I say it’s fun! There should be at least one day in a year when you feel proud to be you, and what better day is that than a birthday. what’s more, I have birthday rituals and those are:

1. To get excited about the arrival of October from around the middle of September (It’s not like a ‘to do’ item. It always happens by itself)

2. To stare at the azure blue sky, the golden leaves and smell the crisp Autumn air and take pride that your were born in this beautiful month (but then, I think I like October so much because it is my birthday month)

3. On 1st October, revel in the fact that the birthday month is finally here. It’s just a happy day. Grin foolishly, grin often. And not just on Oct 01.

4. Start making a list of all the things you want for your birthday.

Now the fourth one is tricky because most of the times I want something that is unrealizable or plain hard-to-get. For example you can look at my 2012 wish list. 2013’s wish list had only one item and it was so difficult to obtain that I didn’t even make a blog out of it. Because 2013 was so hard on me, this year I tried to keep it simpler. My first wish list which was completed on Oct 14 goes something like this:

1. I want a simple but fancy date

2. I want everyone I meet to wish me

3. I want to eat healthy delicious

4. I want a good sleep w/o worries

5. I want some adventure

6. I don’t want to think about work

7. I want a Rubik’s Cube

It’s simple but it’s not that easy is it? For starters, where do I find a date? I’m in a new city, hardly know anyone outside work and I live in the suburbs. Then how will everyone I meet wish me if I don’t volunteer first to say that it is my birthday? And then if I do it’s not what I had in mind is it? 😉 And ‘healthy delicious’!! Seriously! Was I just kidding with myself?! And then I sleep often, in fact, I sleep too much. So sleeping w/o worries should not have been on the birthday wish list itself! Now adventure is a good one, and not thinking about work was a hard thing to do at that time, I was planning on going to Rome, Italy to present a paper which was accepted in a reputed international under water systems conference. But traveling to Europe on an Indian Visa from USA where you just started working while still on a student Visa was a little too much worry that I could handle then. I had other things to worry about at the same time. So once I decided  not to go, ‘sleep w/o worries and ‘not think about work’ was taken care of at the same time. Finally a Rubik Cube is the realizable one, as per tradition.

So my final wish list on Oct 24 stood as :

1. Adventure

2. Efficiency

3. A Rubik’s Cube

And I am happy to inform you, that my colleagues and new found friends took care of the third one in the awesome surprise birthday party that they threw me last night! 🙂

Song for the day:  Edith Piaf’s “Non, Je ne regrette rien“