Leaving Saint Louis!

So the change has been effected and I cannot reiterate enough what a big pain moving is!!! Atleast when you stop being the agile, mobile person with only two suitcases to your name!! The last two weeks have been so hectic and I have done so many new things and learnt a couple of trades that could help me with a job, if one day Computers stop working ... I can drive a truck or become a porter!!

I didn't know how much I could be stretched till today. The whole moving looked out to prove Murphy's law. Started out with U haul giving me a 26Ft truck instead of a 10ft one. I couldn't even cover the whole surface of the truck with my stuff. With the trailer on the back it was next to impossible to reverse on this!! I didn't know how friendless I was in Chicago till this move. Having mad Mike help me out in STL, it was so much more of a pain when I could get neither friends nor movers to help me unload in CHI!! Only goes to speak of my organising skills I guess! To top it all off U Haul decided to have fun with me by having me run around town for well over three hours in that blasted trucktrailer searching for a UHaul center that didn't exist.

Well the flip side to it all was that Murphy's Law wasn't really proved 'cause Mike made my loading and starting out a grand success, while I had a good Samaritan help me with unloading the couch and another helping me find the right UHaul place.

Actually the whole thing was an adventure, now I can boast to my grandkids of how I single handedly unloaded the whole truck (Ofcourse I am going to exaggerate) and maneuvered that huge truck with a trailer in city roads. Before the move I was fretting how I would going to effect it without any help on the way (a couple of my friends even called me a whiner!), but then at the end of the day when it was all done, it was not bad I guess these are the kinds of things that build character and also helps people say that they have been there done that!!

A few things I learnt on this move:

• If you are driving something tall watch for the over passes and trees ;)
• If you are driving something with a trailer the don't go anywhere where you have to back out off!!! I tried ... 50 feet in 30 mins!!!
• Lifting the bed, don't dig into the covering ... they tear
• Using UHaul ... don't!!! Uhaul service is horrible!!! I might even start a award series for this :D
• dollies don't help if you have stairs
  
• Spread out your books on different boxes ... in a single box they weigh a ton!
• If you don't need it throw it away ... including that PC magazine from 1995 that you still plan on reading ...
• If you can throw out the heavy stuff do it
• Don't let people who haven't done it, sucker you into believing how easy it is, and why you are a whiner for even thinking you need help!
• Finally if you can live off of two suitcases ... do it!!!

At the end of the what matters is if the juice was worth the squeeze, in this case the move worth the new place, so far the biryani I have been able to get is making me say yes!!!

Sleepless in Chicago

So have moved to Chicago (jus me for now) and what a change it is. In STL I had to drive 30 miles to go to an Indian restaurant, here there are more than three within a mile of each other. There is just loads of stuff around ... but then not the people I know. So its back to square one of making new friends ... then again I am supposed to be used to it by now.

The hard part of carrying my earthly possessions is still left undone, not for long though, its back to STL this weekend to finish the job.

The last two days have been spent in the hotel mostly, trying to catch up on the sleep that I have lost over the last couple of weeks. Sometimes its not too much fun to go through a new place without company but then again I am used to that too!! Only thing that the loneliness of the first few days does is to make you feel sorry for yourself and ask yourself what in God's own earth you are doing here. The moment the daily grind starts though its all forgotten.

So here's to a new beginning!!!

"“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."”

Change

I have heard it said that 'the only thing constant in this world is change', just to drive the point home life has proved it to me countless number of times. As things go its time for another change in my life, moving on to a different job.

I have just been offered a job in Chicago, around 4 hours from my current location. All this just as I was starting to enjoy life in 'the middle of nowhere'(St. Louis). Its a funny thing how you get used to a place, when almost always you started up hating it. I guess even the good changes are almost hard to get used to in the beginning.

Moving from a college town to a big town like St. Louis which was not really much fun, I told myself repeatedly how much I disliked it and was looking for the first opportunity to fly away. Two years can change things and perspectives I guess. I had been always under the impression that, the coast and the south were fun, what I didn't figure out till later was that it was the people and the environment that made a place fun.

Though I didn't meet too many people my age I did get to meet a lot of people who made my stay here worthwhile. The youth mentoring at the church is definitely the best time I had in St. Louis, and probably what I would miss the most. Those youth have encouraged and humbled me more than they can imagine.

It's always hardest to say good bye and leave familiarity, but for better or worse change has always been good to me. In this instance it would significantly increase my bank account. Like my mom always said, you can't have the cake and eat it too.

Through my journey through life so far I have had a constant companion in my Best Friend and he has guided and guarded my life so far. The best part of this journey has been the people he has introduced to me so far and the joy that he has provided me through the most gloomy of circumstances. I might not know what tomorrow brings but I know what waits me at the end of my journey. As in all endeavors the goal is want keeps me going.

The great equaliser - Football

Put your football cleats on its World Cup time! The Football (soccer to Yankees) is probably my favorite sport in the whole entire world. Its charm probably is in its simplicity. Two sides, one ball and all you got to do is kill the ball with a small space. You don't even have to buy a leather ball, paper rolled into the shape of a ball and held together with rubber band would do as well ... also forget part of the cleats, just need your two feet!

I was watching the Argentina vs Ivory Coast match yesterday and I was given many more reasons to love this game. I watched as a opponent got fouled and then in amazement the culprit giving the victim a hand to get up ... also saw a couple of opposing players patting each other after a particularly good dribble or shot. You would be hard pressed to see such scenes in any other professional team sports specially in America.

The sportsmanship was not the only thing that struck me, the fact that Ivory coast was observing a ceasefire for the duration of the world cup was a testament to the universal appeal of the game. If only it helped solved such situations permanently ... I know that is wishful thinking.

I have been talking to a couple of friends of mine who think its a girlie game 'cause you don't get t beatup on your opponent like in American football or Ice hockey and my only retort to it was that this was a poor man's game. This can be played in slums unlike the other aforementioned games. Also the slums have produced the best players the world has ever seen. This is the only stage in the world that the countries at the bottom of the food chain can beat the ones at the top. I remember playing in my school against the evening schoolers(from the nearby slums), they would literally cream up in our Nike cleats with their bare foot.

I know lots of people would like to say that the Olympics would hold the honour of uniting the world. I know the Olympics has its place but football is special, for the only reason that there is only gold and there are more people (Almost a quarter of the world's population) watching you kick the behind of the best countries in the world.

Its not without its fault. Racism in the European countries has been on the rise, and in a drastic measure, the captains of the teams read a massage against racism before each game. Its obviously caused by a fringe group of people.

The thing that irks me the most personally is the fact that the two countries with one third of the world's population don't have the capacity to qualify for this tournament while puny countries like Trinidad and Tobago could. I would easily like to put the blame on the system ... but countries like Ivory coast don't even have a system ... and then I realise what a great leveler football is!

BTW : My football jersy number is 4 and Maradona was the best football player ever!!!
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