7 Things people don't know about me

2007-06-11T20:49:00.000-07:00

So Sri tagged me to do the whole 7 things, and I can't think of anything else to do..

If you happened to knowone of these things already oh well lol I tried!

1. This is really random but I have a fear of people walking in on me when im sitting on the Toilet. So whenever I used an unfamiliar restroom where the toilet is like really far way from the door, like all the way on the other end of the room, in a position where i would not be able to react in an efficient manner to keep someone from openning the door. I dunno why, but I'm paranoid the lock will magically decide to stop working on me! sigh

2. Sometimes when I'm really bored and I'm people watching, or at work even. I look at people and imagine what they could be saying to each other or even like act out a coversation between them to someone whose around me. Or even funnier ( to me at least) imagine if they had a soundtrack to their life what song would be playing right now in their head. ex) overly butch guy has rocky theme song playing in his head, or androgenous latin man who wears alot of cologne is walking to the beat of a stereotypical and just as androgenous ricky martinesque latin pop song

3. Okay this is a really bad one. And I know im going to get a decent amount of heat for it. So I dont like Aishwarya Rai, I think shes idiotic. BUT......sometimes when I see her on tv ( which is rarely) I watch whatever it is she is doing....cuz shes a good dancer...er

4. I used to have a digusting liverpool accent when I was little, that i dont think even my parents could understand. Until I came to the US and It got phased out.

5. I have a tendency to sing song lyrics wrongly for extended periods of time. Like years, but im realy good at covering it up and acting like I know what im singing. For example....the song "the south side the south side"....i spent a good few months singing it as "the salsaa the salsaaa"

6.I find birds really creepy. Especially pigeons, and particularly the ones on the west mall at UT. They make my skin crawl...

7. I dont like Indian food lol.... I know im Indian, its horrible, but for some reason I'm not that much of a fan. But recently ive been learning to cook :) so its definetly changing my opinion!....there is hope haha

2007-06-08T19:07:00.000-07:00

When I was in the School of Architecture at UT we initially learned a lot influencing the mood of an individual by manipulating textures and colors and creating spaces by blocking with objects, colors and light.
For example, if you were to take a room and give it wooden floors and a golden/orange stucco finish on the and hang pictures maybe a little lower than eye level say. The room would exude a more cozy feeling.
If you took the same room and replaced the flooring with granite or marble tiles, painted the ceiling a blue and added crown molding ( makes the ceiling appear higher), painted the walls a cooler color, a navy blue, perhaps and hung pictures in the room slightly above eye level, the same space would create a more formal feel.

SO , those are the basics I guess. But what about how something grows on you? When I first started working in Calistoga, A small town in upper Napa Valley, I thought wow, so they have one street. And I didn't really see beyond the fact that ...they had one street.
But after a few months of taking lunch breaks and walking around to get coffee, I feel that Calistoga is a lot bigger than the first glimpse I got. There are mountains that flag all sides of the town and flowering trees down the streets, a plethora of classical homes pseudo Victorian style homes and spas with the same Napa charm. If you decide to take a left on the one other big street, Washington, you will encounter the post office, fire station and police station all neatly lined up next to each other with plenty of parking for you to park right in front, and no parking meters.
My first time entering Calistoga I was disgruntled at the lack of a Starbucks and the fact that you have to drive 35 miles per hour for a few miles until you reach a blinking light at which you take a left turn to......their one street.
A few weeks down the road, as I drive a trolling 35 miles per hour into Calistoga I start to notice there are some days I drive into the valley and its trapped itself a thick blanket of fog, and all you see are the green tips of the mountains peaking through a sea of clouds. Of course Santa Rosa is oblivious to this weather as the valley is a little endemic weather system. Some mornings when the sky is blinding clear and blue, brightly coloured hot air balloons are gently wafting about between the mountains.

As I wind through the mountain roads and I'm mesmerized by a picturesque balloon floating through the valley, I tend to wait for a incline, and when I reach it, I look out for my balloon and watch it hypnotically, until I reach another dip and
I've temporarily lost my morning balloon buddy, because of course no one else is awake at the ungodly hour in the morning besides me and those ppl in that balloon.
Then there are the mornings when I'm NOT the only one awake in the morning and there is a gigantic trunk moving at 15 miles per hour in front of me for a few miles. Since the roads are carving around and in between hills and mountains and the roads are single lane with mountain on one side and cliff on the other, I really have nothing better to do than drive...slowly.
This is when I notice the animals, its not as poetic as it seems though. I'd never seen a skunk in my life until I starting working in Calistoga. I remember while driving particularly slow one morning I caught a very off odor and noticed a skunk, on the side of the road......not exactly full of life. Ive seen a handful of skunks, hawks, raccoons, wild turkeys (these weren't dead they were walking around like a family of chickens, they also look like hawks when they fly! hawks with gobbles that is) deer, sheep, and horses. It sounds like a bizarre farm menagerie, but I still think the skunks are the coolest out of them all.
Vinyards have become second nature to me since Ive moved up here. Calistoga's got Vineyards galore. And the food, the food is amazing. Some of the best restaurants in the world are in the Napa Valley. Don't count on them being cheap though. This small town is like a designer purse....well kind of, its not as ridiculously idiotic as a designer purse. French Laundry is a Restaurant in Yountville, another town ( smaller than and south of Calistoga) in Napa Valley. Getting a table at that restaurant is virtually impossible, they're booked a year in advance, let alone paying for it, its runs from 700-1000 dollars for a couple to dine.
All in all this small town had a charm and class to it that has been cultured and aged just right. It didn't have any flashy restaurants with overly garish embellishments of some gimmick like...the sea....or...i dunno ten thousand bumper stickers all over their ceilings and music so loud you cant think. There are cafes with a bohemian twist to them, at which you'll see the Calistoga police ( one police man in particular with a long moustache that turned up into little curls on the end like they do in rajasthan hehe) hanging out with the obvious high school drop out whose got a bunch of mix match tattoos and an odd piercing somewhere on her face( i cant remember where). While at the same time after getting your coffee the local Rastafarian is hanging outside the coffee stop studying his morning paper, always gives you a toothy golden smile, which is emblazoned in your memory for a few seconds as is the smell of pot that emanates from him.
Once I was walking down the...one street...when a elderly man wearing short shorts on bicycle with literally hundreds of pinwheels and little wind chimes and wind socks and all kinds of weird flashy wind things went past me, did I mention he was tanned so dark his orange hair and skin all blended in.
So back to the beginning of this blog, I guess there is a lot more to a room or a space than how its designed to project a first impression! It all depends on when you start taking notice of everything else! ........sooooo visit Calistoga, its a kewl place!

THE END!

2007-05-26T11:09:00.000-07:00

Hellow ppl,
Im at work Im bored, and Sris poetic writings have convinced me to take a dip into Blogging!

Claire's Bench Log

7 Things people don't know about me