Can i just sit in 1 place for sometime!

Verkaufsoffener Sonntag Mannheim; den  10.10.10! 15:06

11 a.m. is when I woke up finally! It is now 3 p.m. and I am thinking I should take stock of what I did these 4 hours!
 

1. Breakfast of leftover sabji (yum!), corn bread, milk and a banana
2. A face-pack of about-to-expire-banana, parachute coconut oil, besan-haldi and sandalwood powder
[strange, the things I have brought along with me, no potato-peeler, but sandalwood powder ;)]
3. Washed clothes of the week gone by
4. Forced cleaning of the bathroom floor, courtesy, spilling of tonnes of soap-water; lol.
5. Lunch preparations; dal, rice and potato sabji
6. Sorting out the papers, notes and arranging them folder/subject-wise.

7. Made myself a cup of fruit-tea; basically tea in a tea-bag and a cuppa hot water; so 'make' is stretching it a tad far :D

And now, am trying to get myself to concentrate and study 3 chapters of Financial accounting by 16.30 so that I can take a walk, shop a bit and enjoy 18 degrees of uninterrupted sunshine and shopping! On this very special Sunday, when Mannheim gets to shop on a sunny Sunday!

Bon chance Anya, if you don't study, you don't shop :P

Ciao,

moi

The world of books, my world :)

This week, as part of a group-project, we had to perform Market Research to identify the 'Reasons for choice'  why consumers prefer a particular brand / company over others in the same category.

My group, we selected book-stores; Thalia.de vs. Buecher Bender. Think of Thalia as a Landmark/Crossword (the bookstore chain, organized retail, books 70% non-books 30%, cafe, lounge area, sitting area, carpeted floors, the works!). Now, think of Buecher Bender as a Strand; been here for ages (since 1775 to be precise). A quick check on Wikipedia tells me that the printing press has been around since 1440, so 300 years later, God's gift to Mannheim was born.. Anyways, in this store, they make it a point to greet you, with a smile that reaches their eyes. The proprietor is a grey-haired man in his 50s or 60s, with glasses and a twinkle in his eyes. The book-shelves reach the ceiling, almost and there are little nooks and crannies, where you could lose yourself in. There is a basement section which I am yet to discover, but am kind of saving it for a rainy day. I feel like if I discover everything about the store in a day, it'd be a bit like unwrapping the presents before Christmas.

We spoke to several 2 customers from Buecher Bender, all of whom professed their undying love for the store, its personalized touch, its knowledgeable sales-personnel (who themselves were a fan of the written word), its service in terms of out-of-stock books, its tie-up with the University and its nostalgia-factor. 

Initially, the proprietor was curious about us questioning his customers, once they stepped out of the store. We did not question any customers in-store, since its rather small and wouldn't be appropriate. The proprietor, he approached us cautiously, asked us our purpose, read through the questionnaire and pretty much gave us his OK :) Yay! this was in the afternoon, around 3.30 p.m. Since the walk-ins were low at that time, we asked one of the sales-personnel an appropriate time to step-in and she said around 5.30. So, we were back at 5.30 and the proprietor remembered us and checked in on us. SO.VERY.NICE! We ended up with 6 respondents, around 1/2 our target for the day. The rest, we'll cover on Sunday. Before leaving the store, I made it a point to thank them and told them that I'll be back soon as a customer.

This Sunday is going to be very, very special, since its a 'Verkaufsoffener Sonntag Mannheim', which means' A Sunday open for selling!'. They do this around thrice a year, for me, I can't wait! Its been 6 weeks since I have shopped and since I did study well and had a good week (7.5/10) studies-wise, I can afford to shop; rather window-shop :D

Zara or not, H&M or not, Body Shop or not, Buecher Bender it will be am Sonntag, den 10. Oktober 2010.

SO SO GLAD that books are a part of my life; one way or the other.

Thank you to my parents for encouraging me and my sis to read!

XOXO,

Anya

Tuesday, den 05.10.10

6.44 p.m. 

Home at 6 p.m. is rare and must be treasured. So treasure it, I did. I just made myself a delicious omlette with tomatoes, onions, salt 'n' pepper; piled it high on corn-bread and topped it off with junk-chips and garnished it with Heinz ketchup :) Now, refreshed, I just had to drop a few lines before I forget.

Its cloudy, 18 degrees and there is a slight drizzle in the air. The few raindrops I caught on the way back added a spring to my step, since I wanted to reach home before it started to rain more. Then I realized that, here, when it rains, it does just that; rain :) It hardly ever pours, so I settled back to enjoying the walk home, along with a lovely brown dog, a cute fella cycling home and a tiny kid asleep on her dad's shoulder. And no, the dad wasn't riding the bike ;)

Then, today was the 1st group assignment submission of Financial accounting. Although it was an uphill climb initially, the clouds got cleared up; not magically, but after at least 8 hours of joint-reading. Am slowly getting the hang of work here; complete it the very same day and ask questions if something is not clear. I think, back home, we aren't trained to ask questions and hesitate quite a bit; but slowly and steadily am turning into Ms. Doubtfire.

Yesterday morning, was German class at 7 .15 a.m. I just about managed to reach by 7.25. On the way to class, I had half a mind to stay home, since I had not prepared for class. This cost me 40 seconds!!! Anyways, I am SO glad I took the right decision and went ahead to class. Since I did,

1. I got the chance to talk to the Prof post-class; topic in question being the Frankfurt book fair. Bookie-topics make me speak German, you see :) So do, music- / food- / shopping-, etc. :)

2. I spoke more than 2 words in class; since it was a topic whose vocabulary my German teacher had made sure we remember via her rigorous coaching. The topic was indicators in an economy and yay! I got 3 'Sehr guts' from the Prof.

3. I was able to experience reaching home at 10 a.m. post class, etc. to listen to the noisy chatter of the creche below my apartment. I also managed to cook, clean and generally feel good about life :) This pretty much set the pace for the rest of the day; I headed back to class for group-work and was done by 8 p.m;. 

4. Post which, a classmate and I walked about for almost an hour; we are so similar its not funny. We both get each other when we say ' we want to clear our head' lol. 

5. And finally, I paid a visit to 'Penny'; the neighbourhood grocery store, that stays open until 10 p.m. I trekked back home with tomatoes, onions, cheese, junk-chips, apples and a 20 pence saving (courtesy the cloth bag I take along :D)

Thus, if I had not decided to go to class, a lot of the above events may not have transpired. Ooh, plus I kept smiling to myself for some reason, am yet to figure out why but don't think it matters :)

What matters, is going for it and making it happen, prepared or not.

tc,

moi

Montag, den 4.10.2010

Its 1 a.m. this Monday morning; and I am 'dreaming my life away' with the Everly brothers playing on AOL Live. Web-radio is a life-saviour! Makes me wonder why I never discovered it before.

Oh yes, that was since I had 107.1 FM in Mumbai, with my 3-4 hours quota of Western music, Malishka bajaoing on 93.5 Red FM, Jaggu and Tarana; the awesome twosome keeping me company on 94.3 Radio One and endless television. Now, AOL Live, Radio regenbogen (Local German radio- has the double advantage of music + German practice) and Live TV are my saviors in a world with no television.

I noticed last night, that the advertising via web-radio is smartly targeted towards people like me, who have no TV / radio and for whom, the Internet is almost EVERYTHING :) So, you have ads for slashcontrol.com,  where viewers in the United States can watch TV-episodes and movies for free! And when I say, viewers in the US, I mean those with an IP linked to the US. There are apparently ways to bypass this check, via proxy-servers, but I am not sure I want to do all those 'semi-weird' things. Plus I have abc.com that let me watch Castle - Season 3, episode 1, the next day of its season-premiere (20th Sept 2010) in the US. So, as long as I have Castle, I am good to go :)

This has been THE MOST HECTIC week, so far, and it promises to get better; read EVEN MORE HECTIC. My 2-pence from the week gone past:

1. Group-work means just that- group-work. So, don't obsess over correcting/ reviewing everyone else's piece of work. Do your bit, review your bit and let everyone pitch in.

2. It has to be all in a day's work- not sure if I have used the expression the correct way. But what I mean, is I simply MUST not let work for a day spill-over to the next. Try as might, some of it does; but reducing it is a MUST. and one way of doing it is to read for the next day's class a day before,quickly browse through the same day's class once home and wash the day's vessels the very same day. :)

3. Since I save a LOT of travel-time; I walk 7 minutes to school, I have to utilize the time spent better. Less FB and more FA (financial accounting). :)

4. Little treats always help stay motivated; so if I stick to my plan for this week, I get to shop or at least, window shop the next weekend. Cant believe I am the very same person, who knew all of AND's and REmANiKa's collections by-heart and here, I am yet to visit a trial-room :)

I sure, am dreaming my life away, in a good way :)

ciao,

me